Chapter IV (3)

And thus the most powerful and enlightened nations have decided that Christian civilization cannot be maintained upon pagan ideas; and that the safety of every commonwealth depends upon the Christian education of the people. They have also clearly seen that _doctrines, discipline, morals_, and "_the religious atmosphere_" must be kept united, and made to penetrate and surround the school at all times; and that, however greatly the Christian denominations may differ from each other, or even err in their belief, it is far better for society that their youth should be instructed in some form of Christian doctrine, than be left to perish in the dreary and soul-destroying wastes of deism. Experience has proved to them that moral teaching, with biblical illustrations, as the piety of Joseph, the heroism of Judith, the penitence of David, will not suffice to establish the Christian faith in young hearts, or to quiet the doubts of inquiring minds. The subtle Gibbon, mocking the cross of Christ, will confront the testimony of the martyrs with the heroes of pagan history. Voltaire did the same for the French youth of the last century, to their destruction. No. The experience of wise governments is this: that _morals_ must be based upon _faith_, and faith made efficient in deeds of practical virtue; for faith worketh by charity. And another experience is this, which is best given in the very words of the eminent Protestant statesman and historian, M. Guizot: "_In order to make popular education truly good and socially useful, it must be fundamentally religions. I do not simply mean by this, that religious instruction should hold its place in popular education and that the practices of religion should enter into it; for a nation is not religiously educated by such petty and mechanical devices; it is necessary that national education should be given and received in the midst of a religious atmosphere, and that religions impressions and religious observances should penetrate into all its parts. Religion is not a study or an exercise to be restricted to a certain place and a certain hour; it is a faith and a law, which ought to be felt everywhere, and which after this manner alone can exercise all its beneficial influence upon our minds and our lives_." {693} The meaning of which is, that not a moment of the hours of school should be left without the religious influence. It is the constant inhalation of the air which preserves our physical vitality. It is the "_religious atmosphere_" which supports the young soul. Religion cannot be made "_a study or an exercise to be restricted to a certain place and a certain hour_." It will not do to devote six days in the week to science, and to depend upon the Sunday-school for the religious training of the child. M. Guizot is right. The enlightened governments of Europe have accepted his wisdom and reduced it to practice in their great national school-systems.

Now, the Catholics of the United States have said no more than that; have asked no more than that; and yet, a wild cry of anger has been raised against them at times, as though they were the avowed enemies of all popular education. They pay their full quota of the public taxes which create the school-fund, and yet they possess, to-day, in proportion to their wealth and numbers, more parochial schools, seminaries, academies, colleges, and universities, established and sustained exclusively by their own private resources, than any other denomination of Christians in this country! Certainly this is no evidence of hostility to education! And why have they made these wonderful efforts, these unprecedented sacrifices? It is because they believe in the truth uttered by M. Guizot. It is because they believe in the truth established by all history. It is because they believe in the truth accepted and acted upon by enlightened men and governments of this age. It is because they know that revealed religion is to human science what eternity is to time. It is because they know that the salvation of souls is more precious to Christ than the knowledge of all the astronomers. It is because they know that the welfare of nations is impossible without God. And yet, they fully understand how religion has called science to her side as an honored handmaid; how learning, chastened by humility, conduces to Christian advancement; how the knowledge of good and evil (the fruit of the forbidden tree) may yet be made to honor God, when the sanctified soul rejects the evil and embraces the good. Therefore the Catholic people desire denominational education, as it is called.

That is the general view of the question; but there is a particular view, not to be overlooked, and which we will now briefly consider.

The most marked distinction between pagan and Christian society is to be found in the relations which the state bears to the family. Scarcely was the Lacedaemonian boy released from his mother's apron-string, when the state seized him with an iron hand. The state was thenceforth his father and his mother. The sanctities and duties of the family were annihilated. Body and soul, he belonged to the Moloch of Power. Private conscience was no more than a piece of coin in circulation; it was a part of the public property. Christ restored the family as it existed in Adam and Eve. Christian civilization denies that the state can destroy the family. {694} The family is primary; the father the head; the mother the helpmate; the children in subjection, and for whom the parents shall give an account to the Father in heaven. The Christian state has no authority, by divine or human appointment, to invade this trust. It has, therefore, no mission either to coerce conscience or to dictate the education of it. It is the duty of the state in every way to facilitate, but it cannot arbitrarily control the mental and moral training of the people's children. That right and that responsibility are domestical, and belong to the parent.

Now, the Catholic parent is aware that there are between his creed and all others the widest and most irreconcilable differences, and that it is impossible to open the New Testament, at almost any page, without forthwith encountering the prime difficulty. To read the Bible, without note or comment, to young children, is to abandon them to dangerous speculation, or to leave them dry and barren of all Christian knowledge. In mixed schools there is no other recourse; because it is impossible to make any comment upon any doctrinal teaching of Christ and his apostles, without trenching upon the conscientious opinions of some one or other of the listeners. "The Father and I are one;" "The Father is greater than I;" here at once we have the Unitarian and the Trinitarian at a dead-lock!" This is my body;" "It is the spirit which quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing;" here we have the primitive Lutheran, who believed in the real presence, (_consubstantially_,) and his Calvinistic coadjutor in reform squarely at issue! "Unless you be born again of water and the Holy Ghost," etc.; here we have the Baptist and the Quaker very seriously divided in opinion. Nevertheless, widely as they differ the one from the other, there is a fundamental assimilation between all the Protestant sects, which may render it possible for them to unite in one educational organization; and yet, we find many of the most enlightened and earnest among the Protestant clergy of America now zealously advocating the denominational system, such as we find in the European countries above referred to. They believe that education should be distinctly based upon doctrinal religion; and they are liberal enough to insist, that, by natural right, as well as by the constitutional guarantees of our free country, no doctrine adverse to the faith of a parent may lawfully be forced or surreptitiously imposed upon his child. It is well known, however, that, between the Catholic faith and all Protestant creeds, there is a gulf which cannot be bridged over. It would, therefore, be simply impossible to adopt any religious teaching whatever in mixed schools without at once interfering with Catholic conscience. No such teaching is attempted, as a general rule, we believe, in the public schools of the United States; and hence we have only a vague announcement of moral precepts, the utter futility and barrenness of which we have already alluded to. Catholics, agreeing with very many enlightened and zealous Protestants, believe that secular education administered in that way is not only vain, but eminently pernicious; that it is fast undermining the Christian faith of this nation; that it is rapidly filling the land with rationalism; that it is destroying the authority of the Holy Scriptures; that it is educating men who prefix "Reverend" and affix "D.D." to their names, the more effectually to preach covert infidelity to Christian congregations; that, instead of the saving morality of the gospel of Christ, which rests upon revealed mysteries and supernatural gifts, it is offering us that same old array of the natural virtues or qualities which pierced, like broken reeds, the sides of all heathen nations. {695} And more than this, Catholics know by painful experience, that history cannot be compiled, travels written, poetry, oratory, or romance inflicted upon a credulous public, without the stereotyped assaults upon the doctrines, discipline, and historical life of their church. From Walter Scott to Peter Parley, and from Hume, Gibbon, and Macaulay, to the mechanical compilers of cheap school-literature, it is the same story, told a thousand times oftener than it is refuted; so that the English language, for the last two centuries, may be said, without exaggeration, to have waged war against the Catholic Church. Indeed, so far as European history is considered, the difficulty must always be insurmountable; since it would always be impossible for the Catholic and Protestant to accept the same history of the Reformation or of the Papal See, or the political, social, and moral events resulting from or in any degree connected with those two great centres and controlling causes. Who could write a political history of Christendom for the last three hundred years and omit all mention of Luther and the Pope? And how is any school compendium of such history to be devised for the use of the Catholic and Protestant child alike? And if history be philosophy teaching by example, shall we expel it from our educational plan altogether? Or shall we oblige the Protestant child to study the Catholic version of history, and _vice-versa?_ Certainly, it is quite as just and politic to oblige the one as the other! Shall the "_majority_" control this? Who gave "_majority_" any such power or right? With us, the "_majority_" controls the "_state_;" and we have seen that the "_state_" becomes a usurper when it attempts this! We are quite sure that, if the Catholics were the "_majority;_" in the United States, and were to attempt such an injustice, our Protestant brethren would cry out against it, and appeal to the wise and liberal examples of Prussia and England, France and Austria! Now, is it not always as unwise, as it is unjust, to make a minority taste the bitterness of oppression? Men governed by the law of divine charity will bear it meekly, and seek to return good for evil; but all men are not docile; and majorities change sides rapidly and often in this fleeting world! Is it not wiser and more politic, even in mere regard to social interests, that all institutions, intended for the welfare of the people, should be firmly based upon exact and equal justice? This would place them under the protection of _fixed habit_, which in a nation is as strong as nature; and it would save them from the mutations of society. The strong of one generation may be the weak of the next; and we see this occurring with political parties within the brief spaces of presidential terms. Hence we wisely inculcate moderation and justice in political majorities, under the law of retribution.

Profoundly impressed with these views, and impelled by this commanding sense of duty, our Catholic people have created a vast network of schools over the country, _at a price_ which the world knows little of--the sacrifice which the poor man makes, who curtails the wheaten loaf that he may give to his child the spiritual bread! Ah! how many humble cottages and dreary tenement-houses could testify to that! {696} There are six millions of them here now; and still they come, from the deserted hearths beyond the seas. They are upright, industrious, and love the new land like the old! In war, they shoulder the musket; in peace, they are found filling every avenue of labor and enterprise. They contribute millions to the public revenue, and hundreds of millions to the productive industry of the country. Their own welfare and the highest interests of the country demand that their children and their children's children should be well instructed in secular learning, and thoroughly grounded in moral and religious knowledge. As we have shown, they cannot avail themselves of the public school system, as now organized, though they contribute largely to its support by their taxes. _They do not desire to interfere with that system_, as it seems at present to meet the wants, or at least the views, of their Protestant fellow-citizens; and they are, therefore, _not_ "opposed to the common schools" in the sense in which they have been represented to be. They simply ask that they may be allowed to participate in the only way open to them, that is, by the apportionment to them of a ratable part of the fund, in aid of their existing schools, and of such others as their numbers, in any given locality, may properly enable them to establish, subject to the limited supervision of the state, as we have before explained. We need go no further than Canada to witness this system operating harmoniously and to the best advantage. The argument generally used against it is, that this would destroy the unity and efficiency of the whole. Why is it not so in Prussia, Austria, France, England, and the British Colonies? Besides, the Catholic populations in this country are very much aggregated, as in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and in the large agricultural settlements throughout the North-Western States. Certainly, in such localities there could be no difficulty. It is contemplated by the school law that all these are to be educated. Then, why can they not be permitted to organize separate schools, as in the countries referred to? Such organization would be an integral part of the whole system; and the cost would be precisely the same. In fact, we learn from the Reports of Assistant Superintendents Jones and Calkins, made to Hon. S. S. Randall, the City Superintendent, and also from his Report made to the Hon. Board of Education, in December, 1866, that the school room provided in the city of New York (especially in the primary department) is altogether inadequate; and yet we know that tens of thousands of Catholic children could easily be cared for, if the means were afforded those who, even now, with the scantiest resources, are erecting parochial schools all over the city.

It would be impossible in a brief article to enter into details. Our purpose has been rather to set this question before a liberal public in its great leading aspects, as we are quite willing to trust to the wisdom and experience of our legislators to devise the proper plan and specifications. They will be at no loss for precedents. The statute-books of half a dozen countries may be consulted profitably. All we ask is, that this momentous question may be candidly considered and justly and generously disposed of. We hope that the day has gone by when such a question as this shall be met with passionate declamation or the obsolete cry of "no popery." {697} Disraeli has failed to stem the tide of popular reform in England by reviving the insane clamor of Lord George Gordon. The world has outgrown such narrow bigotry. Vital questions, affecting the conscience and the rights of multitudes of men, and deeply involving the welfare of nations, must henceforth be settled by calm and just decisions. Christendom will tolerate nothing else now. And surely, this free and wise Republic will not be the last to put into practice those principles of equality before the law, justice, and generous confidence in human nature, which it published to all the down-trodden nationalities of the earth, almost a century ago, over the signatures of Hancock, Livingston, and Carroll of Carrollton.

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The Eclipse Of The Sun Of August 18, 1868.

A Report Addressed By M. Janssen To The Marshal Of France,
President Of The Bureau Of Longitudes.

Calcutta, November 3, 1868.
M. Le Maréchal Et Ministre:

I have the honor of addressing to you, as President of the Bureau of Longitudes, my report on the eclipse of the 18th of last August, and upon some subsequent observations, which led me to the discovery of a method of observing the solar protuberances when the sun is not eclipsed. I will beg you to have the kindness to communicate this to the Bureau.

I have the honor to be, etc. etc.,
Janssen.

Mr. President:

I had the privilege of writing to you on the 19th of September last, to give you a brief account of my expedition. I am now able to furnish you with a more complete report of my observations during the great eclipse of the 18th of August.

The steamer of the Messageries Imperiales, in which I left France, landed me, on the 16th of July, at Madras, where I was received by the English authorities with great courtesy. Lord Napier, the governor of the province, gave me passage to Masulipatam upon a government boat. Mr. Grahame, an assistant collector, was sent with me to remove any difficulties which I might meet with in the interior.

On arriving, I had to select my station.

A chart of the eclipse shows that the central line, after crossing the Bay of Bengal, enters the peninsula of India at Masulipatam, and crossing the great plains formed by the delta of the Kistna, passes into a hilly country, containing several chains of mountains, on the frontier of the independent state of Nizzam. After receiving and considering much information on the subject, I determined to choose the city of Guntoor, situated on this central line, half-way between the mountains and the sea. I thus avoided the sea-fogs, very frequent at Masulipatam, as well as the clouds which often hang about lofty peaks.

{698}

Guntoor is quite an important place, being the centre of a large cotton trade. This cotton comes mostly from Nizzam, and is shipped to Europe from the ports of Cocanada and Masulipatam. Several French merchants, with their families, live at Guntoor; they are descended, generally speaking, from those ancient and numerous families which in former times were the glory of our beautiful Indian colonies.

My observatory was at the residence of M. Jules Lefaucheur, who was so kind as to place at my disposal all the first story of his house, which is in the highest and best part of the city. The rooms of this first story communicated with a large terrace, upon which I erected a temporary structure suitable for the observations intended.

The instruments were several achromatic lenses of six inches aperture, and a Foucault telescope of twenty-one centimetres. The former were all mounted upon one stand. The general movement was given by a mechanism constructed by Messrs. Brunner Bros., which enabled one to follow the sun by a simple rotation.

The apparatus was furnished with finders of two and two and three quarter inches aperture, which were themselves good astronomical glasses. In spectral analysis, these finders have a peculiar importance; for by means of them the precise point of the object under examination is known, to which the slit of the spectroscope in the principal telescope is directed. It is therefore necessary that the cross-wires, or in general the sights placed in the field of the finder, should correspond with great exactness with the slit of the spectral apparatus, and I had, of course, taken great care to secure this essential point. Special micrometers were also provided, to measure rapidly the height and angle of position of the protuberances. As for the spectroscopes, I had chosen them of different magnifying powers, so as to answer to the different requirements of the various phenomena. Finally, the apparatus carried, at the eye-piece end, screens of black cloth, forming a dark chamber, in order to preserve the sensibility of the eye.

Besides these instruments, intended for the principal observations, I had brought a full set of very delicate thermometers, made with great skill by M. Baudin; also some portable spy-glasses, hygrometers, barometers, etc. Thus I was able to turn to account the kindness of MM. Jules, Arthur, and William Lefaucheur, who offered their services for the subsidiary work. M. Jules, who is a good draughtsman, undertook to sketch the eclipse. An excellent telescope, of three inches aperture, furnished with cross-wires, was assigned to his use; he practised with it the representation of the expected phenomena by means of artificial imitations of eclipses. The thermometric observations were given to M. Arthur, who was also directed to ascertain the brilliancy of the protuberances and of the corona at the moment of totality, by a very simple photometric process.

I was assisted in my own operations by M. Redier, a young subaltern, whom the commander of the steamer L'Imperatrice had supplied to me. The services of M. Redier, who has excellent observing qualities, were very useful to me.

The time which remained before the eclipse was employed in preliminary study and practice, which served to familiarize us with the handling of our instruments, and suggested to me various improvements in them.

{699}

The day approached, but the weather did not promise to be favorable. It had rained for some time all along the coast. These rains were considered as extraordinary and exceptional. Fortunately, they moderated gradually before the 18th; and on that day the sun rose unclouded, and dimmed only by a mist out of which it soon passed; and at the time when our telescopes showed us that the eclipse began, it was shining with its full splendor.

Every one was at his post, and the observations immediately commenced. During the first phases some thin vapors passed before the sun, which interfered somewhat with the thermometric measurements; but, as the moment of totality approached, the sky became sufficiently clear.

Meanwhile the light diminished sensibly, surrounding objects appearing as if seen by moonlight. The decisive moment was near, and we waited for it with some anxiety; this anxiety took nothing from our powers of observation, it rather stimulated and increased them; and it was, besides, fully justified by the grandeur of the spectacle which nature was preparing for us, and by the consciousness that the fruits of our thorough preparations and of a long voyage would depend on the use now made of a few minutes.

The solar disc was soon reduced to a narrow bright arc, and we redoubled our attention. The slits of the spectroscopes were kept precisely upon the part of the moon's limb where the last light of the sun would be seen, so that they would be directed to the lower regions of the solar atmosphere at the moment of contact of the discs.

The total obscuration occurred instantaneously, and the spectral phenomena also changed immediately in a very remarkable manner. Two spectra, formed of five or six very bright lines--red, yellow, green, blue, and violet--occupied the field in place of the prismatic image of the sun which had just disappeared. These spectra, about one minute (of arc) long, corresponded line for line, and were separated by a dark space in which I could see no lines.

The finder showed that these two spectra were caused by two magnificent protuberances which were now visible on each side of the point of contact. One of them, that on the left, was more than three minutes (or one tenth of the sun's diameter) in height; it looked like the flame of a furnace, rushing violently from the openings of the burning mass within, and driven by a strong wind. The one to the right presented the appearance of a mass of snowy mountains, with its base resting on the moon's limb, and enlightened by a setting sun. These appearances have been carefully drawn by M. Jules Lefaucheur. I will therefore only remark before quitting the subject, which I shall have to treat subsequently under a special aspect, that the preceding observation shows at once:

1st. The gaseous nature of the protuberances, (the lines being bright.)

2d. The general similarity of their chemical composition, (the spectra corresponding line for line.)

3d. Their chemical species, (the red and blue lines of their spectrum being no other than the lines C and F of the solar one, and belonging, as is well known, to hydrogen gas.)

Let us now return to the dark space which separated the spectra of these protuberances. It will be remembered that, at the moment of the total obscuration, the slits were tangent to the solar and lunar discs, and were therefore directed toward the circumsolar regions immediately above the photosphere, in which regions M. Kirchhoff's theory places the atmosphere of vapors, which produces by absorption the dark lines of the solar spectrum. {700} This atmosphere, when shining by its own light, should, according to the same theory, give a reversed solar spectrum, that is to say, one composed entirely of bright lines. This is what we were expecting and trying to verify, and it was to make the proof decisive that I had used so many precautions. But we have just seen that only the protuberances gave positive or bright-line spectra. Now, it is very certain that, if an atmosphere formed of the vapors of all the substances which have been found in the sun really existed above the photosphere, it would have given a spectrum at least as brilliant as that of the protuberances, which were formed of a gas much less dense and less luminous. It must, then, be admitted that, if this atmosphere exists, its height is so small that it has escaped notice.

I must also add that this result did not much surprise me; for my investigations on the solar spectrum had led me to doubt the reality of any considerable atmosphere around the sun, and I am more and more inclined to think that the phenomena of elective absorption, ascribed by the great physicist of Heidelberg to an atmosphere exterior to the sun, are clue to the vapors of the photosphere itself, in which the solid and liquid particles forming the luminous clouds are floating. This view is not merely in harmony with the beautiful theory on the constitution of the photosphere which we owe to M. Faye, but even seems to be a necessary deduction from it.

In fine, the eclipse of the 18th of August appears to me to show that the formation of the solar spectrum cannot be explained by the theory heretofore admitted, and I propose a correction to this theory as above indicated.

To return to the protuberances. During the total obscuration, I was much impressed by the extreme brilliancy of their spectral lines. The idea immediately occurred to me that they might be seen even when the sun was unobscured; unfortunately the weather, which became cloudy after the eclipse, did not allow me to try the experiment on that day. During the night, the method and the means presented themselves clearly to my mind. Rising the next morning at three, I prepared for these new observations. The sun rose quite clear; as soon as it had risen from the haze of the horizon, I began to examine it, placing the slit of the spectroscope, by means of the finder, upon the same place where, the day before, I had seen the protuberances.

The slit, being placed partly on the solar disc and partly outside, gave, of course, two spectra, that of the sun and that of the protuberances. The brilliancy of the solar spectrum was a great difficulty; I partially avoided it by hiding the yellow, the green, and the blue portions, which were the most brilliant. All my attention was directed to the line C, dark for the sun, bright for the protuberance, and which, coming at a rather faint part of the spectrum, was seen with comparative ease.

I had not examined the right hand or western part of the protuberant region long when I suddenly noticed a small bright red line, forming an exact prolongation of the dark line G of the sun. Moving the slit so as to sweep methodically the region which I was exploring, this line remained, but changed its length and its brilliancy in the different parts, showing a great inequality in the height and brightness of the various parts of the protuberance. {701} This examination was resumed at three different times, and the bright line always appeared in the same circumstances. M. Redier, who assisted me with much interest in these experiments, saw it as well as I, and soon we could even predict its appearance by merely knowing what region we were examining. Soon after, I ascertained that the line F showed itself simultaneously with G.

In the afternoon, I returned to the region examined in the morning; the bright lines again showed themselves, but they indicated great changes in the distribution of the protuberant matter; the lines broke up sometimes into isolated fragments which would not unite with the principal one, notwithstanding the shifting of the slit. This suggested the existence of scattered clouds formed during the forenoon. In the region of the great (or left hand) protuberance, I found some bright lines, but their length and arrangement showed that great changes had also occurred here.

These first observations already showed that the coincidence of the lines G and F was real, and that hydrogen was certainly the most important element in these circumsolar masses. They also established the rapidity of the changes which these bodies undergo, which cannot be perceived during the short duration of an eclipse.

The following days, I availed myself of all the opportunities allowed by the weather to apply and perfect the new method, at least as far as was permitted by the character of the instruments, which had not been constructed to suit this new idea.

Observing very attentively the lines of the protuberances, I have sometimes noticed that they penetrated into the dark lines of the solar spectrum, showing thus that the protuberance extends over part of the sun's disc. This result was naturally to be expected; but the interposition of the moon has always made its proof impossible during eclipses.

I will also detail here an observation made on the 4th of September at a favorable time, which shows how rapidly the protuberances change their form and position.

At 9h. 50m., the examination of the sun showed a mass of protuberant matter in the lower part of the disc. To determine its shape, I used a method which may be called chronometric, since time is employed in it as the standard of measure.

In this method, the telescope is placed in a fixed position, so chosen that by the diurnal movement of the sun all parts of the region to be explored shall come in turn into the field of the spectroscope; and at determinate times the length and situation of the spectral lines successively produced are noted.

The time occupied by the sun's disc in passing before the slit gives the value of a second of time in minutes of arc. This, combined with the length of the lines estimated in the same unit, gives the means for a graphic representation of the protuberance.

The application of this method to the study of the solar region just mentioned as seen on this occasion, showed a protuberance extending over about thirty degrees (or one twelfth) of the sun's circumference, ten of which were east of the vertical diameter, and twenty west. Near the extremity of the western part, a cloud was lying, distant one and a half minutes, or one twentieth of the sun's diameter, from its limb. This cloud, about two minutes long and one high, was parallel to the limb. {702} One hour afterward, a new drawing showed that the cloud had risen rapidly, and taken a globular form. But its movements soon became still quicker; for ten minutes later, at eleven o'clock, the globe was enormously extended in a direction perpendicular to the limb and to its previous position. A little mass of matter was also detached from the lower part, and hung between the sun and the main body of the cloud. Thick weather coming on prevented further observations.

To resume our remarks. Considered in regard to its principle, the new method is based upon the difference of the spectral properties of the protuberances and of the photosphere. The light of the latter emanates from solid or liquid particles, which are incandescent, and is incomparably brighter than that of the former; so that these have hardly been visible hitherto, except during eclipses. But the case is quite altered when we use the spectra of these bodies. For the solar light is spread over the whole extent of its spectrum, and thus much weakened; while that of the protuberances, on the contrary, is condensed into a few lines whose intensity bears some proportion to that of the corresponding solar ones. Hence their lines are quite easily seen in the field, together with those of the sun, though their ordinary images are entirely effaced by the dazzling light of the photosphere.

Another very fortunate circumstance for the new method comes to the support of the one just mentioned, namely, that the bright lines of the protuberances answer to the dark ones of the solar spectrum. Hence they are not only more easily seen in their own proper field, outside and on the edge of the solar spectrum, but they can even be followed into the interior of the latter, and by this means the protuberances can be traced upon the globe of the sun itself.

As regards the determination of chemical composition, the methods followed during total eclipses always carried with them some uncertainty; since, in the absence of the sun's light, graduated scales had to be employed to fix the position of the lines. The new method enables us to compare the two spectra directly.

As to the results obtained during the brief period in which this method has been used, they are as follows:

1st. That the luminous protuberances observed during total eclipses belong unquestionably to the circumsolar regions.

2d. That these bodies are mainly or entirely composed of incandescent hydrogen gas.

3d. That they are subject to movements of which no terrestrial phenomenon can give us any idea; since, though they are masses of matter having several hundred times the volume of the earth, they change completely their form and position in the course of a few minutes.

Such are the principal facts arrived at. I hope, notwithstanding the state of my eyes--fatigued by protracted experiments upon the subject of light--that I shall be able to continue my labors, and have the honor of submitting the results to the Bureau.

In conclusion, I will add, that I have also had an opportunity to continue my researches on the spectrum of the vapor of water. The climate of India, which is very moist at present, is quite favorable to these investigations. I am inclined to attribute to this spectrum a continually increasing importance. The whole series of my observations here and at Paris has made me confident of an elective action upon all the solar rays as far as the extreme violet, though in the latter such an action is much more difficult to establish with certainty. These experiments will form the subject of a separate communication.

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{703}

Who Shall Take Care Of The Poor?

First Article.

The duty of caring for the poor, which Christ laid upon his church, has been assumed in modern times by the civil power; and governments have sought, by legislative enactments and political machinery, to fill the place of those ecclesiastical charities which disappeared in the convulsions of the sixteenth century. It is needless to say that their attempts have failed, and that the problem, "Who shall take care of the poor?" is still, in all Protestant countries, practically unsolved. We feel, therefore, that no apology is necessary for entering upon its discussion here, and that any light which may be thrown upon the subject by ourselves or others will tend to elucidate one of the most perplexed and difficult social questions of the present age.

There are certain fundamental principles which any examination of this subject, from a Christian point of view, must assume, and in accordance with which all Christian theories and practice concerning it must proceed.

These principles may be thus briefly stated:

I. That the care of the poor devolves upon those who continue the mission of Christ in the redemption of mankind and accept and obey his command, "Feed my flock;" upon those whose discipline of character, at once personal and corporate, enables them to help the helpless, to reform the vicious, and to conciliate the dangerous, while their organization affords a guarantee of persistence in these good works and of the proper use of the means confided to them; in a word, upon those who combine the attributes of a providence at once universal and discerning, with equity in administration and energy in execution.

II. That the principle of action, by which this work alone can be effected, is what may be termed "absorbent substitution," that is, the voluntary assumption of poverty out of practical sympathy with the poor.

III. That the legitimate effect of this action is to encourage, aid, and guide the poor to help themselves, and to infuse into them that love for their neighbor which, by this mediation, becomes reciprocal.

IV. That the established means by which this work must be performed are, first: The church in her collective capacity; second, the orders of charity; third, the variously constituted beneficial societies; fourth, the hand of private Christian charity, the latter of which, in the discussion of this question as a public one, does not, however, enter into our consideration. {704} The three first mentioned are often found united in the same community: the church, represented by the congregation, containing Sisters of Charity or Mercy, and also assistant orders of pious persons, who, though bound by no vows, work in the world and aid the other orders with their purse and influence. Still, those who take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and who, in organized communities, devote themselves to works of charity, must be regarded as the most perfect organs of this Christian work. And these become thus voluntarily poor, self-denying, and exclusive, because not only is the healthy soul fortified and preserved in spiritual power by privation of the pleasures of the senses, but poverty itself becomes ennobled by the assumption, and its degradation disappears.

Treating these principles, for the present, as self-evident, we now inquire:

Who are _our_ poor, and how shall they be cared for?

Upon this question, the Catholic Church cannot limit her providential mission or assume a sectarian attitude. While preaching, by example, to the pious and humane of every creed, the zeal of active charity, she must extend her benefits to all those who need and seek her, without favor or distinction. This she must do to be consistent with her own historic record, and to fulfil the behest of her Lord.

Wherever Christian faith and love exist, "by their works ye shall know them." Charity is the test of the Catholic faith. Our Douay Catechism says that "the first fruit of the Holy Ghost is charity." Then it tells us what charity means, in the language of its effects, namely, "To feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to visit and ransom captives, to harbor the harborless, to visit the sick, to bury the dead:" a very matter of fact definition, but which implies that,

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

The practice of charity alone can reconcile mankind by dissipating schism, and by thus re-establishing their unison, secure the triumph of the Christian church over the world.

This universal unity of spirit employs in its methods of action many distinct organs and corresponding varieties of function, and the time-honored maxim, _Una fides, una domus_, "One faith, one house," and the obedience to constituted authority, bind in the circle of good-will those orders which, though each adopts a particular rule and special use, amicably co-operate in their separation, like the branches of the same vine.

Whatever principles of action experience has sanctioned in Catholic charities, commend themselves alike to all Christians.

"Why is it," asks Mrs. Jameson, "that we see so many women, carefully educated, going over to the Catholic Church? For no other reason than for the power it gives them to throw their energies into a sphere of definite utility, under the control of a high religious responsibility."

To each of the notable aspects of human affliction corresponds, in the history of Christendom, one or more orders consecrated to its relief, and, far from being confined to mere palliative expedients, organic efforts toward the radical cure of our social evils have been developed under the influence of the Catholic Church.

Distinctive characters of the Catholic orders, though not confined to them, are celibacy and community of property. A bond of union purely spiritual dissolves and replaces those ties which develop the personality of the individual.

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No fair comparison can be instituted between Catholic and Protestant orders of charity, for the simple reason that marriage and the family, which perpetuate secular estates by entail or inheritance, or seek, in the exchange of love, an earthly heaven, act as effectual dissolvents on religious orders consecrated to a special work. The vitality of the Episcopalian charities, St. John's and St. Luke's, is now undergoing this experiment, to-wit: Can the requisite number of efficient nurses and officers be maintained without binding vows? Can the service of the order be organized with influences that shall counterpoise the temptations of worldly vanities and interests, the powerful attraction of the sexes, and the honorable ambition of becoming one's self a focus of social radiation?

Of course, it is not necessary to the effectiveness of a given service that it should always be rendered by the same individuals; but numbers avail not without discipline; and, while relays and successions are allowed, they must not be too frequent. The sacrifice of personal liberty, to a certain extent, is indispensable to the order and efficiency of co-operative charity. Hence it is not surprising that the first attempts in England to constitute Episcopalian orders of charity should generally have failed. This impulse was due to the humiliating lesson of the Crimean war, when Sisters of Charity and Mercy flocked from all Europe to the assistance of the French sick and wounded, when similar orders of the Greek Church came to befriend the afflicted Russian soldiers; but the English were perishing miserably, until their unlooked-for succor by the intervention of Miss Florence Nightingale and her heroic band.

The necessity thus apprehended, to fall back on the institutions of Catholicity, has recently occasioned the formation of orders, who take the vow of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Sisters of Mercy and Sisters of the _Contemplative Life_ may be seen in London, repairing to chapel through deserted streets in the early morning hours. Will such vows, unsanctioned by the public opinion of Protestant countries, be really binding? How has it proved at Valle Cruce?

Oppressed and alarmed by the increase of pauperism, and the worse than inefficiency of her poor-rates and secular measures of pauper-relief, England now feels that she has committed something near akin to suicide in the destruction of her religious orders. No longer "merry and wise," her political economists are splitting hairs to find just what pittance may suffice to keep the poor from dying of hunger without making them more comfortable than others whose pride refuses alms, so as not to set a premium on idleness.

"The notion popularized by Cobbett," says Herbert Spencer, arguing the question, "that every one has a right to a maintenance out of the soil, leaves those who adopt it in an awkward predicament. Do but ask them to specify, and they are set fast. Assent to their principle; tell them you will assume their title to be valid; and then, as a needful preliminary to the liquidation of their claim, ask for some precise definition of it; inquire what is a maintenance. They are dumb! Is it, say you, potatoes and salt, with rags and a mud cabin? or is it bread and bacon, in a two-roomed cottage? Will a joint on Sundays suffice? or does the demand include meat and malt-liquor daily? {706} Will tea, coffee, and tobacco be expected? and if so, how many ounces of each? Are bare walls and brick floors all that is needed? or must there be carpets and paper-hanging? Are shoes considered essential? or will the Scotch practice be approved? Shall the clothing be of fustian? If not, of what quality must the broadcloth be? In short, just point out where, between the two extremes of starvation and luxury, this something called a maintenance lies. How else shall we know whether enough has been awarded, or whether too much? One thinks that a bare subsistence is all that can fairly be demanded. Another hints at something beyond. A third maintains that a few of the enjoyments of life should be provided for. And some of the more consistent, pushing the doctrine to its legitimate result, will rest satisfied with nothing short of community of property."

What this argument renders most apparent is, the necessity for an umpire, or mediatorial power, between collective society and the individual or family requiring aid, a power sympathetic alike with those who have more, and with those who have less, than necessity demands, and whose social position shall derive, from a source superior to either, a _prestige_ which will inspire confidence in its discretion and give a certain authority to its decisions. If personal beneficence or corporate guarantees suffice for the relief of sufferers, or to obtain for those able and willing the opportunity of suitable employment, the mediatorial power will not interfere. If, on the other hand, appeal be made to it, it may act either by the exercise of its own faculties, or as the trustee of social goods; a mutual intelligence bureau of higher grade than our ordinary business offices. Such a function the Catholic Church and its orders of charity fulfilled in England, and may yet fulfil in America.

Mr. John Stuart Mill well observes, that the state cannot undertake to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving indigent. It owes no more than subsistence to the first, and can give no less to the last. Since it must provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor--who have not offended is to give a premium to crime. Guardians and overseers are not fit to be trusted to give or withhold other people's money according to their verdict on the morality of the person soliciting it, and it would show much ignorance of the ways of mankind to suppose that such persons, even in the almost impossible case of their being qualified, will take the trouble of ascertaining and sifting the past conduct of a person in distress, so as to form a rational judgment on it. Private charity can make these distinctions, and, in bestowing its own money, is entitled to do so according to its own judgment.

It is admitted to be right that human beings should help one another; and the more so in proportion to the urgency of the need. In all cases of helping, we distinguish the consequences of the assistance itself, and the consequences of relying on the assistance. The former are generally beneficial, but the latter for the most part injurious; so much so, in many cases, as greatly to outweigh the value of the benefit. There are few things more mischievous than that people should rely on the habitual aid of others for the means of subsistence, and unhappily there is no lesson which they more easily learn. The problem to be solved is, how to give the greatest amount of needful help with the smallest encouragement to undue reliance on it. {707} Energy and self-dependence are, however, liable to be impaired by the absence of help as well as by its excess. It is even more fatal to exertion to have no hope of succeeding by it than to be assured of succeeding without it. When the condition of any one is so disastrous that his energies are paralyzed by discouragement, assistance is a tonic, not a sedative. It braces instead of deadening the active faculties, always provided that the assistance is not such as to dispense with self-help by substituting itself for the person's own labor, skill, and prudence, but is limited to affording him a better hope of attaining success by those legitimate means. This accordingly is a test to which all plans of philanthropy should be brought, whether intended for the benefit of individuals or of classes, and whether conducted on the voluntary or the government principle.

Overlooking the spiritual forces which religious charity brings to bear in elevating the moral tone of character, Mr. Mill finds the foregoing principles well applied by the English Poor-Law of 1834, because, while it prevents any person, except by his own choice, from dying of hunger, it leaves their condition as much as possible below that of the poorest who find support for themselves. Mr. Mill's logic here seems to arrive at the _reductio ad absurdum_; for the state of these poorest of the working poor, whom pride forbids to claim pauper relief, is too distressing for charity, acting only below that level, to be of any avail. Usually inclined to the most liberal and humane views, Mr. Mill has here given way to a Protestant prejudice, which regards as ill-advised the more whole-souled Catholic style of charity. The following extract from De Vere's work shows the contrast, and affords a good answer to this overcautiousness about doing too much. All depends upon the spirit in which charity is bestowed; it should be cordial, not humiliating and distressing:

"Most of the Sisters are from the class of servants and
needle-women; but there are many who, having been brought up to
enjoy all the comforts and even elegances of life, have
willingly renounced all to make themselves the humblest
servants of the poor, to wash, and cook, and _beg_ for
those who have been beggars all their lives. The secret of all
this lies in this, that the Sisters see, in their poor, Jesus
Christ himself, to wait on whom must be their highest glory.
From this, then, springs the most delightful interchange of
feeling between the Sisters and their pensioners; for these
poor people reverence with the liveliest gratitude those who
seem to them as the angels of God sent to redeem them from all
their misery and wretchedness, to comfort their bodies, and
enlighten their souls. The change wrought in the old people
after they have been with the Sisters a little while, is said
to be most remarkable. From being fractious, complaining, and
idle, they grow cheerful and contented in the highest degree,
and every one is anxious to do something to contribute to the
common stock. '_Our_ houses, _our_ Sisters,' they
say--a type of the perfect union which reigns amongst them.
Everything is done by the Sisters to cultivate a spirit of
cheerfulness; they are treated as children, and every
opportunity is embraced of making them a little festival. The
beautiful simplicity of childhood seems to return in all its
fulness to these poor creatures, whose lives have been spent in
vice and misery. From a state approaching to brutality, they
revive even to gayety. Well may they say as they do, 'We never
were happy until we came here.' On great occasions they sing
and dance, and the Sisters join with them. When the anniversary
of the house of Rouen was lately celebrated, the old woman who
had been the first pensioner was crowned as the queen of the
day, and her lowly seat decked with flowers, whilst her aged
companions cheered her with the heartiest good will.

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