Chapter XV: A Change (7)

There is, no doubt, much tepidity, formalism, and momentary imbecility in the face of the enemy in old Catholic populations; for not the just nor the elect only are members of the church; but abandoned or opposed as the church now is by the governments, and thrown back as she is everywhere upon her own resources as a spiritual kingdom, forced to be even in old Catholic nations once more a missionary church in every thing except in outward form, and obliged to appeal directly to the faithful individually, there can hardly fail to be developed in Catholics the personal qualities which the author thinks they do not now possess. The need of a robust and manly piety to struggle with the world and the enemies of the church will very soon call it forth, where religion is free and faith is not extinct.

We cannot but think, if the author had experienced the vexations and annoyances that we have from the personal and individual zeal and activity of Protestants of the revival stamp, each one of whom acts as if he were an Atlas and bore the whole weight of the religious world on his individual shoulders, he would much prefer its absence among Catholics to its presence. Not more troublesome were the frogs of Egypt, that came up into the kneading-troughs and the sleeping-chambers. It is not easy to describe the sensation of relief a convert from Protestantism feels on coming into the church and learning that he has now a religion that can sustain him instead of needing him to sustain it. With Protestants, the member bears the sect; with Catholics, the church bears the member. The sacraments are effective _ex opere operato_. We are disposed, moreover, to believe that Catholics best serve the Catholic cause by each one's doing in his own sphere his own allotted work. The unity of faith, and the unity of the spirit that works alike in all the faithful to will and to do, are sufficient to secure unity of action, and action to one and the same end, and to effect with marvellous rapidity the grandest and most magnificent results. This, we think, is the Catholic method, quiet, peaceable, orderly, and, if less showy and striking than the Protestant method, less noisy and prosy, far more fruitful in results. The Catholic is sustained, the Protestant must sustain.

For our part, we are grateful to the author for his masterly exposition of contemporary Protestantism; but we hope we may be permitted to say that, while we do not deny the danger with which it threatens the populations of old Catholic nations, we think he exaggerates it, and supposes Protestant negations are more powerful than they really are. It may be that the Catholic populations are not at present very well prepared to withstand the Protestant propaganda, allied as it is with rationalism and the revolution; but they cannot long remain unprepared. The revolution having, wherever attempted, resulted in the loss of old liberties without the acquisition of any additional civil freedom, must gradually lose its credit with the people, who must ere long be disillusioned; rationalism is too cold, too absurd, and too destitute of life to hold them in permanent subjection. Scientists and sciolists may adhere to it while its novelty lasts, but both the reason and instincts of the people reject it, and demand faith, religion. Protestantism severed from the revolution and rationalism is too much what the great Catholic controversialists met in the seventeenth century and vanquished for its revival to be able to gain and hold much new territory.

The real danger, in our judgment, is in the spread of secularism or the secular spirit among Catholics themselves. This is the only serious obstacle we see to the conversion of the American people to the church. Catholics here and elsewhere conform to modern civilization, and are carried away by its spirit. They follow the spirit of the age without knowing it; and though a Catholic may accept without scruple all the positive results of what is called modern civilization, he cannot imbibe and follow its spirit without great loss on the side of religion, which requires the renunciation of the world as the end for which one is to live and to labor. But there are even among Catholics very worthy men, men of excellent parts and rare learning, who virtually subordinate the spiritual to the secular. They have so far yielded to the secular spirit of the day as to place the defence of the church on secular rather than on spiritual grounds, and defend her claims as the church of God rather as necessary to secure civil liberty and advanced civilization than as necessary to save the soul and secure the beatitude of heaven. They are, in some degree, affected by the philanthropy or humanitarianism of the age, and occasionally confound it with Christian charity, which loves God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves in God, or for the sake of God.

These men pursue a line of argument that draws off the Catholic mind from the kingdom of God and his justice, and fixes it on those things after which the heathen seek, secularize it, and lead it to think that our Lord's mission had for its object the multiplication of earthly goods and securing earthly felicity. They unintentionally play into the hands of radicals and revolutionists, by influencing Catholics to strive after social instead of spiritual progress, and making them feel that the great work for the church is less to train men for heaven than to make the earth a more pleasant abode for them; or that the proper way for men to work out their salvation hereafter is to work earnestly and perseveringly for the progress of civil and political liberty, and the reform of political and social abuses. It can hardly have any but a bad influence on the Catholic mind to find prominent Catholics urging their Catholic fellow-citizens to make common cause with the most notorious and irreligious infidel and radical leaders of the revolution, as if there could be any thing in common between Catholics and men who demand liberty only to emancipate themselves from the divine law and to suppress the church, or at least to restrain her freedom.

But we are forgetting our author. Of the three causes he assigns for the partial success in old Catholic nations of Protestant missions, we have considered only the third and last--the alleged ignorance of the clergy of contemporary Protestantism, the supineness of Catholics, and their lack of individual zeal, energy, and self-reliance. We have ventured to differ in some respects with regard to this alleged cause from the eminent author, and to take a deeper and a broader view of the real cause of Protestant success. We have traced it to the ascendency of the worldly spirit which has given birth to Protestantism itself, and, even in Catholic countries, deprived the church of her rightful freedom of action. We see the cause in the false relations of church and state that have hitherto subsisted in Christian nations, in the oppression and restraint of the church by the state. The other two causes, the impression that Protestant nations surpass Catholic nations in material wealth and well-being, and that Protestantism has founded and sustains civil and religious liberty, we must reluctantly reserve for a future article.

FOOTNOTE:

[100] _De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme._ Par M. l'Abbé Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo. pp. 608.

HURSTON HALL.

The great avenue of Hurston was all aglow with the golden sunset. Stray beams trembled among the shadows of the massive oaks, bathed the stone terrace in a flood of crimson radiance, and lingered lovingly among the quaint parterres, where all day long they had given life and beauty to the flowers. The "parting smile of day" illumined lawn and garden, mellowed the rugged outlines of the ancient hall, and threw over its gloomy grandeur a golden mist that seemed to spiritualize it.

But more brightly and lovingly than elsewhere it rested on the fair brow and golden curls of young Lord Hurston, as, reclining on his couch with his face turned to the sunset, he watched with boyish delight the beauty of the scene.

"Close the book, Aunt Caddy," he said, turning to a pale, graceful lady, who, seated on an ottoman beside him, had been reading to the young invalid the most beautiful of the great poet's _Idylls_. "Close the book; for you are tired, and I want you to look at the sunset and talk to me. Isn't it beautiful? See that great oak at the bend of the avenue! Every leaf seems woven with gold. I wonder if that little squirrel has his nest among the roots yet. What a pile of nuts I found there long ago, before I was sick! I wonder if I will ever be well enough to hunt squirrels again?" And the little speaker sighed as he turned restlessly on his couch.

"I hope so, darling," Aunt Caddy replied fondly. "But we must be patient, you know."

"Yes, I know. But it is hard sometimes--only sometimes--Aunt Caddy; for boys are not like girls; _they_ might lie still and not care so much. But when Lady Rayburn and Percy and George were here, and I saw how the boys could climb and ride and jump; and when I had Floy brought out from the stable for them and I heard her call me just as she used when I could ride--I wouldn't tell any one but you--but O Aunt Caddy! I cried when I was all by myself--cried like a great baby girl."

Aunt Caddy's eyes were bright with tears of pity.

"My poor pet! was it so hard for you? Then grandmamma will not ask them here again."

"No, no! dear auntie; that would never do. I am not such a coward as to mind feeling badly; and then, I would bear it better next time. No, no! Hurston Hall must be open to every one, as it was in grandpapa's time, as it would be if papa had lived, even though its lord is only a sick boy who can but lie on his cushions and let his guests amuse themselves as they please. Only I wish I were as good and patient as you would be in my place. You are just like Elaine. If you were grieved or sorrowful, no one would ever know it. You would only grow pale and quiet and silent, until some morning you would float away from us over the dark waters with the story of your sorrow folded over your still heart."

The crimson glow of sunset seemed to flush Aunt Caddy's cheek as she bent to kiss the pale, little, earnest face.

"You are a poet yourself, Arthur. Who knows but that you may prove a second Sir Philip Sidney. We have had so many bold barons of Hurston that Sir Arthur may well afford to win gentler fame and more peaceful laurels."

The boy was silent for a moment; then replied with touching seriousness,

"Auntie, dear, you are all kind and loving to me; but you try to deceive me. I saw Doctor Woodley's face when he sounded my lungs the other day, and I know what it meant. Poor papa did not live to be twenty-four; and I--I was reading a book the other day, and I saw in it the sentence, 'Born to die.' It seemed as if it were written for me--born to die, not to live and win laurels, Aunt Caddy."

"My darling, you must not talk so! Think of poor grandmamma, think of us all if we should lose you. You are only twelve, and youth can hope for every thing."

But even as she spoke a flood of memories welled up from her heart; sweet yet mournful voices of the past, whispering sadly of _her_ youth--its vanished hopes, its faded dreams. The sunset radiance had paled now, and dim shadows were gathering over the rosy, western horizon as Aunt Caddy thought of her life, with its early sunset, its shadowy twilight, that would be so cheerless did not the starry gleam of other worlds sometimes pierce the gloom.

But Arthur's voice aroused her from her reverie.

"I don't think it seems so dreadful now to die, Aunt Caddy. When I was well and strong, it seemed so; and I used almost to shiver when I passed the tomb where poor papa and mamma lie side by side, beneath the painted window in the chancel. It seemed so hard that he should not live long enough to bear the title. But now I sometimes lie awake at night and think how strange it will look to see beside grandpapa's monument that tells how very, very old he was, another with a broken column, or something like that, and the inscription, _Arthur, seventeenth baron of Hurston, aged twelve_, or _thirteen_--not any more I think, auntie."

"My darling, my darling, these morbid fancies grieve me sadly."

"I don't want to grieve you, Aunt Caddy; but why should we fear to talk of what must be? I will leave you here in my place--you and grandmamma. You will be the lady of the hall, and help the poor people around, and keep the old place from getting ruined and desolate; and make Johnson spare those oaks that he wanted to cut down; grandpapa's oaks must not be touched. O Aunt Caddy! you will always stay at Hurston, even when I am gone, won't you?" And the earnest eyes pleaded eloquently.

"Your Uncle Charles would be the owner of Hurston, my darling," was the low reply. "He would live here or send some one in his place. Grandmamma and I would have a right here no longer. So you must get well and strong, if you want to keep us at Hurston," she added with an attempt at playfulness.

"My Uncle Charles!" said the young lord in amazement. "Why must he come here? Where is he now? Why should he be owner of Hurston?"

"He is next heir--your father's younger brother; he has been with his regiment in Canada for a great many years," she replied hurriedly. "But do not let us talk of sad fancies any longer. You will be strong as Cousin Percy in the spring, and will ride Floy as gayly as ever."

"But I want to hear about my Uncle Charles," said Arthur eagerly. "Did I ever see him?"

"When you were a little baby, perhaps. He has been in America ten years."

"Did _you_ ever see him, Aunt Caddy?"

"Very often, dear," was the low reply.

"But why does he not come to England? Why did not grandpapa hear from him?" continued the eager little questioner.

"My dearest, you are too young to weary yourself with others' troubles. Your grandfather and his younger son parted in anger. They were both proud and passionate, and neither would forgive or yield; and now death has come between them," Aunt Caddy said sadly.

"And would he come to Hurston if I should die?"

"I scarcely think so, dear; he has few pleasant memories connected with it."

"Then you would stay, dear auntie?"

"No, dearest, I could not," she replied with deepening color. "When my sister wrote to your grandma and to me that she was dying, and we must take her place to her orphaned boy; when your grandfather, old Lord Hurston, placed you in my arms, then Hurston Hall became our home; but when Colonel Charles Thornbury is its master, it ceases to be so."

"How old is my uncle, Aunt Caddy?"

"Thirty-one, I think, Arthur."

"Thirty-one," was the thoughtful reply. "And he will be Lord Hurston when I die. I wish I knew him, Aunt Caddy. Do you think he would come to England if you wrote him? You knew him, auntie. I want to see him; I want to ask him not to leave Hurston to ruin and desolation; I want to ask him to let you stay and take care of the dear old place that grandpa was so proud of. I want to ask him not to let Johnson cut down the oaks that he wanted to thin out last fall. Dear, dear Aunt Caddy, won't you write for me?" pleaded the earnest little speaker.

"My darling Arthur," she replied with a deepening blush that freshened her pale face wonderfully, "I cannot. It--it--would be impossible."

"But _why_, Aunt Caddy?" continued the persevering boy. "Is he so very bad, so wicked, that you never speak? Is my uncle a bad man, Aunt Caddy? Has he"--and the boy's cheek flushed with the pride of his noble race--"has he disgraced us in any way?"

"My dear Arthur," was the hurried response, "oh! no; a thousand times no! Your uncle was proud, passionate, headstrong; but he was--he is, I am sure, all that is noble, brave, generous; and, Arthur, he loved your father as fondly as brothers could love."

"But why did he go away? Why do we not hear from him?"

"My darling," the words came reluctantly, "your grandpapa--in short, they had some disagreement when your uncle came of age about--about a marriage that the old lord had set his heart upon. But your uncle was unwilling; that is--the lady was rich, and he feared he would be thought mercenary--and--and--we must speak reverently of the dead, dear Arthur," and she bent to kiss his pale, pure brow; "but your uncle was not to blame. Let us talk no more about it now. See, the moon is rising. Look how large and beautiful it is! Have you no sonnet for such a scene, my gentle troubadour?"

But Arthur was not to be deceived. Spite of the gathering twilight, he could see the large tears brimming Aunt Caddy's still beautiful eyes; could hear the tremor in her playful tone; could feel, boy as he was, that some chord had been touched that thrilled with saddening memories.

The boy baron almost idolized the fair, gentle aunt who had replaced to him the mother he had never known, and it was with a remorseful sympathy that he flung his arms around her neck, kissed her flushed cheek, and whispered fondly, "Your tiresome little troubadour knows but one, and that is for you alone, dear auntie--_Je t'aime, je t'aime_; yes, more than any one in the world, dear Aunt Caddy."

He was not prepared for the long, low sob that shook her slight frame as she replied, in trembling accents,

"I believe you, my darling, my own Arthur; the one sunbeam of a cheerless--but never let us talk again as we have done to-night."

So Arthur was silent; but with a strange, precocious wisdom he "pondered these things in his heart."

And the result was that a letter, indited in a clear, boyish hand, sped like a white-winged messenger of peace across the broad Atlantic, bearing the address of Colonel Charles Thornbury, --th Dragoons.

And months after that twilight talk, when the leaves of Hurston Park fell in showers of crimson and gold on the broad avenue, when the last roses breathed their sweet farewells around Arthur's latticed window, and the autumn winds began to sigh through the leafless vines, far away beneath the clear blue sky of another hemisphere a bronzed, bearded man read those frank, boyish words of welcome that bore the proud seal of his ancient race, and, with a tear and a smile, whispered a blessing on "_Arthur's boy_."

Christmas snow lay white and pure on the fields and groves of Hurston, and Christmas moonlight fell like a benediction on the spotless earth. The old hall stood boldly out with every rugged outline clearly defined against the frosty winter sky. A strange, irregular old pile, with little architectural symmetry; for it had grown with the fortunes of the race that had ruled there for generations, dating its foundation far back in the mist of centuries before England bent to Norman William's sceptre. Tradition pointed to the grove where the mistletoe was culled with many a sacred rite; to the tower where the fair bride waited and watched in vain for her lord, who lay cold and stiff on the lost battle plain of Hastings; to the gate whence issued the stout Baron of Hurston, stern in his demand for right, to the rendezvous at Runnymede. The long, low building stretching into the shadows of the grove was said to have been built by Ethwold the Saxon, when, weary of the toils of war, he retired into the quiet "Hurst," beneath whose leafy shelter his race grew and flourished for generations.

Remnants of fearful tales still were heard around the cottage fires--tales of awful orgies held by the fierce Saxon, and of invocations of Woden and Thor, and rude banquets when the wild chant of the bard and the pledge of Waeshael echoed through the ancient Hurst. It was even whispered that these fierce, unbaptized spirits still lingered around their earthly haunts, watching the fortunes of their race and guarding it from extinction.

But the young Baron of Hurston resting in his dainty sick-chamber, surrounded by all that wealth and affection could bestow, yet feeling with a strange, peaceful resignation that his young life was fast ebbing away, bestowed little thought on the name and fame of the proud ancestors that had ruled Hurston before him.

"I can do nothing, Aunt Caddy," he said with gentle sadness; "nothing great, noble, glorious; I am only a sick, helpless boy. But for the little while I am with them, I would like my people to be happy. I would like every heart to be light and free that I can render so. I will never live to add any thing to the lustre of the old name, never win fame or laurels in camp or court. Only I would like, when I am gone, to have it said that Sir Arthur, their boy-lord's rule was a light and happy one. So don't let me hear any more of unpaid rents, Johnson," he would add, smiling merrily at the faithful steward. "What do I want with poor Farmer Cropper's few guineas? Let my heir attend to all such matters, if he will; no one must be troubled while I can prevent it."

They had learned ere this not to be astonished at these strange, unchild-like speeches, and all tried to carry out their young lord's wishes with almost worshipping fondness and devotion.

So it happened that this Christmas the old Saxon hall was decked gayly with holly and ivy; mistletoe boughs hung temptingly from the dark old rafters, and the oaken floor was polished till it shone again.

Sir Arthur had determined that the servants' ball this year should be an unprecedented success; and he himself--"blessings on his sweet young face," as the good old housekeeper said when she announced the great event--was "to be present in person."

Scores of wax lights winked merrily between the heavy wreaths of ivy, and a yule log, parent of a hundred oaks, blazed like a royal bonfire on the spacious hearth.

Already the old fiddler, blind of one eye, and the old harpist, lame of one leg--a pair of musicians whom Sir Arthur patronized extensively, had taken their places; already many a bright eye and nimble foot danced expectant, and many a rosy cheek flushed deeper with anticipated pleasure. Stately Lady Nesbitt, Arthur's grandmother, was there, smiling benignantly; Aunt Caddy--or the "sweet Lady Caroline," as some of her devoted pensioners called her--with her Madonna face, waving hair, and soft silvery robe, looking like some gentle moonlight spirit; and Arthur, his fair cheek flushed--ah! too brightly--his golden ringlets, soft as a maiden's, clustering on his pale white brow, his clear blue eyes radiant with pleasure, sat looking on, the happiest baron of Hurston that ever reigned in that grim abode.

Old Johnson, the steward and master of ceremonies, alone was wanting; and the impatient dancers began to grow restless awaiting his signal to open the ball. "Where _can_ Johnson be?" questioned Arthur for the twentieth time; when the door suddenly burst open, and Johnson appeared, not a vestige of color in his usually ruddy face, and every white hair on his aged crown bristling with terror.

"Great heavens!--I beg pardon, my lord and ladies," panted the old man breathlessly. "But I've seen him at last! The Lord forgive me! I'll never doubt that there be spirits return again. I saw him with these very eyes--the master, old Sir Ralph himself. O my poor blessed lamb! I beg pardon, my lord--Sir Arthur, I mean. I hope this portends nothing awful." And the faithful old servitor wiped the great beads of moisture from his brow.

"What _do_ you mean, Johnson? What has terrified you?" asked Lady Nesbitt, calming in her stately way the excited group that had gathered around her.

"This, madam--simply this, my lady," replied the terrified old man. "I was in the chapel, putting the last wreath on Lady Edith's, my young lord's blessed mother's tomb, when I felt a sort of cold chill creep over me, and says I to myself, 'It's only the dampness'--for I have the rheumatics occasionally, as my Lady Caroline well knows. So says I, 'It's only the dampness;' for I never believed the stories the country folk tell about the barons of Hurston leaving their holy graves to walk on earth again. And so I was walking slowly out, when I heard a sort of groan, and I turned, and, O my lord and ladies! sure as the Lord sees me here, I saw old Sir Ralph, our young lord's grandfather, standing beside his own tomb, with his head bent down and his arms folded, as I've seen him over and over again in life. O my dear young lord! I couldn't be mistaken; it's he himself and no other. I could take my Bible oath to his back and legs; begging your pardon, ladies, I could indeed." And poor Johnson paused for breath.

It was Arthur's clear tone that broke the silence. "If it be my grandfather," he said with that reverence that pure young minds feel for the unseen, "it is my place to go and speak to him; he has returned from the other world for some good purpose, and I will speak to him."

"O my blessed lamb!--my dear young lord, I mean," cried poor Johnson in a fresh fit of terror; "don't, for heaven's sake; don't go near him! I am only afraid," and the faithful old man fairly sobbed, "it is to take you away that he has come."

"Yes," and though the boy's cheek grew pale, his voice was firm, "it is my place to go. Aunt Caddy," he whispered, "he died, you know, without having forgiven my uncle."

"Arthur, my dear, this is nonsense!" began Lady Nesbitt nervously.

"Grandmamma, I must go," was the firm reply.

"Come then, Arthur," said Lady Caroline in a low voice; "for it is my place as well as yours, to hear the message of peace and forgiveness."

"My lord, my lord!" pleaded the terrified servants. But he had gone. With his little, thin hand clasped in Aunt Caddy's, he ascended the winding stone staircase that led to the chapel.

The lords of Hurston had adhered through poverty, change, and persecution to the ancient faith, and worshipped for centuries beneath their own roof.

The chapel of Hurston was rich with quaint carving and mediæval ornament. Six graceful columns supported the Gothic roof, each column bearing tablets to the memory of the lords of Hurston who slept beneath. Old Sir Ralph's tomb lay in the shadow of the altar, while that of Arthur's parents--a snow-white shaft supporting a broken pillar--stood in the full light of the chancel window, whose richly-colored panes bore witness to the virtues of the early dead who slept beneath. Lady Caroline felt Arthur's hand tremble, and she herself grew pale with awe; for there indeed, in the bright moonlight that streamed through the painted window--there, close to the tomb of old Sir Ralph, in the shadow of the altar, there stood a form with bowed head and folded arms, a form that Arthur's silver, trembling voice called "Grandfather!"

"Grandfather!" and the boy with his pale face and golden curls looked in the falling moonlight like a seraph. "Grandfather, speak to me! What is it that you wish of me? Speak, dear grandfather! It is your little Arthur; he does not fear you. Grandfather," and his voice grew lower and more musical, "is it the thought of my uncle that disturbs your rest? I will tell him that he is forgiven; that you sent him the angels' Christmas greeting--'_Peace on earth to men of good-will_--'"

"My brave, my saintly boy! Arthur's boy!" sobbed a deep, manly voice; and the young lord found himself clasped in a warm, living, loving embrace, while a bronzed, bearded face with great luminous dark eyes looked almost reverently into his.

"Nephew, you have done what I believed no mortal could do. You have brought tears into Charles Thornbury's eyes, and peace into his heart!"

"O Aunt Caddy, Aunt Caddy!" cried Arthur joyfully; "speak to him. It is Uncle Charles; dear Uncle Charles, that I wrote to so long ago!"

Aunt Caddy was pale and speechless as the marble shaft against which she leaned for support; but Colonel Thornbury had a more potent spell. "Caroline!"--the low whisper brought a flush to cheek and brow--"Caroline, my long lost love, whose tender heart I wounded so deeply, can you too join your voice to this angel boy's, and whisper peace? Caroline, I was mad with wounded pride and jealous love--love that scorned the thought of gain, that snapped every tie when they said it was for your wealth I sought you. God forgive me! I cast the words back in their teeth, and swore I would roam the world a penniless adventurer rather than be enriched by my wife. Caroline, if my sin was great, my punishment has been bitter. Ten years; ten long, weary, loveless years! Arthur has welcomed me with the voice of peace. Have you no Christmas gift for the penitent wanderer? None for the faithful heart that has ever been yours alone?" Lady Caroline was pale again; but a radiance fairer than moonlight seemed to light up her brow.

"Arthur has given you peace; and I--I, Charles, have only the love that has waited for you these long, weary years--that would have waited for you until death!"

* * * * *

And the sequel to this little Christmas romance? Need we tell of the wild joy and amazement that reëchoed through the hoary old hall? Of the girlish roses that deepened in Aunt Caddy's still beautiful cheek, and the radiant light in the wanderer's clear dark eye as, a few months later, the merry peal of wedding-bells succeeded the Christmas chimes?

"A blithe bridal for a bonnie bride," Arthur had said when the long-parted lovers pleaded his fast failing health as a reason for a quiet wedding.

"Uncle Charles, if you don't have a real glorious wedding, I'll marry Aunt Caddy myself." Brightest and merriest of all was the lordly young host as he welcomed his guests with the princely grace that so well became him, though many a living heart was sad, and kindly eye grew dim, as they marked in the glowing cheek and wasted form the fatal heritage of his youthful parents.

Once only he himself betrayed amid his graceful gayety the consciousness of his early doom.

After their young lord had been repeatedly toasted by the joyous tenantry, some one merrily proposed, "Sir Arthur's bride;" and "Our future lady" was pledged in brimming bumpers.

Arthur's face flushed for a moment as he caught the unthinking shout; then, raising his own glass to his lips, he bowed to his uncle's bride. "Aunt Caddy, we drink your health. Long life and happiness to the future lady of Hurston!"

* * * * *

A year later, and hushed voices and noiseless steps alone were heard around the dying couch of the fair boy-baron. Patient and gentle as ever, he waited with his own angelic smile upon his lips the summons that was to call him from life.

His uncle, pale with anxiety and sorrow, watched with paternal love over the dying boy's pillow, until an attendant whispered something which Arthur's fast failing ear caught.

"Bring him here, uncle; let me see him before I go; let me see Aunt Caddy's boy."

Colonel Thornbury called the attendant, and they laid a little slumbering babe in the dying boy's outstretched arms. "Call him Arthur for me, dear uncle, and do not grieve. He has come to take my place; to perpetuate the glorious old name; to be all that I would have been if God had so willed it. I am happy now; so very, very happy!" He died with the words yet on his lips, the smile still on his face, the light scarce faded from his eye.

* * * * *

Years afterward, when the proud spirit of her impetuous boy threatened to burst from her gentle restraint, and the fierce blood of his fiery ancestors showed itself in his kindling eye and mantling cheek, the gentle Lady Hurston had one spell that calmed his angriest moods. She would whisper of that young cousin who had breathed his last sigh with her Arthur's first breath, with the baby form clasped to his dying breast, of those last words of hope and happiness murmured over the slumbering babe from the very portals of eternity. "He said you were to take his place, dear Arthur; be worthy of him and of his name." And the boy's eye would grow calm and peaceful as it rested on the snowy column--the column of which Arthur had spoken when he foretold his own doom:

ARTHUR,

SEVENTEENTH BARON OF HURSTON.

BORN MAY 2, 1830. DIED MARCH 5, 1844.

AGED 14 YEARS.

_Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God._

DECEMBER EIGHTH, 1869.

I.

There came an hour, and words were uttered then
That live to-day and echo evermore.
ONE spoke them to a knot of simple men,
Who simply took the simple sense they bore:
A promise--such as never tongue or pen
Of sage oracular had made before;
And a design no _wisdom_ could have planned,
Save His who holds the nations in his hand.

II.

Had less than God so spoken, he had been
The wildest of all dreamers. What! to make
A poor rude fisher, who had never seen
A gloom upon his Galilæan lake
But feared the menace of its boding mien,
A rock no surge should fret, no tempest shake--
The baffled ages foaming at its feet
The broken malice of their ceaseless beat!

III.

God saith; and who shall gainsay? Devils first;
Then fools, their ready dupes. To these, forsooth,
'Tis nobler to resist, and dare the worst,
Than own the gentle majesty of truth--
As came the church to free a world accurst,
And heal its heartache, and renew its youth:
A spring to thaw the universal frost--
Fire-dowered from her natal Pentecost.

IV.

But principle is something to defy,
That may not swerve to give a falsehood breath;
Or call masked anarchy its stout ally,
And offer God an honorable death.
And so along the ages rolls a cry--
The din of onset at the gates of faith:
'Tis Arius now, now Luther heads the fray;
Or bristles up the hydra of to-day.

V.

And patient Rome sits victor over all:
Her strength in seeming feebleness increased.
She smiles to hear "the storm against the wall,"
And lavished names of harlot and of beast,
And prophets raving of her speedy fall:
While Satan counts his failures with at least
The joy that such solidity of rock
Draws none the fewer to the fatal shock.

VI.

Press on, close in, ye gallant ranks of hell!
Concentrating the might ye think to bow.
Stood ever Holy Church, do records tell,
More one, more conscious, more herself than now?
When was the chair of Peter loved so well?
Wore ever pontiff a serener brow?
He calls: earth hears; her utmost realms resound;
And lo, a thousand mitres gird him round!

VII.

And they who trembled, and had been content
To scorn with quiet mirth a voice so weak,
Are forced, they find, to yield their panic vent.
"Another Trent!" rings out the indignant shriek;
"This nineteenth century, another Trent!"
'Tis not so sweet to have the Master speak,
When passion, weary of his peaceful sway,
No longer deems it freedom to obey.

VIII.

But speak he will--the blessed words of life;
How welcome to the soul that thirsts to know,
Or views alarmed the too successful strife
Of earth with heaven--truth's ebb and error's flow.
We murmur through, our tears, "Decay is rife!
The sound, the old, the sacred--all will go!"
Fond fear! Whatever faithless thrones expect,
_Christ's_ kingdom stands: he garners his elect.

IX.

The serpent writhes--his last convulsions these--
Beneath the foot that tramples his crushed head.
O Lady! worker of thy Son's decrees,
Thy Rome, thy Pius trust thee. Deign to shed
Thy gracious light, lone star of troubled seas,
At whose sweet ray the ancient darkness fled!
The serpent writhes beneath thee: deign to show
He is indeed the Woman's vanquished foe!

X.

This day we hymn thy victory; and claim
Thy prayer omnipotent. Nor let it rise
For us alone, that boast to love thy name,
But those, unhappy, that have dared despise!
Who came for them, by thee it was He came,
Through thee must break unclouded to their eyes.
Ah Mother's Heart! How long, then, wilt thou wait
Till _all_ thy children sing "IMMACULATE"?

B. D. H.

VANSLEB, THE ORIENTAL SCHOLAR AND TRAVELLER.

"Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires et des hommes est
souvent la vérité.
La justice qui nous est quelquefois refusée par nos contemporains,
la postérité sait nous la rendre."[101]

LA BRUYERE.