Chapter III (3)

The Council of Trent did something to check the evil, but could not eradicate it; for its cause was not in the church, nor in the abuses of ecclesiastical discipline or administration, but in the secular order, in which the secular powers would suffer no radical reforms either in facts or principles. They were willing the church should reform her own administration, but would not conform their own to the principles of which she was the appointed guardian. They would protect her against heretical powers; but only on their own terms, and only so far as she would consent to be made or they could use her as an instrument of their ambition. Charles V. would protect her only so far as he could without losing in his military projects the support of the Protestant princes of the empire; and when he wished to force the pope to his terms, he let loose his fanatical troops under the Constable Bourbon against Rome, who imprisoned him and spoiled and sacked the city for nine months; Philip II. would also serve the church and make a war of extermination on heretics in the Low Countries, but only in the hope of using her as an instrument in attaining to the universal monarchy at which he aimed. Louis XIV., and after him Napoleon I., attempted the same. They all thought they could use her to further their own ambition; but they failed--and failed miserably, shamefully. He to whom it belongs to give victory or defeat, who demands disinterested services, and who will not suffer his church to be used as an instrument of earthly ambition, touched them with his finger, and their strength failed, they withered as grass, and all their plans miscarried. It was better that her avowed enemies should triumph for a season than that she should be enslaved by her protectors, or smothered in the embraces of her friends. God is a jealous God, and his glory he will not give to another.

Here we see the cause. Paganism in the state corrupted the sovereigns, their courts, and the ruling classes in morals and manners, enfeebled character, debased society, in the Catholic states. The failure, through divine Providence, of the ambitious and selfish schemes of such professedly Catholic sovereigns as Philip II., Louis XIV., and Napoleon I., reduced the Latin races to the low estate in which we now find them, and gave, in the political, commercial, and industrial order, the ascendency to Protestant nations, as a chastisement to both, and a lesson to Catholics from which it is to be hoped they will profit. If the Catholic nations had been truly Catholic, if the educated and ruling classes had recognized and defended the church steadily from the first on Catholic principles, and unflinchingly maintained her freedom and independence as the kingdom of God on earth, representing him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, these nations would have retained their preponderance, the church would have reformed the morals and manners of society, and the Protestant nations would never have existed, or would have speedily returned to the fold.

Yet we do not despair of these Latin races; for, though their governments have betrayed the faith, and the people have been alienated from the church by attributing to her the political faults of their rulers, from which she and they alike have suffered, they still retain Catholic tradition, and have in them large numbers of men and women, more than enough to have saved the cities of the plain, who are true believers, and who know and practise in sincerity and earnestness their faith. They have still a recuperative energy, and may yet re-ascend the scale they have descended. The present emperor of the French believed it possible, and his mission to recover the Latin races. He attempted it, and his plan, to human wisdom, seemed well devised and practicable. It was to break the alliance between England and Russia; to create an independent, confederated, or united Italy; to divide the Anglo-Saxon race in the United States, and to raise up and consolidate a Latin power in Mexico and Central America, while he extended the French power in North Africa, defeated English and Russian diplomatic preponderance in the East, opened a maritime canal across the Isthmus of Suez, and recovered the commerce of India for the Mediterranean powers. By these means he would give to France the protectorate of the Latin races, and guard alike against Anglo-Saxon and Russian preponderance. But his plan made no account, or a false account, of the moral and religious causes of the decline of Latin races, and sought to elevate them not as truly Catholic but as temporal powers, and to use the church for a secular end, instead of using the secular power he possessed for a spiritual and Catholic end. He committed over again the error of his uncle, Louis XIV., and Philip II., and has failed, as he might have foreseen if he had understood that the church must be served, if at all, for herself, and that she serves the secular only when the secular serves her for her own sake.

The result of Napoleon's policy has been not to elevate the Latin races and to bring them to gravitate around France as the great central Latin power, but to weaken the power of the church over them, to strengthen the antagonism between their faith and their politics, and to depress them still more in relation to the Teutonic and Slavonic races. The emperor of the French, whether he had or had not Catholic interests at heart, has done them great injury. He began by subordinating the spiritual to the secular, when he should have begun by subordinating the secular to the spiritual. He would then have secured the divine protection and assistance, and been invincible. He has, in reality, only defeated the end he aimed at, and left the Latin races in a more deplorable condition than that in which he found them. As a Catholic and as a Latin sovereign, he has not been a success. The Protestant and schismatical powers have grown only by the faults and blunders, the want of submission and fidelity of the professedly Catholic powers; not by any means, as they suppose, by the errors and abuses of the ecclesiastical administration, nor by any positive virtue, even for this world, in their heresy and schism. God, as we have just said, is a jealous God, and his glory he will not give to another. The Latin races, so called, when in power sought not his glory but their own, and failed. But they may yet recover their former power and splendor, if not their commercial preponderance, by rejecting the subtle paganism which has enervated them, the infidel politics they have adopted; by restoring to the church her full freedom and independence as the spiritual order, and by subordinating the secular to the spiritual order; that is, by making themselves really and truly Catholic.

In France there was, at an early day, an attempt made to reconcile paganism in politics with Catholicity in religion, in what is called Gallicanism, which, however, only served to systematize the antagonism between church and state, and to render it all the more destructive to both. We look upon Gallicanism, as expressed in the four articles adopted at the dictation of the government by the assembly of the French clergy in 1682, and which had shown itself all along from Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. Louis, which broke out in great violence with Louis XII., and his _petit_ council of five cardinals at Pisa, acted on by the _politiques_ of Henry IV., and formulated by the great Bossuet under Louis XIV., as the most formidable as well as the most subtle enemy the church has ever had to contend with.

The essence, the real virus, so to speak, of Gallicanism is not, as so many suppose, in the assertion that the dogmatic definitions of the pope are not irreformible--though that is a grave error, in our judgment--but in the assertion of the independence of the state in face of the spiritual order. No doubt Bossuet's purpose in drawing up the four articles was to prevent the French government from going farther and carrying away the kingdom into open heresy and schism; but the Subtle secularism to which he gave his sanction, especially as sure to be practically understood and applied, is far harder to deal with than either heresy or schism, and it seems to us far more embarrassing to the church. It forbids the Catholic to be logical, to draw from his Catholic principles their proper consequences, or to give them their legitimate application; takes away from the defences of faith its outposts, and reduces them to the bare citadel, and proves an almost insurmountable obstacle to the church in her efforts to reach and subdue the world to the law of God. It withdraws the secular order from its rightful subjection to the spiritual order, and denies that religion is the supreme law for nations as well as for individuals, and for kings as well as for subjects.

The principal fault we find with the author, as may be gathered from what we have said, is that he appears to see in the antagonism between pagan politics and Christian, or in the original and inextinguishable dualism asserted by Gallicanism, no cause of the deterioration of Catholic nations, or of the partial success in old Catholic populations of Protestant missions in unmaking Catholics, if not in making Protestants. He seems to accept the one-sided asceticism which places the goods of this life in antagonism with the goods of the world to come, and, though he does not avow Gallicanism, originated by paganism in the state, he does not disavow it, or appear to be aware that it has any influence in detaching the people from the church, by making them Catholics only on one side of their minds, and leaving them pagan on the other.

The enemies of the church understand this matter far better, and they look upon a Gallican as being as good as a Protestant. James I., the English Solomon, declared himself ready to accept the church, if allowed to do it on Gallican principles. Protestants have very little controversy with out-and-out Gallicanism. They feel instinctively that the Catholics who assert the independence, which means practically the supremacy, of the secular order, and bind the pope by the canons which the church herself makes, are near enough to them; and if they are not separated from the church, it is all the better, because they can better serve the Protestant cause in her communion than they could if out of it. It is the Papal, not the Gallican church they hate.

We do not agree, if we may be permitted to say so, with the author as to the superiority of Protestant nations, or that they are likely to retain for any great length of time the superiority they appear now to have, nor do we accept, as we have already intimated, the one-sided asceticism which supposes any necessary antagonism between this world and the next. The antagonism grows out of the error of placing this world as the end or supreme good, when it is, in fact, only a medium. We as Christians renounce it as the end we live for; but if we so renounce it, and live only in Christ for God, who is really our supreme good, we find this world in its true place with all its goods; and a really Catholic nation that holds the spiritual and eternal supreme, and subordinates the secular to it, will have a hundred-fold more of the really good things of this life, than a nation that subordinates the spiritual to the secular, and seeks only material goods. We believe, and the author proves it, that there is even now more real wealth and well-being in Catholic than in Protestant nations; though we agree with the author, that if it were not so, it would be no argument against the church.

The question of tolerance and intolerance, and of civil and religious liberty, as related to Catholic and Protestant nations respectively, will form the subject of a future article. In the mean time we commend again to our readers the work we are reviewing.

FOOTNOTE:

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

UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.

I.

LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

_Venice, April 3d, 185-._ Arrived this afternoon, and was received by Flora at the station in an embossed gondola with crimson awnings. Ah me! the delicious glow of a new sensation. By what blessed exception was Venice reserved to me for the thirty-first year of that stagnation we call life, and for the second year of dowagerhood? As we floated up to Beldoni Palace, the blood of nineteen flowed in my veins. But in the marble court, perfumed with orange-blossoms exhaling youth and hope, the twins rushed out upon me, crying, "Auntie!" Bah! I was again myself, smothered in crape and bombazine, with the heart of a jade-stone and the circulation of a crocodile.

As we stood beneath the fig-trees in the garden, Flora whispered, "Look at the middle window of the third story." I looked, and beheld a brown-haired woman, in a soft blue dress, pushing aside a mass of passion-vine, and watching us. A pretty picture enough, made warm and glowing in the last rays of sunset! "Who is it?" "Nicholas Vane's wife. I wrote you of his marriage two years ago. They have taken an apartment we do not use, and we are constantly together. You remember that George owes his success in life to Mr. Vane, and he has always been like an elder brother to Nicholas."

"She's rather pretty, is she not?"

"Not exactly pretty, but excessively nice. George respects her immensely."

"George, George, George!" the point of every moral and adornment of every tale. George does not respect _me_ immensely; but I am not sure that I value his opinion less for that reason--heaven help me!

Well, if Nicholas Vane makes his wife half as wretched as he made me ten years ago, I pity her. I have always wished for an _éclaircissement_ with him on the subject of my marriage with Sackvil. Perhaps it may come now.

* * * * *

_4th._--Created a revolution in the household to-day; persuaded Flora to have the Erard "grand" moved into a great old barn of a room seldom used, where one can write and practise without interruption. She had intended to give up one of her prettiest rooms to me; but I've taken a fancy to this one, which will be too desolate to tempt any one to share my solitude.

George is charmed to have me establish myself at such a distance from the rest of the family. He at once ordered in orange-trees and ivies to adorn my dungeon--a delightful thought; but the dreary waste is fast becoming a blossoming oasis. I am writing now by the jalousied window, half listening to the dip of oars as the gondolas go lazily by in the afternoon light.

A glorious piano-tuning this morning, much to Flora's disgust. "Let me send to Lupi's for a tuner, dear," she entreated, as I produced fork and key from the depths of a show work-basket. "It looks so masculine."

"It should be _feminine_ to bring harmony out of discord," I answered. "No piano of mine shall be intrusted to a hireling."

I talked and tuned, tuned and talked--not simultaneously but in strata--and had possessed myself of the interior history of the Vane family by the time the piano answered my searching ears harmoniously.

Mary Terence was the daughter of a clever author, of some pretensions to literary fame, but better known in Boston as a brilliant talker. She was left an orphan at nineteen, poor and unprotected. Vane, who had been one of the _habitués_ of her father's house, admired her sweet devotion to the crotchety old man. She was a Catholic, too; and though Nicholas never cared much for his religion himself, he was always fond of seeing other people practise it, as I remember painfully. But, however it happened, through religion or love, or caprice, or whatever, he married the young thing, and fancies there was never seen her equal.

The piano tuned, I betook myself to practising _Variations Sérieuses_, and Saran's variations in the same style, but founded on a theme far nobler than the one Mendelssohn has taken. Saran is capable of great things, but will probably fail to accomplish them, as this period of our century especially discourages development. To excite hopes and disappoint them appears to be the summit of youthful ambition, at least in the musical world.

I was feeling very happy at the piano; keys cool and smooth; nerves impressionable but not impressed; my ivy-garnished dungeon excellent in its acoustic effects; Flora, in a senseless sort of way, a sympathetic listener. Now and then a servant came to her for orders, but her voice is one that harmonizes with stillness. Flora is surely the sweetest, calmest, most beautiful simpleton I have ever known.

Mendelssohn and Saran having tired me, Chopin came to the rescue--mazurkas, preludes, nocturnes. Why did I play so well? Why was that scherzo on the music-desk, and why do its leaves turn so inconveniently? As I came within two bars of the close of the third page, a hand turned it deftly. I knew the hand of old, and its rare faculty for turning music well. With difficulty I repressed a start of surprise, for I had thought myself alone with Flora. But the agony of recollection quivered in my nerves, impressed now as well as impressionable. I had not believed myself susceptible of such emotion, or capable of such repression of feeling, if once aroused.

The scherzo ended, I paused, but for a moment could not summon courage to break the silence that followed. At last I turned to leave the piano. Vane was sitting behind me on the right. His lips parted painfully in a smile as he greeted me. Strange! What was it to either of us but a glance into a past we would both destroy if that were possible; a furtive peep into a magic mirror we thought broken long ago.

The brown-haired nymph of the passion-vine was half reclining on a lounge with the happy, musing look of one who seldom muses. I had meant to take the initiative with her, accepting her as Flora's friend, and gradually admitting her to intimacy. To my surprise, I found myself responding gratefully to her pleasant welcome, and wishing in my hidden soul she might find something in me to like. Where lies her power? As yet I cannot tell. Vane is very little changed in ten years; lines deepened but not altered. There is evidently a charming relation between him and his wife. She is the stronger of the two in character, I fancy--a simple, genuine person, what more I do not yet know.

II.

Nicholas Vane's library overlooked the garden of Palazzo Beldoni. The dimensions of the room, the windows curtained with vines in the month of April, the glowing sunlight that forced its way in between swaying branches, all spoke of Italy; but New England comfort held a cozy reign within doors; husband and wife were occupied together before the great-study table covered with plans of fortifications; she in making extracts from books of reference, he in working out the minor details of a design.

"How odd that I should have forgotten!" Mary said suddenly, pausing in her work with a look of surprise and recollection. "Flora charged me to tell you that Lady Sackvil has written to say that she is coming here. She will arrive this afternoon in all probability, and I was to have told you of it yesterday. However," she added after a pause, "you don't seem to take much interest in my great piece of news, so the delay has done no harm."

"Amelia Grant is coming--Lady Sackvil, I mean!" Nicholas said slowly, but without pausing in his work. "Very well, I hope you will like her."

"It never occurred to me not to like her," Mary answered. "In the first place, she is Flora's sister; in the second place, she is a very fascinating woman; in the third place, she is a riddle I hope to solve; in the fourth place--"

"In the fourth place," exclaimed Vane, throwing down his pencil with one of those short laughs that quench enthusiasm and kindle wrath at the same moment; "in the fourth place, my beloved Oedipus, she is a sorceress who will read you at sight. Amelia Grant is the mirror of the person she is with; when you fancy you are deciphering her, you will be simply gazing at a reflection of yourself--no unpleasant sight, I acknowledge," he added kindly, seeing that his rough answer had brought the color to her cheeks; "but it will not solve you the riddle. Look here, child. I am sorry Lady Sackvil is coming here. She is a worldly, heartless woman; full of ability, full of attraction; but let me tell you this: if eating your little innocent heart could afford her an afternoon's entertainment, she would not hesitate to do it."

He paused, rose and went to the window. Mary remained at the table, making sketches upon the baize cover with her pen-handle.

"She must play for us, though," said Captain Vane, coming out of a brown study and returning to his seat. "She was the cleverest amateur I have ever heard; and they say Lord Sackvil indulged every whim and carried her from Leipsic to Weimar, and from Weimar to Berlin, as her fancy suggested. She went through a conservatory course at Leipsic, and graduated most creditably. Yes, she is astonishingly clever, beyond dispute, and capable of great self-devotion to her art. Of all the persons I have known, men or women, she is the most impressionable, mobile, sympathetic, dramatic." And again he merged into a reverie, while Mary continued the ungrateful task of drawing on the table-cover.

"Miss Grant had a great many lovers, I suppose," she said at length.

"I don't know--yes--probably--perhaps not. Just look at plan four, and give me the length of line A-Q."

"One inch--three inches--six feet. If you don't answer my question, I shall not answer yours," said Mary, laying her head down on the table.

Vane laughed, and looked out the reference himself.

"She was married at twenty, you goose; so it is not probable that she had many declared lovers."

"What sort of man was Lord Sackvil?"

"Lift up your head and go to work and I will tell you--there. Lord Sackvil was a clever, kindly man of about forty-five, rich but fond of diplomatic life. He came to Washington on a special mission. Amelia met him in society, mirrored his cleverness, and kindliness, and diplomacy, and married him after an engagement of three weeks."

"Was the marriage a happy one?"

"I don't know--I never asked--I don't care. Stop asking questions; I'm sick of the subject."

"I verily believe she has come. I hear voices in the garden," cried Mary, springing from her seat and running to the window. "Yes; it must be Lady Sackvil, talking with Flora under the trees. There, she turned and looked at me. Oh! do come here; she is very lovely."

"Mary, come here," said Vane sharply. "Don't stand staring at what does not concern you. There, I've upset the inkstand. Now you must come and help me."

"If you had upset the universe, I should leave you to wipe it up yourself. Why, my dear, I never expected to know a live countess. I really must look at her."

"Mary, come to me," said Vane sternly, rising from his seat.

She came slowly toward him, and stood looking up in his face with an expression half of fun, half of amazement.

"I had not supposed you capable of such babyish conduct," he said, the blood rushing to his face.

"I have been very silly," Mary said. "O Nicholas! you don't know how silly I have been. I will never, never behave so again--or think such thoughts again," she added, looking at him with an expression of absolute sincerity and trustfulness. "I will all my life trust you as you trust me."

"Do no such thing," he answered hastily. "I am a man like half the men in the world, and women like you are very rare. My darling," he said tenderly, "I love you; and I revere you too--words which should be very precious to a wife. Love may pass, but reverence never. You are my preserver in this world; you are my strength, my patience, my all, God help me! When I look into those sweet, truthful, innocent eyes, they give me all the strength I need for life. Mary, never distrust me--never, never distrust me, for I love and honor you."

"Thank God for that!" she answered softly. "But please don't place your dependence on me. If I had strength to give you, you should have it if my very life had to pay for the gift. But you cannot live vicariously. You cannot receive strength through me. I do not regret behaving so foolishly to-day merely because I have displeased you. If I am silly, you had better know it. But I am afraid you will think that confessing my faults does me so little good that you will be less than ever inclined to confess your own."

"Make yourself quite easy on that point," said Captain Vane, smiling. "I will not judge things good in themselves by your malpractices. But let me speak to you very seriously, my dear child. I love you tenderly, and I love no one else in the world; but if your suspicions had been correct, you took the worst means in the world to mend matters. Suspicions are excessively irritating to a man, and none the less so, you may be sure, when they are well-grounded. And now I freely forgive you all your sins toward me, real and imaginary, and I think if Angelo were to come and wash away that pool of ink on the _parquet_, all traces of this terrible passage of arms might be effaced."

III.

LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

Flora came into the room to-day, while Josephine was dressing my hair. My cap was lying on the dressing-table. She took it up and examined it thoughtfully. "Milly," she said at last, "do me a favor. Give up wearing caps. I cannot bear to have your lovely hair covered. Besides, the usual time for wearing close mourning is passed; and I am convinced that common rules of etiquette should be followed in these matters. If you continue to wear black beyond the usual period, you will lay it aside some day because your grief is diminished, and that is not a pleasant idea."

Flora is a wise woman, within a very narrow range. And so the caps are laid aside. I do it with a kind of regret. I remember fancying, when I first adopted them, that I had assumed unworldliness with them. I do not wish to make the smallest sacrifice to duty, but no one enjoys _feeling_ good more than I do. My hair _is_ beautiful. It looks so nicely in great smooth rolls fastened with an ivory comb. I think I should go mad if I were ugly; if I were not sure of attracting any one I care to attract--except George Holston. But never mind his disapproval! It is pleasanter to be disliked than disregarded, at least to an egotist like myself. To-night we had good music. Only the Vanes were here, Flora, and I. It was interesting to introduce them to certain Schumann songs they had not seen; Franz songs of which they had never even heard; then Chopin, as the moonlight streamed in at the great window by the piano, making candles unnecessary. "More, more," said Mrs. Vane, when I paused. "No more of that kind," said Nicholas, laughing. "I need rebuilding at present." So we had glorious John Sebastian Bach, ending with an organ prelude and fugue arranged by Liszt. Vane listened, looking out of the window upon the canal. Mrs. Vane looked transfigured, like one who had found a great calmness and strength. I envied her, and yet what should I do with calmness and strength if I had them? Throw them into the great pool of life and watch the bubbles rise to the surface. Nothing can add to Flora's serenity. She rolled up her crochet work, laid it away in a blue velvet sarcophagus, and said, "Come into the other room and we will have chocolate." When we were alone, she asked, "Did you ever notice how beautifully Nicholas Vane's hair grows on his forehead? And he has the most expressive eye-lids I ever saw. You must look at them some time." I promised to do so.

I am arranging a Schumann quartette for the piano. I find that Mrs. Vane knows very little of his music. How enchanting transcription is! One finds in it, I am confident, some of the delights of creation. It is only eleven; I can have two good hours of work before going to bed.

IV.

"Nicholas, did you ever tell your wife of your engagement to Amelia Grant?" asked George Holston, abusing the occasion of a visit from his adopted brother by asking unpleasant questions.

Vane knocked the ashes off his cigar and answered curtly, "No."

"Why not?"

"Because it was a disagreeable subject; because the matter was dead and buried years before I saw Mary; because I didn't choose to speak of it."

"I think you made a mistake."

"I don't."

"I do; and I will tell you why, though you don't wish to hear. A man can't put too many barriers between himself and temptation. You are now brought unexpectedly into daily intercourse with Amelia. Long after actual love dies out, personal influence continues dangerous. If you had told your wife of your former connection, it would have acted as a useful check upon you, unconsciously, of course."

"I need no check," answered Vane in a tone of annoyance, "beyond my love for Mary, and my distrust of Lady Sackvil. Mary knows I had an old love affair, but does not know with whom. You need not disturb yourself. I know Amelia Grant of old."

"I doubt it. You exaggerate her faults. She is by no means deficient in good qualities, if she chose to use them. She is a woman ruined by bad training; educated systematically to selfishness, vanity, self-will. She is the most worldly woman of her years I have ever known; but her most dangerous trait, as accompanying so many faults, is the yearning for better things that makes her interesting. She thinks I dislike her. On the contrary, I find her very attractive, though I am determined to do nothing to induce her to prolong her stay with us."

"I don't know any thing about her capacities for good," Vane remarked dryly. "I know that we had not been engaged twenty-four hours before she was receiving Lord Sackvil's attentions freely. At the end of three days of befooling, I put an end to the farce and left the coast clear for his lordship. Flora knows all about this, of course?"

"Evidently not. They were never together during their girlhood. Besides, Amelia never reveals any thing discreditable to herself, you may be sure. Keep out of her way, Vane; she has gifts which are especially attractive to you. But, by Jupiter! it is rather an insult to fancy that any one can fascinate you after your wife, who is nearer perfection than any woman I ever saw."

"Upon my word!" said Vane, glad of a diversion, "these are agreeable sentiments. I think if any body has ground for jealousy, it is poor me. I have not the slightest doubt that Mary will eventually be canonized, but I'll thank you to defer all sentiments of veneration until then."

At this moment a servant announced that Mrs. Holston and Lady Sackvil were in the gondola waiting for Captain Vane.

Nicholas took his hat and rose. "Keep your eyes and your wisdom to yourself, George," he said, in answer to Holston's glance of amusement. "It is a bad thing to be wiser than your day and generation."

"So Cassandra found," replied Holston; "but she was right, for all that."

V.

"Lay her down by me, Debby," said Mrs. Vane to the comfortable-looking old body who was serving as nurse to a second generation. "Lay her beside her own little mamma. Was she very good? Did Padre Giulio think her lovely? Didn't she cry the least bit while he was pouring the water?"

"Just enough, mum, to let the old Adam out," answered Debby, tucking up mother and child energetically. "As for the Paddry, he thought she was a perfect pink; and he'd had the chill took off the water, thanks be to praise! It seems only yesterday," continued Debby contemplatively, "I was a holdin' Mr. Nicholas to be christened. He roared loud enough for two generations, I recollect, and now he's a cap'n in the army. Well, we're all agin'. Now, mum, I'll trust her with you a little while till I can get that gruel made. That Jovanny puts sorrel into it the minute my back's turned. Now you can take just as good care of baby, Miss Vane, as if I was here, and don't you go a tirin' yourself. Mr. Nicholas lays all the blame on me if your cheeks burn."

As the door closed behind the nurse, Mary nestled the baby close, and gave herself up to the ecstasy of her new joy. We will follow her thoughts as if they had been spoken. Happiness like hers seldom finds vent in words.

"I need no book of meditation with you beside me, baby. I gave you to God before your birth; I brought you into the world to be a saint, and, so help me heaven, I will never stand between you and Him, no matter what the struggle may cost me. O holy little head! glorified by the waters of baptism, with this kiss I offer you to God, that he may fill you with pure thoughts always tending to heaven. Sweet little mouth, speak comfort to every living creature. Sweetest eyes, look heavenward; and when you turn to earth, may you see it strewn with roses as it has been to me. Tender, pure feet, may you never be stained with the world's clay; walk firmly, bravely, steadfastly, where the Infant Jesus trod before you--yes, sweet, though it should be on thorns, my tender, precious one. And O little lovely hands! work for God, work for his poor and suffering ones, work for neglected altars. O God! O God! it is too sweet, too sublime, the possession of this soul which I am to train for thee. Make me as unflinching as Queen Blanche, steadfast as St. Monica, wise as St. Paula. May my child and I revere each other, remembering the Child Jesus and his Mother! When I stand at thy judgment-seat, dear Lord, may this plead for me, that never by example or omission have I caused my child to desist from following thee."

Turning her head upon the pillow, Mary saw her husband standing by the bedside, looking at her and the child. His eyes were full of tears as he stooped and kissed her.

"This is the happiest day of my life," she said as he sat down by her; "the day of our baby's christening. And do you know that I chose for it the anniversary of the day when I found out that you loved me."

"Tell me about that day."

"Won't nurse be here in a minute?"

"No; I have come in her stead, as bearer of apologies. Giovanni has done or left undone something with regard to your dinner, I believe. And now for the day when you made that wonderful discovery. Come, I should think the time for blushing about it was over."

"It was the day before I was to leave Boston," Mary explained. "Almost every thing in the house had been sold at auction. Oh! it was so dismal! Only my room and the library were comparatively untouched. I was sitting on my trunk, counting the money that was left after poor papa's debts were paid."

"How much was there?"

"Just ten dollars. Enough to pay my fare to Drewsville and leave me within a few dollars of absolute dependence. I hated the idea of going to live with my Aunt Jane. But that was not what I was thinking of, nor my poverty, even while I counted my money."

"What were you thinking of, dear?"

Her cheek flushed brightly. "I had never loved any one before, you know, Nicholas," she said apologetically. "I did not know what it was, or perhaps I could have helped it. I knew there was a reason why it was agony for me to leave Boston, and I did not dare to try to find out what the reason was. I knew there was a pain within me harder to bear than the grief for my father's death, but that I must not even think of it. But oh! when they told me that you were in the library waiting to see me, then I knew what the pain was, then I knew what the agony was. Do you wonder that I chose the anniversary of that day? That day when we stood together in the old house beside the empty fireplace, and you asked me to leave solitude and dependence and homesickness, and be your wife."

"Has it been all you thought it would be?"

"All, and more than all," she answered simply. And in his heart he protested that she should never be less happy in her love. As he left her with the nurse, his heart was full of wonder that so pure and true a creature had been intrusted to his keeping. Outside the door a note was handed to him, one of Mrs. Holston's perfumed, rose-colored billets, and he stepped back into his wife's room to read it.

"What is the matter?" she asked, seeing a look of annoyance or perplexity on his face. He handed her the note, and she read:

"DEAR NICHOLAS: We are going to Torcello to-morrow, and must
have you with us to expound the mysteries of the old church, the
arabesques, etc. We leave at ten, and shall be gone all day. Don't
say no to yours very faithfully,

F. R. H.

"P.S.--My sister says, 'Oh! yes. We must have him; he is so
_gemüthlich_.'"

The reason for a refusal was simple enough. His going would leave his wife for a whole day to Debby's tender but garrulous mercies; but this was not for her to see or say. An undefined distrust of Lady Sackvil, which she believed to be quite groundless made her urge his acceptance of the invitation. He went to Torcello, and all day long, in and out of measure with the oars, these words rung in his ears:

"All too good
For human nature's daily food."

It is a bad sign when one feels out of harmony with one's best influences.

Mrs. Holston required her husband's attendance, and Captain Vane must do the honors of the island to her sister. He was a man of artistic perceptions and of accurate knowledge; and Lady Sackvil's capacities were of precisely the kind to draw these out. Here was the great danger. Mary, though intelligent and sympathetic, could never be any thing more than a good listener; Amelia aroused every faculty within him to full life. The day at Torcello did more harm than many months could undo.

TO BE CONTINUED.

IN MEMORIAM OF THE REV. FRANCIS A. BAKER.

WRITTEN ON ALL SAINTS' DAY, 1869.

All Saints' to-day! To-morrow is All Souls':
To-morrow, blessed soul, I pray for thee.
To-day, O sainted spirit! pray for me.
One day--what years one day of life controls,
My round eternity on that day rolls--
Retired, we prayed together; my bent knee
Before thee; thy hand raised to make me free,
While, as through Moses, mercy wrath withholds.
And well I mind me of succeeding joy,
How thanks more rapt for God's dear love arose.
When my full heart did thy blest words employ:
And after, though unmarked the bashful boy,
How sweet thy chance inquiry thrilled me, heaven knows!
How close the bond there formed, heaven will disclose.

CHURCH MUSIC.

II.

"I do not believe in giving the best music to the devil," said a friend while holding with us an amicable discussion on the subject which forms the heading of this paper.

"You quote John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist sect," we replied. "Nevertheless, we agree both with him and you. We do not believe in giving any music whatever to the devil."

"I would say," returned our friend, "that the best music ought to be given to God."

"Most assuredly," said we; "and the poorest too. Why not?"

"I mean," our friend explained, "that in the public worship of God the best music should be used that can be obtained."

"You reëcho our own sentiments," we rejoined. "But will you please to define what you call _the best_?"

"Oh! nothing simpler," replied our friend. "That music is the best which is the most agreeable."

We murmured something about "_de gustibus_," when our friend prudently added, "to the occasion."

"And the occasion is--" we suggested.

"Is divine worship," continued our friend. "Where the soul is instructed by the divine truths the holy offices of the Church impart, and inspired with sentiments now of prayer, now of praise, now of holy joy, now of penitence, now of lamentation, and so forth."

"Well said!" we exclaimed. "You have again spoken our own mind. But have you ever heard such music?"

"I have heard some very charming music in my time," answered our friend cautiously.

"Exactly answering to your definition?"

"Well, no. I cannot say _exactly_ answering to my definition."

"We have been more fortunate than you," said we. "It has been our lot to hear very charming music, exactly answering to your definition."

"Where?" demanded our friend earnestly.

"In many churches and monasteries of Europe," we replied.

"What was its style and character?" inquired our friend.

"The Gregorian Chant, pure and undefiled."

Our friend honorably closed the discussion by reiterating his definition and regretting his lack of experience.

* * * * *

In a former article we endeavored to bring before our readers such proofs of the statement we made, that the use of modern music in the ritual service of the Church was both improper and illegal, as we thought a very slight examination of the subject would suggest. These proofs were, however, not requisite, since it is a patent fact that such music is an innovation on the universal traditionary use of the Gregorian chant; an innovation, to judge from the countries where it has crept in and supplanted the old ritual song, that is the result of a religious taste vitiated by the influences of a spirit which, if not precisely Protestant, is, to say the least, worldly, anti-Christian, and therefore anti-Catholic. If there be any, then, who prefer music of this character to the authorized chant, it is necessary for them to show good reasons _for the liberty they take in using it_, or why an immediate return should not be made to what is, at any rate, lawful and ordained, if it be nothing more. In England, where the ancient Catholic spirit is again reviving, and a marked return to the old paths is observable both in and out of the Church, the subject of church music has received an attention and awakened an amount of investigation second only to that devoted to the dogmas of faith. And we may here remark that this recent study of the church chant is in no sense conducted in the spirit of simple antiquarian research--as it were, to bring to light buried fragments of a beautiful or useful institute characteristic of a former age, for the admiration of the curious--but in the express intent of reinstating the ancient church song to its rightful place in the holy sanctuaries of sacrifice and prayer.

That the Church has no notion of giving up the Gregorian chant, but, on the contrary, that she earnestly desires its complete restoration in those countries where it has fallen into disuse, we hold to be entirely beyond question. Whatever concessions to the poverty of resources, or to peculiar local circumstances, for the occasional use of modern music, the hierarchy may think it prudent to make, is a subject for the consideration of those who believe themselves to be in such a position as to need these concessions. What is certain is, that the Church by the mouth of her pastors has directed the universal use of the Gregorian chant, and as universally condemned the use of our modern music.

Knowing, however, that the healing of every sore takes time as well as medicine, we admit that in many places this much-needed reformation cannot be instantaneously made. With us in the United States, the clergy, as a body, have but a slight acquaintance, either theoretically or practically, with the church chant; and knowing, as we do from experience, what false and barbaric executions of it they have been condemned to suffer in the course of their ecclesiastical education, and from which they have been naturally led to form their judgments concerning it, we do not wonder at the wide-spread prejudice that exists against its use, and the opposition to its introduction that is met with, even at their hands. That our laity have never given expression to their own sentiments in its regard is simply due to their complete ignorance and total inexperience of the whole subject. All fears, therefore, of offending the people or of alienating them from the solemn offices of the Church, on account of the banishment of florid music and the introduction of plain chant, are, as yet, groundless.

Esteeming it as a matter of great moment, and urged by oft-repeated solicitations on the part of their hierarchy, the clergy in England and Ireland have, for several years past, been devoting their energies to carry out the wishes of their superiors, and devise some means to ameliorate the condition of church music, acknowledged to have, with them as with us, gradually degenerated since the Reformation of the sixteenth century.

As far back as 1849, an effort was made, with this end in view, to supply proper singers in the churches, at the head of which was the Cardinal, then Bishop Wiseman. The vicars-apostolic in synod had decreed, "Foemineæ voces ne audiantur in choro," hoping to gradually induce a return to the established discipline of the Church. The present Archbishop of Westminster, referring to this in a letter, says,

"Unfortunately, this decree has not been carried out. I can only
suppose that the causes which brought in this deviation have
prevailed to obtain its toleration until such time as we shall be
able to do better. A sudden order to remove women singers, while
as yet we have no boys trained to take their places, would be
inconvenient and inconsiderate. I have not thought it right to
issue any such order. But all that I can effect by the strongest
expression of desire and persuasion I shall endeavor to effect."

In a circular letter to his clergy, dated May 8th, 1869, the archbishop prohibits the employment of women singers in all choirs to be newly formed.

We can well understand the end had in view by this order for the exclusion of female voices _from the choir_. To us it is, in effect, an order for the exclusion of all figured music, and the restoration of plain chant. The archbishop, however, seems to allow the possibility of the composition of "masses which, while they admit the full compass and perfection of modern musical science, exclude all that is secular or theatrical, by retaining the gravity and majesty of our ecclesiastical and sacred tradition." This is, however, only a concession; for he had just before written, "When once tried by experience, the grave, sweet, majestic, intellectual _music of the Church_ will win all who are now in favor of a less ecclesiastical style."

The hope expressed by Archbishop Manning, that masses would be composed for male voices only, and of sufficiently grave character to suit the services of the Church, was suggested, doubtless, by some quite respectable essays of this kind made on the Continent, and offered to the Congress of Malines at its late sessions, as well by the labors in this direction of the Rev. Canon Oakeley, to whom his letter on this subject was addressed. This reverend gentleman has been the rector of a London parish for eighteen years, and has never admitted a female into his choir, although the perfection of the musical department in his church has received many high encomiums. He supplies the soprano parts by boys' voices, to the cultivation of which he has devoted a great deal of energy. The character of his church music is as follows: At High Mass, whatever is _de rigueur_ for the Sunday or festival is sung strictly according to the Roman Gradual, save those parts which may be ranged under the title of Ordinarium Missæ, namely, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. These portions are not as a rule chosen from the Gregorian chant, but are _morceaux_ of selected modern music. His Vesper and Compline service is wholly Gregorian, as given in the Vesperale Romanum. We believe that, encouraged by his success in this partial reformation, many priests in Great Britain have followed his example. We shall have occasion to speak of this matter and give in another paper some extracts of the canon's opinion of the feasibility and effectiveness of boy singers.

Taking the hint thrown out by his grace the Archbishop of Westminster, several skilled musicians have already published a number of masses, revised and corrected to suit the late "Instructions" given by the cardinal vicar to Roman composers and singers, with a view to restrain the attempts made even there to introduce modern music. We do not pretend to criticise these simplified masses in this place. All we desire to do is to call attention to the significance of the movement toward musical reformation. Whether second-rate musical compositions are better than the authorized chant, we think is questionable.

The original masses, composed in the same intent, which competed for the handsome prizes offered by the late Catholic Congress of Malines, possess much artistic merit; perhaps a little too much, if intended for popular use.

Wholly converted, as we are, in heart and mind, to the exclusive use of plain chant, we nevertheless commend these well-meant efforts. They are efforts in the right direction, and similar ones, we doubt not, must be made with us before the ancient discipline of the Church concerning her chant will prevail.