Chapter V: Reminiscences of the Past (5)

There is another class of our population, not strictly a pauper class, but which is raised but little above it. The persons who compose it earn a scanty living by fitful labor, and are exposed to all the temptations which beset extreme poverty. They easily fall into vicious habits, squander their earnings, and their children are left without care, to subsist as best they may. These children, equally with those of the class still lower, are in need of every thing which a judicious charity can supply. The section of the city where more of these little outcasts, and their wretched parents, may be found than in any other of equal dimensions, is that bounded by Bank street on the south, Sixteenth or Seventeenth street on the north, the Ninth avenue and the river. Out of this section St. Bernard's parish has been carved, and it was here that, a few months ago, the small beginning was made from which the new organization has sprung. On the seventh day of September last, a few ladies met at St. Bernard's church, to open an industrial school for girls. Notice that the school would be commenced on that day had been given in the church on the Sunday preceding. No children came at the hour named, and the ladies, with one of the priests of the parish, went out into the lanes and alleys to compel them to come in. About twenty-five girls were gathered in the large upper room in the church edifice during the forenoon. They presented a pitiful spectacle of extreme poverty and degradation. They were clad in filthy rags, and, young as they were, the faces of many of them bore traces of a course of vice and crime in which sad progress had already been made. It was clear from this first day's experiment that there was an instant and urgent duty to be performed, in reaching and reclaiming children of this class. The ladies, therefore, resolved to hold the school on Tuesday and Friday mornings in each week, from ten to twelve o'clock. The large room in the church was placed at their disposal. On the second school-day, fifty girls attended, and the number soon reached one hundred. The character and magnitude of the work which these ladies had, almost unconsciously, undertaken began to dawn on them. The school had filled up with hardly any effort on their part. The children were in need of every thing. They must be clothed and fed. They must be gently led away from evil practices and taught the very alphabet of new and better lives. A few dollars were collected at once and materials for clothing purchased. Garments were cut out, and the children soon taught to assist in making them, and the articles were distributed as they were needed. This has been continued until every child who has attended the school has received a complete outfit, including a new pair of shoes. But the girls came hungry as well, and must be fed. At the close of the school on each day, a substantial meal was served; and on Thanksgiving and Christmas days, generous dinners were given to two hundred children, for which turkeys in abundance were provided. The first step in any efficient charitable work among the destitute is, of course, to provide for physical wants. We must begin with the body. "First the natural," and "afterward that which is spiritual," is the divine order. The soul is to be reached through the body, or rather, so closely united are the two, that they are both acted upon by the care bestowed upon either. The normal cravings of the body, when unsatisfied, become diseased and the fruitful source of vicious indulgences. The hunger which demands but cannot get proper food, will demand and get sustenance hurtful to body and soul. The little child who leaves a miserable shelter in the morning, cold and hungry, will spend the first penny bestowed in charity by a careless giver at a rum-hole made familiar by errands for liquor at the command of a drunken parent, where even a penny will buy what, for the moment, answers for both food and clothing. Little girls of twelve, and even younger, have come to this school in the morning whose only breakfast has been the liquor which they could buy for a cent, and who had already contracted intemperate habits.

With children of this class, then, the first step toward moral improvement is the self-respect which they put on with their first warm, clean dress, and the satisfaction which follows a meal of wholesome food. This first step, however, leads to the next, direct religious instruction; the "line upon line and precept upon precept" by which the child's soul is to be instructed and purified.

It is hardly necessary to say that these children are virtually heathen in the midst of a Christian civilization. They have received little or no religious instruction. They are the offspring of parents who, for the most part, are Catholics in name, but who have long since lost grace and abandoned the sacraments of the church. And yet they readily take religious impressions, and are not without those first Christian ideas which expand rapidly with patient teaching. It has been the practice at the school to spend a little time each morning in instructing the girls in the catechism; in repeating appropriate verses of Scripture, in committing simple hymns to memory and singing them in unison. The ladies who opened, and have conducted this school for the past six months, have not been discouraged because they have not already achieved magnificent results. They knew when they began that the salvation of these children, for this world and the next, was to be "worked out;" that moral improvement comes by "little and little;" that no sincere charitable effort is ever lost; that nothing can be lost but opportunities; and that even a cup of cold water given to one of these little ones will not fail, either of its reward or of its effect for good. So far from being discouraged, what has already been accomplished with limited means and in a casual way has far exceeded their expectations. The work has been growing under their hands from the start. The little company of ragged girls, who came reluctantly the first morning, has expanded into a school numbering one hundred and fifty, who are eager for the instruction offered to them. They manifest the utmost affection for their teachers. They show signs of improvement in every way. Many of them give unmistakable evidence of having commenced a new and useful career. One girl who was found wandering in the street on the first day was asked by one of the ladies if she ever went to mass; she said "No." "Why not?" said the lady. She replied with a bold stare, "Oh! I am a _bad_ girl." On being told by the lady that she did not believe she was so bad, the girl replied, her eyes filling with tears, "Well, I _would_ go if I had any thing to wear but these rags; but we've been awfully knocked about since father died, and mother says we're all going to hell, soul and body." This Maggie is now one of the best and brightest in the school, and an efficient assistant of the teachers. Others are emulating her example. In fact, so much has already been done, that the ladies who commenced are irresistibly committed to a more efficient prosecution of the work. They see in it possibilities for good which do not allow them to stop short of the more thorough organization which they have attempted in forming "The Association for Befriending Children." They feel that a necessity is laid upon them to make secure the good already attained, and that they would be recreant to their duty as Christians if they did not go on to the more perfect results plainly within their reach. The necessity of such an organized charity has been shown in the rough outline which has been given above of the destitution of these children. Notwithstanding all the charitable associations for children, under the names of "Industrial Schools," "Protectories," "Orphan Asylums," etc., there are at least twenty thousand children in the city outside of any such institution, whose necessities are even greater than those within them. In its circular the association says that it

"does not intend to relieve parents from their just
responsibility for their children, simply because they are
poor. The possession of children, and the duty of maintaining
them, are conducive among many parents, contending with extreme
poverty, to habits of industry and sobriety. But any one
who knows even a little of the very degraded portion of our
population, is aware that there are multitudes of children in
this city utterly abandoned by their parents, and exposed to
every form of vice, or rather who are actually being trained,
by precept and example, in habits of debauchery. Such children
the association desires to bring under the influence of daily
instruction, to minister to their daily necessities, to
educate them for useful employments."

Such, then, in brief, are the aims of this association.

The first step toward realizing them has already been taken. Aided by the liberality of a few gentlemen, the association has rented the building No. 316 West Fourteenth street, which is admirably adapted to the purposes of a home for those who may be received as inmates, for a longer or shorter term, combined with a day-school for others. There is room for fifty of these inmates, and for at least three hundred more day-scholars. The house is under the charge of a matron and assistants in every way fitted to care for, control, and teach the children, who find their highest reward in this opportunity to rescue and elevate these little girls. The new and most important feature of this charity is that it combines an asylum, a protectory, an industrial school, and common school in one institution. It encircles in its arms those who are so low that they are overlooked by all other charities. It finds, after all, that "the ninety and nine" have gone astray, and it seeks to bring them back to the fold. It completely removes from evil influences those who are most exposed, and shelters and fosters them till new habits are formed, and seeds of good are implanted and germinate. It gives to all food and clothing. It instructs all in the rudiments of knowledge. It gives the girls such industrial instruction as will enable them to enter on the various employments which society offers to their sex. Such a home-school the association plants in the midst of these utterly necessitous children. There should be one or more of them established in every parish in the city; and if the Christian liberality of Catholics be not found wanting, such a result will be accomplished. At present the association must be sustained in the immediate attempt which has been made. Responsibilities have been assumed which must be met by generous donations. Surely the ladies who are willing to give their best energies to this glorious work, as well as their portion of the money needed, will not appeal to the public in vain.

FRA BERNARDINO OCHINO.

The blessed Bernardine, the glory of Sienna and of the Franciscan order, had a sad counterpart in him who forms the subject of this sketch. Fra Bernardino Ochino, one of the conspicuous scandals of the sixteenth century, was a son of Domenico Tommassino, of Sienna. He received his surname from the Via del Oca, which contained the residence of his obscure parents. Having taken the habit of the Observantines, he left his convent to study medicine at Perugia. He there formed a friendship with Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Clement VII. Returning to his order, he received successive places of dignity; but whether dissatisfied with these, or really seeking a more perfect life, he again left it to embrace the austere rule of the Capuchins, then for the first time established in Sienna. Few details remain of this portion of the life of Ochino, and historians differ in explaining the motives of this change. Whatever they might have been, it is certain that his fame as a preacher was acquired shortly after his entrance in the Capuchin order. His reputation grew daily. The most exacting critics gave him unqualified praise. Sadoletus ranked him with the greatest orators of antiquity. The Bishop of Fossombrone addressed him the most flattering sonnets, and Charles V. was heard to exclaim that the spirit and unction of Fra Bernardino could melt the very stones. The over-fastidious Bembo had said of the preachers of his day, "Why should I go to listen to their sermons? One hears nothing but the subtle doctor disputing with the angelic, and, finally, Aristotle called in to settle the question."

Nevertheless, Ochino stood even the test of Bembo's criticism. For the latter wrote from Venice to the Marquis of Pescara, April 23d, 1536:

"I send inclosed to your illustrious lordship the letters
of our reverend Fra Bernardino, whom I have heard with
inexpressible pleasure during the too short period of this
Lent."

To the parish priest he wrote:

"Do not neglect to force Fra Bernardino to eat meat. For,
unless he suspend his Lenten abstinence, he cannot resist the
fatigue of preaching."

This last remark of Bembo reveals to us something of Ochino's way of life at that time. He had, indeed, adopted those severe austerities which, according to the unanimous doctrine of the saints, though often the means of advancement in the supernatural life, yet, when undertaken or persevered in from an ill-advised spirit, generally lead to ruin, and become at once food and clothing for the most diabolical pride. The famous preacher travelled always on foot, bare-headed and unshod. He slept at night beneath the trees that grew on the wayside, or, if under the roof of some noble host, on the pavement of the guest's chamber. As he begged from door to door, in the crowded cities, the throng knelt, awed by his wan features and fiery eye, and the thin emaciated frame, which seemed barely to support the coarse brown habit of his order. At the tables of the nobility he did not vary the least detail of his penitential abstinence, eating from only one dish, and never even tasting wine.

When he preached, says a contemporary, the churches could not contain his hearers, and a great crowd followed him wherever he went. Nor was his preaching without fruit. The infamous Aretino either underwent or feigned a conversion, and wrote to the pope, at the instance of Ochino, begging pardon for his libels against the papal court. In the same letter, dated from Venice, April 21st, 1537, he says that Bembo "has sent a thousand souls to paradise by transferring from Sienna to this Catholic city Fra Bernardino, a religious as humble as he is virtuous."

While at Venice, Ochino procured a convent and installed there a community of Capuchins. In June, 1539, by invitation of the municipal assembly, he preached at Sienna. This he did again in the following year, with great success and fruit. It was on this occasion that he introduced the devotion of the Quarant' Ore. It appears, however, that instead of the blessed sacrament, the usual object of this devotion, Fra Bernardino exposed for veneration the crucifix. In a letter to the confraternity of St. Dominic, preparatory to the introduction of this pious practice, he writes:

"You are asked in charity to join with many others in
accomplishing two very pious and holy works--the first of
which consists in inviting and encouraging one another, with
a holy love, to do penance with a true contrition, a sincere
confession, and entire satisfaction, joining spiritual and
corporal alms with fasts strictly kept and holy prayer, in
order to meditate on the transformation of the soul in Christ,
her well beloved; and, humbly prostrate at his sacred feet, to
expose to him our particular spiritual wants and those of all
our brethren, encouraging and aiding our soul, by good will,
to clothe herself with those divine virtues, faith, hope, and
charity."

The remainder of the letter sets forth in detail the arrangements for carrying out the public ceremonies of the Quarant Ore, all breathing the fragrance of Catholic piety. Yet it is more than probable that the first plague-spots had already become visible in his character. Boverio, the Capuchin annalist, still praises him, thus sketches this portion of our history, and says that Fra Bernardino was

"endowed with sagacity, good manners, and practical skill in
management gained by a long and varied experience, gifted with
a penetration and generosity of soul fit for the greatest
enterprises, of an exterior so modest and retiring that every
one recognized in him a rare stamp of virtue and sanctity; an
admirable preacher, whose eloquence won souls, so that, by
unanimous approval, in the third chapter of the entire order,
he was elected general, in 1538. He governed the order with
such good sense, prudence, and zeal for the observance of the
rules, himself giving an example of every virtue, that his
brethren applauded the choice of such a man. He visited all the
convents, nearly always on foot. His exhortations to poverty,
to observance of the rule, and other virtues were made with
such admirable eloquence that the reputation which he had
acquired both at home and abroad could not but increase; he
enjoyed such great confidence with kings and princes that they
employed him in the most difficult undertakings; the pope held
him in the highest esteem; so much so, that it was necessary to
have recourse to the pope in order to obtain him for preacher;
the largest churches did not suffice to hold the throng of his
hearers, so that temporary porticoes had to be erected, many
even raising the tiles of the roof and climbing into the church
to hear him. While preaching at Perugia, in 1540, he settled
the most angry feuds. At Naples, having recommended from the
pulpit some pious work, the alms collected amounted to five
thousand sequins."

To this we may add that when three years, his term of office, had expired, Fra Bernardino was reëlected. Yet, despite all this fair appearance, things had not gone well in his heart. His passions, restrained from sensual outbreaks and left more free in other things, developed pride, and confidence in his own judgment, to the contempt of others. The desire of gaining souls yielded slowly and almost imperceptibly to the ambition of the orator. Moreover, he drew from the works of Luther that fatal tendency to find in Holy Writ a response to the dictates of private passion and prejudice. It is said that, while preaching at Naples, in the church of San Giovanni Maggiore, he had been incited by Valdes to insult Paul III., because the holy father had not decorated him with the purple. Certain it seems to be, that Valdes was intimately associated with the friar, and helped to fill his heart with ambition and his head with the doctrines of the Swiss and German heretics. The viceroy, Pedro de Toledo, being informed that he was teaching the Lutheran novelties, complained to the ecclesiastical authorities; but Ochino either fairly stood the test of inquiry, or concealed his real opinions under astute forms of speech. The latter is probably the case; for the Dominican Caracciolo, in his MS. life of Paul IV., says,

"Since he"--Ochino--"concealed within himself the venom of his
doctrines under the appearance of an austere life, (a fair
cloak,) and because he pretended to thunder against vice, the
number of persons was small who could detect the cunning of the
fox. Nevertheless there were some who discovered it; and among
the first, as I have learned from my elders, could be cited our
venerable fathers Don Gaetano and Don Giovanni; but they saw it
more clearly in 1539, when Ochino, preaching in the pulpit of
the cathedral, uttered many propositions against purgatory,
indulgences, and the ecclesiastical laws about fasting, etc.;
and, what is worse, the impious monk was accustomed to present
as an interrogation that which St. Augustine has said in a
simply negative form, as in the following passage: _Qui fecit
te sine te, non salvabit te sine te?_--thus giving his audience
to understand that faith alone suffices, and that God saves us
without any good works on our part to coöperate with his; just
the contrary of that which St. Augustine really teaches."

Caracciolo further narrates that systematic means were secretly taken to spread these doctrines of Ochino, and that clandestine meetings of those infected contributed to this end. Yet Fra Bernardino still kept his fair fame, and maintained perfectly his Catholic exterior; for the ensuing year witnessed the public devotions at Sienna to which we have before alluded. It was at Venice, in 1541, that he was for a time suspended from preaching. This was not due to any plain and palpable errors of doctrine. For, although accusations against him had been made by several persons, he had in a private interview relieved the nuncio's present suspicions, if not his forebodings of the future. The temporary prohibition to preach was caused by the distrust of the nuncio, which was greatly aggravated by an allusion on the part of Ochino to the arrest of Giulio Terenziano. The latter was a theologian of Milan, an avowed and contumacious preacher of heresy, whom the nuncio had silenced in the previous year. From the pulpit Ochino appealed to the Venetians against such an exercise of authority. He placed himself on the same footing with Terenziano, and cried, "What have we done, O Venetians? What plots have we arranged against you? O Bride and Queen of the Sea! if you cast into prison, if you send to the gallows, those who announce the truth to you, how shall that truth prevail?" Nevertheless, in three days the nuncio restored to him his faculties, owing to the pressure brought to bear by the friends and admirers of the monk.

After the close of Lent in 1542, Ochino gathered at Verona many of the Capuchins of the Venetian province, and taught them his errors with all that subtlety of argument and eloquence of persuasion which seems to have characterized both his private and public speaking.[43] He had now passed the zenith of his career and was fairly started on his downward course. The luxury which he had ordered Fra Angelo to use in rebuilding the convent at Sienna, was so openly against the letter and spirit of his rule that many devout persons looked for his speedy punishment. St. Cajetan Tiene had prevented him from preaching at Rome. Among the number of those greatly alarmed for his safety was Angela Negri de Gallarate, a friend of the Marquis del Vasto, the latter at this time an intimate friend and private correspondent of Ochino. This excellent lady, after hearing Fra Bernardino at Verona, where he commented on the epistles of St. Paul, predicted that he would fall into heresy. It soon became only too manifest. His disgust for prayer, his absence from the choir, his weariness in assisting at the sacred mysteries shocked his brethren, so long edified by his pious bearing and assiduity in these good works. Among others, Fra Agustino, of Sienna, gently reproved him, saying, "When you go to administer the sacrament without prayer, you remind me of a rider setting forth without stirrups; take care that you do not fall." Fra Bernardino, whose soul was withering for want of that celestial dew which falls only in the calm evening stillness of prayer, all worn and jaded as he was with earthly labors, and, alas! success, could only answer, that he did not cease praying who kept on doing good.

He was now engrossed with secular things, giving counsel in the affairs of princes; and so completely was his time occupied, that he requested the holy father to be relieved from the daily recitation of the divine office. At this same period he entered into friendly relations with the heretics, and eagerly read all their works.

The pope still had hopes of holding him back, invited him to Rome, and even dreamed of giving him the purple. This brought affairs to a crisis. Before accepting or rejecting the invitation, Ochino took council with his friends. Giberti, the holy Bishop of Verona, sent him to consult Cardinal Contarini, at Bologna. The latter was too ill to hold a long conversation, and Ochino left him immediately to seek Peter Martyr Vermigli, at Florence. This visit to Peter Martyr, who, already rotten to the core, was shortly to fall, convinced the Capuchin that his doctrines could not stand the censorship of Rome, and that, if he went there, he must be prepared to renounce them. This conviction and the urgent advice of Peter Martyr decided him to leave Italy immediately. On the 22d of August, 1542, he writes to the Marquis of Pescara, detailing his anxieties and the causes of his flight.

"I have learned," he writes, "that Farnese says I have been
summoned to Rome for having preached heresy and scandalous
things. The Theatine Puccio, and others whom I do not wish to
name, have spoken so as to cause people to think that, if I had
crucified Christ, they could not have made more noise about it."

Further on he shows consciousness of the sensation he is creating. "These men," he says, "tremble before a poor monk."

Flight being determined upon, he took refuge, first, with Catharine Cibo, Duchess of Camerino. Thence he fled to Ferrara.

Here he received letters of introduction to the principal heretics of Geneva. On his way across the Apennines he had taken with him Fra Mariano, a saintly lay-brother, of whose dove-like tenderness and simplicity sweet anecdotes are told, recalling the early memories of Assisi. Mariano, under the impression that they were going to preach to the heretics, agreed to lay aside the religious habit; but, on learning the fraud which Ochino had practised on him, sought to recall his unfortunate superior. The haughty orator was proof to the tears and entreaties of his humble brother, and the latter finally turned back alone, carrying the seal of the order, which the apostate had kept to the last.

Arrived at Geneva, Ochino was welcomed by the heretics as a great accession.

Calvin wrote to Melancthon, "We have here Fra Bernardino, the famous orator, whose departure has stirred Italy as it has never been moved before." Prayers for him, indeed, were offered throughout Italy. Among the Capuchins--who, it is said, came near being suppressed--great pains were taken to eradicate the evil germs sown by Ochino; and Fra Francesco, vicar of Milan, renouncing his heresies, expiated them by a severe penance. Cardinal Caraffa, who, a few years later became Paul IV., publicly lamented the apostasy of Ochino in most eloquent terms, contrasting the austere Capuchin with the unfrocked preacher, and calling on the erring son to return to his mother. He promised in this case, moreover, kind treatment from the pope, who had always shown great favor to Ochino.

In a letter from Geneva, in April, 1543, the apostate sought to justify his career and to explain his later course of action. This letter, addressed to Muzio, begins with that allusion to youthful enthusiasm, which has since become the threadbare apology of those who fling away the cowl. He describes his life among the Observantines in the words of the apostle, "I made great progress in the Jews' religion, above many of my equals in my own nation, being more zealous for the traditions of my fathers." (Galat. i. 14.) But very soon he was enlightened by the Lord to the following effect: "That it is Christ who has satisfied for the sins of his elect, and has merited for them paradise, and that he alone is their justification; that the vows pronounced in the religious orders are not only invalid but impious; and that the Roman Church, although of an exterior splendid to carnal eyes, is none the less an abomination in the sight of God." This, he would have us believe, took place before his entering the Capuchin order. This doctrine of the vanity of good works, of the sinfulness of monastic vows, his excuse for abandoning both, was rooted in his mind during those years of rugged asceticism, while he still preached prayer and penance, as we have seen at Sienna! A liar or a hypocrite? Perhaps neither. For the remainder of the letter is full of that fanatical declamation against Antichrist and the harlot of Babylon, and all that railing cant in which weak brains and over-excited imaginations have, ever since, found expression and relief. The magistrates of Sienna also received a pointed letter, in which Ochino set forth his doctrine on justification. The letter is in very much the same style as that to Muzio.

Poor, despised Carlstadt, when he saw his hopeful pupil upset (as he then supposed) the pope and cast the church to the winds, thought that surely Luther would not assume to himself infallible authority and supreme jurisdiction. In this he was mistaken, as he found to his cost. For men who aid in rebellion against lawful authority too often find themselves a prey to usurpers; and the Bible, torn from the anointed hands of its only rightful interpreter, became simply a slave; its sacred text an exordium for every fanatic and an accomplice to every scoundrel. The position which Ochino took was the same as that of all other heresiarchs, from him whom St. Polycarp addressed as "the first born of Satan," down to the very latest. He constantly applied to himself the language which only one apostle dared to use. Although he did not profess to have seen the third heaven, yet he did profess to be thoroughly competent to teach and determine the Christian revelation. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that he soon found himself in bad odor at Geneva, where an authority, equally respectable, and likewise acknowledging the right of private examination, nevertheless burned alive poor wretches who were so unfortunate as not to agree with it. After founding the Italian Church at Geneva, and there publishing several works, so outrageous in their character as to draw condemnation even from some Protestant historians, Ochino became embroiled with the Calvinists. The natural result of these quarrels was his excommunication and banishment by the latter. He fled with a woman to whom he had been sacrilegiously married. At Basle, he published his sermons. Thence he was called to preach at Augsburg, where he enjoyed great popularity and a salary, until the invasion of Charles V. compelled him to flee with Stancari of Mantua. Having met, at Strasburg, his old friend, Peter Martyr, who, meanwhile, had openly apostatized, he journeyed with him to England, and there preached to the Italian refugees. On the death of Edward VI., he returned to Switzerland, and was chosen pastor of the exiles of Locarno, who had obtained from the Senate the use of a church and their native language. But as at Geneva, so at Zurich, the right of private judgment involved not merely the right to believe as one might list, but also the right, if one were able, to force every body else to believe in like manner. Ochino was accused of anti-trinitarianism and also of sanctioning polygamy, and obliged to swear that he would live and die in the faith of--what? who? The Catholic Church, whose demand on the human intellect is at once a command to believe and a reason for believing, backed by the pledged word of Jesus Christ? No! Ochino had rejected her authority. He now swore to live and die in the teaching of Zwinglius. This oath, however, seemed to lose its force in a few days. For he shortly attacked what he had sworn to defend, and, in his _Laberinto_, denied almost every article of the Christian faith. Banished from Switzerland, he fled, in the dead of winter, with his four children, into Poland, where he soon afterward earned universal contempt, by publicly countenancing King Sigismund in a projected bigamy. Bullinger, whom Ochino had called the "pope of Zurich," says of him, "He is far advanced in the science of perdition, and an ungrateful wretch toward the senate and the ministers, full of malice and impiety." Beza also characterizes him as "_Bernardinum Ochinum, monachum magni nominis apud Italos, et auctorem ordinis Capucinorum, qui in fine se ostendit esse iniquum hypocritam_. Bernardino Ochino, a monk of great name among the Italians, founder of the Capuchins," (this a mistake,) "who finally showed himself to be a wicked hypocrite."

From these words of Beza, Boverio has sought to infer that the apostate finally repented and was restored to the Catholic communion. He has also introduced testimony to prove that Ochino was poniarded at Geneva, after professing the Catholic faith and confessing to a priest. But historians seem to favor the tradition recorded by Graziani, who says, "_Ochinus Polonia excessit, ac omnibus extorris ac profugus, cum in vili Moraviæ pago a vetere amico hospitio esset acceptus ibi senio fessus cum uxore ac duabus filiabus, filioque una peste interiit_. Ochino died in Poland a universal outcast, after having accepted the hospitality of an old friend, in an obscure village of Moravia. Here, worn out with age, he perished, together with his wife, two daughters and son, in one pestilence."

To rehearse the various opinions of Ochino would be a difficult and thankless task. Like most of the reformers, he taught the total depravity of human nature and human reason, and, in order to establish the motives of faith, appealed to private illumination, assuming for the disciple what he denied to the teacher.

Besides this miserable travesty of the Christian distinction between the natural and supernatural orders, there is in his doctrine scarcely one point of resemblance to the Catholic faith. Having cast away the ballast that had steadied his earlier years, the power which had carried him on such a brilliant course proved his ruin. His ignominious death did not excite enough pity to cause itself to be remembered. He disappeared a lonely and abandoned wreck.

FOOTNOTE:

[43] Among those who yielded to his fatal and seductive influence was Fra Bartolomeo Coni, guardian of the monastery of Verona, who afterward became a heretic.

OLD BOOKS.

I.

Let the world run after new books; commend me to the enduring fascination of old ones--not old only in authorship, but old in imprint, in form and comeliness, or perhaps _un_comeliness!

What value is there in gilded edges and Turkey leather, which must be handled so gingerly, compared with the sturdy calfskin, ribbed and bevelled, which has outlived generations of human calves? and what is tinted hot-press to the page grown yellow in the atmosphere of centuries? The quaintly spelt word, the ornamented initial which begins each chapter, and the more elaborate ornamentation of dedication and title-page--all so poor now as works of art, yet in their day masterpieces of handicraft--there is a spell in them! till from that olden time

... "a thousand fantasies,
Begin to throng into my memory."

_Comus._

A heavy quarto lies here bearing impress on its exterior, _Workes of Lvcivs Annævs Seneca. Both Morall and Naturall. Translated by Thomas Lodge, D. of Physicke_; and within is a long Latin dedication to the _Illvstrissimo D. Thomæ Egertono, Domino de Ellismere, etc., etc. London, 1614_.

Not so very old either; but within that time what changes have passed over the world! How often has ambition or popular discontent, or perchance honest resistance, revolutionized nations, and swept away the boundaries of kingdoms! How often some power, seemingly inadequate to the effect, has changed the currents of human thought, and exalted or degraded not only individuals, but aggregate masses of humanity, as effectively as the earthquake convulses, and then depresses or upheaves the visible surface on which they dwell!

What changes also in the especial surroundings of this individual volume! What improvements in the petty affairs of domestic life, the little arrangements of the household; in the union of science and mechanical art to produce necessaries and superfluities; in refinements of sentiment and manners; in a better relation between rulers and the ruled; and, to sum up all, in a more just appreciation by each individual of what he owes to himself and to his fellow-creatures!

All through the wide extent of this past time history and legends stretch back their ramifications, like paths through some vast extended landscape. In some places clear and well defined, and easily followed; again, leading through tangle and uncertainty, and at more than one point brought to an abrupt termination, beyond which all vestige of a way is lost. We tread here in thought a space of time which has been passed over by millions and millions--that countless throng of the nameless whose steps have left no foot-print--and where to a few only has been accorded the privilege of marking, by deed or word, the spot whereon they stood. It is the buried city of the immaterial world--where is uncovered to us noble deeds, and lofty aspirations, and holy purposes; and in darker spots are wrecks of hopes, and hearts, and immortal souls, to which all the wealth gone down in ocean counts as nothing.

To retrace again and again these paths, so often indistinct and so often awakening an interest they fail to gratify; to remove with patient toil here the doubt and there the untruth which encumber them, and anon to clear away some obstacle and open to sight a new vista, has been at all periods the occupation and the richest intellectual enjoyment of some of the most gifted minds, who accepted their ample reward in the simple success of their labors. Even the more humble wanderer through the mazy labyrinth, whose limited scope it is only to gaze and wonder, finds a charm in such investigations widely different from any other mental pursuit. It is the charm of a common humanity--the recognition and acknowledgment of a chain, invisible and intangible, and in a measure undefinable, but too strong ever to be broken, which unites each to the other the whole human family. It is not religion--neither philosophy; for in many a land, despite the barbarous precepts of a so-called religion, and where philosophy was never heard of, it vibrates in the savage heart to the necessities of the stranger. Its first link is riveted in our common origin; and its mysterious existence widely and wisely asserts itself in the interest with which, for human creatures, is ever invested the affairs of human kind.

Furthermore, it is this great social bond which attracts us to the personages of fiction, and always precisely in proportion as they assimilate to real life; and since even the most successful creations of fancy can hardly fail to fall short, in some point, of realities, so truth itself, properly presented, will always possess attractions beyond any fiction.

But it is not in battle-fields and conquests, nor yet in the impassioned eloquence or astute wisdom of senates and council chambers, that we hold closest communion with the buried of long ago; it is in that homely every-day life which we are ourselves living; in the little pleasures, regrets, and loves; in the annoyances, successes, and failures; in the very mistakes and imprudences which made up the _ego ipse_ so like our own that we find companionship. How they return to life again in all these things! and we enter into their most private chambers--the doors are all open now--and read their most private thoughts. We know them better than did their contemporaries; and they suffer a wrong sometimes in this ruthless unveiling which our heart resents. Now, it is proper that truth should ultimately, even on earth, prevail; and that the traitorous soldier and unscrupulous courtier, after having lived their lives out in ill-gotten wealth and undeserved honor, should wear in history their true colors; that even a woman's misdeeds, when they touch public interest, should be brought to meet a public verdict; but then these little private endurances--the life-long struggle with poverty here, the unavailing concessions to unreasonable tyranny by home and hearth there, the martyrdom of life, as it may be called, which they so carefully guarded from sight--how it is all paraded now to the world, and passed from book to book!

And yet it takes all this to make up the entire truthful portrait. Indeed, so very far does it go to modify our opinions of them, that the judgments formed without it must be oftentimes very erroneous.

II.

Had our old book but a tongue, what tales it might tell of the life after life which has passed before it!

Since the date of its printing, 1614, twelve sovereigns have worn the English crown; for in that year James I. was upon the throne of his mother's enemy. Eleven years before, when a messenger was sent to him in Scotland with an announcement of the death of Elizabeth and his own accession, the tidings found him so poor that he was obliged to apply to the English secretary, Cecil, for money to pay his expenses to London. His wants multiplied rapidly. From his first stopping-place he sent a courier forward to demand the crown jewels for his wife; and a little further on another messenger was dispatched for coaches, horses, litters, and, "above all, a chamberlain much needed."

This journey of James was a very unique affair. Honors were scattered so lavishingly that knighthood was to be had for the asking; and a little pasquinade appeared in print, advertising itself--_A Help to Memorie in learning Names of English Nobility_.

"At Newark-upon-Trent (says Stow) was taken a cut-purse, a
pilfering thief all gentleman outside, with good stores of
gold about him, who confessed he had followed the court from
Berwick; and the king, hearing of this gallant, did direct a
warrant to have him hanged immediately."[44]

And so began at the very outset the spirit which said afterward, "Do I make the lords? Do I make the bishops? Then God's grace--I make what likes me of law and gospel!" So outspoke the king; who is described by those who went to meet him as "ill-favored in appearance, slovenly, dirty, and wearing always a wadded dagger-proof doublet."

These eleven years of his reign had been fruitful in troubles of all kinds. The death of his son Henry, and the alleged, but never proven schemes of Lady Arabella Stuart to gain the throne, made a portion of them; and all were aggravated by that spectre, conjured up by his reckless extravagance, and which haunted him to the last moment of his life--an empty purse. When his daughter Elizabeth was married to the Palatine of Bohemia, the fireworks alone of London cost seven thousand pounds; and when my Lord Hargrave accompanied the bride to the Rhine and brought back a bill of thirty thousand pounds, the king, having neither gold nor silver to pay with, gave him a grant _to coin base farthings in brass_.

King James, in a book which he wrote on _Sports_, advocates all active exercises, and one of his own greatest pleasures had always been hunting. When so engaged, every thing else was forgotten, and hence arose a grievance by no means trifling to his English subjects--he and his courtiers, his companions in the chase, not unfrequently quartered themselves in some district where game abounded, until the provisions of the locality were absolutely exhausted. There is a story told of him that, while hunting at Royston, his favorite hound Jowler was missed one day, and the next he reappeared with a paper fastened on his neck, upon which was written--

"Good Mister Jowler, I pray you speak to the king, for he hears
you every day, (and he doth not so us,) that it will please his
majesty to go back to London, for all our provision is spent."
... "however, (says the courtier,) from Royston he means to go
to New-Market, and from thence to Thetford."[45]

How much further he might have been led to hunt, is unknown; for there Lord Hay, who loved hounds, and horns also, promised no more to importune his majesty, and his more sedate counsellors succeeded in getting him back to business. In the mean time, in the more weighty matters of politics and religion, where the ambitious nobles of two countries intrigued and plotted for power over a monarch easily imposed upon, discord and contention reigned, until in 1614 they seem to have reached their height.

And so stood the world, old book! into which thou wert launched. Guy Fawkes and his crew had been swept from the earth; but in the Tower of London this year lay a more noble company, accused of the same crime--treason. There was Earl Grey, and Lord Cobham, and Sir Walter Raleigh, besides some others. These three had been tried, convicted, sentenced to die, and taken to the scaffold; and at the last moment reprieved and committed to the Tower. At the last moment it was, and it came near being a minute too late; for James wrote his order in such haste that he forgot to sign it, and the messenger was called back; then when this one man on horseback reached the place of execution, the great crowd gathered there prevented his being seen or heard for a long time, and the axe was just ready for the fatal stroke. On what a chance hung three lives! But what availed their added years? Earl Grey is dying now in that Tower; and Lord Cobham, never very strong in intellect, has grown weaker still in captivity; and so, after a little time, he is suffered to wander out; and he goes to a miserable hovel in the Minories, and climbs a ladder to a loft, and lies down on straw--to die of very destitution.

Three years hence King James will want money even more than he does now; and he will call Sir Walter Raleigh from his cell, and place him at the head of a fleet; for Sir Walter--who has been to the new world in years long gone by--insinuates that _there_ gold is to be had for the digging. He fails to get it, though; and on his return to England, he is seized, and, with only the shadow of a just trial, executed; partly on the old sentence, but more to please the Spaniards, whom he came in conflict with abroad.

Another life is this year pining itself away in that Tower--the Lady Arabella Stuart; a woman descended from royalty, Henry VII., in the same degree as King James himself, and therefore to be feared. Many years ago charges of conspiracy against the government were brought against her, and she was placed in confinement. She contrived to escape, and with her husband, Lord Seymour, attempted to reach France. By some mischance they were separated in their flight; he reached the coast of Flanders in safety, but the little vessel in which she had embarked was pursued, overtaken, and the unhappy fugitive compelled to return. Love and hope bore her up bravely for a time; but she is sinking at last, and it is recorded that September 27th, 1615, she died there.

High above all this misery merry notes were heard; for in 1614, was a grand marriage and banqueting such as London had not seen--no, not even at the bridal of the king's own daughter. The story is sadder than any fiction, a "sad o'er true tale"--as follows:

Some years before this, the Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, beautiful and accomplished, though still a mere child of thirteen years, was married to the Earl of Essex, a few years older. The ceremony was merely to secure the alliance; for the young countess returned to her home and her embroidery, and the earl to the university. Four years after, he went to claim the bride whose image had doubtless oftentimes stolen between him and his books; "but (says the chronicle) his joy was overcast: he found her cold and contemptuous, and altogether averse to him."

A change had come over the lady. She had met her evil genius in the unprincipled favorite of King James, the Lord Rochester, who on his side was vain of his conquest. At this point Lady Frances is an object of pity; for she was the victim of a usage of courts which makes and mars the most solemn of all contracts without the least regard to individual bias; a usage which is responsible for some of the blackest crimes of history; but, O woman! from thy first steps downward how rapid is the descent; wandering thoughts, folly--crime! Such was the story of Lady Frances. Pity changes to horror at her subsequent career, and the unscrupulous vindictiveness which she displayed toward all those who strove to arrest her course. Most conspicuous among such was Sir Thomas Overbury, the bosom friend of Lord Rochester himself. He had more than once aided their meetings, and--so said gossip--had even penned the epistles which won her; but he became alarmed at the length to which their ventures were carried; and when the next step proposed was a divorce from the Earl Essex, he gave Rochester much good advice and solemn warning that he withdrew his aid in future. This was reported to the countess, and his doom was sealed. She failed in several attempts to involve him in individual disputes, whereby, as she hoped, a duel might have closed his life; she failed in having him sent in a public capacity abroad; she succeeded, however, in having him implicated in disloyalty and committed to the Tower, when shortly after he suddenly died. A divorce was now sought on some trifling pretext; and as no remonstrance was offered by Earl Essex, it was soon obtained; and in order that she might not lose rank, King James created Rochester Earl of Somerset.

And now, with nothing to mar their felicities, London was ablaze with bonfires over their marriage celebration.

"The glorious days were seconded by as glorious nights, when
masques and dances had a continual motion; the king affecting
such high-flying festivities and banqueting as might wrap
up his spirit and keep it from earthly things.... Upon the
Wednesday following was another grand masque, got up by the
gentlemen of Prince Charles's household; and this so far
surpassed the other, that the king caused it to be acted again.
Then, January 4th, the bride and bridegroom with a crowd of
nobles were invited to a treat in the city, where my lord mayor
and aldermen entertained them in scarlet gowns. After supper
was a wassail, a play, and a dance.... At three in the morning,
they returned to Whitehall. On Twelfth-day the gentlemen of
Grey's Inn invited the bride and bridegroom to masque." (Roger
Coke.)

A brilliant triumph, soon to meet with a dark reverse. Scarcely a year had passed, when a new candidate for the king's favor appeared in Villiers, afterward created Duke of Buckingham; and the weak monarch, readily attracted by a new face, was very soon anxious to rid himself of Somerset. Enemies of the still beautiful countess were not slow to avail themselves of the royal mood; nor was it difficult to find in her questionable career a pretext for suspicion. With consent of the king, they were conjointly accused of having caused the death of Sir Thomas Overbury by poison, and sent to the Tower. It is recorded that Earl Somerset was hunting with the king at Royston, and actually sitting beside him when the warrant was served; and when he appealed to his royal master to forbid the indignity, King James only answered,

"An' ye _must_ go, mon; for if Coke sent for _me_, I must go."

After the examination of some three hundred witnesses, Sir Edward Coke reported that the countess had used unlawful arts to separate herself from Earl Essex, and to win the love of Rochester, and that they had together plotted the death of Sir Thomas Overbury. Some of the inferior actors in the tragedy were condemned and executed; among them Mrs. Turner, who had in former years been governess to the countess, and who had once persuaded her to consult a wizard or fortune-teller--from whence came the charge of "unlawful arts." The unhappy principals were repeatedly questioned, and exhorted to confess; but with no avail. The countess at times made some admissions, but none which implicated the earl or seriously convicted herself; and we are fain to believe they arose rather from her unmitigated misery, and the harassing importunities of her judges, than from conscious guilt. They were at length restored to liberty--at least to the liberty of banishment from court; liberty to return to their country-seat and remain there; and there, a writer of that day tells us, "they lived in the same house many years without exchanging a word with each other."