Chapter XIII (2)

"In the mean time, listen further," added Paulus. "What would the divine being who is thus expected, were he in this room, deem of this transaction before our eyes? You have heard the steward's account of the horse Sejanus; you have heard Claudius's allusion to Vedius Pollio's lampreys. Now, you are a wise, witty, and eloquent person, and you can correct me if I say wrong--in what is the man whom the horse Sejanus, for instance, throws and tears to pieces better than the horse? In what is the man whom the lampreys devour better than the lampreys? I say the horse and the lampreys are better than the man, if mere power be a thing more to be esteemed and honored than what is right, and just, and honorable, and estimable; for the lampreys and the horse possess the greater might, most indubitably, in the cases mentioned. The elephant is stronger than we, the hound is swifter, the raven lives much longer. Either the mere power to do a thing deserves my esteem more than any other object or consideration, and therefore whoever can trample down his fellow-men, and gratify all his brutal instincts at the expense of their lives, their safety, their happiness, their reasonable free-will, is more estimable than he who is just, truthful, kind, generous, and noble--either, I say, the man who is strong against his fellows is more good than he who is good--and the words justice, right, gentleness, humanity, honor, keeping faith in promises, pity for poor little women who are oppressed and brutally used, virtue, and such noises made by my tongue against my palate, express nothing which can be understood, nothing in which any mind can find any meaning--either, I again say, the lampreys and the Sejan horse are more to be esteemed, and valued, and loved than my sister and my mother, or it is not true that the mere power of Tiberius, combined with the brutish inclination to do a thing, terminates the question whether it is right to do it. The moment I like to do any thing, if I can do it, is it necessarily right that I should do it? The moment two persons have a difference, is it right for either of them, and equally right for each of them, to murder the other? But if it was the intention of this great being, this god who is expected to appear immediately among us, that we should be dependent upon each other, each doing for the other what the other cannot do for himself--and I am sure of it--then it will please him, Dion, if I consider what is helpful and just and generous. Or am I wrong? Is virtue a dream? Are contrary things in the same cases equally good? Are contrary things in the same cases equally beautiful?

"Are my brutish instincts or inclinations, which vary as things vary round me, my only law? Is each of us intended by this great being to be at war with all the rest? to regard the positive power each of us may have as our sole restriction? to destroy and injure all the others by whom we could be served, if we would for our parts also serve and help? And must women, for instance, being the weaker, be brutally used? Tell me, Dion, will it please this great being if I try to render service to my fellow-men, who must have the same natural claims to his consideration as I have? or does he wish me to hurt them and them to hurt me, according as we may each have the power? Is there nothing higher in a man than his external power of action? Answer--you are a philosopher."

The countenance of Dion blazed for one instant, as if the light of a passing torch had been shed upon a mirror, and then resumed the less vivid effulgence of that permanent intellectual beauty which was its ordinary characteristic. He replied,

"All the philosophy that ever was taught or thought could not lead you to truer conclusions."

"Then," returned Paulus, "come back with me to the other end of the room."

"Benigna," said Paulus, "your kindness to my sister and mother, and your natural probity, had something, I think, to do with beginning this trouble in which you and your intended find yourselves. As you were not unmindful of us, it is but right that we should not be unmindful of you. Tiberius permits any friend of Claudius the slave to be a substitute in breaking the horse Sejanus; and Claudius is to have his freedom and fifty thousand sesterces, and to marry you, whom I see to be a good, honorable-hearted girl, all the same as if he had complied with the terms in person. This was thoughtful and, I suppose, generous of Tiberius Cæsar."

"Would any of these youths who hear me," added he turning round, "like to break the fine-looking steed at the games, before all the people, instead of Claudius?"

No one replied.

"It will be a distinguished act," persisted he.

Dead silence still.

"Then I will do it myself," he said. "Magister, make a formal note of the matter in your tablets; and be so good as to inform the Cæsar of it, in order that I, on my side, may learn place and time."

The magister, with a low bow and a face expressing the most generous and boundless astonishment, grasped his prettily-mounted stylus, and taking the pengillarin from his girdle drew a long breath, and requested Paulus to favor him with his name and address.

"I am," replied he, "the knight Paulus Lepidus Æmilius, son of one of the victors at Philippi, nephew of the ex-triumvir. I reside at Crispus's inn, and am at present a promised prisoner of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune."

While the steward wrote in his tablets, Benigna uttered one or two little gasps and fairly fainted away. The slave Claudius saved her from falling, and he now placed her on a bench against the wall.

Paulus, intimating that he would like to return to Crispus's hostelry before dark, and having learnt, in reply to a question, that Claudius could procure from Thellus, the gladiator, a vehicle for Benigna, and that he would request Thellus himself to convey her home, turned to take leave of Dion.

The Athenian, however, said he would show him the way out of the palace. They went silent and thoughtful. In the impluvium they found a little crowd surrounding Augustus, who had returned from his promenade to the camp, and who was throwing crumbs of bread among some pigeons near the central fountain.

Two ladies were of the company, one of whom, in advanced age, was evidently the Empress Livia, but for whose influence and management Germanicus--certainly not her ungrateful son Tiberius--would have been the next master of the world. The other lady, who was past her prime, had still abundant vestiges of a beauty which must once have been very remarkable.

She was painted red and plastered white, with immense care, to look some fifteen years younger than she truly was.

Her countenance betrayed to a good physiognomist, at first glance, the horrible life she had led. Paulus, whose experience was little, and, although she fastened upon him a flaming glance, which she intended to be full both of condescension and fascination, thought that he had seldom seen a woman either more repulsive or more insanely haughty.

It was Julia, the new and abhorred wife of Tiberius. Not long before, at the request of Augustus, who was always planning to dispose of Julia, Tiberius had given up for her the only woman he ever loved, Agrippina Marcella.

Tiberius so loved her, if it deserves to be termed love, that when, being thus deserted, she took another husband, (Asinius Gallus,) he, mad with jealousy, threw him into a dungeon and kept him there till he died, as Suetonius and Tacitus record.

"Ah my Athenian!" said the emperor to Dionysius, placing a hand affectionately on the youth's shoulder, "could you satisfy me that those splendid theories of yours are more than dreams and fancies; that really there is one eternal, all-wise, and omnipotent spirit, who made this universal frame of things, and governs it as an absolute monarch; that he made us; that in us he made a spirit, a soul, a ghost, a thinking principle, which will never die; and that I, who am going down to the tomb, am only to change my mode of existence; that I shall not wholly descend thither; that an urn will not contain every thing which will remain of me; and all this in a very different sense from that which poor Horace meant. But why speak of it? Has not Plato failed?"

"Plato," replied Dionysius, "neither quite failed nor is quite understood, illustrious emperor. But you were saying, if I could satisfy you. Be pleased to finish. Grant I could satisfy you; what then?"

"Satisfy me that one eternal sovereign of the universe lives, and that what now thinks in me," returned the emperor, while the courtly group made a circle, "will never cease to think; that what is now conscious within me will be conscious for ever; that now, in more than a mere poetical allusion to my fame--and on the word of Augustus Cæsar, there is no reasonable request within the entire reach and compass of my power which I will refuse you."

"And what sort of a hearing, emperor," inquired Dion, "and under what circumstances, and upon what conditions, will you be pleased to give me? and when? and where?"

"In this palace, before the games end," replied Augustus. "The hearing shall form an evening's entertainment for our whole circle and attendance. You shall sustain your doctrines, while our celebrated advocates and orators, Antistius Labio and Domitius Afer, who disagree with them, I know, shall oppose you. Let me see. The Cæsars, Tiberius and Germanicus, with their ladies, and our host Mamurra and his family, and all our circle, shall be present. Titus Livy, Lucius Varius, Velleius Paterculus, and the greatest orator Rome ever produced, except Cicero" (the old man 'mentioned with watery eyes the incomparable genius to whose murder he had consented in his youth)--"I mean Quintus Haterius--shall form a judicial jury. Haterius shall pronounce the sentence. Dare you face such an ordeal?"

"I will accept it," replied the Athenian, blushing; "I will accept the ordeal with fear. Daring is contrasted with trembling; but, although my daring trembles, yet my trepidation dares."

"Oh! how enchanting!" cried the august Julia; "we shall hear the eloquent Athenian." And she clasped her hands and sent an unutterable glance toward Dion, who saw it not.

"It will be very interesting indeed," added the aged empress.

"Better for once than even the mighty comedy of the palace," said Lucius Varius.

"Better than the gladiators," added Velleius Paterculus.

"An idea worthy of the time of Virgil and Mæcenas," said Titus Livy.

"Worthy of Augustus's time," subjoined Tiberius, who was leaning against one of the pillars which supported the gallery of the impluvium.

"Worthy of his dotage," muttered Cneius Piso to Tiberius, with a scowl.

"Worthy," said a handsome man, with wavy, crisp, brown locks, in the early prime of life, whose military tunic was crossed with the broad purple stripe, "worthy of Athens in the days of Plato; and as Demosthenes addressed the people after listening to the reporter of Socrates, so Haterius shall tell this company what he thinks, after listening to Dion."

"Haterius is getting old," said Haterius.

"You may live," said Augustus, "to be a hundred, but you will never be old; just as our Cneius Piso here never was young."

There was a laugh. The Haterius in question was he to whom Ben Jonson compared Shakespeare as a talker, and of whom, then past eighty, Augustus used, Seneca tells us, to say that his careering thoughts resembled a chariot whose rapidity threatened to set its own wheels on fire, and that he required to be held by a drag--"_sufflaminandus_."

Dion now bowed and was moving away, followed modestly by Paulus, who desired to draw no attention to himself, when the steward, or _magister_, glided quickly up the colonnade of the impluvium to the pillar against which Tiberius was leaning, whispered something, handed his tablets to the Cæsar, and, in answer to a glance of surprised inquiry, looked toward and indicated Paulus.

Tiberius immediately passed Paulus and Dion, saying in an under tone, "Follow me," and led the way into a small empty chamber, of which, when the two youths had entered it, he closed the door.

"You are going to break the horse called Sejanus?" said he, turning round and standing.

Paulus assented.

"Then you must do so on the fourth day from this, in the review-ground of the camp, an hour before sunset."

Paulus bowed.

"Have you any thing to inquire, to request, or to observe?" pursued Tiberius.

"Am I to ride the horse muzzled, sir?" asked the youth.

"The muzzle will be snatched off by a contrivance of the cavasson, after you mount him," replied Tiberius, looking steadfastly at the other.

"Then, instead of a whip, may I carry any instrument I please in my hands?" demanded Paulus; "my sword, for example?"

"Yes," answered Tiberius; "but you must not injure the horse; he is of matchless price."

"But" persisted Paulus, "your justice, illustrious Cæsar, will make a distinction between any injury which the steed may do to himself and any which I may do to him. For instance, he might dash himself against some obstruction, or into the river Liris, and in trying to clamber out again might be harmed. Such injuries would be inflicted by himself, not by me. The hurt I shall do him either by spear, or by sword, or by any other instrument, will not be intended to touch his life or his health, nor likely to do so. If I do make any scars, I _think_ the hair will grow again."

"He will not be so scrupulous on his side," said Tiberius; "however, your distinction is reasonable. Have you any thing else to ask?"

"Certainly I have," said Paulus; "it is that no one shall give him any food or drink, except what I myself shall bring, for twenty-four hours before I ride him."

Tiberius uttered a disagreeable laugh.

"Am I to let you starve Sejanus?" he asked.

"That is not my meaning, sir," answered Paulus quietly. "I will give him as much corn and water as he will take. I wish to prevent him from having any other kind of provender. There are articles which will make a horse drunk or mad."

"I agree," replied Tiberius, "that he shall have only corn and water, provided he have as much of both as my own servant wishes; nor have I any objection that the servant should receive these articles from you alone, or from your groom."

Paulus inclined his head and kept silence.

"Nothing more to stipulate, I perceive," observed Tiberius.

The youth admitted that he had not; and, seeing the Cæsar move, he opened the door, held it open while the great man passed through, and then taking a friendly leave of Dion, hastily quitted the palace.

Tiberius, meeting Sejanus, took him aside and said,

"We have got rid of the brother! You must have every thing ready to convey her to Rome the fifth day from this. And now, enough of private matters. I am sick of them. The affairs of the empire await me!"

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTE:

[160] Suetonius, Pliny, and Seneca all attest the currency of this and similar jokes against Tiberius during his very lifetime.

THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCHES.

BY W. MAZIERE BRADY, D.D.

It was proposed, in the first draught of Mr. Gladstone's bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, to erect some of the cathedrals into national monuments, and to set apart toward the cost of their future repair a portion of the fund derived from the sale of church temporalities. This clause, however, was set aside; but even if it had been retained, it would not have given satisfaction. If it be the sincere desire of Mr. Gladstone to do justice to Catholic Ireland, and to conciliate her people, but one course remains open to him in regard to the ancient shrines of Catholic worship, namely, to restore them to their original owners. Many of these cathedrals and churches are altogether unsuited to the requirements of Protestant religious service. Some of them are too large to be maintained by the tiny congregations which occasionally visit them. Others require a costly annual outlay too great to be undertaken at the expense of the few families in whose neighborhood they lie. Would it not, then, manifestly tend to the benefit alike of Catholics and Protestants, that the latter, on terms advantageous to themselves, should yield to the former the possession of those buildings which Protestants do not require for _bona-fide_ ends, but which possess, in the eyes of Catholics, a peculiarly sacred, and, at the same time, a perfectly legitimate value?

Some ancient Catholic temple is perhaps situated in a district inhabited by twenty or thirty Protestants, and five thousand or ten thousand Catholics. The Protestants cannot fill a corner of the spacious fabric. They attach no value to it as the shrine of a venerated saint. Its very capabilities for an ornate and splendid Catholic ritual render it only the less fit for the simple requirements of Protestant worship. Protestants can gain nothing by retaining such a temple, save the privilege of keeping it as a trophy of a bygone and ill-omened ascendency. But if the British Parliament were to ordain that such temples should be purchased from Protestants, who scarcely require them, and given to Catholics to supply their evident wants, then a visible proof would at once be afforded to the Irish nation that disestablishment was no coldly conceived or niggardly administered instalment of justice, but a ready instrument for cordial reconciliation of creeds and nationalities.

It is ridiculous to urge as an objection, that Protestants in general attach a value, other than a pecuniary or political one, to the sites of the shrines of ancient Irish saints. Few Protestants have any veneration for St. Patrick, St. Brigid, or St. Nicholas. Not one Protestant in a thousand has so much as even heard of the names of St. Elbe, St. Aidan, St. Colman, or St. Molana. Irish Protestant bishops often deny the sacredness of holy places, and, when consecrating a site for the erection of a church, take the opportunity to explain such consecration to be a mere form of law. Some Protestant bishops entertained objections to the selection of any titles for churches, save those of Christ and his apostles. They thought it allowable to celebrate divine service in a building called Christ church, or St. Peter's, or St. John's, but conceived it to be scarcely tolerable and semi-popish to dedicate an edifice for worship under the invocation of St. George, St. Patrick, or St. Michael. In some dioceses in Ireland, during the last century, the consecration of Protestant churches was on several occasions designedly omitted in deference to such scruples of conscience. But the very names of the ancient Irish saints are precious household words with Catholics, who dearly prize the holy shrine, the sacred well, the hallowed ruins consecrated by the lingering memories of the virgins, confessors, and martyrs whose lives were devoted to the conversion of Ireland. The Catholic peasant, as he sorrowfully gazes upon the desecrated remains of some fallen abbey, or upon the mouldering walls of a roofless oratory, often breathes a hopeless prayer that an unexpected turn of fortune would once again fill with robed monks the arched and pillared cloisters, and replace the solemn solitary hermit in his peaceful cell. The reconsecration of their sacred shrines and temples, long defaced and profaned by neglect, would realize one of the fondest dreams of Irishmen. Why do not British statesmen utilize, for the general benefit of their country, the pious sentiments which, in a religious point of view, they as Protestants may fail to appreciate, but which, in a political aspect, it seems a criminal blindness to disregard? The legislators who freely vote imperial funds to provide Catholic priests and altars for Catholic soldiers, sailors, convicts, and paupers, cannot possibly entertain religious scruples against applying a portion of the ancient Catholic endowments of Ireland towards the purpose of restoring to their original uses some of the sites and shrines whose traditions are still potent enough in Ireland to sway the national sympathies.

No injury can result to Protestantism from the adoption of a course which would not merely increase the pecuniary resources of their church, but also tend materially to promote peace and good-will between men of different creeds. There are many ancient churches in Ireland which could be specified as almost useless to Protestants, but yet most precious and valuable if placed in the hands of Catholics. Many of the old Irish cathedrals are entirely, and some are almost entirely deserted. Ardagh, founded by St. Patrick, was reckoned among "the most ancient cathedrals of Ireland." Its first bishop--St. Mell--was buried "in his own church of Ardagh," wherein worship a few Protestants who care but little either for St. Mell or St. Patrick. The entire Protestant population of Ardagh parish is less than one hundred and fifty, while the Catholics number nearly two and a half thousands. There is but a scanty congregation of Protestants at Lismore, where St. Carthage, or at Leighlin, where St. Laserian was interred. At Howth, near Dublin, are the ruins--still capable of restoration--of a beautiful abbey and college. The college is occupied by poor tenants. The abbey is roofless, standing in a graveyard, choked with weeds and filth, of which the Protestant incumbent of the parish is custodian. St. Canice--the patron saint of Kilkenny--was buried, toward the end of the sixth century, at Aghadoe. "Aghadoe"--so wrote the Rev. M. Kelly, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Maynooth, in his _Calendar of Irish Saints_--"at present is a ruin, its walls nearly perfect, but, like too many similar edifices in Ireland, all profaned by sickening desecration. Around it still bloom in perennial verdure its far-famed pastures, in a plain naturally rich, and improved by the monastic culture of a thousand years. The buildings are now used as ox-pens which were once the favorite home of the pilgrim and stranger." There are a score of other ruined temples like Aghadoe, which in their present condition are a disgrace to civilization; and yet are possessed of traditions which render them sacred in the eyes of Catholics, who would gladly rescue them from further decay and restore them to their ancient use.

Every tourist in Connemara has doubtless visited the famous collegiate church of St. Nicholas, in Galway. It is a vast temple, capable of containing six or seven thousand worshippers. Its size, the style of its architecture, and its historical traditions combine to render it eminently suitable to be the cathedral church of the Catholic population of Galway. It anciently was, not precisely a cathedral, but the church of the Catholic warden--a dignitary who possessed episcopal jurisdiction, being only subject to the visitation of the Archbishop of Tuam. It is now the church of the Protestant warden, or minister, who performs divine service, according to the Anglican ritual, in a portion of the transept, for the benefit of those members of the Anglican Church who inhabit the immediate neighborhood. There is now no Protestant bishop resident in Galway, nor has any such functionary since the era of the Reformation made Galway his headquarters. So that this once splendid building is absolutely thrown away upon Protestants, being above ten times too large for a parochial church, and being utterly useless to them for a cathedral. The fabric of this grand relic from Catholicity has been allowed to fall into decay to such an extent that about five thousand pounds are now required to restore it or put it into permanent repair. It is unlikely that the Protestants of Galway will contribute this sum, or take steps to prevent this noble national monument from sinking, at no distant period, into hopeless ruin. The population of the entire county of Galway consisted, in 1861, of 261,951 Catholics and 8202 Anglicans, only a few hundred of the latter being residents in the town of Galway and its suburbs. The Catholic wardenship was changed into a bishopric by Pope Gregory XVI., in 1830, when Dr. French, who was then Bishop of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora, and also Warden of Galway, retired to this diocese. In the same year, Dr. Browne who was subsequently translated to Elphin, became the first Bishop of Galway. Neither Bishop Browne, nor his successor Bishop O'Donnell, nor Dr. McEvilly, who became Bishop of Galway in 1857, were able to provide a suitable cathedral for the Galway Catholics. The present pro-cathedral affords accommodation to about four thousand persons, and upon the occasion of missions is thronged to a dangerous excess. The Catholics of Galway would gladly avail themselves of any opportunity which would render it possible for them to obtain St. Nicholas, the church of their forefathers, for a cathedral. The restoration to Catholic purposes of that edifice, which is a world too wide for Protestant wants, would confer a singular benefit upon an immense number of Catholics, without inflicting the least injury upon Protestants. The present Anglican Warden of Galway is not young enough to enable him, by means of commutation under Mr. Gladstone's bill to do much toward providing an endowment for his successors. The payment of a few thousand pounds, out of the funds of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities, to the Galway Protestants, in compensation for the loss of a fabric which they find too large for use and too costly to repair, would enable them not only to obtain a more convenient place of worship than the corner of the spacious transept they now occupy, but also would help them to provide the nucleus of a local endowment for Protestant ministrations after the decease of the present warden.

The inhabitants of "the city of the tribes" entertain no higher veneration for the church of St. Nicholas than is felt by the men of Munster for the celebrated Rock of Cashel of the Kings. In ancient years the "Rock" was a natural fortress, standing high over the surrounding plain, and proudly overlooking the thronged city which lay beneath its shelter. Upon the elevated plateau which crowns the submit of the "Rock," now stand the ruins of the former cathedral, and other ecclesiastical buildings, including the famous chapel of King Cormac, all of which, to the infinite discredit of England, have long since been deliberately abandoned to decay. The Protestants of Cashel ceased, somewhat more than a century ago, to occupy the old Catholic cathedral as a place of worship. Their archbishop, an Englishman named Price, disliked the fatigue of ascending the gradual incline which leads to the "Rock," and removed his throne to the present cathedral, a barn-like edifice which stands on the level ground near to the episcopal palace. In 1838, Dr. Laurence, the last Protestant Archbishop of Cashel, died, and the see being reduced to a bishopric in union with three other dioceses, the Protestant bishop selected for his residence the city of Waterford in preference to Cashel. The beautiful cathedral, left roofless by Archbishop Price, and exposed since his time to the ravages of more than a hundred winters, is nevertheless still capable of restoration. The fabric, and the site whereon the cathedral and the other ruins stand, are at present vested partly in the Protestant dean and chapter, and partly in the Vicars Choral of Cashel. Upon the death of these officials, their rights will revert to the Commissioners of Church Temporalities. But these disestablished functionaries may perhaps find it to their personal advantage, as well as to that of their church, to make an earlier surrender of their territorial privileges. Whenever the Commissioners of Temporalities shall have become the owners of the Rock of Cashel, they will have to consider what they will do with it. They may determine to sell it, or else may transfer it as a burial-ground to the local poor-law guardians. Either alternative will be in the highest degree discreditable to British legislation. There is something atrocious in the idea of offering by public sale the temple whose almost every stone was marked by the pious workmen with the mystic tokens of their craft, and upon whose decoration kings were wont to lavish their choicest treasures to make it worthier for the worship of the Most High. It will be sacrilegious to submit to auction the soil wherein lies the mouldering dust of countless priests and prelates, chieftains and princes. On the other hand, it will be miserable and pitiable in the extreme to consign what may be termed the _Terra Sancta_ of ancient Ireland to the care of a pauper burial board. The zeal of rural guardians guided economically by the country squire, or his bailiff, would be worse even than the scornful vandalism of Archbishop Price. If the dead themselves could speak or feel, they would doubtless shudder in their tombs at the ring of the salesman's hammer, and protest with equal horror against the indignity of including the repair of their graves amongst the items of the county poor-rate. They would accept, in preference to such degradation, the rude guardianship of the elements. Nature, even when she destroys, is reverent, flinging a green pall of ivy around the tower which her disintegrating arms encircle, and spreading a rich carpet of moss over the dust of those whom she draws with the embrace of death to her bosom. The winds and waves, the floods and storms, may bring a more rapid dissolution upon deserted monuments of heroes, but at least they inflict no dishonor.

But why should the British Parliament suffer the national memorials of Ireland to perish without an effort to preserve them? It can be no gratification to the vanity of Great Britain thus to perpetuate, so long as a trace of the ruined temple or broken altar may be spared, the tokens of a policy able, indeed, to insult and to hinder, but powerless to supplant or destroy the faith of the Irish people. It cannot, alas! be denied that England seized by force upon that Catholic church of Cashel, banished its priests, and employed, for three centuries, its revenues to teach a hostile religion. That policy has been reversed. It would be a mode, no less honorable than wise, of confessing the folly and guilt of such a policy, were England to give back the ruins which have survived it, and allow the Catholic archbishop and clergy to restore and reconsecrate their ancient cathedral and celebrate again Catholic worship upon the Rock of Cashel.

Let us turn from Galway and Cashel to the metropolis of Ireland. It was felt, so far back as the reign of Elizabeth, that two Protestant cathedrals were too many for Dublin. "Here be in this little city"--so wrote the lord-deputy to Walsingham in 1584--"two great cathedral churches, richly endowed, and too near together for any good they do; the one of them, dedicated to St. Patrick, had in more superstitious reputation than the other, dedicated to the name of Christ, and for that respect only, though there were none other, fitter to be suppressed than continued."[161] And a few months later, the same chief governor of Ireland again reminded the queen's secretary of state of the uselessness of retaining St. Patrick's as a cathedral. "We have beside it," remarked Perrott, "in the heart of this city, Christ church, which is a sufficient cathedral, so as St. Patrick's is superfluous, except it be to maintain a few bad singers to satisfy the covetous humors of some, as much or more devoted to St. Patrick's name than to Christ's."[162] The rabid Puritanism of Lord-Deputy Perrott, who hoped that "Christ would devour St. Patrick and a number of his devoted followers too,"[163] was not utterly devoid of truth and common sense. The maintenance of the cathedral of St. Patrick has rather proved a hinderance than a benefit to Protestants. Its revenues have not been sufficient to keep up a separate choir of singers; for most of the St. Patrick's choirmen belong also to Christ church, and their efficiency is impaired by being divided between two cathedrals. But whatever may be the value of St. Patrick's as a place for the performance of church music, its inutility as a place for Protestant worship is notorious. Its situation is remote from the fashionable quarter of Dublin and from those streets which Protestants inhabit. Many Protestants flock to St. Patrick's to hear the choral music, or, as they sometimes profanely term it, "Paddy's Opera;" but very few, if any, attend that cathedral for the purposes of prayer or worship. In fact, St. Patrick's, in 1870, is what it was three hundred years ago, not only a superfluous cathedral, but one whose atmosphere is unsuited to the genius of Protestantism. There is no place in the Anglican ritual for the apostle of Ireland. His memory is not an object of religious veneration; nor was any day set apart for his honor by the compilers of the Protestant liturgy. His name, like that of any other saint, acts as a repellant, not as a stimulant, upon the devotion of Protestants. Sir Benjamin Guinness, who rescued from ruin the fabric of St. Patrick's, preferred to say his prayers and hear sermons elsewhere.

Now that disestablishment has come upon the Protestant church, the evil of having two cathedrals in Dublin appears greater than ever. How, possibly, can funds be provided by Protestants to maintain both churches, Christ church and St. Patrick's? The latter had nearly fallen to decay but for the munificence of an individual. The former is now in want of substantial repairs, absolutely necessary to preserve it from ruin. Yet it is clearly the pecuniary interest of Protestants to give up St. Patrick's rather than Christ church, because the money value of Christ church, such is its present condition, is insignificant; while that of St. Patrick's is considerable enough to defray the charge of restoring Christ church, and to leave over and above a wide margin of surplus, which the church body may employ as a Protestant endowment fund. The sum expended by the late Sir Benjamin Guinness on St. Patrick's is said to have been £100,000; and, according to a recently printed estimate of Mr. Street, a London architect of eminence, the sum of £8000 will be sufficient to rebuild one of the side aisles of Christ church, and put the rest of the building into a condition of permanent repair.

But there are other and more important considerations which make Christ church the more desirable cathedral for Protestants to retain. It is the old Chapel Royal of Dublin, the place where the deputies and chief governors were formerly sworn into office, and where the state sermons were preached before the lords and commons of the Irish parliament. The lord-lieutenant's pew is at present frequently attended by members of the viceregal staff and other government officials. The situation of Christ church in the immediate vicinity of the castle renders it suitable to be preserved as the state church in Dublin for the accommodation of royal visitors and Protestant viceroys. Christ church, moreover, is beyond question the chief cathedral of the Protestant archbishop and clergy of Dublin. The members of its chapter are few in number, consisting of a dean, archdeacon, treasurer, chancellor, and three prebendaries. The Protestant church body, if it determines upon supporting cathedral functionaries at all in Dublin, may find it practicable to do so with efficiency and some show of dignity in Christ church, without breaking up, or materially altering, the present constitution of the chapter. It is likely, moreover, that the Duke of Leinster, the head of the Protestant nobility of Ireland, who will receive a considerable sum of money under the church act, in compensation for the loss of his church patronage, will be glad to contribute toward the support of Christ church as the Protestant cathedral, especially as it is the ancient burial place of many of his ancestors, so famous in Irish annals under their historical title of Earls of Kildare.

To Catholics the gift of St. Patrick's would be precious, as the restoration to them of a cathedral which from its traditions has surpassing claims to their veneration. Their present pro-cathedral is regarded only as a temporary one, and possesses no historical memories to stir the feelings of its congregation. The constitution of the Catholic diocese of Dublin follows the model of St. Patrick's as far as regards the number and titles of the prebendaries; and little, if any, change would be necessary to render that cathedral fully answerable to the requirements of Catholic worship. And very glorious, truly, are the memories and traditions which cluster around the spot whereon St. Patrick himself erected a church, and hallowed it by his name. Near it was the fountain in whose waters the apostle baptized Alphin, the heathen king of Dublin. Usher, the learned Protestant antiquary and divine, tells us that he had seen this fountain; that it stood near the steeple; and that, a little before the year 1639, it was shut up and inclosed within a private house. The temple, built by Archbishop Comyn, on the site of the ancient church of Patrick, was styled by Sir James Ware "the noblest cathedral in the kingdom." It was dedicated to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Patrick. It was the burial-place of many Catholic prelates. In it were interred Fulk de Saunford and his brother John, and Alexander de Bicknor. Richard Talbot, brother to the famous earl, had his last resting-place before the high altar. Near the altar of St. Stephen lay Michael Tregury. Three other Catholic archbishops, namely, Walter Fitzsimons, William Rokeby, and Hugh Inge, were entombed in St. Patrick's in the early part of the sixteenth century--the last-named prelate dying in the year 1528. When the Reformation came, and when Henry VIII. attempted to force it upon Ireland against the will of the hierarchy and people, the cathedral of St. Patrick became exposed to the hostilities of the English despot and of Archbishop Browne, his agent. The new doctrines were urged in vain by that prelate, who is described by Ware as "the first of the clergy who embraced the Reformation in Ireland." The king's commission was as little respected as the homilies of Archbishop Browne, who advised the calling of a parliament to pass the supremacy by act, and wrote to Lord Cromwell, in 1638, complaining that "_the reliques and images of both his cathedrals took the common people from the true worship, and desiring a more explicit order for their removal_," and for the aid of the lord-deputy's troops in carrying out his unpopular designs. The clergy of St. Patrick's made so vigorous a stand against the reforming archbishop, that many of them were deprived of their preferments, and the cathedral itself was suppressed for nearly eight years, during Browne's incumbency. On Queen Mary's accession, St. Patrick's again resumed its Catholic splendor and dignity, but only to lose them once more when her successor, Elizabeth, thought it necessary for the security of her throne to remove utterly, if possible, the Catholic faith from her dominions. Thus the fortunes of St. Patrick's cathedral were, in a measure, identified with those of the Catholic religion in Ireland.

"The name of no apostle or evangelist," as was well remarked by Dr. Manning, the Archbishop of Westminster, in his sermon at Rome on the anniversary of St. Patrick, "carries with it a wider influence than that of the Apostle of Ireland, if we except only St. Peter, the prince of the apostles. No apostle or saint--Peter excepted--has so many millions of spiritual followers as Patrick. The Catholic hierarchy in England owes its origin to Patrick, through the Irish immigrants into Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, London, and other great manufacturing and commercial cities. The vast Catholic hierarchies in America, Australia, New Zealand, and other colonies of Great Britain, trace, in like manner, their spiritual lineage to Ireland and St. Patrick. Within the hall of the great Council of the Vatican St. Patrick counts more bishops for his children than any other saint, save Peter; for the prelates deriving their faith from Ireland are more numerous than those of any other nationality. And no apostle (Peter always excepted) has his anniversary celebrated in so many countries and with such demonstrations of joy as Patrick." Such indeed is the magic power, if the expression be permitted, which the very name of St. Patrick exercises over Irish Catholics in all parts of the world, that the restoration of St. Patrick's cathedral would be regarded by them as something far greater than the mere donation of a cathedral to the Dublin diocese. It would be received as a convincing sign that the demon of envenomed distrust has been exorcised, and that thenceforth English Protestants, as they have already long ceased to persecute Irish Catholicism by penal laws, would likewise abandon the indirect mode of persecution which consists in suspicion, falsification, and slander, in withholding cordiality, and in retaining, after the dog-in-the-manger fashion, what is useless to Protestants, for no apparent reason but to manifest a dislike to Catholics. It is with nations as with families or individuals. Two families, formerly at enmity and but lately reconciled, can hardly be said to enjoy a solid or thorough friendship so long as one of them causelessly keeps back the family pictures or sacred heirlooms of the other. France and England never could have entertained mutual sentiments of respect, if England had been so foolish or so malicious as to keep in St. Helena the body of Napoleon. The heirlooms whose restoration would have the happiest effect in bringing about amity between the English and Irish nations, are the ancient sacred places of Ireland.

FOOTNOTES:

[161] See _State Papers concerning the Irish Church in the Time of Queen Elizabeth_, etc. By W. Maziere Brady, D.D. London: Longmans. 1868. Page 90.

[162] Ibid. page 92.

[163] Ibid. page 91.

A LEGEND OF THE INFANT JESUS.[164]

In a small chapel, rich with carving quaint
Of mystic symbols and devices bold,
Where glowed the face of many a pictured saint
From windows high, in gorgeous drapery's fold,
And one large mellowed painting o'er the shrine
Showed in the arms of Mary--mother mild--
Down-looking with a tenderness divine
In his clear shining eyes, the Holy Child--

Two little brothers, orphans young and fair,
Who came in sacred lessons to be taught,
Waited, as every day they waited there,
Till Frey Bernardo came, his pupils sought,
And fed his Master's lambs. Most innocent
Of evil knowledge or of worldly lure
Those children were; from e'en the slightest taint
Had Jesu's blood their guileless souls kept pure!

A pious man that good Dominican,
Whose life with gentle charities was crowned;
His duties in the church as sacristan,
For hours in daily routine kept him bound,
While that young pair awaited his release
Seated upon the altar-steps, or spread
Thereon their morning meal, and ate in peace
And simple thankfulness their fruit and bread.

And often did their lifted glances meet
The Infant Jesu's eyes; and oft he smiled--
So thought the children; sympathy so sweet
Brought blessing to them from the Blessed Child!
Until one day when Frey Bernardo came,
The little ones ran forth; with clasping hold
Each seized his hand, and each with wild acclaim,
In eager words the tale of wonder told:

"O father, father!" both the children cried,
"The _caro_ Jesu! He has heard our prayer!
We prayed him to come down and sit beside
Us as we ate, and of our feast take share:
And he came down, and tasted of our bread,
And sat and smiled upon us, father dear!"
Pallid with strange amaze, Bernardo said,
"Grace beyond marvel! Hath the Lord been here?

"The heaven of heavens his dwelling--doth he deign
To visit little children? Favored ye
Beyond all those on earthly thrones who reign,
In having seen this strangest mystery!
O lambs of his dear flock! to-morrow pray
Jesu to come again to grace your board
And sup with you; and if he comes, then say,
'Bid us to thy own table, blessed Lord!'

"'Our master too!' do not forget to plead
For me, dear children! In humility
I will entreat him your meek prayer to heed,
That so his mercy may extend to me!"
Then, a hand laying on each lovely head,
Devoutly the old man the children blessed:
"Come early on the morrow morn," he said;
"To meet--if such his will--your heavenly Guest!"

To meet their pastor by the next noon ran
The youthful pair, their eyes with rapture bright;
"He came!" their happy lisping tongues began;
"He says we all shall sup with him to-night!
Thou too, dear father; for we could not come
Alone, without our faithful friend--we said;
Oh! be thou sure our pleadings were not dumb,
Till Jesu smiled consent, and bowed his head."

In thankful joy Bernardo prostrate fell,
And through the hours he lay entranced in prayer;
Until the solemn sound of vesper bell
Aroused him, breaking on the silent air.
Then rose he calm, and when the psalms were o'er
And in the aisles the chant had died away,
With soul still bowed his Master to adore,
Alone he watched the fast departing day.

Two silvery voices, calling through the gloom
With seraph sweetness, reached his listening ear;
And swiftly passing 'neath the lofty dome,
Soon side by side he and his children dear
Entered the ancient chapel consecrate
By grace mysterious. Kneeling at the shrine,
Before which robed in sacerdotal state,
That morning he had blessed the bread and wine,

Bernardo prayed. And then the chosen three
Partook the sacred hosts the priest had blessed,
Viaticum for those so soon to be
Borne to the country of eternal rest;
Bidden that night to sup with Christ! in faith
Waiting for him, their Lord beloved, to come
And lead them upward from this land of death
To live for ever in his Father's home!

In that same chapel, kneeling in their place,
All were found dead; their hands still clasped in prayer;
Their eyes uplifted to the Saviour's face,
The hallowed peace of heaven abiding there!
While thousands came that wondrous scene to view,
And hear the story of the chosen three;
Thence gathering the lesson deep and true--
It is the crown of life with Christ to be.

FOOTNOTE:

[164] Frey Luis de Sonsa, in the _History of the Dominican Order in Portugal_, relates this legend. The legend of the Infant Saviour coming to play with a child has been embodied in the poetry of many languages, especially the German.

PHASES OF ENGLISH PROTESTANTISM.

A man with the peculiar turn of Dr. Temple[165] for finding results of the past in the present, might perhaps be inclined to trace the time-honored cry of the English Protestants, "No popery!" to the temper of Henry VIII., who retained the whole of the Catholic doctrine in his creed except the supremacy of the pope. A Catholic will with good reason see in it a testimony from enemies to the unity of the church through the successor of St. Peter. The historian will point to the fact that Protestants have from the beginning agreed only in one thing, hostility to the church. The _Protest_ of 1529, from which they take their name, is the first example we have in history of a thing with which modern times are familiar--an arrangement on the part of those who, as the phrase goes, "agree in essentials," to act together for a time in order to accomplish some common end. In a similar way we saw Dr. Pusey take part in 1865 with the liberals, in order to promote the election of Mr. Gladstone as member for the University of Oxford. He afterward coquetted unsuccessfully with the Methodists. And last year he offered to join with the evangelicals in a protest against the elevation of Dr. Temple to the see of Exeter. Yet whatever may have been the case in times past, we should have supposed that the futility of such coalitions in these days had been long sufficiently evident. Dr. Pusey, we imagine, now feels little pleasure at having Mr. Gladstone at the head of affairs; and if the evangelicals had accepted his offer instead of rejecting it, he would have found out in the end that he had paid much for their help, and got very little by it.

By looking back to the circumstances in which Protestantism began, we find an explanation of its marked features--the variety of its differences, the fact that these find some common ground in the cry, "No popery!" and the inevitably logical tendency of Protestantism to dissolve into latitudinarianism. Of these the first two scarcely require to be illustrated; yet we may notice one singular illusion which has done more than any thing else to give a fictitious unity to the Protestant sects, and to invest their protest with a certain air of virtuous indignation; we refer to the common belief that the Bible is in some sense their peculiar possession, which springs from the doctrine that, so long as a man professes to get his creed out of the Bible, and the Bible only, it matters little of what articles his creed consists. This fiction has done good service in its day; but the Protestants are now likely to be worried by the fiend with which they used to conjure. They received the Bible from the church, and they turned it against the church. Now they find it in the hands of the modern critical school turned against themselves.

That the Protestants who separated from the church should have been able to accept Scripture as binding upon them, is not strange; although to a philosophical mind at the present day, the Protestant theory must present insurmountable difficulties. When men break off from a system in which they were born and bred, they cannot, if they would, make of their minds a _tabula rasa_, freed from all prejudices and associations, ready to receive whatever can be proved purely _a priori_. To attempt this would be to attempt to move the world without a fulcrum. The question, What can be proved _a priori_? is one which requires the course of many generations only for its statement; as for its solution, that may be said to have proved itself impossible. Men are obliged, when they change their opinions in some respects, to allow their conduct to be influenced by those opinions which they do not change; and in some cases it happens that it is impossible, upon any _a priori_ ground whatever, to draw the line between what they keep and what they reject. So it was at the foundation of Protestantism; and the effects of the modern "universal solvent" are due to what we have just stated, that, taking what _a priori_ ground you will, there is none which will support the Protestant without landing him at last in contradiction or absurdity. Thus, men in the sixteenth century could easily accept theories of Scripture interpretation which are now found to be untenable; and the result is fatal to those who are so deeply committed to the untenable theories that the loss of them involves the loss of their whole intellectual groundwork.

For the Protestants cannot, as the Catholic can, point to the striking fact of a general agreement extending over many centuries. We know that the Protestant critics profess to pick holes in the Catholic claim to general agreement; but what a beggarly appearance these attempts present when they are contrasted with the whole extent of the subject! What is the value of the few specks they point out in the vast current of ecclesiastical history? They find so little to say, that what they say is proved to be the exception and not the rule. But if we turn to their own case, what a difference do we find! There we have no question of pointing out flaws here and there; it is all one mass of flaws. Protestants may attack the claim of the church; but they themselves are not able so much as to put forward a claim. Nor do they venture to claim unity; some even avow their preference for diversity. Yet in practice we find them all acting as though each thought himself infallible.