Chapter X: The Dying Penitent's Disclosure (2)

He does not remember that audience at all. Nay, he remembers that there was none. "Daily," after his return, the cardinal "expected a summons to the presence of the pope. Then he resolved to assert his right to an audience, and repaired to the Vatican. He was informed that all his communications to the pope were to pass through the hands of the cardinal secretary. To sue to his worst foe--this was the climax of bitterness. The high spirit of his eminence never recovered this indignity. The holy father was all this time informed that the cardinal had returned; but was recusant, and refused all overtures of reconciliation. After his last repulse, the cardinal made no further efforts; but it was easy to see that he suffered acutely."

All bosh! The "secretary" might have ascertained that the papers of the day announced the return of the cardinal to Rome and his audience; for the cardinal was then a notoriety. But he is strong on his powers of memory; or, perhaps, as he had killed the cardinal and buried him, as we saw, two years and nine months before this--in March, 1865--he now ran his eye over a file previous to that date; and, as the papers were published while the cardinal was at Sorrento, there was no mention then of an audience. But we are loth to believe the "secretary" has even that little regard for what others remember which would make him think it at all necessary to look even at a file of newspapers either for dates or facts.

But he gives us, in lieu, an exquisite production of his own memory.

"The cardinal's enemies," he tells us, "were far too wary to resort to open acts." They remained so quiet that all suspicion was lulled to rest, except in the cardinal and his secretary. "It is remarkable that we sometimes find an idea dart suddenly into the mind without cause or ramification."(!!) ... This was the case with the secretary, probably also with the cardinal. The idea took this shape: "The favorite mode of obtaining secret information in Rome is by eaves-dropping and espionage. This palace has been for two months at the bidding of those who knew the cardinal would return to it. They are anxious to know all he says and does; if possible, all he thinks. They will study the revelations of his countenance in moments of _abandon_. And if they have designs"--here the idea seemed going into extravagance. We decidedly agree with him; we even think the idea shows signs of _ramification_.

One _pièce_ of the cardinal's apartments was a breakfast-room, in which there hung a picture of St. Francis meditating. "I was reading in that room; and the twilight had deepened as I sat thinking over my book. As I looked up, by the faint red glow of the wood-fire, I fancied that picture--a St. Francis meditating--had a peculiar expression about the eyes. The rapt saint looks upward, ignoring mundane vanities; this looked downward and steadily at me. I felt inclined to cut it open; but dared not. After all, I imagined the gloom had deceived me."

Again, two days later, "I was sitting at breakfast with the cardinal, when he dropped his cup of chocolate, and, rising, went to the picture, and carefully examined it.... We looked at each other; and I felt the same idea pass through his mind.... I resolved to make him understand that I followed his thoughts. 'Do you think,' said I, 'that St. Francis in his meditations became sometimes a little _distrait_? that his eyes wandered from heaven, for example, to some worldly object, say, as to the quality of your eminence's breakfast, or became suddenly diverted by our conversation.' He looked steadily at me, then at the picture, which faced him as he sat, but was behind me. Then, after a moment, replied, 'It is a fatality.' I saw no more of him that day. I heard from the valet that he was anxious not to be disturbed."

Here we have espionage of the most wonderful kind caught _in flagranti delicto_. Is not the "secretary" afraid he has imparted a new and important lesson to the burglars of New York? Just think of the details! During the cardinal's absence, his enemies enter his apartments in the Palazzo Gabrielli freely, notwithstanding the establishment is kept up, and all the servants are there save the valet, who is away with his master. No eye sees them, no ear hears their stealthy footsteps nor any noise they make. No trace of their work is discovered. They go everywhere, they examine every thing, and make their preparations. What they did elsewhere we are not told. But they paid special attention to this breakfast-room, because the picture hung there. If the wall behind it were of thick masonry, they must have cut in it a niche deep enough and big enough to hold a man. That they should do this in an inhabited house without any one finding it out, is proof of their ability. But what if, as is most likely, the painting hung on a partition wall only six or eight inches thick, where could the man stand? What did they do in that case? We cannot imagine. We think the burglars would be nonplussed, and would turn for further instruction to the memory of our "secretary." Beyond this, they provided themselves with means of entrance and passage from room to room, and of exit, quite irrespective of ordinary doors and public stairways.

The cardinal returns to his palace, and these means are put in use. One spy, entering when or how no one knows, and mounting to his place in an equally mysterious manner, stands behind the picture of St. Francis meditating, which hangs on the wall of the breakfast-room. The canvas eyes of the picture have, of course, been cut out; and the spy fixes his own living eyes in their place, so that he can see all that is to be seen, as well as hear all that is to be heard. Ordinarily, we suppose, the eyes are kept turned toward heaven, ignoring mundane vanities, because such was the original position of the painted eyes in the picture. But fatigue and duty combined, from time to time, to call for a change of their position. The eyes looked down on the breakfast-table, (perhaps longingly; for even spies behind pictures may get hungry,) or gleamed with intelligence in response to witticisms of conversation, or unguarded and important revelations. Yet all was so artistically and naturally done that the secretary one day imagined the gloom had deceived him; and two days afterward, the cardinal, after a careful examination and after looking at it a second time attentively, exclaimed, "It is a fatality!"

Now, there is a mystery about this espionage which quite puzzles us, and which we should like to see explained. While the spy held his eyes thus glued to or inserted in the painting, where were his eyebrows? And what did he do with his nose?--his big Roman nose. For who can conceive a keen Roman spy without a large and penetrating Roman nose? How did he manage to keep that nose from coming in contact with the painted canvas--from pressing against it and causing a very prominent bulge, and even pushing the canvas away from the eyes? This is a point that merits elucidation.

Unfortunately the cardinal, it seems, at once left the room in which the "fatality" was, shut himself up, and would see no one. The "secretary" was as wanting in pluck on that occasion as he had been on another two days before. He felt inclined to cut the painting open to see what it was; but dared not. If he had had the presence of mind of a little boy ten years old, he would have ventured to draw the bottom of the painting a few inches out from the wall, and would have looked behind to discover the secret. Had he done so, our mystery would doubtless have been solved, and a very interesting question would have been answered. What a pity the idea did not assume this practical "ramification"!

In regard to the death of the cardinal the memory of the "secretary" is brief, but terribly explicit and pointed.

"Four days" after the fatality-scene, "I was informed that the cardinal desired me to spend the evening in his private apartments.... We had dined at five"--a change of hour; it used to be six. "His eminence had confined himself to his favorite and insipid Chablis, of which he drank one little flask," (Monte Fiascone has slipped from the secretary's memory;) "I to a more generous vintage of Burgundy. The subject of our conversation was exceedingly important. With the idea upon us like an incubus, we conversed in low tones; and ever and anon the cardinal rose and examined the outer door.... The conversation ended by my being intrusted with certain documents to place in safe keeping.... Knowing the importance of the documents, I hesitated to keep them in my possession. Sealing them in a packet, I put on a street dress and hastened to an English gentleman, who cheerfully undertook their keeping.... Cardinal Antonelli asked me for the papers I had received on that fatal night.... I rejoice to say--though strenuous exertions were made to obtain the papers--they were as persistently guarded; and I have them now."

Pretty well remembered for these papers. But how about the cardinal?

The secretary says that, on the morning after confiding the aforesaid sealed packet to the English gentleman, "I rose early and repaired to the palace. The valet had orders to wake his master at seven. It wanted but a few minutes. I retired to my own room. Scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed ere the valet rushed in, pale with affright, exclaiming, 'His eminence is dead!' I followed him quickly to the apartment, having alarmed the household. The disposition of the chamber was as ordinary. The cardinal's dress lay on a chair, as the valet had placed it. His breviary was open at vespers. The bed was the only thing disturbed. There were certain indications of a struggle, although very slight. The usually placid countenance of the cardinal was flushed and discolored. The two hands grasped the bed-clothes convulsively. A physician was hastily summoned, who pronounced life to have been extinct some hours. 'From what cause?' I asked. He whispered, 'They will probably say apoplexy.' For himself, the secretary has no doubt it was a murder perpetrated by the enemies of Cardinal d'Andrea."

These are the recollections of the _soi-disant_ secretary. They are well entitled in the whole and in the several details to stand with his precise recollections of the place and date of the funeral that followed in San Giovanni in Laterano, on the 22d day of March, 1865.

The papers announced that Cardinal d'Andrea died in Rome, on the 14th of May, 1868. For the details of his last hours, we are indebted to those members of his household who were with him and closed his eyes. It will be seen how different is the account they give from that of the writer who, if elsewhere he amused us, here fills us with astonishment at the boldness of his assertions, and sorrow for his motives.

On Thursday, May 14th, 1868, the cardinal, who had spent the forenoon in his usual occupations, dined in his usual health, or ill-health, at half-past one. After dinner he continued to transact business with his chancellor for a while, and then arranged to resume it on his return from the usual afternoon drive. He drove out from the Palazzo Gabrielli at about half-past four. His coachman drove, at the usual staid gait of a cardinal's carriage, by the Foro Trajano, on by the Colosseo and San Clemente, to St. John Lateran's, and out of the city gate near that church, along the Via Appia Nuova. When he had passed the first mile-stone from the gate, he was surprised by an order to return. He noticed that the cardinal, who was alone in the carriage, seemed to be suffering. He accordingly turned and retraced his steps at the same gentle gait. On the square of St. John's, he received a second order to go faster; and awhile after, before he reached the Colosseo, the cardinal ordered him to hurry. A fast trot brought them to the Palazzo Gabrielli by about half-past five. The chancellor was there, and assisted the servants to take the cardinal out of the carriage, and to assist him up to his chamber. He was suffering very much from a difficulty of breathing, and seemed otherwise in pain. It was a crisis such as he had had before, but it seemed more severe than usual. The cardinal sent word to the chancellor not to leave. He expected the spasm to pass away in a little while, and when it would be over, they might resume their work as arranged.

The chancellor waited until near seven, when, learning that the attack still continued, he entered the sickroom. He was not only the official, but a devoted and confidential intimate friend of nearly twenty years' standing. He found the cardinal suffering to a degree that filled him with alarm. A physician was sent for, but was absent from his residence. An assistant came and prescribed some remedies. By eight, the physician arrived, and took charge of the case, and did not leave the patient. About nine, he was asked if it were proper to administer the sacrament of extreme unction. He replied that, so far, he did not see sufficient danger to warrant it. Meanwhile the cardinal lay on his bed tossing restlessly in pain, and panting for breath, but joining in, as best he could, with the prayers for the sick, which had been begun, at his request, by his chaplain and the attendants between seven and eight o'clock. At ten, he asked to be placed in a large chair in his room. They bolstered him up in it. In half an hour he began to sink. The chaplain hastily administered the rites of the church, and by eleven, Cardinal d'Andrea was no more.

Thus, as is not unfrequently the case, death came somewhat suddenly and unexpectedly, even after years of ill-health.

An autopsy took place, as is customary, we believe, in Rome in the case of cardinals. It appeared that the immediate cause of his death was congestion of the lungs. The right lung was found to be nearly destroyed by tubercles. On one side of the brain a clot or indurated portion, seemingly of long standing, was discovered. In this lesion some of the cardinal's friends thought they found a physical cause of those disordered peculiarities of mind of which we spoke as having been manifested in his later years.

We may add that, after the official autopsy, the body lay in state in the Palazzo Gabrielli until Monday, May 18th. On the evening of that day, it was conveyed in procession to the neighboring parish church of St. John of the Florentines, near the Castel Sant' Angelo. In that church, on Tuesday, 19th May, 1868, the funeral obsequies of Cardinal d'Andrea were celebrated, the pope and the cardinals assisting, as required by the etiquette of the court when a cardinal dies in Rome.

By the cardinal's own directions, his mortal remains were interred at the church of Sant' Agnese fuori delle Mura, of which, as we said, he had been titular cardinal before becoming Bishop of Sabina.

We have thus followed this _soi-disant_ secretary of the late Cardinal d'Andrea all through his article. We have overlooked, for brevity's sake, many minor points. But we have seen fully enough to establish the character of the article. We have seen that he blunders as to the date of the cardinal's funeral by three years and two months. He has blundered as to the church where it was performed by at least a mile and a half. San Giovanni in Laterano and St. John of the Florentines are unlike in shape and in rank, and are nearly at opposite points of the city.

As to the private habits, the acts, and the opinions of the cardinal, he makes a series of blunders such as we might well look for in one who gives himself out as having been the confidential secretary of the late Cardinal d'Andrea, and yet whom no one remembers to have ever had any connection with the cardinal.

As to the charges of enmity, of espionage, and even of murder, and the tragedy of the French captain, and various other remarks and comments _en passant_ throughout the article, by no means to the honor of the ecclesiastical dignitaries at Rome, and of the tone and character of society there--are these things only spice to give a certain piquancy to the article? or is the whole article written merely as a vehicle to convey these charges to the attention of the readers?

We incline to the latter opinion. We are led to it by the clearer and more undisguised tenor of later articles by the same pen in the _Galaxy_. We may, hereafter, if we find time, pay our respects to one or more of those articles.

For the present, we will only say that if the proprietors of the _Galaxy_ have intended to bargain with a writer of fiction, they are getting the worth of their money in matter and quantity, if not in quality and style. If, however, they expected to secure a series of articles instructive because truthful, the case is decidedly the reverse.

FOOTNOTE:

[174] The _Galaxy_. December, 1869, to June, 1870.

HYMN OF ST. PAUL'S "CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE SOCIETY."

Not ours to ask thee, "What is truth?"
For here it shines the light of light;
And all may see it, age or youth,
Who will but leave the outer night.
'Tis ours to tread, not seek, the way
That "brightens to the perfect day."

But this we ask thee, dearest Lord--
Let faith, so precious, feed and grow;
And make our lives the more accord
With fear and love, the more we know.
For thus, too, shall we point the way
That "brightens to the perfect day."

Nor have we learnt it save to teach;
It is for others we are wise.
The humblest has a charge to preach
Thy kingdom in a nation's eyes:
A nation groping for the way
That "brightens to the perfect day."

O thou, our patron, great St. Paul!
Apostle of the West, to thee
We boldly come and fondly call,
As children at a father's knee:
Come thou, and with us lead the way
That "brightens to the perfect day"!

B. D. H.

LOTHAIR.[175]

Lothair is both a novel and a pamphlet. Two distinct currents of thought are apparent, running through the work, variously intertwined and blended, but from time to time asserting definite individuality. This phenomenon is explained by the two-fold character of the writer, who is a novelist and man of letters, and at the same time a man of the world and a statesman. The novel is written apparently to reassert his powers and demonstrate to the literary world that his genius is undimmed by age, perhaps also to indulge the exercise of a favorite and successful art, by which he has raised himself from an obscure position to one of influence and renown. The pamphlet is evidently intended for political effect; to throw discredit upon eminent persons, to disparage the value of conversions among the higher classes of society, and, through the thin veil of fiction, inflict all the damage possible upon the court of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. It reveals the political character of its writer, his utter want of principle and consistency, and enables us to comprehend how he has overcome all the obstacles to his career, by great industry, acute intelligence, and absolute unscrupulousness in turning men and women, things and events, to his own personal advantage. As a novel it adds nothing to the established reputation of the author. It is rated at a high figure, commercially speaking, and will no doubt be a remunerative investment for its publishers.

It purports to be a picture of the habits, manners, and mode of life of people of the highest rank in England, with sketches of persons of diverse culture and foreign birth, to heighten the contrasts and bring out the lights and deepen the shadows. Natural scenery, stately dwellings, ancient trees, sunlight, flowers, music, and fresh air give life and animation to the varying scenes, and form the appropriate basis, background, and accompaniment for the living panorama. Lothair is a youth of pure blood and fair education, the heir of immense estates and a lofty title. He is good-looking, athletic, kind-hearted, shy, sensitive, and sentimental.

He has suffered the depression and discouragement of a sour Presbyterian system of education, from which he was happily rescued by the honest and determined efforts of one of his guardians, Cardinal Grandison.

He emerges just before he comes of age, and appears before us in the midst of an elegant family, in which, fortunately, all the daughters are married excepting one, who has great beauty and a remarkably fine voice. He immediately, as in duty bound, falls desperately in love, and in the most honorable manner possible confides the state of his feelings to the mother of the object of his affections, who is, by the way, a fine specimen of a thorough-bred English lady.

The mother wisely and tenderly counsels delay, and we would recommend her conduct in this interesting occasion to all the middle-aged ladies of our acquaintance when placed in a similar situation. Lothair accepts her decision, and in the mean time becomes more and more intimate with the cardinal, and forms the acquaintance of a Catholic family distantly connected, and becomes somewhat smitten with the real heroine of the tale, Clare Arundel. The objective point of the story now develops itself. A struggle for the rich and titled youth commences between the English Establishment and the Church. Political and mercenary motives are, with great impartiality, ascribed to both the contending powers. The combat between the rough and honest Scotch Presbyterian uncle and the accomplished and fascinating cardinal is wisely dropped.

No imagination could suggest the thought that one who had escaped from evangelicalism could ever return to it. It is, in the author's mind, simply a political squabble for the influence and vote of the future peer. His soul is of no account.

The conduct and development of this contest gives the right honorable romancer an opportunity to introduce the lords and ladies, the dukes and bishops, cardinals and monsignori, artists, wits, and men about town, with whom he delights to fill his pages. They all speak in character, and in the main with artistic consistency, and their conversation is certainly sprightly, often witty, sometimes wise, and never offensive on the score of taste and morality. It affords him the opportunity to flatter and praise, and at the same time exhibit a power of sarcasm and ridicule, the effective methods of his earlier writings, by which he climbed to his present position. He exhibits talents and a knowledge of life which would have made him equally successful in the role of banker, picture-merchant, diamond-broker, or even old clo'man. He gloats over the splendors which he describes; and beauty, rank, fashion, fine clothes, crystal, porcelain, pictures, jewels, "ropes of pearls," castles, palaces, parks, and gardens, are dwelt upon with the cherishing fondness of the gentlemen of keen eyes, hooked noses, and unctuous touch. Character, conduct, motives, principles, sentiments, affections, passions, and religion are mingled in admirable confusion, are estimated at the same value and weighed in the same balance.

There is for him as novelist or pamphleteer no principle but expediency, no rule of conduct but temporal advantage. He worships a golden calf. These be thy gods, O Israel! At a critical period, while our hero is wavering between his Anglican and Catholic mistress, and the cardinal is striving to acquire a wholesome influence over his somewhat unstable relative, while he is sailing on the summer sea of high life and elegant society, he goes to _Oxford to see his horses_. He has wisely left those useful animals at the university, while he is pursuing his studies of life and manners in London. At Oxford, he meets Colonel and Mrs. Campian, and is taken completely off his feet. Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Corisande and Clare Arundel, the Establishment, and Catholicity disappear at once, and Madre Natura in the splendid physique of the divine Theodora, claims an unresisting captive and victim.

This is either an inspiration of a romancer's imagination or a study. If the latter, there is no hope for the right honorable author's salvation on the score of invincible ignorance.

Lothair basks in the splendor of Theodora's beauty, and surrenders his reason to the fascination of her false political principles. The lower or transient good is preferred to the higher, the permanent good. He chooses the lower, as did Lucifer and Adam, Judas and Luther, and multitudes have done and are doing. Naturally and artistically there is no way out of this scrape excepting through a catastrophe; religiously, excepting through penance. Theodora is the ideal of Greco-Roman heathenism, and the artist Phœbus is its high-priest. They are fine creations from an artistic point of view.

They enable the author to introduce some clever writing about art, and some speculations regarding the Aryan and Semitic races, evidently with the intention of associating revealed religion with the idea of superstition. The effect left upon the mind is something like that produced by a certain class of sermons which we read on Monday morning in the New-York _Herald_. The novelist is hurried on at this stage by the necessities of the pamphleteer. Political events succeed each other so rapidly that he was obliged to send Lothair as rapidly as possible to the field of battle (his heathen destiny) against the church.

With exceeding facility the money which was going to build a cathedral, to please a pious girl, is diverted to aid in blowing up St. Peter's, and Lothair finds himself as Captain Muriel, in the field, on the staff of one of his former acquaintances, Captain Bruges, the red republican general advancing against Rome. Theodora and Colonel Campian are also with him, the former disguised in male apparel, and acting as secretary to the general. We suppose her prayer uttered under the depressing intelligence of the embarkation of the French troops to assist the holy father, is an expression of the religion of nature. Why she should pray to God instead of Jupiter, we confess we do not see, unless in deference to the opinion of most of the author's readers. He might have fulfilled all the indications by quoting Pope, and at the same time complimented the memory of a poet who is getting rather out of date.

However, she hears the French have disembarked, and accordingly suspends her prayers and recovers her spirits. The impending catastrophe comes. The tragic is accomplished, and the divine Theodora is slain. Madre Natura and the secret societies are hurled against the rock of Peter, and shivered. Theodora is mortally wounded, and dying, impresses a chaste kiss upon the lips of Lothair, and exacts the promise never to conform to the Church of Rome.

The next step finds him severely wounded by a French _chassepot_, the guest of Lord St. Jerome in his palace in Rome, carefully attended by Sisters of Charity and Clare Arundel. Nature has perished and grace triumphs. The venom of the anti-Catholic novelist and the malice of the statesman of the establishment are now revealed in a popish plot, which is supposed to be hatched by Lothair's Roman Catholic friends, the prelates of Rome, and, by implication, the holy father.

The object of the conspiracy is to impose upon Lothair and the world that he was wounded while fighting for the defence of the holy see, instead of in the ranks of its determined enemies, and to convince him that the Blessed Virgin Mary personally appeared to rescue him from inevitable death. These pages enhance the claims of the work as one of fiction, but detract very much from its reputation as a specimen of art. The plan is thoroughly un-English, and incompatible with the characters of the actors as previously portrayed. It is by no means impossible for the Blessed Virgin or any saint or angel to appear, and we should be bound to believe the fact if vouched for on credible testimony.

It is, however, naturally, politically, and religiously impossible for priests, bishops, and prelates to combine to make any human being believe a lie, or to palm off a false miracle for any purpose whatsoever. We are charitably left in doubt as to who believed or who did not believe in the apparition, but we are treated to a conversation in which Cardinal Grandison endeavors to make Lothair believe a lie, and to abuse the enfeebled condition of his brain to reduce him to a condition of mental and moral imbecility.

Mr. Disraeli evidently expects no advantages from Catholic voters, or, perhaps, counts on the charity which he abuses.

These passages are the only dangerous ones in the book; they are skilfully contrived to crystallize wavering minds, especially of young men of high rank, into determined opposition to the holy see. They are intended to awaken sympathy for Lothair's helpless and almost hopeless captivity, and to call forth sentiments of satisfaction and pleasure at his adventurous escape. He does escape, and falls into the arms of high-priest Phœbus and two inferior divinities of Madre Natura. They have little power, however, the divine Theodora being dead; and our hero, growing _blasé_ if not wiser and better, subsides into an æsthetical but harmless admiration of external nature and Euphrosyne. Previously to his quitting Rome, the author invents a scene which is either a sop to spiritism, or an insult to his readers' intelligence.

The appearance of the Blessed Virgin, under any circumstances, is treated with derision; but Theodora, like the Witch of Endor, is summoned to interview Lothair in the Coliseum, and remind him of his fatal promise. Perhaps he only means to illustrate a phenomenon of an over-excited brain, whose circulation is enfeebled by a long illness and a severe wound. We are left purposely in doubt on this point, as on many others. This portion of the book contains vivid and beautiful sketches of camp-life and fighting on a small scale, of Rome and Italy, the Tyrrhenean Sea and classic isles. Under the auspices of the Phœbus and Euphrosyne, he is wafted in the yacht Pan to Syria and the Holy Land, and sinks into a pleasing and self-satisfied reverie on Mount Olivet.

The descriptions of Judea and Jerusalem, Calvary and Sion, Galilee and Jordan, Lebanon and Bashan, could be penned only by one who has the traditions of the Jew, the Roman, and the Christian. There is the mournful regret of the Jew, the proud remembrance of the Roman, and the weak and sickly sentimentality of a very doubtful sort of Christian. They want depth and pathos, and leave the mind disturbed and dissatisfied. They profane rather than hallow those sacred places which inspire terror or love in every human breast.

The habits of his English friends whom he meets in the Holy Land, who made excursions which they called pilgrimages, and feasted, made love, and hunted, express about the degree of sympathy which fashionable High-Church Anglicanism has with Calvary. The noble and gentle Syrian now appears to put the finishing touch to Lothair's religious experiences. He is a new figure in fiction, a specimen of oriental Turveydrop, and the patriarch of a new school of Israelitish evangelicalism. In the absence of authentic data, we should presume he had descended from a highly respectable family of Pharisees, which had, in process of time, intermarried with the Sadducees, and perhaps suffered some slight admixture with the heathen round about. He happily succeeds in removing all distinct and vivid religious impressions from the mind of Lothair, and prepares the way, after a final interview with his former Mazzinian general, who speaks in a cheerful and airy manner of his failure to blow up St. Peter's, and consoles Catholic readers with the assurance that the old imposture is still firmly seated, for his return to England, the arms of Lady Corisande, and the bosom of the church by law established. Here we leave him married to an heiress and laid up in lavender, to grow old, fat, and gouty.

While we may speak with some degree of complaisance of this novel as a work of art merely, and a picture of life and manners, in which it is far inferior to similar novels of Bulwer and several other contemporary writers of fiction, we are compelled to discuss this production in its political and moral significance in a very different spirit. Mr. Disraeli must have some powerful motive to induce him to attack the church and outrage the feelings of Catholics throughout the world while he himself has no settled and strong religious convictions of any kind. That motive must be the only one which would operate upon a mind like his--the desire to get back to power. He starts the "No-popery" hue and cry, and invents a most contemptible, shallow, and flimsy plot to influence what he supposes to be the radical hostility of the English people to the Church of Rome, and to throw contempt and discredit upon the conversion of Englishmen of rank, and especially that of the Marquis of Bute. We think he has not only committed a moral crime, but made a gross political blunder. We believe there is a profound sympathy throughout the world in the hearts of simply honest and good people with the holy father, and that if the question could be tested by vote to-day, Who is the best man living? Pius IX. would receive an overwhelming majority. While denouncing in the strongest terms the baseness of the attempt to impute fraud, chicanery, and political trickery to the policy and plans of the church, we have reason to thank the right honorable and learned author for the revelation he has made of the secret societies. He has had ample means of learning and understanding their operations, and his implied conclusion is, that the two great forces arrayed against each other in the modern world are the Roman Catholic Church and the secret societies, of whom Masonry is the mother. This is a conclusion which we accept. It is the everlasting antagonism between the church of Christ and the church of the devil. We hope the glimpse thus afforded will cause some of our clergy to reconsider the lenient opinions they sometimes express in regard to Masonry and its offshoots, and to recognize the supernatural wisdom that has directed the unwavering opposition which the church has manifested toward these works of darkness. As a whole, we do not think _Lothair_ will do much harm. It will provoke much conversation and discussion. It will be praised, ridiculed, admired, and contemned, and speedily sink into oblivion, to be read only by students of literature and those who seek for the light that works of fiction throw upon contemporary history. It reminds us of something which occurred a long time ago, and which cannot be offensive to the right honorable gentleman, who finds a pleasure in insulting cardinals and bishops, inasmuch as the chief personages in the transaction are prototypes of himself and his book. It is the story of Balaam and Balaam's ass. He has attempted to curse, and in fact he has blessed, and the ass which he is riding only speaks like a human being when it meets the angel in the Catholic girl Clare Arundel.

FOOTNOTE:

[175] _Lothair._ By the Right Honorable B. Disraeli. Pp. 218. D. Appleton & Co. 1870.

THE INVITATION HEEDED.[176]

The above is the title of one of the best and most effective controversial works which we have had the pleasure to read for some time. For those who believe in any historical Christianity, the argument contained in it is direct and unanswerable. We pray God it may have a wide circulation and reach the numerous friends of its gifted author, who thus seeks, as many converts have done before him, to show to those he loves the blessed lights which guided him to the home of truth and peace.

Mr. James Kent Stone is the son of the Rev. Dr. John S. Stone, a highly respected minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, favorably known for many years in Brooklyn as the rector of Christ's church, and now, we believe, at the head of an Episcopalian seminary in Cambridge, Mass. He received his academical education at Harvard College, and afterward spent two years at one of the universities of Germany. Returning to this country in 1862, he was appointed professor of Latin in Kenyon College, Ohio, in which office he remained until 1867, when he was made president of the institution. He was ordained a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1866, and shortly after received the degree of D.D. from Racine College, Wisconsin.

In the year 1868, he was elected to the presidency of Hobart College, Geneva, New York, where he remained only one year. In September, 1869, he resigned his position and his ministry, to seek retirement and prepare for his reception into the Holy Catholic Church. The 8th of December, 1869, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, was the happy day of his entrance into the communion of Christ, in obedience to the call of its chief pastor.

In the prefatory chapter the author gives us some insight into the trials of his own mind. Accepting what he had taken for granted as the high Anglican position, he felt himself master of the Roman question. Anglicans were, in his mind, true Catholics, the _only_ true Catholics, and the Reformation was a return to primitive truth on the part of a favored few, who were to him the only witnesses of God upon earth. His intellect was too logical not to see that ritualism, with which he never allied himself, was inconsistent with any possible degree of Anglicanism.

"If the ritualists were right, the reformers were wrong. The
great sin of schism could never have been justified by any such
paltry differences as separate our 'advanced' friends from
the great Roman communion. The only consistent course for men
to take who believed in the sacrifice of the altar and in the
invocation of saints was to go back, promptly and penitently,
to the ancient church, which had proved its infallibility by
being in the right after all."

In this position, to any unprejudiced eye, he stood upon an assumption of theology and history which it would seem that the slightest investigation should destroy. A church which begins by denying the faithfulness of Christ to his promises, and asserts for itself claims which render all antiquity a fable, ought not long to hold the love of an honest heart. It would be hard for any one to know what the English church really teaches; and if it teaches any thing, it certainly does so upon human authority, since infallibility is denied in itself, and in every other communion. When our eyes are once opened, we wonder we were so long deluded. The real reason why High-Churchmen do not become Catholics is, that they do not sincerely wish to know the truth, which calls to sacrifices and sad trials of the heart.

"If any man love father or mother more than me, he is not worthy of me." We believe that one earnest prayer for light, with a full determination to follow it at every cost without hesitation, would lead to the one home of truth every Anglican, and even every ritualist. But the misfortune is, that they will not offer any such prayer. The world of honor or affection in which they move is too dear to be renounced. Let us hear what Dr. Stone so feelingly tells of his own experience:

"Time went on; and I was not conscious of the smallest change
in my theological opinions and sympathies; when all at once the
ground upon which I had stood with such careless confidence,
gave way. Like a treacherous island, it sank without warning
from beneath my feet, and left me struggling in the wide
waters. Thanks be to God that I was not left to perish in that
cold and bitter flood, and that my feet so soon rested for ever
on the eternal rock! How it came about--by what intellectual
process my position had been undermined--by what unconscious
steps my feet had been led to an unseen brink, I did not know.
I was only aware of the sudden terror with which I found myself
slipping and going, and the darkness which succeeded the swift
plunge."

* * * * *

"I remembered how St. Augustine, 'one of the profoundest
thinkers of antiquity,' even for four years after he had
become a catechumen under St. Ambrose, was entangled in the
meshes of his Manichæan heresy. I admitted instantly that I,
too, _might be_ under a spell; that my case might be--I do
not dare to say like that of the great saint and father, but
that of the Donatists or the Gnostics; since I was certainly
not more positive in my convictions than they, neither could
I furnish myself with any satisfactory reason for believing
that I was blessed with greater light. And then the hand of God
drew back the veil of my heart; and I saw for the first time,
and all at once, how utterly steeped I had been in prejudice,
how from the beginning I had, without a question or suspicion,
assumed the very point about which I ought reverently to have
inquired with an impartial and a docile mind. I had studied
the Roman controversy; so I thought--if in my short life I
could fairly be said to have studied any thing; but _how_ had
I studied it? Had there ever been a time when it was an _open
question_ in my mind whether the claims of the Roman Church
were valid? Had I begun by admitting that the pope might be
right? Had it ever crossed my thoughts that the church in
communion with the see of Peter might be indeed the one only
Catholic Church of our Lord Jesus Christ? And had I ever
resolved, with all my soul, as one standing on the threshold
and in the awful light of eternity, to begin by tearing down
every assumption and divesting myself of every prejudice, and
_then_, wherever truth should lead the way, to follow--'leave
all and follow'? Alas! never. I had studied simply to combat
and refute. The suggestion that 'Romanism' might after all
be identical with Christianity was preposterous. The papacy
was the great apostasy, the mystery of iniquity; it was the
master-piece of Satan, who had made his most successful attack
upon the church of God by entering and corrupting it. The rise
of the papal pretensions was matter of the plainest history;
and every well-instructed child could point out how one
fiction after another had been grafted into the creed of that
apostate church, until now the simple faith of early days was
scarce recognizable under the accumulated error of centuries.
'History'--who _wrote_ that history? 'Well-instructed
child'--why, that was the very point at issue!

"I saw that I had been guilty of what Bossuet calls 'a
calumny,' and what I now acknowledged to be an act of
injustice, namely, of charging upon Catholics _inferences_
which I had myself drawn from their doctrines, but against
which Catholics indignantly protest. I could not say with St.
Augustine that 'I blushed with joy;' but with shame I blushed,
'at having so many years barked, not against the Catholic
faith, but against the fictions of carnal imaginations. For so
rash and impious had I been, that what I ought by inquiring to
have learned, I had pronounced on, condemning.... I should have
knocked and proposed the doubt, how it was to be believed, not
insultingly opposed it as if believed.'

"This is the 'plunge' I spoke of. I used the word because
it expressed, as well perhaps as any other, the terrifying
rapidity which marked the steps of my intellectual crisis.
Upon some men the discovery of a life-long error may break
gradually; truth may be said to have its dawning; but to me it
came with a shock. The rain descended and the floods came; my
house fell; and great was the fall of it.

"Then followed a sense of blank desolateness. I was groping
among ruins; and wherewith should I go to work to build again?
I do not mean that I faltered. Thank God that he kept me true,
and suffered me not to shrink from the sharp agony which I
perceived was _possibly_ in store for me! To borrow words of
the great father from whose experience I have already drawn,
'God gave me that mind, that I should prefer nothing to the
discovery of truth, wish, think of, love naught besides.' But
the task of reconstruction seemed almost helpless.

"And so I set my face forward with desperate earnestness; and
in due time--it may seem, a very short time--I had not a trace
of doubt left that I had all along been a vain enemy of the
one, catholic, and apostolic church. Why _not_ in a short time?
Why not in a month, or a week, or a day? Is it any reflection
upon truth that she surrenders herself quickly to a soul whose
every nerve is strained in her pursuit? Is it any argument
against the church of God that it is easily identified? Surely,
if there be a kingdom of heaven upon earth, it must be known
by marks which cannot be mistaken. Yes! I knew it when I had
found it. And I found it as in the parable, like a treasure
hidden in a field--in the self-same field up and down which I
had wandered for years, and where I had often trampled it under
my feet. And when I had found it, I hid it, scarce daring to
gaze at its splendor, and crying, as St. Augustine cried, 'Too
late, alas! have I known thee, O ancient and eternal truth!'
And then, for joy thereof, I went and sold all that I had, and
bought that field."

The pages which follow this preface are a brief but cogent exposition of the convictions which forced themselves upon the mind of the author. He develops the argument which proved so availing in his own case, and which, it seems to us, should be satisfactory to any earnest inquirer. He commences by viewing the Catholic Church in its historical aspects, as the human eye beholds it, and without any necessary reference to its supernatural character. The attitude of the world toward it in the present and in every age is a proof of its greatness, for men neither fear nor attack an enemy which they despise. Its wonderful life, in spite of opposition which would long ago have destroyed any merely human organization, is so striking a fact that no honest mind can fail to feel its force.

But it is not only as a _living_ body, with a vitality unknown to any other society, that it impresses our intellects; in its wonderful life it has been the guardian of morals, and the author of every high virtue. Civilization owes its very existence to its creed and its fostering care. And while Protestantism, of only recent origin, has failed to accomplish any thing but destruction, there is no sign of decay or feebleness in the ancient and unchanging church.

In the second part of the work the author gives the reasons in full for this wonderful vitality, and shows how the "Word made flesh" is the source of life to that body which he fills, and which the Paraclete sent by him ever animates. The facts of Christianity are clearly drawn out, and the necessary notes of the church are tried by the appeal to holy Scripture and tradition. From the conclusion of this argument there is no escape, and it is well demonstrated that the religion of Christ stands or falls with the Catholic faith.

In the concluding portion of the book, Dr. Stone looks carefully at the essential features of that body which the incarnate God, as a master-builder, framed with one head, and all the needful constituents of a perfect organism. The office of St. Peter was not simply an ornamental appendage to the company of apostles, but an integral and essential part in the complex of visible Christianity. The church is Christianity in the concrete, and can no more exist without St. Peter than the human body can live without a head. And to that head all the functions of the body are subordinated. There is no fear of any unjust preponderance, or that any member of the body will lose its activity or honor; for the Holy Ghost lives in the body, and speaks through the mouth of its head. The functions of the primacy are displayed with beautiful clearness in this work, which without any unnecessary words refutes the arguments of objectors, and cuts to pieces their vain appeals to history or antiquity. We are much pleased to see how an honest mind, which had no reason to seek for Catholic truth except for its own sake, has been able to see how all the functions of the papacy are involved in the very constitution of the church.

The infallibility of the sovereign pontiff as "the father and the teacher of all Christians" is directly deduced from the position he holds in the ecclesiastical body, and the needs of his office. We earnestly commend this work to those who are searching for truth, and are willing to embrace it when it presents itself. While there is no new argument, there is great freshness in the manner in which it is conducted. There are very many who would not become Catholics even if Almighty God were to work miracles before their eyes. We say this advisedly and from sad experience. They are too attached to the circles in which they move; and even when divine light urges them keenly, they are willing to take the risk. So they compound with their consciences by assuming a great spiritual activity in their own spheres, and the noon of their day of grace passes away. They will never see again the freshness and life of the morning.

There are others who deal with truth as they would be ashamed to deal with any affair of human life. They ask that every difficulty, historical or theological, shall be removed from the vast field of controversy ere they will yield assent to a proposition they are forced to admit, which is the key of the whole position. To those who will not be guided by the light of faith, this is an unending task. They are worse than the Jews, who would not believe "unless they saw signs and wonders." The Catholic Church does not offer any more trials, to the understanding than did the meek and lowly Man of Sorrows in his sojourn upon earth. All difficulties cannot be removed at once, nor before the shadows of error have given way to the bright sun of truth. We cannot see perfectly in the night; yet there is really but one question to be asked and answered, Did Jesus Christ, my divine Redeemer, found the Catholic Church, and promise it perpetuity? If so, then I am bound to accept it as I find it; for I cannot make a church for myself, nor could he allow the communion which he formed and vivified to fall into error. If I will not accept this church, I may wander on the waste without a guide, for there is no such thing as Christianity for me.

Another thing which this book impresses upon us is very important, and it is a truth which we have had occasion to know from long acquaintance with Protestantism. There is only one way of dealing with those whom we believe to be in error, and that is by always maintaining with, consistency the principles of our creed. Any attempt to compromise with Protestants, as if there were not a diametrical opposition between truth and falsehood, will be disastrous to their conversion. Men will not give up the associations of years, renounce position and hopes, and even break family ties, unless they believe it necessary to their salvation. Nothing less than this motive can be held up to the wanderer who seeks in vain from his own intellect the lights that will guide him to a happy eternity. And any converts that come into the church from any lower motive are unfit for the graces of faith, and will never imbibe the spirit of a true Catholic. There is one God and one church, and this church is a necessity to all to whom its message of mercy comes. It can stand upon this ground alone as a divine organization, and here only can demand the obedience of mankind.