Chapter II: Wiping Out, and Beginning Anew (1)

The next morning was a gloomy one for the two who had nursed that trembling hope overnight, but they did not say much about it. Mrs. Rowan's face showed the lassitude of long endurance. Edith's disappointment was poignant. She was no longer a looker-on merely, but an actor. The man had confided in her, had tacitly asked her sympathy, and his failure gave her a pang. She cast about in her thoughts what she should do, having a mind to put her own young shoulder to the wheel. Should she go in search of him, and give him one of those scoldings which he had acknowledged his need of? Should she lead him home, and protect him from abuse?

"Hadn't I better go up to the post-office?" she asked, after breakfast. "I haven't been there this good while, and there might be a letter from Dick."

Mrs. Rowan hesitated: "Well, yes." She disliked being left alone, and she had no expectation of a letter. But it seemed like slighting her son to make any other reply to such a request. Besides, the village boys might be hooting her husband through the streets, and, if they were, she would like to know it. So Edith prepared herself, and went out.

The ship-yard was full of business at this hour, and two men were at work close to the road, shaving a piece of timber. Edith looked at them, and hesitated. "I've a good mind to," she thought. She had never gone into the ship-yard when the men were there, and had never asked any one a question concerning Mr. Rowan. But now all was changed, and she felt responsible. "Have you seen Mr. Rowan anywhere, this morning?" she asked, going up to the man nearest her.

He drew the shave slowly to him, slipped off a long curl of amber-colored wood from the blade, then looked up to see who spoke. "Mr. Rowan!" he repeated, as if he had never heard the name before. "Oh! Dick, you mean. No, I haven't seen him, this morning. He may be lying round behind the timbers somewhere."

The child's eyes sparkled. Child though she was, she knew that the drunkard was more worthy of the title of gentleman than this man was, for he was rude and harsh only when he suffered.

"Little girl," the other called out as she turned away, "your father is over there on board of the _Annie Laurie_. I saw him lying there half an hour ago, and I guess he hasn't stirred since."

"He isn't my father!" she flashed out.

The two burst into a rude laugh, which effectually checked the thanks she would have given for their information. She turned hastily away, and went up the road to the village.

Mrs. Rowan finished her work, and sat down in the west window to watch. She was too anxious and discouraged to knit, even, and so did not discover the tight little strip of work around the stocking-heel. It was employment enough to look out for Edith; not that she expected a letter, but because she wanted company. She was conscious of some strength in the child, on which she leaned at times. As for Dick, she had little hope of good news from him, if any. She had no part in Edith's rose-colored expectations. Dick in peril from storm, foe, or sin; Dick dying untended in foreign lands; Dick sinking down in cold, salt seas--these were the mother's fancies.

After half an hour, a small figure appeared over the hills between the house and the village. Mrs. Rowan watched it absently, and with a slight sense of relief. But soon she noticed that the child was running. It was not like Edith to run. She was noticeably quiet, and even dignified in her manners. Could she have seen or heard anything of Mr. Rowan at the village? The heart of the wife began to flutter feebly. Was he lying in the street? or engaged in a drunken quarrel? She leaned back in her chair, feeling sick, and tried to gather strength for whatever might come to her.

Edith was near the house, now running a few steps, then walking, to gather breath, and she held her arm above her head, and swung it, and in her hand was a letter!

Away went all thought of her husband. In two minutes Mrs. Rowan had the letter in her hand, had torn it open, and she and Edith were both bending over it, and reading it together. It had been lying in the post-office a week. It came from New York, and in a week from the date of it Dick would be at home! He was on board the ship _Halcyon_, Captain Cary, and they were to come down to Seaton, and load with lumber as soon as their East Indian freight should be disposed of. He had met Captain Cary in Calcutta, Dick wrote, and, having done him a service there, had been taken on board his ship, and now was second mate. Next voyage he would sail as first mate. The captain was his friend, would do anything for him, and owned half the ship, Major Cleaveland owning the other half; so Dick's fortune was made. But, he added, they must get out of that town. He had a month to spare, and should take them all away. Let them be ready to start on short notice.

Having read this joyful letter through once, they began at the first word and read it all through again, dwelling here and there with exclamations of delight, stopped every minute by a large tear that splashed down from Mrs. Rowan's eyes, or a yellow avalanche of Edith's troublesome hair tumbling down as she bent eagerly over the letter. How many times they read that letter would be hard to say; still harder to say how many times they might have read it, had there been no interruption.

A crowd of men were approaching their door--close upon them, and darkening the light before they looked up. "Had Dick come, and were the neighbors welcoming him?" was the first thought.

In her haste, Edith had left the outer door ajar, and now heavy feet came tramping in without any leave being asked; the inner door was pushed open, and--not Dick, but Dick's father was brought in and laid on the floor. This was not the first time he had been brought home, but never before had he come with such a retinue and in such silence, and never before had these men taken off their hats to Mrs. Rowan.

"We've sent for the doctor, ma'am," one of them said; "but I guess it's no use."

"I wouldn't have ordered him off, if I hadn't thought he was steady enough to go," said another, who looked very pale. "The captain was expected on board every minute, and it would be as much as my life is worth if he found a man drunk there."

"He slipped on a plank, and fell," some one explained.

Their talk was, to the bewildered woman, like sounds heard in a dream. So were Edith's passionate words as she ordered the men away. The one who had refused the dead man any better title than "Dick" was just coming in at the door, staring right and left, not too pitiful even then to be curious regarding the place he was in. "Go out!" she said, pushing the door in his face.

Some way, still in a dream, they were got rid of, all but two. Then the doctor came, and looked, and nodded his decision--"All over!"

A dream! a dream!

The bedroom was set in order, the silent sleeper laid out there, every stranger sent out of the house and locked out, and then Mrs. Rowan woke up. It was a terrible awakening.

Madame Swetchine comments upon the fact that the thought of death is more terrible in an arid existence than in the extremes of joy and sorrow. It is true not only of those who die, but of the survivors. We go out more willingly on a difficult journey when we have been warmed and fed; we send our loved ones out with less pain when they have been thus fortified. It is the same, in a greater degree, when the journey is that one from which the traveller never returns. It adds a terrible pang to bereavement when we think that our lost one has never been happy; how much more terrible if he has never been honored!

Of her husband's future Mrs. Rowan refused to think or to hear, though she must have trembled in the shadow of it. It might be that which made her so wild. She would allow no one to come near or speak to her save Edith. Those who came with offers of help and sympathy she ordered away. "Go!" she cried. "I want nothing of you! I and mine have been a byword to you for years. Your help comes too late!"

She locked them out and pulled the curtains close, and, though people continued to come to the door through the whole day, no one gained admittance or saw a sign of life about the house. Inside sat the widow and the child, scarcely aware of the passage of time. They only knew that it was still day by the rays of sunlight that came in through holes in the paper curtains, and pointed across the rooms like long fingers. When there was a knock at the door, they started, lifted their faces, and listened nervously till the knocking ceased, as if afraid that some one might force an entrance. One would have fancied, from their expression, that savages or wild beasts were seeking to enter. They never once looked out, nor knew who came.

Still less were they aware of Major Cleaveland standing in his cupola, spy-glass in hand, looking down the bay to see if that cloud of canvas coming up over the horizon was the good ship _Halcyon_ coming home after her first voyage. Down-stairs he came again, three stairs at a jump, as joyful as a boy, in spite of his forty years, gave directions for the best dinner that the town would afford, ordered his carriage, and drove off down the river-road.

The _Halcyon_ was the largest vessel that had ever been built at Seaton, and as its launching had been an event in the town, so its first arrival was an incident to take note of. When Major Cleaveland drove down to the wharf where Mr. Rowan had that morning lost his life, more than a hundred persons were assembled there waiting for the ship, and others were coming. He stepped over to the Rowans' door, and knocked twice, once with his knuckles, and again with his whip-handle, but received no answer. "I would force the door, but that Dick is coming," he said. "It is a shame to let the poor soul shut herself up alone."

Soon, while the crowd watched, around the near curve of the river, where a wooded point pushed out, appeared the tip, then the whole of a bowsprit garlanded with green wreaths, then the leaning lady in her gilded robes, with a bird just escaping from her hand, then the ship rode gracefully into sight on the incoming tide.

A ringing shout welcomed her, and a shout from all hands on board answered back.

Foremost of the little group on the deck stood a man of gigantic stature. His hair was coarse and black, he wore an enormous black beard, and his face, though scarcely middle-aged, was rough and scarred by the weather. Everybody knew Captain Cary, a sailor worthy of the old days of the Vikings, broad-shouldered, as strong as a lion, with a laugh that made the glasses ring when he sat at table. He was a plain, simple man, but grand in his simplicity. By his side stood a youth of twenty, who looked slight in comparison, though he was really manly and well grown. He had sea-blue eyes, quick, long-lashed, and as bright as diamonds; his face was finely moulded, ruddy, and spirited; his hair, that glistened in the sunlight, was chestnut-brown. A gallant lad he was, the very ideal sailor-boy. But his expression was defiant, rather than placid, and he did not join in the hurrahs. The welcoming applause was not for him, he well knew. They were no friends of his who crowded the wharf. He had some bitter recollections of slight or injury connected with nearly every one of them. But he was no longer in their power, and that gave him freedom and ease in meeting them. The time had gone by when he could look upon these country folks as final judges in any matter whatever, or as of any great consequence to him. He had seen the world, had won friends, had proved that he could do something, that he was somebody. He was not ashamed of himself by any means, was young Dick Rowan. Still, it was no pleasure to him to see them, for it brought back the memory of sufferings which had not yet lost their sting.

All this shouting and rejoicing was as the idle wind to the mourners across the way. Their fears of intrusion set at rest, since no one had attempted to force an entrance to the house, they no longer took notice even of the knocking at the door. Both had fallen into a sort of stupor, induced by the exhaustion of long weeping, the silence and semi-darkness of their rooms, and the removal of what had been the daily tormenting fear of their lives. There was no longer any need to tremble when a step approached, lest some one should come in frenzied with drink, and terrify them with his ravings and violence. Mrs. Rowan sat by her husband's side, leaning back in her chair, with closed eyes and clasped hands, only half-alive. Edith lay on the kitchen-floor, where she had thrown herself in a passion of weeping, her arms above her head, her face hidden, and her long hair veiling her. The weeping was over, and she lay silent and motionless. Neither that shouting over on the wharf, nor Major Cleaveland's loud knocking with his whip-handle, had made the slightest impression on her.

But at sunset came one who would not be denied. He tried the lock, and, finding it fastened, knocked gently. There was no answer. He knocked loudly, and still there was no reply. Then he set his knee against the rickety panel, took the knob in a strong grasp, and wrenched the door open. Stepping quickly into the little entry, he looked to right and left, saw the girl lying, face down, on the floor, and the woman sitting beside her dead, both as still as the dead.

Something like a dream came into the half-swoon, half-sleep in which Edith Yorke lay. She heard a slight cry, then a stifled sob, and words hurriedly spoken in a low voice. Then there was a step that paused near her. She put her hair back with one hand, and turned her face listlessly. The curtain had been raised to let in the light, and there stood a young man looking down at her. His face was pale with the sudden shock of grief and distress, but a faint indication of a smile shone through as she looked up at him.

Her first glance was a blank one, her second flashed with delight. She sprang up as if electrified. "O Dick! O Dick! How glad I am!"

The world moved rightly at last! Order was coming out of chaos; for Dick had come home!

He shook hands with her rather awkwardly, somewhat embarrassed by the warmth of her welcome. "We're to go right off," he said. "Captain Cary will help us."

"Yes, Dick!" she replied, and asked no questions. He knew what was right. With him had come all help, and strength, and hope.

The next morning, long before dawn, they started. A boat was ready at the wharf, and Captain Cary and Dick carried out the dead in a rude coffin that had been privately made on board the _Halcyon_. "They shall not stare at our poor funeral, captain," Dick had said; "and I will not ask them for a coffin or a grave."

"All right!" his friend had answered heartily. "I'm your man. Whatever you want to do, I'll help you about."

So the watch on the _Halcyon_ was conveniently deaf and blind, the boat was ready in the dark of morning, the coffin carried out to it, and Mrs. Rowan and Edith helped in after. When they were in their places, and the captain seated, oars in hand, Dick went back to the house, and stayed there a little while. No questions were asked of him when he came away, bringing nothing with him, and he offered no explanation, only took the oars, and silently guided their boat out into the channel. The banks on either side were a solid blackness, and the sky was opaque and low, so that their forms were scarcely visible to each other as they sat there, Mrs. Rowan in the bows near her son, Edith beside Captain Cary, who loomed above her like a mountain of help.

Presently, as they floated around the point that stood between the village and the bay, a faint blush of light warmed the darkness through, and grew till the low-hung clouds sucked it up like a sponge and showed a crimson drapery over their heads. It was too early for morning light, too fierce, and, moreover, it came from the wrong direction. The east was before them; this sanguinary aurora followed in their wake. It shone angrily through the strip of woods, and sent a long, swift beam quivering over the water. This fiery messenger shot like an arrow into the boat, and reddened Mrs. Rowan's hands, clasped on the edge of the coffin. By the light of it, Dick saw all their faces turned toward him.

"The house was mine!" he said defiantly.

The captain nodded approval, and Edith leaned forward to whisper, "Yes, Dick!" But Mrs. Rowan said not a word, only sat looking steadily backward, the light in her face.

"I'm glad of it!" sighed Edith to herself. She had been thinking since they left the house how people would come and wander through it, and peer at everything, and know just how wretchedly they had lived. Now they could not, for it would all be burnt up. She sat and fancied the fire catching here and there in their poor little rooms, how the clock would tick till the last minute, even when its face was scorched and its glass shivered, and then fall with a sudden crash; how the flames would catch at the bed on which the dead man had lain, the mean paper curtains, the chair she had sat in, Mrs. Rowan's little rocking-chair, at the table where they had sat through so many dreary meals. The checker-board would go, and the cards with which Mr. Rowan had played the night before, and the knitting-work with the puckered heel, and her apron that the drunkard had wiped his ghastly face with. The shelves in the little closet would heat, and blacken, and redden, and flame, and down would come their miserable store of dishes, rattling into the yawning cellar. Fire would gnaw at the ceiling, bite its way into the attic, burn up her books, creep to the bed where she had lain and seen rainbow colors in the dark, spread a sheet of flame over the whole, rise, and burst through the roof. She saw it all. She even fancied that each long-used article of their scanty plenishing, worn away by human touch, constantly in the sight of human eyes, would perish with some human feeling, and send out a sharp cry after them. The crackling of flames was to her the cries of burning wood. But she was glad of it, for they were going to wipe out and begin anew. There seemed to her something very grand and exceedingly proper in it all.

When their boat glided from the river into the bay, others besides themselves became aware of the conflagration, and the village bells rang out a tardy alarm. Dick laughed bitterly at the sound, but said nothing.

"They were sorry for you, Dick," the captain said. "I heard a good many speak of it. They would have been glad to do your family any kindness. I don't blame you for coming off; but you mustn't think there was no kind feeling for you among the folks there."

"Kindness may come too late, captain," the young man answered. "I would have thanked them for it years ago, when I had nowhere to turn to, and hadn't a friend in the world; now I don't thank them, and I don't want their kindness. Even if I would take it at last, neither they nor you have any right to expect that I will run to take the hand that has struck me so many blows the first time it is held out. I don't trust 'em. I want proofs of good-will when I've had proofs of ill-will."

"Dick is right, captain," his mother interposed in a weary tone. "You can't judge of such things if you haven't felt them. It's easier to hurt a sore heart than a sound one."

Within an hour they reached one of those desolate little sandy islands with which the bay was studded; and now the faint spring dawn was breaking, and the heavy masses of cloud lifting and contracting, pale reaches of sky visible between. By the cold glimmer they scooped out a grave, and placed the coffin in it. The water washed the shore, and a chilly, sighing wind came up from the east.

As the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin, Mrs. Rowan caught back the captain's arm. "Don't cover him out of sight without some word spoken over him!" she implored. "He was once young, and ambitious, and kind, like you. He would have been a man if he hadn't had bad luck, and then got into bad company. He was more wretched than we were. O sir! don't cover him out of sight as if he were a dog."

The sailor looked both pained and embarrassed. "I'm not much used to praying, ma'am," he said. "I'm a Methodist, but I'm not a church-member. If there was a Bible here, I would read a chapter; but--there isn't."

Dick walked off a little way, turned his back, and stood looking at the water. Mrs. Rowan, kneeling on the sand-heap beside the grave, wept loudly. "His father was a Catholic," she cried. "I don't think much of Catholics; but, if poor Dick had stood by his religion, he could have had a priest to say some word over him. I wouldn't have minded having a priest here. He'd be better than nobody."

Captain Cary was a strict Methodist, and he felt that it would never answer to have the absence of a Catholic priest regretted. Something must be done. "I could sing a hymn, ma'am," he said hesitatingly; and, as no one objected, he straightened himself, dropped his spade, and sang, to the tune of the "Dead March in Saul,"

"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb,
Take this new treasure to thy trust,
And give these sacred relics room
To slumber in the silent dust,"

singing the hymn through.

In a confined place the sailor's voice would have been too powerful, and, perhaps, would have sounded rough; but in open air, with no wall nearer than the distant hills, no ceiling but the sky, and with the complex low harmony of the ocean bearing it up and running through all its pauses, it was magnificent. He sang slowly and solemnly, his arms folded, his face devoutly raised, and the clouds seemed to part before his voice.

When the hymn was ended, he remained a moment without motion or change of face, then stooped for his shovel, and began to fill in the grave.

While listening to him, Edith Yorke had stood in a solemn trance, looking far off seaward; but at sound of the dropping gravel, her quiet broke up, like ice in spring. She threw her arm, and her loose hair with it, up over her head, and sobbed behind that veil. But her tears were not for Mr. Rowan. Her soul had taken a wider range, and, without herself being aware of it, she was mourning for all the dead that ever had died or ever should die.

The first sunbeam that glanced across the water showed a feather of smoke from a steamer that came up through the Narrows into the bay, and the row-boat, a lessening speck, making for the wharf. Twice a week, passengers and freight were taken and left at this wharf, three miles below the town.

TO BE CONTINUED.

SAUNTERING.

Saunterer (from _Sainte Terre_), a pilgrim to holy lands or
places.--THOREAU.

"They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean," says Thoreau. I found the Holy Land in Paris, the city of fashion and gaiety, and where _le suprême bonheur_ is said to be amusement. Every church is a station of the divine Passion, and to every votary therein could I say:

"I behold in thee
An image of him who died on the tree.
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns."

Before these churches, consecrated to some sweet mystery of the Gospel or bearing the hallowed names of those who had put on the sacred stole of Christ's sufferings, I always stopped. I was like Duke Richard, in the _Roman du Rau_:

"Whene'er an open church he found,
He entered in with fervent means
To offer up his orisons;
And if the doors were closed each one,
He knelt upon the threshold stone."

And one might well kneel upon the threshold stone of these ancient churches, feeding mind and soul with sacred legends of the past embodying holy truths which are depicted on the outer walls, as at the north door of Notre Dame de Paris, the arch of which contains in many compartments representations of a diabolic pact and of a deliverance effected by our potent Lady, which is related in a metrical romance composed by Ruteboef, in the time of St. Louis. Saladin, a magician, wears a cap of pyramidal form. And what a mine of legendary and biblical lore all over these venerable walls! Sermons in stones come down to us from the stonen saints in their niches and the bas-reliefs which speak louder than human tongues. The first stone of this edifice was laid by Charlemagne, and the last by Philip Augustus. How much this fact alone tells! And there is the Porte Rouge, an exquisite specimen of the Gothic style of the fifteenth century, the expiatory monument of Jean-sans-Peur after the assassination of the Duke of Orleans. In the arch are the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, in the attitude of supplication, one on each side of our Saviour and the Blessed Virgin. It is an eternal _Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus_.

And then the Portail du Milieu, with the last judgment in the ogive, the angels sounding the last trump, the dead issuing forth from their graves, the separation of the righteous from the wicked, the great Judge with the emblems of the crucifixion, the Virgin and the loved apostle John, and, finally, a glimpse of the joys of heaven and the horrors of hell. Yes, one could linger here for days before this _Biblia pauperum_, were there no more powerful attractions within. And this is not the only church the very exterior of which is full of instruction.

In the porch of St. Germain de l'Auxerrois is the statue of a maiden holding in one hand a breviary and in the other a lighted taper. By her is a demon with a pair of bellows, vainly trying to blow out the light--symbol of faith and prayer. This is the statue of one who deserves to be ranked in history with Joan of Arc on account of her heroism, for twice she saved Paris by her courage and her prayers. Would that she might once more have intervened to save the capital of fair France from the invader! St. Genevieve is placed thus at the entrance of the church of St. Germain to remind us of his connection with her history.

When St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, and St. Lupus, the learned Bishop of Troyes and the intimate friend of Sidonius Apollinaris, were on their way to Britain to combat the heresy of Pelagianism, they passed through the village now called Nanterre, about two leagues from Paris. All the inhabitants of the place poured forth to meet them and obtain their benediction. St. Germain noticed in the crowd a little girl with a face as radiant as an angel's. His prophetic instinct told him she was destined to be a chosen vessel of God's grace, and, when she expressed a wish to be the spouse of Christ, he led her with him to the church, holding his apostolic hands upon her head during the chanting of the vesper service. He afterward suspended a bronze medal, on which was a cross, from her neck, in remembrance of her consecration to God, bidding her henceforth give up all ornaments of silver and gold. "Let them who live for this world have these," said he. "Do thou, who art become the spouse of Christ, desire only spiritual adorning." Dr. Newman says it was a custom, even among the early Christians, to wear on the neck some token of the mysteries of their religion. Long after, in memory of this event, the Canons of St. Genevieve, at Paris, distributed upon her festival a _pain bénit_ on which was an impression of this coin.

Eighteen years after, St. Germain again passed through Nanterre, once more on his way to Britain. He had not forgotten Genevieve. At the age of fifteen, she had received the virgin's veil from the hands of the Bishop of Paris. Her parents dying, she went to Paris to reside with her godmother. Here she suffered that persecution so often the lot of those who live godly lives. Those who outstrip their fellows even on the path of piety are objects of envy, and they who leave the beaten track of everyday religion are derided. St. Genevieve was visited at Paris by the holy Bishop of Auxerre, who saluted her with respect as a temple in which the divine Presence was manifest. Her life was one of prayer and penance. She used to water her couch with her tears, and when the adversary of our souls extinguished the taper that lighted her vigils she rekindled it with her prayers. When Attila, king of the Huns, threatened Paris, she besought the inhabitants not to leave their homes, declaring that Heaven would intervene to save them. The barbarians, in effect, were dispersed by a storm, and betook themselves toward Orleans. In the church of St. Germain there is a chapel dedicated to St. Genevieve, with a painting representing her haranguing the inhabitants of Paris.

When Childeric besieged Paris, and sickness and famine were carrying off the inhabitants, St. Genevieve laid aside her religious dress, took command of the boats that went up the Seine for succor, and brought back a supply of provisions. And when the city had to surrender, the conquerer treated her with marked respect, and Clovis loved to grant her petitions. The remains of paganism were rooted out of Paris through her influence over him and Clotilda, and the first church built on the spot that now bears her name, but then dedicated under the invocation of Sts. Peter and Paul. In that church was the shepherdess of Nanterre buried beside Clovis and Clotilda. St. Eloi wrought a magnificent shrine for her remains, but it was destroyed at the Revolution, and the contents publicly burned. A portion of her relics is now enshrined at the Pantheon. I found lights burning there, and flowers and wreaths, and votive offerings, and the sweet-smelling incense of prayer rising from a group of people praying around. But the magnificence of the Pantheon is miserably depressing, as Faber says. How much more I delighted in the interesting church of St. Etienne du Mont, where is the curious old tomb of St. Genevieve! There too were lights and ex-votos, and an old woman sat near the tomb to dispense tapers to those who wished to leave a little gleam of love and prayer behind them. Once what lights and jewels blazed around such shrines, and what crowds of devout pilgrims! Now, a few dim tapers, a few prayerful hearts, light up the place.

"Now it is much if here and there
One dreamer, by thy genial glare,
Trace the dim Past, and slowly climb
The steep of Faith's triumphant prime."

Now the world seems to begrudge the temple of the Most High the silver and the gold that belong to him. And jewels are not to be thought of. Such wealth must be kept in circulation, that is, on Prince Esterhazy's coat, I suppose, and by ladies of fashion. The world nowadays is like Julian the Apostate, who was displeased at the magnificence of the chalices used in the Christian churches. For me, I love these offerings from time to eternity, as Madame de Staël says. Let all that is most precious be poured out at the feet of the Saviour, and let no one murmur if such offerings are crystallized. I took pleasure in looking at some splendid vessels of the sanctuary at Notre Dame, and thought:

"Never was gold or silver graced thus
Before.
To bring this body and this blood to us
Is more
Than to crown kings,
Or be made rings
For star-like diamonds to glitter in.

When the great King offers to come to me
As food,
Shall I suppose his carriages can be
Too good?
No! stars to gold
Turned never could
Be rich enough to be employed so.

If I might wish, then, I would have this bread,
This wine,
Vesselled in what the sun might blush to shed
His shine
When he should see--
But till that be,
I'll rest contented with it as it is."

In my saunterings I frequently lingered before the tower of St. Jacques de la Boucherie, the highest in Paris, and the most perfect specimen of Gothic architecture. The remainder of the church was demolished at the Revolution. The tower was saved by the artifice of an architect, who besought the crowd to imitate the enlightened English revolutionists, who destroyed their churches, but preserved the towers to be converted into shot-houses! In this church crowds used to assemble to hear Bourdaloue thunder, as Madame de Sévigné expresses it. I fancy I can hear that uncompromising preacher ringing out like a trump in the presence of the Great Monarch, "Thou art the man!" This exclamation should have appealed to the heart of the people, and saved the church he loved from profanation.

This church was built by the alms of pious people. Nicholas Flamel built the portal in 1388, which he covered with devout images and devices, which were regarded, even by the antiquaries of the last century, as symbols of alchemy. This Flamel was a benefactor to many churches and hospitals of Paris, which he took pleasure in adorning with carvings in which he made all things tributary, as it were, to the worship of God. At first a simple scrivener, he became painter, architect, chemist, philosopher, and poet. He certainly had the fancy of a poet, and wrote in durable materials. He left by his will nineteen chalices of silver gilt to as many churches.

These churches and religious houses are all connected with the history of the city. Paris owed its extension on the north side of the Seine to the school in the Abbey of St. Germain de l'Auxerrois, which was famous at an early age. There were four great abbeys around Paris in the time of the third dynasty--St. Lawrence, St. Genevieve, St. Germain de l'Auxerrois, and St. Germain des Près. These were surrounded by their dependencies, forming villages which gradually extended till they united to enclose the city, then chiefly confined to the island. The poor loved to live near these abbeys. St. Germain des Près, besides providing for the poor in general, used privately to support several destitute families who were ashamed of their poverty. The old abbots of this monastery were both lords spiritual and temporal in the suburbs on that side of the city. This abbey was a monument of repentance. Digby says when it was rebuilt in the year 1000 the great tower and the portals were left as before. The statues of eight kings stood at the entrance, four on the right hand and four on the left. One of them held a scroll on which was written the tragical name of Clodomir. And another, with no beatific circle around his head, held an open tablet on which were the first and last letters of the name Clotaire. These were the statues of the murderer and his victim.

The square tower of the monastery, built in the time of Charlemagne, contributed greatly to the defence of the house against the Normans. A stout old monk, Abbon, conducted the defence, and proved himself on this occasion a valiant defender of the walls of Zion. Perhaps it was his skilful hand that wrote an Homeric poem on the siege of Paris by the Normans in the year 885. If not by him, it was by a monk of a similar name.

The Pré aux Clercs, now the Faubourg St. Germain, took its name from being a place of recreation for the students of this abbey. One of the scholars, Sylvester de Sacy, so learned in the Semitic languages, ascribed the bent of his mind to the aid and encouragement given him by one of the monks who took his constitutional in the abbey gardens at the same time as the boy, then only twelve years old.

The library belonging to this abbey was celebrated in the middle ages, and there were monks of literary eminence in the house. Dacherius was the librarian when he composed his _Spicilegium_. Usuard compiled a martyrology. They had a printing press set up immediately after the invention of printing, which gives one a favorable idea of their mental activity. Most of these old monastic libraries were accessible to all; that of the Abbey of St. Victor was open to the public three days in the week; and there were public libraries attached to some of the parish churches. In the time of Charles V., rightly named the Wise, he ordered the Royal Library of Paris to be illuminated with thirty portable lamps, and that a silver one should be suspended in the centre for the benefit of those students who prolonged their researches into the night. The numerous collections of books in Paris made that city very attractive to certain minds even in the middle ages. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, in England, who established the first public library in that country, used to resort to Paris for fresh supplies. "O blessed God of gods in Sion!" he exclaims, "what a flood of pleasure rejoices our heart whenever we are at liberty to visit Paris, that paradise of the world, where the days always seem too short and too few through the immensity of our love! There are libraries more redolent of delight than all the shops of aromatics; there are the flowering meadows of all volumes that can be found anywhere. There, indeed, untying our purse-strings, and opening our treasures, we disperse money with a joyful heart (evidently the truth, for he paid the Abbot of St. Albans fifty pounds weight of silver for thirty or forty volumes), and ransom with dirt books that are beyond all price. But lo! how good and pleasant a thing it is to gather together in one place the arms of clerical warfare, that there may be a supply of them for us to use in the wars against heretics, should they ever rise up against us!"

What would this book-loving prelate have done had he foreseen that the church would one day be accused of being a foe to progress and to the diffusion of knowledge! This bishop, who lived in the thirteenth century, was the Chancellor and High Treasurer of England, and celebrated for his love and encouragement of literature. He had libraries in all his palaces, and the apartment he commonly occupied was so crammed with books that he was almost inaccessible. He was said to breathe books, so fond was he of being among them. None but a genuine lover of books would give such amusing directions for their preservation. "Not only do we serve God," says he, "by preparing new books, but also by preserving and treating with great care those we have already. Truly, after the vestments and vessels dedicated to our Lord's body, sacred books deserve to be treated with most reverence by clerks. In opening and shutting books, they should avoid all abruptness, not too hastily loosing the clasps, nor failing to shut them when they have finished reading, for it is far more important to preserve a book than a shoe." He then goes on to speak of soiling books; of marking passages with the finger-nails, "like those of a giant;" of swelling the junctures of the binding with straws or flowers; and of eating over them, leaving the fragments in the book, as if the reader had no bag for alms. Waxing warm over the idea, he wishes such persons might have to sit over leather with a shoemaker! And then there are impudent youths, who presume to fill up the broad margins with their unchastened pens, noting down whatever frivolous thing occurs to their imagination! And "there are some thieves, too, who cut out leaves or letters, which kind of sacrilege ought to be prohibited under the penalty of anathema." The bishop had evidently had some sad experience with his cherished tomes. His testimony respecting the appreciation of books by the monks of his time is valuable. Remember the age, reader--that period of deepest darkness just before the dawn! "The monks who are so venerable," says he in his _Philobiblion_, "are accustomed to be solicitous in regard to books, and to be delighted in their company, as with all riches, and thence it is that we find in most monasteries such splendid treasures of erudition, giving a delectable light to the path of laics. Oh! that devout labor of their hands in writing books; how preferable to all georgic care! All things else fail with time. Saturn ceases not to devour his offspring, for oblivion covereth the glory of the world. But God hath provided a remedy for us in books, without which all that was ever great would have been without memory. Without shame we may lay bare to books the poverty of human ignorance. They are the masters who instruct us without rods, without anger, and without _money_. (The bishop had evidently forgotten those fifty pounds of silver, and many more besides!) O books! alone liberal and making liberal, who give to all, and seek to emancipate all who serve you. You are the tree of life and the river of Paradise, with which the human intelligence is irrigated and made fruitful."

But I did not always linger at the doors of churches, studying the walls and pondering on their history. The true Catholic knows that these magnificent churches are only vast shrines enclosing the great Object of his adoration and love. M. Olier, when travelling, never saw the spire of a church in the distance without calling upon all with him to repeat the Tantum Ergo. He used to say: "When I see a place where my Master reposes, I have a feeling of unutterable joy." This feeling comes over every one at the first glimpse of that undying lamp before the tabernacle, "that small flame which rises and falls like a dying pulse, flickering up and down, emblematic of our lives, which even now thus wastes and wanes."

The very first act on stepping into a church completely changes the current of one's thoughts. The holy water, the sign of the cross, dispel the remembrance of material things and recall devout thoughts of the Passion.

"Whene'er across this sinful flesh of mine
I draw the holy sign,
All good thoughts stir within me, and collect
Their slumbering strength divine."

The _bénitiers_ at St. Sulpice are two immense shells, given to Francis the First by the Republic of Venice; but for all that, the _eau bénite_ seemed just as holy, and I made the sign of the cross just as devoutly.

For devotion, I prefer the largest churches, because the seclusion is more perfect, as at Notre Dame. Behind some pillar or in the depths of some dim chapel, one can find perfect solitude where he can be alone with God. Alone with God! that in itself is prayer. The world-weary soul finds it good simply to sit or kneel with clasped hands in the divine Presence.

"My spirit I love to compose,
In humble trust my eyelids close
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought expressed,
Only a sense of supplication."

Joubert says the best prayers are those that have nothing distinct, and which thus partake of simple adoration; and Hawthorne asks: "Could I bring my heart in unison with those praying in yonder church with a fervor of supplication but no distinct request, would not that be the safest kind of prayer?" Surely every devout soul feels that "prayer is not necessarily petition," and what is technically known as the prayer of contemplation is the very inspiration of such churches. In this temple of silence, man seems to be brought back to his primeval relations with his Creator.

What mute eloquence in these walls! What an appeal to the imagination in the calmness! Earthly voices die away on the threshold, and peace, dovelike, broods over the very entrance. A daily visit to such a temple gives life a certain elevation. The very poor who come here to pray must acquire a certain dignity of character. How many generations have worshipped beneath these arches! The saints have passed over the very pavement I tread. I recall St. Louis, who, out of respect to our Lord, had laid off his shoes and divested himself of his royal robes, bearing solemnly into this church the holy Crown of Thorns. And great sinners, too, are in this long procession of the past. There is Count Raymond of Toulouse, barefoot, and clad only in the white tunic of a penitent, coming to receive absolution from the papal legate before the grand altar.

When one recalls the popes, cardinals, and other dignitaries of the church, the kings and queens and knights of the olden time who have been here, one almost shrinks from entering such a throng of the mighty ones of the earth. It seems as if he were elbowing the Great Monarch or the gallant Henry of Navarre.

On the galleries around the nave were formerly suspended the flags and standards taken in war, and it was in allusion to this custom that the Prince of Conti, after the victories of Fleurus, Steinkerque, and La Marsaille, made an opening in the crowd around the door of the church for the Marechal de Luxembourg, whom he held by the hand, by crying: "Place, place, messieurs, au tapissier de Notre Dame!"--"Room, room, gentlemen, for the upholsterer of Notre Dame!"

It is charming to see the birds flying about in the arches of this church, as if nature had taken its venerable walls to her bosom. It made me think of the old hermits of the middle ages, living with the sea-birds in their ocean caves. Like St. Francis, the canons of Notre Dame say the divine office with their "little sisters, the birds;" and the bird is the symbol of the soul rising heavenward on the wings of prayer. We, like the birds, build our nests here for a few days. Blessed are we if they are built within the influences of the sanctuary which temper the storms and severities of life. It is only in the clefts of the rocks that wall in the mystic garden of the church that there is safety for the dovelike soul.

In the transept is the altar of Our Lady, starry with lamps. Above her statue is one of her titles, appealing to every heart--Consolatrix afflictorum! To this church M. Olier came, in all his troubles, to the altar of Mary. There is also a fine statue of her over the grand altar, formerly at the Carmes. No church is complete without an altar of the Blessed Virgin. Wherever there is a cross, Mary must be at its foot, as at Calvary, directing our eyes, our thoughts, our hearts, to him who hangs thereon.

"O that silent, ceaseless mourning!
O those dim eyes! never turning
From that wondrous, suffering Son!

"Virgin holiest, virgin purest,
Of that anguish thou endurest
Make me bear with thee my part."

In traversing Paris, one passes many private residences of interest which have a certain consecration--the consecration of wit and genius. I cannot say I ever went so far as Horace Walpole, who never passed the Hôtel de Carnavalet, the residence of Madame de Sévigné, without saying his Ave before it, much as I admire her _esprit_, and though she was the granddaughter of St. Jane de Chantal, the foundress of the Nuns of the Visitation. Walpole thought the house had a foreign-looking air, and said it looked like an ex-voto raised in her honor by some of her foreign votaries. It was once an elegant residence, with its sculptured gateway and Ionic pilasters, and its court adorned with statues. In the day of the _spirituelle_ letter-writer, it was the resort of the learned and the refined; now, O tempora! it is a boarding-school, and the _salon_ of Madame de Sévigné (the temple of "Notre Dame de Livry," to quote Walpole again, if it be not profanity) is converted into a dormitory. Truly, as Bishop de Bury says, "all things pass away with time," but the wit and genius she embodied in her charming letters are eternal.

In one of the upper stories of a house in the Rue St. Honoré lived Joubert, the Coleridge of France. His keeping-room was flooded with the light he loved, and from it, as he said, he saw a great deal of sky and very little earth. There he passed his days among the books he had collected. He rigorously excluded from his library all the books he disapproved of; unwilling, as he said, to admit an unworthy friend to his constant companionship. To this room he attracted a brilliant circle of conspicuous authors and statesmen by his conversational talents, and there he wrote his immortal _Pensées_. He said he left Paris unwillingly, because then he had to part from his friends; and he left the country unwillingly, because he had to part from himself. Writing from that sunny room, he says: "In many things, I am like the butterfly; like him, I love the light; like him, I there consume my life; like him, I need, in order to spread my wings, that there be fair weather around me in society, and that my mind feel itself surrounded and as if penetrated by the mild temperature of indulgence." But he wrote graver and more profound things there. One of his friends said of him that he seemed to be a soul that by accident had met with a body, and was trying to make the best of it. And he, ever indulgent to the faults of others, said of his friends, "When they are blind of one eye, I look at them in profile."

The Abbaye aux Bois is interesting from its association with Madame Récamier and her circle. Her rooms were in the third story and paved with tiles, and they overlooked the pleasant garden of the monastery, and, when lit up with wit and genius, they needed no other attraction. Among her visitors there were Sir Humphry Davy, Maria Edgeworth, Humboldt, Lamartine, Delphine Gay, Chateaubriand, etc. They must have been like the gods, speaking from peak to peak all around Olympus. Lamartine read his _Méditations_ there before they were given to the public. Chateaubriand thus speaks of the room: "The windows overlooked the garden of the abbey, under the verdant shade of which the nuns paced up and down, and the pupils played. The top of an acacia was on a level with the eye, sharp spires pierced the sky, and in the distance rose the hills of Sèvres. The rays of the setting sun threw a golden light over the landscape and came in through the open windows. Some birds were settling themselves for the night on the top of the window-blinds. Here I found silence and solitude, far above the tumult and turmoil of a great city."