Chapter XIII: A Rival for Edith (1)

Dick Rowan came home in the spring of '52 to begin a new life. In the first place, he was to have a ship of his own. Mr. Williams had a beautiful ship almost ready to launch, and he was to be the master of it. He was to name it, too, that had been promised him; but what name he meant to bestow was as yet a secret to all but himself. What could it be but the _Edith Yorke_? He had other matters to settle, too; he must become a Catholic. He had promised Edith that he would, if, on reading, he found he could do so conscientiously. He had read a good deal, more than he liked, indeed, and saw nothing to object to. Besides, the fact that it was Edith's religion and the religion of his father's boyhood was a strong argument in its favor. There was one other affair to settle, the thought of which made the color drop out of his cheeks, and his heart rise in excited throbs. He had studied it over and over during this last voyage, and his mind was made up. Edith was almost seventeen years old, and he meant to speak to her. She must know now, if she ever would, whether she was willing to be his wife.

Perhaps something said to him by Captain Cary had hastened his decision. The captain had seen what his studies were, and been vexed by them.

"You are going too far, Dick," he expostulated. "A man never should change his religion for a girl's sake. She won't like you any the better for it. Besides, Dick, I can't help saying it, you are making a fool of yourself. She will marry Carl Yorke."

Dick stared, reddened, then grew pale. "I think not," he said decidedly. "Don't say that again, captain."

The first thing to be attended to, then, was his religion. He must be a Catholic when he met Edith. Besides, if religion gives strength, he would feel better prepared to put his fortune to the test. He went, therefore, to a clergyman immediately.

"I do not wish to read any more, sir," he said. "I do not like the way in which learned men prove their arguments to be true. It is too ingenious. It always seems to me that the other side could be just as well proved, if one were clever enough. I am willing to believe whatever is true. I cannot swear to any doctrine, except the existence of a God and the divinity of Christ. Those two truths I would stand by with my life. For the rest, I can only say that I place my mind and heart passively in the hands of God, and ask him to direct them. I can do no more, except to say that, if I do not believe, neither do I disbelieve anything that has been proposed to me. Perhaps my head isn't a very good one; I dare say it is not. I certainly do not like subtleties. It seems to me that all necessary truth may be known and believed by a very ordinary intellect with very moderate study. What I want in religion is what I find in the faces of some of the poor people whom I see here at Mass in the early morning, and I don't believe they got that out of books, or got it themselves in any way."

"You are right," the priest said. "What you saw in their faces was faith, a pure gift of God. But you believe baptism to be necessary to salvation?"

"I am inclined to think so, but not sure," was the reply. "If I were sure, then I should already have faith, which is what I come to ask for. If it is necessary, I wish for it."

The priest mused. This was not a very fervent penitent certainly; but he was a sincere one, and in his fine, earnest face the father read a latent fervor and power of strong conviction which would be all the more precious when aroused.

Dick mistook the father's silence for hesitation, and his real impatience broke out. "I am uneasy, sir," he said; "I wish to be one thing or another."

The priest looked at him. "What do you mean?"

Dick paused a minute, resting his head on his hand, then raised his bright, clear eyes.

"What I say to a priest goes no further?" he said interrogatively.

"Your confidence is safe with me."

"Edith said that I should tell you everything," Dick muttered, half to himself, and for a moment his dreamy eyes seemed to contemplate the picture his mind held of her saying so. A smile just stirred his lips, and he went on. "I was born an outlaw, sir. The conventionalities which keep many people straight had nothing to do with me. Then I like adventure, and am hard to frighten. I have been about, and seen all sorts of people believing all sorts of things, and one sort was as good as another, as far as I could see. The effect of this is, of course, to make one liberal; but such a liberality, if a man has not a settled religious belief, unhinges the principles. There have been times when I have thought that it wasn't much matter what I did. I had half a mind to run away with Edith, and turn privateer."

"Who is this Edith?"

"She is a little Catholic girl who was brought up with me, sir. I'm going to ask her to marry me, and I think she will. She is the only person in the world whom I depend on, or who has any influence over me. I believe in her. She is as true as steel. And she believes in me. I can't fail her, sir. That thought has kept me from harm so far."

"It is a poor reason for being a Catholic," the father said in a dissatisfied tone. "It is a weak hold on virtue when your motive is an affection like this."

The young man smiled with a sudden recollection.

"When we were at St. Michael's, last winter, there was a great storm, and a vessel was wrecked close to the coast. We went down to the shore to see, but nothing could be done. One man swam to or was washed to a little rock not far from the shore. There he lay clinging, with the waves breaking over him. He couldn't have held on long, and we could not get to him any way. But Captain Cary brought out a big bow and arrow of his that always reminded me of Ulysses', for no one but the captain, I believe, could bend it, and, in a lull of the wind, he shot a little cord over to the man, and the man drew it out. Hope revived his strength, I suppose, and it seemed as if the tempest waited for him. We tied a rope to the cord, and a larger rope to that, and he drew it out, and tied it to the rock, and we saved him."

The priest smiled. "Very true. We rise, we are saved sometimes by degrees, and this little hold may be tied to a stronger. Go out into the church, and make the prayer of the blind man, 'Lord, that I may receive my sight.' To-morrow morning I will baptize you. I find you sufficiently instructed."

That evening Dick made a request of the priest. "When men were to be knighted, in olden times," he said, "they used to keep a vigil in the church. Now, if by baptism I am to be made fit to enter heaven at once, changed from a child of the devil to a child of God, why, it is worth thinking about. It is a great thing to happen in a man's life, and it happens but once. I would like to keep a vigil in the church. I could think there better than anywhere else."

The priest hesitated. He hardly knew what to think of this mingled coldness and fervor.

"Besides," the young man added, "you say that Christ is there bodily. I would like to watch with him one night. It seems to me wrong to leave him alone there now, when he is to do so much for me to-morrow."

The priest consented. "But do not fancy that the Lord is alone, though his earthly children forsake him," he said. "Doubtless the place is crowded with angels and archangels."

Dick gazed steadfastly at the priest, and for a moment lost himself.

"Then, perhaps," he began hesitatingly, but broke off there. "No, if he had preferred the company of angels, he would have remained in heaven," he said. "It will be no intrusion. He comes here to be with man."

Night came on, the church was locked, and all was dark save a small golden flame that burned suspended in air. A watcher sat far back in one of the seats, but after a while drew nearer, still sitting, not kneeling. The whole place was full of silence and a sense of waiting. In the shade, the stations hung unseen, but not unfelt. He had seen them that day, and they spoke through the dark, "Here he fell! Here he was struck! Here he was nailed to the cross!"

There was in this darkness and silence such a vacuum of the earthly, that the heavenly seemed to break through the thin wall of sense and flow around the soul.

When the priest came in at daybreak, he found his penitent prostrate before the altar. After Mass was over, the baptism took place.

The father was struck by the countenance of his convert. It wore a rapt and exalted expression, and he appeared to see nothing of what was visibly before his eyes.

"God bless you!" he said to Dick on going out of the church. "Come to see me. And for a while try to think of God entirely, and not of Miss Edith Yorke."

"Sir," said Dick quietly, "I have thought of Edith Yorke but once since I entered the church last night; and then it was as though the Blessed Virgin put her aside and stood in her place."

TO BE CONTINUED.

A PAGE OF THE PAST AND A SHADOW OF THE FUTURE.

It is, perhaps, hardly to be believed, in this new country whose mental geology grows and changes so quickly that one stratum of thought and of circumstances is gone even before one has had time to analyze it--it is, perhaps, hardly to be believed that the shadow of the penal laws in the mother-country should still cloud with lingering touches the reminiscences of a yet unfaded life. Young people whose ideas and education belong to this century can still remember one of those priests of old--one of those silent champions--whom the English law made outcasts from their kind, and fair game for their enemies.

Such a one was James Duckett, the pastor of a scattered flock that covered the plain of Gresham, of historic memory, to the fort of Edgehill, the last standpoint of the "lost cause" of the Stuarts.

The way in which his retreat was discovered, by a party of Catholics from one of the large country-houses of Gloucestershire, was very amusing as well as interesting.

They were returning from a picnic at a charming old Tudor manor-house, one of the seats of the Marquis of Northampton, by name Compton-Wyniatts, and where the family tradition asserts a portion of the Royalist army to have lain hidden the eve of the terrible battle of Edgehill. The house is full of holes and hiding-places, sliding-panels, and trap-doors, great ghostly chambers, and funereal beds, not to mention the vast cobwebbed garrets which the soldiers are alleged to have occupied. It has a very deserted appearance, and, indeed, its owner hardly ever lives there; but it is picturesque in inverse ratio of its desolation. Just outside the front courtyard is the lawn, shaded by chestnut-trees, and here the picnic took place.

Returning home, and passing through the hamlet of Brailes, two miles from Compton-Wyniatts, the party observed some curious things lying on the roadside hedges. Upon examination, they proved to be ecclesiastical vestments, and evidently genuine Catholic property, ritualism being as yet unknown in the country districts of England. It turned out that they belonged to Mr. Duckett, and the whole party repaired to Mr. Duckett's house. This was a cottage in a little garden, with a hay-field between it and the old parish church, Protestant now, but once the only home these costly vestments should have known. There was the old man, the priest of the past, in the homely peasant garb, now abandoned by the peasants themselves, in coarse blue woollen stockings and a snuff-colored coat, and leather garters at the knee. Huge-buckled shoes were on his feet, and a thickly-folded neckcloth was wound stiffly round his throat. I saw him myself, later on, when the existence of this living relic of the penal days was better known among the county circle. The lower room of his cottage, stone-flagged and bare, was a little school where a few children were taught catechism and reading; the upper rooms were reached by a steep wooden staircase _outside_ the house. Here was a "large upper chamber, furnished," and this was the chapel. It was as cold, and bare, and poor as it could well be; the roughest workmanship was displayed in the altar, the rails, and the benches. The raftered and thatched roof that was immediately above was broken and untrustworthy, and the rain of the last thunder-shower had discolored both it and the floor below. The small sacristy, off the chapel, was in the same state of decay and dilapidation; hence the damage done to the vestments that had been put out in the sun to dry. Mr. Duckett had treasures here that many modern churches might, and with reason, have envied. The vestments--especially a white cope and a gold-embroidered chasuble--were very rich and beautiful, and such as must have been, no doubt, a gift from some persecuted Catholic family to the persecuted temple of God. But, better still, there was a small leaden chalice, said to have been used by many of the martyrs of Tyburn, by special permission given in consideration of the difficulty of obtaining gold and silver vessels for sacred purposes, and of the probable sacrilege and spoliation the known existence of such vessels would provoke. And, among other things, there was also a little bell, wide and round, like a low-crowned hat, and four little clappers inside, making a sweet chime when the bell was shaken. This was afterwards copied by the modern artificers of Birmingham, but they could not transmit to their copy the mellow, time-harmonized tone of the original.

In Mr. Duckett's sitting-room, a small, unpretending, and homely nook, was the portrait of his revered and beloved patron, Bishop Bishop, in Mr. Duckett's youth the only and supreme ecclesiastical authority in England. The priest was an old man now, seventy-five or thereabouts, but his heart was true yet to his friend and patron, whose praises he was never tired of repeating. He told, also, how, although parishes had been formed around him and churches had grown up at his side, yet once his duties carried him on midnight rides and to distances of forty or fifty miles, for a sick-call or a promised and occasional Mass at some one of the many places that claimed his care. Broadway, a village at the foot of the Coteswold Hills, just at the edge of the fruitful plain or vale of Gresham, was one of these stations, and now, as for many long years past, there stands in its midst the Passionist Monastery of St. Saviour, the novitiate house for the province of Great Britain. Two hundred Catholics and a spacious church, model schools under government inspection, and confraternities of many kinds, have turned the far-off hamlet, where a few stray and hunted Catholics were hidden, into a very centre of religion for twenty miles around. Wordnorton, the hunting-box of the Duc d'Aumale, and Chipping-Campden, a thriving little mission on the opposite ridge of the Coteswold, are both served from the monastery at Broadway; and so great is the personal ascendency of the monks, and so universal their popularity, that they need not fear the letter of the law, and _do_ often contravene it by walking abroad in their monastic habit.

Here is one of the changes that have occurred in the straggling field of Mr. Duckett's early labors; and, while all this is happening around him, the calm old man waits for his summons in the same homely and unobtrusive dress he has sanctified by his daily work in the vineyard of Christ.

It is said, and I believe with truth--at least, I _hope_ so--that the monastic garb of all religious orders was originally modelled on the coarse habiliments of the poorest and simplest of mankind--the shepherds and husbandmen of the hard-working rural districts. If so, it suggests a very beautiful and a very happy thought, and brings before our eyes the many parables in which God's church is likened to a field, a vineyard, an orchard, a garden. Tillers of the soil and sowers of the grain, reapers of the harvest and fosterers of the vine, are priests and deacons, bishops and monks; and all through sacred history runs this touching parallel. Nowhere is religion without her crown of nature's weaving: the blossoming rod and the sceptre of Christ's jurisdiction are one.

And so, to return to our friend, the priest and pastor of a forgotten and happily buried age of persecution, God's voice called _him_ in time, and among the many who daily wait in the temple's outer court he was chosen to blossom forth in a higher life, and to wear his robe of glory in a nobler place than that where he had clothed himself like the poor and the unnoticed, and only wore by stealth the sacred garments of his priesthood.

He died in the year 1866, if I mistake not, and his place was filled by a young man, newly ordained, as if to bear witness how suddenly one state of things had died away and another had come in its stead, but also, perchance, to point out to us--too secure in our present safety--that as quickly as freedom had followed persecution, so we should be ever ready to see persecution follow freedom.

And in these days, surely, we dare not think such a past as that of English religious intolerance so far from us as that it should never draw near us again, and renew itself in many shapes of tyranny and horror. And this, not only in England, where religious persecution may suddenly emerge from the apparent extreme of religious indifference, and where it may be carried on, some day, on members of all Christian communities, no longer in the name of a state church or a general catechism, but in the name of rabid hatred to a Creator, God, and senseless chafing against _any_ constituted authority--not only, I say, may this happen in England, but in other lands, Eastern and Western, old and new.

We see it to-day in red-handed France and Judas-tongued Italy; we may see it elsewhere to-morrow. Persecution is an instinct of the brute; what is not after its own kind, it has no desire to spare. The prevailing systems of philosophy--if we may so degrade the word whose first meaning is love of wisdom--tend to the apotheosis of the brute, and the negation and indignant repudiation of anything in man above the brute. When this task shall be completed, and man _educated_ into the right usage of his newly-discovered nature, what are we to expect but persecution in one form or another from the new lords of the creation, the new monarchs of the system of materialistic supremacy?

There is a new and subtle alchemy running through the so-called moral world, the Areopagus of modern thinkers. Of old, all things might be resolved into component parts, of which _gold_ was infallibly one; now, all men must be resolved into perishable parts, of which _each_ one is stamped with the brand of the brute.

It is a sad contrast, and no doubt it would be needless to define which of the two is the more harmful theory. Let us pass now from the life of the hidden pastor of an obscure village to an incident, perhaps hardly better known, in the career of one of the apostles of a great and glorious city, the same whose comeliness has been so cruelly brought low, and whose desolation at this moment reminds one too forcibly of the plaint of the prophet Jeremiah over doomed Jerusalem.

The Père de Ravignan, whose name is a household word in France, and whose influence over the young men of his day was something all but miraculous, was summoned one night to attend a sick-call. A carriage was in attendance; the two men who had come for him represented the case as of the greatest urgency, but refused to take him with them unless he suffered himself to be blindfolded. After briefly hesitating, he complied with this strange request. The times were dangerous, revolution was hovering like a storm over the state, secret societies were in ever-watchful and almost infallibly secure fermentation. He himself was a well-known man, a representative man, one whose voice was ever raised uncompromisingly against the foes of law and order--one whose life was every day exposed, in consequence of his grand fearlessness of conscience, to the machinations of hidden and treacherous enemies. A less suspicious man might have feared a snare in this strange condition of blindfolding a priest called to a death-bed, but the blood of the old race of _gentilhommes_ that was fast disappearing, added to the courage of the consecrated line of God's ministers that never disappears, made the Jesuit strong in this hour of peril, and he forgot himself to think only of the sinking soul to whose aid he was summoned. He took the holy oils and the viaticum with him, and left the house in the Rue de Sèvres in the carriage that was waiting at the door.

They drove off rapidly; his companions pulled down the blinds, and effectually shut out any daylight that might straggle in. The motion of the vehicle, however, and the many sudden jerks it gave, indicated turnings and corners as being constantly doubled, and even suggested the not unlikely idea that this was done on purpose, with the object of confusing the priest's recollection. The two men preserved a dead silence all the time. At last the carriage stopped; the door was opened, the Père de Ravignan helped out, and conducted up a wide staircase; doors were opened and shut, and then the bandage was taken from his eyes, and he found himself in a large anteroom, handsomely and massively furnished.

"In the end room of this suite of apartments, you will find the person who requires your ministry," said one of his guides.

He passed room after room with the windows darkened, and rich furniture giving a sumptuous air to the large and airy saloons, but order reigned everywhere. He saw neither sign of confusion nor heard any sound of sorrow, nothing to indicate the presence of death or mortal sickness. He began to fear that in truth he had been snared by secret enemies, and that it was his own death he had to expect as the _dénouement_ of this solemn masquerade. The last door was reached; a curtain hung across the entrance, and the chamber was darkened. One lamp burned in the furthest recess. He looked in vain for signs of sickness; there were none. The room was a drawing-room, and was furnished much like the rest. But soon a form rose to meet him, coming slowly from the luxurious lounge near the solitary lamp. It was that of a young man, very handsome, and fashionably dressed. He looked pale and anxious, and his hands trembled slightly as he moved. Yet sick to death he certainly was not. Was this his executioner, or some part of the ghastly pageant of his own coming doom? The priest paused, and the young stranger said, in eager, hollow tones:

"_Mon père_, it is for _me_ that you are here. I am going to die. I shall be dead within twenty-four hours, but I obtained this favor that I might first make my peace with God."

"My son, what does this mean?" asked the priest. "You are not ill!"

"No; yet I shall not see to-morrow's sunset. I dare say no more. I must make my confession."

An hour went by; the solemn mysteries that pass unseen and undreamt-of by the careless world soothed and comforted the doomed man. We know nothing further, nor can we ever know aught concerning this dread interview on the very threshold of invisible death; but, the priest's duty done, the young man craved his blessing and his prayers, and took an agonizing farewell of the last human being who was to show him mercy and promise him forgiveness.

Reluctantly, sorrowfully, the priest parted from the victim, and wended his way through the splendid rooms, whose beauty now seemed so baleful, as though it were but the refinement and gloss of cruelty, the gay mask that hid the torture-chamber.

At the door of the anteroom, the same silent guides were watching his return, and, again blindfolding him, led him out of the gates that closed on such strange mysteries, and hid from view such appalling possibilities of horror.

How many might there have been of these human holocausts, immolated in silence, perchance without the gracious respite allowed this _one_ victim! How many might there have been, perhaps priests, beguiled by a lure such as he had thought his own carrying-off to be, and never allowed to go forth again, as _he_ was being providentially helped to do! And what other crimes besides silent murder might have taken place in that mysterious and seemingly demon-guarded house!

These and other thoughts not unlike them must have pressed painfully on his overstrung mind, as with the same precautions, turnings, doublings, and joltings the Père de Ravignan was driven back to the house of his order, the sinister guides in whose hands his life had helplessly and inevitably lain for several hours preserving yet that impenetrable silence and seemingly respectful behavior, which in themselves were enough to shake the courage of most men.

The house was all astir. Every one had been anxious for the safe return of the superior from his mysterious and perilous errand; for perilous they had intuitively felt it to be, and had indeed once attempted at first to follow the carriage. This, however, had been cleverly frustrated by the well-instructed driver.

Search was made next day by the secret police for any house answering the only description the priest could imperfectly give; inquiries were instituted concerning the disappearance of any person answering the minute description given by the confessor of his young penitent; but although the police swore that they knew every house, and could put their finger upon every individual in Paris, yet not a single trace could be discovered of anything unusual having taken place in the city.

And there the mystery remained and was forgotten, and came to be related only as a tale of dread and wonder, and was only known to few. Even so the secret organization itself, for nothing but vagueness surrounded its palpable though ever-invisible existence, and some believed that the _parti prêtre_ invented stories of its horrors, and others thought they exaggerated the importance of its influence.

Then came '48, with its wild volcanic outburst all over Europe, and under the name of freedom a modern _Vehmgericht_ convulsed and tortured the civilized world. Those who had pooh-poohed its existence or underrated its strength were the first to crouch before its explosive power. Persecution began again, for we all know the story of revolutions, and how the final court of appeal was always death. What mattered it that the persecutors handled the axe, the guillotine, or the rifle, instead of the scourges, the _fasces_, the swords of the Roman lictors? Amphitheatres there were, and wild beasts to tear the Christians in pieces, although the former were called public squares, and streets, and gardens, and the wild beasts were hideous human forms. One Archbishop of Paris in '48 was shot down--perhaps by chance, but who can tell save only God?--on the barricades, as he was trying to quiet the infuriate rabble; another Archbishop of Paris followed him in '71, more foully murdered in shear demoniac wantonness, because order and authority were represented in his person, and because to be a child of God was a burning reproach offered to the godless and soulless Commune.

Thus, two ages of persecution join hands within a short half-century, and in one life, yet in its prime, two figures are prominently and personally interwoven: the old peasant priest who almost dreaded to have the sanctuary lamps lighted for fear of attracting unwelcome notice, so imbued was he with the idea that before the law a Catholic must need be a criminal; and the intrepid Jesuit, having secret dangers in the fulfilment of his ministry, and knowing full well that, before the self-styled law of lawless _liberty_, to be a priest is to be nothing better than a dog.

Some talk lightly of these things that are passing as of mere ebullitions that cannot fail to be quelled; but where is the power to quell, the power to charm these serpents, to humanize these savages? Gone from the kings of the earth, who have abjured the aid of religion, who have expelled her from the schools and colleges, and repudiated her offices in the most solemn and tender relations of life. Gone from the philosophers of this century, who control the thoughts of millions by pandering freely to their passions, and whose first axiom is that everything that is _natural is right_. Gone from the timid politicians, whose precarious object is, not the happy and steady consolidation and progress of the state, but the maintenance of themselves and their creatures in office, and the increase of their hoarded fortunes. Gone, too, from the poets and artists, who should clothe truth and religion in dignified and attractive forms, but whose dearest aim is but to court popularity by encouraging vice. Gone, in a word, from all whose mission it is to raise and guide the people, simply because they find it more profitable to grovel with and follow them.

And religion stands this day as our divine Lord stood centuries ago in the Garden of Gethsemani, with lukewarm and timid disciples in numbers, and with a Judas striving with honeyed words to betray her. The sword she may not use, nor any earthly weapon; for, if God would have it so, could he not send her twelve legions of angels? But no; she stands as he stood, unarmed; and when she preached with the voice of princes and commanded through the mouth of statesmen, no one attacked her, even as the Jews did not apprehend Jesus when he taught openly in the synagogue. But when worldly power was taken away, when concordats were broken, when heresy rose up in her midst, the enemies of the church fell upon her, and in their onslaught tore up kingdoms by the root and trampled order in the dust. The crushed ones look to her--"they shall look upon him they have pierced"--imploringly, but _they_ had tied her hands, _they_ had crippled her in the days of their triumph, and the deluge breaks over them and annihilates them, while it tosses the church on its turbid waves, and at each angry toss only lifts the Ark of the Covenant safer and higher toward heaven.

We may be only at the beginning of a scathing trial: we may be almost at its end. We have seen the blood of the martyrs flow once more; we have seen '71 rival '93, and the Mazas Prison reflect the _Massacre des Carmes_; elsewhere we see the spectre of blood not yet let loose, but hiding impatiently behind the spirit of sacrilege and spoliation. Perhaps this is the hour before the dawn; perhaps only the first watch of the night. But let us not think that the nineteenth century bears a charmed life, and that we dwellers in it have a prescriptive right to a safe and easy-going existence. We must be _for_ the church, _in_ her, _with_ her _of_ her; be hers in spirit and in truth, "not merely pause and hesitate at the threshold, or linger within the outer courts." This is the hour of conversions, for the next may be the hour of martyrdom. And above all, it is the hour for sound philosophy, that will lead us firmly by the hand into the haven of faith, and show us that, to be a good citizen, one has need to be a perfect Christian.

Truth is one; and just as water will rise to its own level, so all particles of truth will lead to the fountain of truth. The church has solved all problems, and fulfilled all yearnings, and realized all ideals long ago; and while men are seeking what they severally want, the church has offered it to thousands of their forefathers before they themselves were ever born to seek it.

SANCTA DEI GENITRIX.

Mother of God! My Queen is simply this.
For this elected, the eternal Mind
Conceived her in its infinite abyss--
With the God-man co-type of human kind.
And she, when came the wondrous hour assigned,
Conceiving her Conceiver, girt him round,
And held in her Immaculate womb confined
That Essence whom the heavens cannot bound!
Then brought him forth, her little one, her own;
And fed her suckling at her maiden breast--
The only pillow of his earthly rest,
And still for evermore his dearest throne
O Lady! what the worship faith allows?
The Eternal calls thee Daughter, Mother, Spouse!

LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS.

On the nineteenth day of September, there will be gathered together from five to eight thousand persons in the grand cathedral of Naples, to witness again an occurrence which, though it has been witnessed thousands of times already, never fails to fill the beholder with astonishment and awe. Perhaps one-half of the crowd may be from the city of Naples itself. A large portion comes from other parts of Italy. Many are from Austria, Illyria, Hungary, Bavaria, and Prussia, Russia, England, France, and Spain. Some are from the Western hemisphere. And Moors, Egyptians, Arabs, and Turks, ever travelling along the shores of the Mediterranean, are here, too, raising their turbaned heads among these thousands in the cathedral, as intent and as filled with emotion as any around them.

The greater part of that crowd believe that they are witnesses of a deed done by the direct will and power of God--a miracle; and very naturally their hearts are filled with awe and devotion. Others, again, are in doubt what to believe on the point; but they have come to see, and to see exactly for themselves what really does occur. Others, again, are sure beforehand that it is all a trick. They will spare no pains to detect the fraud.

What is it they are all assembled to see? The large cathedral in which they stand fronts on a little square to the north. At the southern extremity is placed the grand sanctuary and high altar, with a large and rich basement chapel underneath. On either side of the church above, there are, as is usual in Italian churches, small side chapels and altars; but about the middle of the western side a large archway gives admission to a very large chapel--to-day the centre of attraction. We might call it a small church. The Neapolitans name it the _Tesoro_. It is cruciform, and a well-proportioned dome rises above the intersection of its nave and transept. Towards its western extremity, and opposite the crowded archway or entrance from the cathedral, stands its elevated high altar; six other altars occupy the transept and sides. The main altar stands about five feet forward, out from the solid stone wall of the building. Behind that altar, in the massive masonry of the wall, is a double closet, closed by strong metal doors, and secured by four locks. From this closet, at nine A.M., is first taken out a metal life-sized bust, held to contain what remains of the bones of the head of St. Januarius, bishop and martyr, who was put to death in the year 305. This bust is placed on the main altar, at the Gospel end. Next, an old and tarnished silver case is brought out from the other side of the same closet. All eyes scrutinize it. The front and the back of it, or, rather, both faces of it, for they are alike, are of heavy glass, securely fastened to the silver frame. Looking through these plates of glass, the interior of the case is seen to contain two antique Roman vials of glass, held securely in their places above and below by rude masses of soldering, black with age. The vials are of different patterns, both very common in the museums of Roman antiquities. The smaller one is empty, save some patches of stain or pellicle adhering to the interior of its sides. The other one, which might hold a gill and a half, is seen to contain a dark-colored solid substance, occupying about four-fifths of the space within the vial. This substance is held to be a portion of the blood of the same martyred saint, gathered by the Christians when he was decapitated, and ever since carefully preserved. Ordinarily it is hard and solid, as it well may be fifteen hundred and sixty-odd years after being shed. The case, or _reliquary_, as it is properly called, is borne to the main altar, and a priest holds it midway between the middle of the altar and the bust, that is, about a foot from the latter. Prayers are said; hymns, psalms, and litanies are recited by the clergy kneeling near. Meanwhile, from time to time the priest moves the reliquary from side to side, that he may see whether the expected change of the substance within the vial has taken place or not; and he presents it to the bystanders crowded around him on the steps of the altar, that each one in succession may reverently kiss it and closely scrutinize its condition. At length, after a greater or smaller lapse of time, perhaps in a few minutes, perhaps only after several hours, perhaps after many hours, the solid mass within the vial becomes liquid--perhaps instantaneously, perhaps rapidly, at times more slowly and gradually, several hours elapsing before the change becomes complete. Sometimes only a portion of the mass becomes liquid, the remaining portion floating as a still hard lump in the liquid portion. This change is what is known as _the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius_, and is what these thousands have crowded the _Tesoro_ chapel and the cathedral to witness.

SCALE--_Nearly one-half natural size_.

A, A, Dark and rough masses of soldering holding the vials in place. B, B, Stains or pellicles of the blood on the interior of the smaller vial.]

It has occurred repeatedly each year for centuries back. It occurs in public under the eyes of thousands. Accounts of it were written by learned men and by travellers before the invention of printing. In these latter centuries, accounts of it have been published in Latin, in Italian, in Polish, in English, French, German, and Spanish--we presume, in every language of Europe. Some are written by devout believers in the miracle; some by candid but perplexed witnesses, who examined for themselves and are afraid to come to a conclusion; while others that we have seen are filled with such mistakes, both as to persons and events and to established regulations, that we felt the writers had themselves seen little or nothing. They had merely got a hint from one and a suggestion from another, and had filled out the remainder from the storehouse of their own imagination.

We are privileged to insert a full account, written by an American eye-witness in 1864. We are unwilling to abbreviate it too much, although the reader will find in it thoughts we have already expressed or may hereafter have to dwell on:

I had for years determined that, if ever I had a
chance, I would go to Naples to see myself the
celebrated miracle. This year gave me the desired
opportunity, and I would not neglect it. Leaving
Rome by railway, on September 17, I reached Naples
that evening, and early the next morning went to the
cathedral to introduce myself, to say Mass, and to
take a preparatory look. The cathedral is an immense
semi-Gothic building, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin,
to St. Januarius, and to other patron saints of the
city. St. Januarius, a native of Naples, was Bishop
of Benevento (a city some thirty miles, inland),
and was apprehended in the days of persecution
under Diocletian, held in prison, exposed to the
wild beasts without harm, and finally beheaded near
Puzzuoli, about five miles from Naples, in the year
305. His head and body were taken by the Christians,
and transported--probably by night, certainly in
secrecy--across the bay to the southern shore, and were
entombed, between Mount Vesuvius and the sea, on the
farm of a Christian called Marcian. It was the custom
of the Christians to gather, as far as they possibly
could, the blood shed by their martyrs, and, placing
a portion of it in glass vials, to deposit such vials
in the tombs. In the catacombs at Rome such vials in
a niche are the surest sign that a martyr was there
deposited. You can still see some of them, or fragments
of them, in the opened vaults or niches of the
catacombs. The vials within have a thin, dark-reddish
crust, showing still where the blood reached in the
glass. A few years ago, a chemical analysis of a
portion of such crust or pellicle, made by direction
of his Holiness, fully confirmed this historical and
traditional statement of its origin. Such vials are
also to be seen in multitudes in the Vatican and
other Christian museums, and in the churches to which
the remains of the martyrs have been transferred. As
St. Januarius was a prominent Christian, and as his
martyrdom attracted the earnest attention of all, we
may and should naturally suppose that his case was no
exception, and that a portion of the blood was gathered
in his case, and, as usual, that the vials containing
it were deposited with the body in the tomb.

In the year 385, peace having been fully restored,
and Christian churches built, and things quieted, the
remains of St. Januarius were solemnly transferred from
their original resting-place to Naples, and were placed
in a church or chapel dedicated to him, and situated
just outside the city walls. _San Gennaro extra muros_
still stands, though, of course, the first building
has been replaced by a second, a third, I believe by a
fourth church. Here, henceforth, near their martyr and
patron saint, the Neapolitan Christians wished to be
buried. And when an oath was to be taken with the most
binding force and obligation, it was administered and
taken before the altar where lay enshrined the remains
of this great Neapolitan saint. In course of time--it
is not precisely known when, or by what archbishop--the
head of St. Januarius and the _ampullæ_ or vials
containing his blood were transferred into the city,
and placed in some church--probably in the cathedral,
where we know that, eight hundred years ago, they were
carefully and reverently preserved in the cathedral,
_Tesoro_ or treasury, as they called the strong,
vaulted chamber of stone in which the relics of the
saints were safely kept. The body of the saint was left
in the church _extra muros_. It was afterwards taken
to Benevento, thence to Monte Vergine, and in 1497 was
transferred to Naples, and now lies under the principal
altar of the subterranean crypt or basement chapel,
beneath the sanctuary of the cathedral.

The cathedral itself is, as I said, a large semi-Gothic
building, over three hundred feet long and one hundred
and twenty wide, lofty, well-proportioned, and filled
with columns, frescoes, marbles, statuary, paintings,
and gilding, very bright and very clean. It fronts on
a small square to the north. The sanctuary is at the
southern end. In the west side of the building is a
large, open archway, about thirty feet broad and forty
feet high, with a lofty open-work railing of bronzed
metal, and of very artistic design. A folding-door
in this railing, of the same material, opens twelve
feet wide to usher you into another good-sized church
or chapel, called the new _Tesoro_ or chapel of St.
Januarius, commenced in 1608, by the city, in special
honor of the saint, and in fulfilment of a vow, and
consecrated in 1646. It is nearly in the form of a
Greek cross, over a hundred feet from east to west, and
about eighty from north to south. The arms are about
forty feet wide, and at their intersection a cupola
rises to over a hundred feet above the level of the
floor. It is said this chapel cost half a million of
dollars. If so, the city fathers got the full worth
of their money in rich marbles, in mosaics, frescoes,
bronze and marble statues, and in every sort of finest
decorations. There is a complete service for this
chapel, entirely distinct from and independent of that
of the cathedral proper--a dean, twelve chaplains,
other minor assistants as needed, and a thoroughly
supplied sacristy. In this _Tesoro_ chapel are no less
than seven altars; the main one, to the west, opposite
the entrance from the church, another grand one, and
two subsidiary ones on either side of the chapel. There
is also a fine organ. The main altar stands about
five feet forward from the rear wall of the building,
leaving thus a commodious passage-way between them.
In the massive stone wall itself, to the rear of the
main altar, are two armories, adjoining each other. In
one of them, that to the south, the relic of the head
of St. Januarius is kept; in the other, to the north,
are preserved the vials containing his blood. These
armories, which I might call a double armory, are in
the solid masonry, and are closed by strong gilt metal
doors, about thirty inches broad and fifty inches high,
each secured by an upper and a lower lock.

So much I saw at this visit in the cathedral and in the
chapel. The afternoon I devoted to a visit to Puzzuoli,
and the scene of the martyrdom of St. Januarius and
his six companions. On the way, we stopped to look at
and enter the reputed tomb of Virgil, and we passed
through the grotto of Posilippo. As the carriage rolled
on over the smooth macadamized road, the Bay of Naples
stretched away on our left in all its beauty, smiling
and rippling in the September breeze, just as it did
on the day they were beheaded. Before us was Puzzuoli,
once the beautiful summer resort and watering-place for
the richest nobles of ancient Rome, often graced by
the presence of the emperor himself, and still a place
of pretension. On our right, hills and vineyards and
olive groves stood now as they stood then. The palaces
and houses which the saint looked on are all gone; but
their solid stone foundation walls have not perished,
and other houses of more modern aspect rise on them.
The mineral springs at the foot of the hills are still
the same, and in the same repute; and hundreds are
still going to them, or meet us returning after their
baths. Here and there, alongside our smooth modern
road, we see patches of the old Roman pavement, large,
irregularly-shaped slabs of hard stone, lying now much
less evenly than they did when senators, and consuls,
and prefects, and Roman nobles loved to walk along this
road, to enjoy the beautiful scene, and to drink in the
healthful evening breezes that came to them over the
Mediterranean.