Chapter XXIV: “celui-La Fait Le Crime a Qui Le Crime Sert.” (5)

“9. In the next world love ranks higher than what we call wisdom;
being itself the highest wisdom. There deeds of benevolence far
outweigh professions of faith. There simple goodness rates above
intellectual power. There the humble are exalted. There the meek
find their heritage. There the merciful obtain mercy. The better
denizens of that world are charitable to frailty, and
compassionate to sin far beyond the dwellers in this: they
forgive the erring brethren they have left behind them, even to
seventy times seven. There, is no respect of persons. There, too,
self-righteousness is rebuked and pride brought low.

“10. A trustful, childlike spirit is the state of mind in which
men are most receptive of beneficent spiritual impressions; and
such a spirit is the best preparation for entrance into the next
world.

“11. There have always existed intermundane laws, according to
which men may occasionally obtain, under certain conditions,
revealings from those who have passed to the next world before
them. A certain proportion of human beings are more sensitive to
spiritual perceptions and influences than their fellows; and it
is usually in the presence, or through the medium, of one or more
of these, that ultramundane intercourse occurs.

“12. When the conditions are favorable, and the sensitive through
whom the manifestations come is highly gifted, these may supply
important materials for thought and valuable rules of conduct.
But spiritual phenomena sometimes do much more than this. In
their highest phases they furnish proof, strong as that which
Christ’s disciples enjoyed--proof addressed to the reason and
tangible to the senses--of the reality of another life, better
and happier than this, and of which our earthly pilgrimage is
but the novitiate. They bring immortality to light under a blaze 806
of evidence which outshines, as the sun the stars, all
traditional or historical testimonies. For surmise they give us
conviction, and assured knowledge for wavering belief.

“13. The chief motives which induce spirits to communicate with
men appear to be--a benevolent desire to convince us, past doubt
or denial, that there _is_ a world to come; now and then, the
attraction of unpleasant memories, such as murder or suicide;
sometimes (in the worldly-minded) the earth-binding influence of
cumber and trouble: but, far more frequently, the divine impulse
of human affections, seeking the good of the loved ones it has
left behind, and, at times, drawn down, perhaps, by their
yearning cries.

“14. Under unfavorable or imperfect conditions, spiritual
communications, how honestly reported soever, often prove vapid
and valueless; and this chiefly happens when communications are
too assiduously sought or continuously persisted in: brief
volunteered messages being the most trustworthy. Imprudence,
inexperience, supineness, or the idiosyncrasy of the recipient
may occasionally result in arbitrary control by spirits of a low
order; as men here sometimes yield to the infatuation exerted by
evil associates. Or, again, there may be exerted by the inquirer,
especially if dogmatic and self-willed, a dominating influence
over the medium, so strong as to produce effects that might be
readily mistaken for what has been called possession. As a
general rule, however, any person of common intelligence and
ordinary will can, in either case, cast off such mischievous
control: or, if the weak or incautious give way, one who may not
improperly be called an exorcist--if possessed of strong magnetic
will, moved by benevolence, and it may be aided by prayer, can
usually rid, or at least assist to rid, the sensitive from such
abnormal influence.”--(_Debatable Land_, pp. 171-176.)

We have no intention of criticising this creed of the spirits as set forth by their learned medium. It is heathen, not Christian, and we have discovered in it nothing new, true or false. It denies the essential points of the Christian faith, and what few things it affirms that Christianity denies are affirmed on no trustworthy or sufficient authority. A man must have little knowledge of human nature, and have felt little of the needs, desires, and aspirations of the human soul, who can be satisfied with this spirits-creed. In it all is vague, indefinite, and as empty as the shades the heathen imagined to be wandering up and down on this side the Styx. But in it we find a statement that dispenses us from the necessity of examining and refuting it. In Article 4 we find it said: “Vastly wiser and more dispassionate than we, they [the spirits] are still, however, _fallible_.”

Whether the spirits are wiser and more dispassionate than we or not may be questioned; they do not seem to be so in the author’s illustrative narrations, and the fact that they have undergone no essential change by throwing off their overcoat of flesh, and living the same life they lived here, and are in the sphere for which they were fitted before entering the spirit-land, renders the matter somewhat doubtful, to say the least. But it is conceded that they are _fallible_. Who or what, then, vouches for the fact that they are not themselves deceived, or that they do not seek to deceive us? By acknowledging the fallibility of the spirits, Mr. Owen acknowledges that their testimony, in all cases, when we can have nothing else on which to rely, is perfectly worthless. We can bring it to no crucial test, and we have no vouchers either for their knowledge or their honesty. Even supposing them to be what they profess to be, which we by no means concede, it were sheer credulity to take their word for anything not otherwise verifiable.

Mr. Owen and all the spiritists tell us that the spirit-manifestations prove undeniably the immortality of the soul; but they prove nothing 807 of the sort. We need, in the first place, no ghost from hell to assure us that the immortality of the soul follows necessarily from the immateriality of the soul; for that is demonstrable from reason, and was generally believed by the heathen. What was not believed by the heathen, and is not provable by reason, is the Christian doctrine of the resurrection; and this, and supernatural life and immortality, the spirits do not even pretend to teach. Look through Mr. Owen’s statement of their teaching, and you will find no hint of the “resurrectionem carnis” or “vitam æternam” of the apostolic symbol. Are we to reject the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and the life and immortality brought to light through the Gospel--which is something far different from a simple continuation of the soul’s physical existence--a doctrine so necessary to virtue, and so dear and consoling to the afflicted, on the authority of fallible spirits, whose knowledge or veracity nothing vouches for, and who prove themselves not seldom to be lying spirits?

In the second place, what proof have we that those rapping or table-tipping spirits are the spirits of men and women once in the flesh? Mr. Owen undertakes to establish their identity, but he does not do it and cannot do it; for no proof in the case is possible except by a miracle, and miracles the author rejects, and declares the argument from them in all cases a _non-sequitur_. The spirit-manifestations of which the spiritists make so much, and in which they fancy they have a new inspiration and revelation, are nothing new in history, and are not more frequent now than they have been at various other epochs. They were more common amongst the polished pagan Greeks and Romans than they are in any real or nominally Christian nation now. They are nothing new or peculiar to our times. Tertullian speaks of them, the author of the _Clementine Recognitions_ was acquainted with them, and so was St. Augustine. The trance was one of the five faculties or states of the soul recognized by the Neo-Platonists, and was the principle of the Alexandrine theurgy. The church has in every age encountered them, been obliged to deal with them, and she has uniformly ascribed them to Satan and his angels. She has had from the first, and still has, her forms of exorcism against them, to cast them out, and relieve those who are troubled by them. Every day she in some locality even now exorcises them, compels them to acknowledge the power of the name of Jesus, and sends them back discomfited to hell.

The spiritists cannot say the doctrine of the church is impossible or prove that it is not true. It certainly is a possible hypothesis, if nothing more. Then spiritists cannot say that Satan does not personify the spirits of the departed, or that it is not Satan or some one of his angels that speaks in those pretending to be the spirit of Washington, of Jefferson, of Franklin, of Shakespeare, of Milton, of Byron, or of some near and dear deceased relative? You must prove that it is not so, before you can affirm the identity claimed. The great Tichborne case now before the English courts proves that it is no easy matter to establish one’s own identity even while in the flesh, and it must be much more difficult for a ghost, which is not even visible.

The spiritists admit that the spirits are fallible; that there are among them lying, malevolent spirits. A gentleman with whom we were well acquainted, a firm believer in the spirits, and himself a medium, holding frequent communications with them, assured us that he held 808 them to be evil spirits, and knew them to be lying spirits. “I asked them,” he said, “at an interview with them, if they could tell me where my sister then was. ‘Your sister,’ I was answered, ‘has some time since entered the spirit-world, and is now in the third circle.’ It was false: my sister was alive and well, and I knew it. I told them so, and that they lied; and they laughed at me: and then I asked whose spirit was speaking with me. I was answered, ‘Voltaire.’ ‘That is a lie, too, is it not?’ Another laugh, or chuckle rather. “I assure you,” said our friend, “one can place no confidence in what they say. In my intercourse with them, I have found them a pack of liars.”

This pretension of the spiritists that the spirits that manifest themselves through nervous, sickly, half-crazy mediums, or mediums confessedly in an abnormal or exceptional state, are really spirits who once lived in the flesh, is not sustainable; for they cannot be relied on, and nothing hinders us from holding them to be devils or evil demons, personating the spirits of deceased persons, as the church has always taught us. This, certainly, is very possible, and the character of the manifestations themselves favors such an interpretation; for only devils, and very silly devils too, dealing with very ignorant, superstitious, and credulous people, would mingle so much of the ludicrous and ridiculous in their manifestations, as the thumping, knocking, rollicking spirits, tipping over chairs and tables, and creating a sort of universal hubbub wherever they come. The spirits of the dead, if permitted at all to communicate with the living for any good purpose, we may well believe, would be permitted to do it more quietly, more gravely, and in a more open and direct way; it is only the devil or his subjects that would turn all their grave communications into ridicule by their antics or comic accompaniments. These considerations, added to the fact that the spirits communicate nothing not otherwise known or knowable, that is not demonstrably false, and that they tell us nothing very clear or definite about the condition of departed souls, nothing but what their consultors are predisposed to believe, convince us that, if they prove the existence of powers in some sense superhuman, they prove nothing for or against the reality of a life after this life. They leave the question of life and immortality, of good and evil, rewards and punishments, heaven and hell, where they were.

Mr. Owen places the spirit manifestations, and the Biblical miracles, and Christian inspiration and revelation, in the same category, attributes them all alike to the agency of the spirits, and thinks he has discovered a way in which one may accept the extraordinary events and doings recorded in the Old and New Testaments as historical facts, without being obliged to recognize them as miracles. This is absurd. The resemblance between the two classes of facts is far less than honest Fluellen’s resemblance of Harry of Monmouth to Alexander of Macedon, “There is a river in Macedon, so is there a river also in Wales.” The man who can detect any relation between the two classes of facts, but that of dissimilarity and contrast, is the very man to believe in the spirit-revelations, to mistake evil for good, darkness for light, and the devil for God. We find both classes of facts in the New Testament. The Christian miracles are all marked by an air of quiet power. There is no bluster, no rage, no foaming at the mouth, no fierceness of look or gesture, no falling, or rending, as in the 809 case of the demoniacs; and no rapping, no table-tipping, no antics, no stammering, no half-utterances, no convulsions, no disturbance, as in the case of the spirit-manifestations described by Mr. Owen in his books. In the one case, all is calm and serene, pure and holy; there is no effort, no straining, but a simple, normal exercise of power. Our Lord rebukes the winds and the waves, and there comes a great calm; he speaks, the leper is cleansed, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead live. What like this is there in Mr. Owen’s ghostly or ghastly narratives of trances, thundering noises, and haunted houses? Every one of his narratives shows, so far as it shows anything not explicable by simple psychical states and powers, the marks which the church has always regarded as signs of the presence of the devil. Some of the cases he describes are clearly cases of possession, and others are as clearly cases of obsession. Unhappily, Mr. Owen, who formerly believed in no God, now takes, knowingly or not, the devil to be God.

Mr. Owen has hardly improved on the heathen Celsus, who was refuted by Origen. Celsus charged the miracles of our Lord to magic. Mr. Owen ascribes them to necromancy, and regards the apostles and saints each as a person with a familiar spirit, or, in the language of the spiritists, a medium. The Jews also ascribed the miracles of our Lord to the agency of the devil, and charged that it was by Beelzebub, the prince of devils, that he did his wonderful works. But there is a striking difference between the Jews and Celsus and our late minister to Naples. They sought to prove the satanic origin of the miracles of our Lord as a reason for rejecting him and his teaching; he attempts to do it as a reason for believing him and reverencing his doctrine and character. But they lived in an age of darkness, superstition, and semi-barbarism, and he in an age of light, reason, and civilization, and the distance between him and them is the measure of the progress the world has made since their time--a mighty progress indeed, but a progress backward. The Bible tells us all the gods of the heathen were devils, and Mr. Owen agrees and takes the devil for God, and demon worship as true divine worship. What the Jews and Celsus falsely alleged against our Lord as an objection, he reasserts as a recommendation. He has discovered that evil is good.

The class of facts which the spiritists call spirit-manifestations are recognized in the Bible from beginning to end, but always as the works of the devil or evil spirits, always as works to be condemned and to be avoided; and any communication with those who do them is forbidden. Necromancers, or those who consult the spirits of the dead, are mentioned and condemned in the Book of Genesis. The Mosaic law ordained that a witch or a woman with a familiar spirit--that is, a medium, whether a rapping or a clear-seeing, a talking or a writing medium--should not be suffered to live. The church has always condemned everything of the sort, and requires a candidate for baptism to renounce the devil and his works, and expels the devil from him by her exorcisms, before receiving the postulant to her communion. And yet Mr. Owen would have us believe that the Bible and the church sanction his doctrine, that the Christian miracles and the spirit-manifestations are produced by one and the same agency! Verily, Mr. Owen throws a strong light on the origin of the great Gentile apostasy, and shows us how easily men who break from the unity of 810 divine tradition, and set up for themselves, can lose sight of God, and come step by step to worship the devil in his place. The thing seemed incredible, and we had some difficulty in taking the assertion of the Holy Scriptures literally, “All the gods of the gentiles are devils”; but since we see apostasy from the church running the same career, and actually inaugurating the worship of demons, actually exalting the devil above our Lord, the Mystery of Iniquity is explained, and the matter becomes plain and credible.

It is curious to see what has been the course of thought in the Protestant apostasy in regard to the class of facts in question. Having lost the power of exorcism with their loss of the true faith, the Protestant nations had no resource against the invasions of the spirits but to carry out the injunction of the Mosaic law, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch”--that is, a medium--“to live.” Hence we find their annals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries blackened with accounts of the trials and cruel punishments of persons suspected of witchcraft, sorcery, or dealings with the devil, especially in England, Scotland, and the Anglo-American colonies. Having no well-defined and certain criteria, as the church has, by which to determine the presence of Satan, many persons, no doubt, were put to death who were innocent of the offences of which they were accused. This produced a reaction in the public mind against the laws and against the execution of persons for witchcraft or dealing with the devil. This reaction was followed by a denial of witchcraft, or that the devil had anything to do with matters and things on earth, and a shower of ridicule fell on all who believed in anything of the sort. Then came the general doubt, and then the denial of the existence of the devil and all infernal spirits, save in human nature itself. Finally came the spirit-manifestations, in which Satan is no longer regarded as Satan, but is held to be divine, and worshipped as God, by thousands and millions.

We must be excused from entering into any elaborate refutation of Mr. Owen’s blasphemous attempt to bring the Christian miracles under the general law, as he regards it, of spirit-manifestations. He has proved the reality of no such law, and if he had, the spirit-manifestations themselves would prove nothing more than a gale of wind, a shower of rain, a flash of lightning, or the growth of a spire of grass. Could we prove the Christian miracles to be facts in the order of nature, or show them as taking place by a general law, and not by the immediate act of God, and therefore no miracles at all, we should deprive them of all their importance. The value of the facts is not in their being facts, but in their being miraculous facts, which none but God can work. The author does not understand this, but supposes that he has won a victory for Christianity when he has proved the miracles as facts, but at the same time that they are no miracles.

It is clear from his pages that the author does not know what Christians understand by a miracle. He cites St. Augustine to prove that a miracle is something that may take place by some law of nature to us unknown, but St. Augustine, in the passage he cites, is not speaking of miracles at all; he is speaking of portents, prodigies, or extraordinary events, which the ignorant, and the superstitious ascribe to a supernatural agency; but which may, after all, however wonderful, be produced by a natural cause, as in our days not a few 811 believe to be the case with the spirit-manifestations themselves, and no doubt is the case with most of the wonders the spiritists relate. The devil may work portents or prodigies, but not miracles, because he has no creative power, and can work only with materials created to his hand.

It is necessary also to distinguish between what is simply superhuman and what is supernatural. Whatever is creature is in the order of nature. Nature embraces the entire creation--whatever exists that is not God or distinguishable from him. Whether the created powers are above man or below him in the scale of existence, they are equally natural, and so is whatever they are capable, as second causes, of doing. The angels in heaven, the very highest as the lowest, are God’s creatures, distinguishable from him, and therefore included in nature. The same must be said of the devils in hell, or the ghosts, if the spirits of the departed, and hence whatever they do is within the natural order. The devil is superior, if you will, by nature to man--for man is made little lower than the angels, and the devil is an angel fallen; he may know many things beyond human intelligence, and do many things beyond the power of man; but what the devil does, is, if superhuman, not in any sense supernatural, but as natural as what man himself does. We agree with Mr. Owen, though not for the same reason, that there is nothing miraculous in the spirit-manifestations, even supposing them to be facts, and therefore are of no value in relation to the truth or falsehood of Christianity as a revelation of and by the supernatural.

God alone, and what he does immediately by his direct act and immediate act, is supernatural. God alone can work a miracle, which is a supernatural effect wrought without any natural medium, law, or agency, in or on nature, and is, as far as it goes, a manifestation of creative power.

Miracles do what portents, prodigies, spirit-rappings, etc., do not--they manifest the supernatural, or the existence of a real order above nature. They do not indeed directly prove the truth of the Christian mysteries, but they do accredit our Lord as a teacher sent from God. As Nicodemus said when he came by night to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God, for no man can do the miracles thou doest, unless God were with him,” God in the miracles accredits the teacher, and vouches for the truth of what he in whose favor they are wrought teaches. What our Lord teaches, then, is true. If he teaches that he is perfect God and perfect man in hypostatic union, then he is so, and then is to be believed, on his own word, whatever he teaches, for “it is impossible for God to lie.” The facts, then, are of no importance if not miracles. Hence the “natural-supernaturalism” of the _Sartor Resartus_ is not only a contradiction in terms, but utterly worthless, as are most of the admired utterances of its author, and aid us not in solving a single problem for which revelation is needed.

Deprive us of the prophecies under the Old Law and the miracles under the New, and we should be deprived of all means of proving Christianity as a supernatural religion, as supernaturally inspired and revealed, and should be reduced, as Mr. Owen is, to naked rationalism, or downright demonism. The prodigies of the devil do not carry us above nature. They are indeed Satan’s efforts to counterfeit genuine miracles, but at best they only give us the superhuman for the 812 supernatural. If the author could prove the Christian miracles are not miracles, though credible as facts, or if he could bring them into the category of the spirit-manifestations, he would in effect divest Christianity of its supernatural character, and render it all as worthless as any man-constructed system of ethics or philosophy. His Christianity, as set forth in his pages, has not a trace of the Christianity of Christ, and is as little worthy of being called Christian as the bald Unitarianism of Channing, or the Deism of Rousseau, Tom Paine, or Voltaire, or the Free Religion of Emerson, Higginson, and Julia Ward Howe.

What Mr. Owen regards as a highly important fact, and which he urges Protestants to accept as the means of triumphing over the Catholic Church, namely, that the Christian miracles and the spirit-manifestations are worthy of precisely the same respect and confidence in a Christian point of view, is far less important than he in his profound ignorance of Christianity imagines. How far he will be successful with Protestants we know not; but his success, we imagine, will be greatest among people of his own class, who, having no settled belief in any religion, who know little of the principles of Christianity, are, as all such people are, exceedingly credulous and superstitious. These people hover on the borders of Protestantism, have certain sympathies with the Reformation, but it would be hardly just to call them in the ordinary sense of the term Protestants. Yet Protestantism, being substantially a revival in principle of the ancient Gentile apostasy which led to the worship of the devil in the place of God before our Lord’s advent, there can be no doubt that Protestants are peculiarly exposed to Satanic invasions, and there is no certainty that they may not follow Mr. Owen back to the devil-worship from which Christianity rescued the nations that embraced it. But we have said enough for the present. Perhaps we may say more hereafter.

[159] 1. _The Debatable Land between this World and the
Next._ With Illustrative Narratives. By Robert Dale Owen.
New York: Carleton & Co. 1872. 16mo, pp. 542.

2. _Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World._ With
Narrative Illustrations. By Robert Dale Owen. Philadelphia:
Lippincott & Co. 1860. 16mo, pp. 528.

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THE ANNUNCIATION.

MARCH 27TH.

She kneels in prayer--a childlike, virgin form;
What purity is mirrored in her eyes!
Her dove-like glances, with devotion warm,
Are raised in worship, to the midnight skies--
But look! a heavenly radiance bright has shone
Around the virgin chosen of the Lord;
In her rapt prayer she hears the angel’s tone,
“Hail! full of grace! for lo! upon the word
Of thy consent waits now the heavenly dove,
Whose wings o’ershadowing thee shall lightly rest
One moment on thy pure and humble breast,
And make thee by that awful seal of love
The mother of thy God!” She bows her head,
While _fiat mihi_ in meek tones is said.

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FLEURANGE. 813

BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’s STORY.”

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION.

PART FIRST.

THE OLD MANSION.

IV.

When daylight appeared, Fleurange awoke first, but in a few minutes, while she was admiring the child still sleeping in her arms, his large eyes opened in their turn. Their first expression was one of extreme surprise, somewhat mingled with fear, but Fleurange’s look and voice soon had a reassuring effect. His eyes grew smiling, his mouth half opened, his little arms stretched towards her and were soon clasped around her neck, and the acquaintance was made. During this time the pale and languid young mother was endeavoring to shake off a heaviness more difficult to overcome than sleep. She slightly blushed and murmured some words of excuse when she perceived her child in the arms of the beautiful stranger. But Fleurange protested with an accent of indubitable truth that the child did not trouble her in the least. She soon perceived she could be of some service to the poor convalescent. The children, aroused from a long night’s sleep, were now wholly awake. Every one knows that children awake, and, confined within a narrow space, soon arrive at a degree of turbulence whose only advantage is to produce lassitude and then sleep. During the first of these two phases, the poor mother made a vain and feeble effort to restrain them. After a few minutes she fell back, not only exhausted, but faint. Fleurange drew near, and began to improvise a pillow for her head out of the shawls scattered around. Then she opened the small basket Mademoiselle Josephine had given her, and took out a flask, the contents of which, poured on a handkerchief and applied to the sick woman’s pale face and temples, soon revived her.

“Thank you,” she said; “you have done me a great deal of good. I am feeble, that is all, but I did not suppose myself so much so.”

“Do not exert yourself,” replied Fleurange. “I will take care of the children.”

The mother smiled, and touched her head, showing by this gesture how fatiguing she found the noise she had not succeeded in quieting. At that very moment, the younger of the two children was standing on the seat, trying to reach the net, of painful memory, suspended like the sword of Damocles over the travellers’ heads, and which served as a receptacle for everything that could not be stowed away elsewhere. 814 The child was not climbing without a motive. His brother had already successfully preceded him, and found means of seizing, through the meshes of the net, a small hunting-horn, on which he was now executing a flourish. Why could not he also get his drum, almost within reach? If he could only stretch a little farther--and he looked at Fleurange with a supplicating air; but the latter, instead of heeding his mute appeal, laughingly laid hold of him and drew him on her lap; then skilfully bearing off the hunting-horn from the other, she promised to relate them the most charming of stories if they would be quiet. In an instant they were both leaning beside her, and then, in a low tone, she related one story after another, keeping them silent and attentive till the hour of sleep returned.

By the end of the second day the travellers had made great progress in their acquaintance. “How can I thank you sufficiently?” said the young mother. “How fortunate I was to meet you!”

“Do not thank me: your children have done me more good than I can return.”

This reply, of course, did not at all diminish the gratitude mingled with admiration with which she had inspired her companion, and as there is only a step from attraction to confidence, the latter soon related the whole story of her uneventful life to Fleurange. She had met with a severe fall three months before, and her life was despaired of; then her husband took her to Paris to consult Dr. Leblanc, who effected a cure. Fleurange’s eyes brightened. It was such a gratification to be able to talk about her dear old friends!

“He is so skilful and kind,” she said.

“Oh! yes, indeed! he is more than a physician: he is a benefactor, and yet I disobeyed him in starting so soon! He said I was still too feeble, which I denied; but I see he was right.”

“Why did you do so?”

“Because my poor Wilhelm is alone and impatiently awaiting me.”

“Your husband?”

“Yes.”

“Could he not have come for you?”

“No; he is M. Dornthal’s head clerk, and it is very difficult for him to leave his post.”

Fleurange’s heart gave a leap at this name. “Are you alluding to M. Ludwig Dornthal?” said she.

“No; to his brother, the rich banker.”

“And the other--the professor--do you know him?”

“I have never seen him, but Wilhelm is well acquainted with him, and is sometimes invited to the soirées he gives. They are not balls--they are not fond of dancing there--but réunions for conversation, reading, music, and looking at engravings. Wilhelm says they are all learned, the girls as well as the boys, and madame as much so as her husband.”

Fleurange slightly shuddered at this brief communication respecting her uncle’s family. She was very fond of study, still more so of the arts; she had a taste for reading she was often obliged to repress, but this word “learned” she did not find attractive.

“Learned!” she said to herself. “That means pedantic, grave, and tiresome. Well, I must make the best of it. Perhaps that does not prevent them from being good, which is the essential point, and I certainly should not aim at amusement in this short life.”

Another night--another long day now drawing to a close--when lights 815 more frequent and bright, and more numerous dwellings, announced the vicinity of a large city. As each moment brought them nearer their destination, the joy of the mother and her children became more expansive.

“He will be waiting for us, will he not?” said the elder of the children.

“Yes, yes, we shall see him as soon as the carriage stops, but that will not be for an hour.” Soon the cry was: “In half an hour, now!” and at last: “Here we are!”

Poor Fleurange listened to her travelling companions, and envied them the certainty of being greeted at their journey’s end by a dear and well-known face. Sadness and a fearful timidity came over her. At last, the carriage stopped. As at their departure, there was a great uproar, a variety of cries, and vacillating lights, which illuminated everything, but nothing distinctly. Fleurange sought in vain among all the persons who crowded around the carriage, for a face that might be her uncle’s. The door opened. A tall man with flowing hair and a long blonde beard presented himself. “Was it he?” No, the joyful cries of the children at once informed Fleurange it was their father.

“Bertha, Bertha!” he exclaimed, and, even before embracing his children, he pressed both her hands and looked anxiously in her face.

“You are very pale, dear Bertha.”

“It is only with joy, Wilhelm,” replied she, weeping. “I am cured, and I behold you once more!”

He then stretched out his arms to his children, but before leaving the carriage they both cried “Adieu! adieu!” in childlike tones and threw their arms around Fleurange’s neck.

“Wilhelm,” said his wife in a low tone, “thank this kind young lady, who has been an angel of goodness to them and to me on the way.”

He turned with a soft and grateful look toward Fleurange: “May God reward you, fair and gentle maiden,” said he, taking off his hat. Then he added hesitatingly:

“Doubtless some one is waiting for you here, and I cannot have the pleasure of rendering you any service?”

“I thank you,” said Fleurange quickly. “I am, indeed, expected by my relatives.” While speaking she anxiously cast her eyes around. No one seemed to be seeking her in the crowd of unknown faces that surrounded her. Was there any mistake? Had they forgotten her? What should she do?

Meanwhile her travelling companions left the carriage, and the happy group was already at a distance. She followed them with her eyes, her heart sinking within her. At that instant a small open carriage, drawn by a fine horse, drove swiftly up. In it was a youth of eighteen or nineteen years. He threw the reins to some one standing near and sprang out. Seeing him, Bertha’s husband took off his hat, and a cap is hastily raised in return, displaying an abundance of light hair of rather a warm shade. But the new-comer did not stop. He was in a great hurry and out of breath. He ran up to the diligence and said inquiringly:

“Mademoiselle Gabrielle!”

“That is my name,” said Fleurange, at first struck dumb at hearing herself so-called, and especially at the sight of him who had come to meet her.

“Very well,” said he, “let me help you descend.”

Fleurange silently prepared to obey, but after another glance at him as he held out a firm hand, she said: “There is no mistake, is there? It is my uncle, M. Ludwig Dornthal, who has sent for me?”

The only reply she received was an affirmative nod of the head; a 816 moment after, a concise order, promptly obeyed, brought down from the heights of the imperial the modest luggage belonging to Fleurange. In an instant it was fastened behind the light carriage which he afterward assisted her in entering, then, carefully and silently wrapping around her a large fur cloak which he had brought, he took his seat, and the horse set off, as he came, at a fast trot.

Fleurange at first felt giddy with the rapid motion of the carriage, but it soon became agreeable, contrasted with the heavy movements and violent jolting of the diligence. The weather was sharp, but the warm cloak that covered her prevented her from feeling it, and, thus protected, the keen air, so far from being unpleasant, gave her, on the contrary, an unaccustomed animation which was like a fresh infusion of youth and life. The sky above was sparkling with stars. It was one of those brilliant winter nights which we love to imagine like that which witnessed the coming of Christ, and saw angels hovering over the heights that surround Bethlehem, to convey the glad tidings to the shepherds, and sing on earth their divine hymn.

In about twenty minutes the horse slackened his pace a little, and the young coachman turned around and seemed to make some attempt at an explanation which Fleurange tried her best to comprehend, but the rattling over the pavements rendered this nearly impossible, and she only seized the words “My father” and “_Christ Kindchen!_” after which his head, turned around for an instant, resumed its former position, and the horse his usual pace.

But Fleurange gathered from this that the youth was one of M. Dornthal’s sons, and her uncle had not been able to meet her for some reason connected with the festival of the following day. Her first impression was that her cousin’s manners were rather abrupt, and his face somewhat peculiar, but on the whole he had shown himself very efficient and attentive. As for his skill in driving it was unrivalled, the reins could not have been in better hands.

After this short interruption, they kept on their way without slackening an instant, notwithstanding more than one turn through the winding streets, and at length arrived at a place planted with trees, where the carriage stopped before a flight of steps leading to an oaken door adorned with a massive brass knocker.

Some one was evidently watching for them, for the door instantly flew open. Fleurange caught the glimpse of a bright light and many forms! Her cousin hastened to aid her in alighting. Confused voices were audible, all having a cordial accent of welcome. A strong hand supported Fleurange as she ascended the six stone steps and entered the passage. A tall woman dressed in gray, and wearing a cap trimmed with flowers, approached and embraced her. “It is my turn now!” said a deep and sonorous voice, “for I am her uncle.” Fleurange raised her eyes toward a noble countenance which had too young a look to be crowned with such white hair, and her uncle embraced her, murmuring in a softened tone the name of Margaret. Beside him stood a lovely young girl, grave and blonde, while another, fair as her sister but younger, divested Fleurange of the heavy fur cloak and untied her bonnet. A boy of seven years ran out into the street to aid his brother, and a little girl of four or five clung to her mother’s skirts, looking curiously, but with delight, at the strange visitor.

Fleurange, dazzled by the lights, and confused by the very cordiality 817 of her reception, was incapable of uttering a word, but her large eyes, full of tears, were more expressive than any words, and the unusual brilliancy of her complexion, owing to the keen night air, and her long tresses falling over her shoulders when her bonnet was removed, gave her an unusually striking appearance which would have conciliated the most malevolent. How, then, must she have been regarded by those so ready to welcome her heartily?

They led her, triumphantly, as it were, into a spacious drawing-room which was still more dazzling. In the centre of the apartment stood a tree brilliantly illuminated and hung with toys, flowers, jewels, and fruit of all kinds. Two chandeliers added their light to that of the illuminated tree, under one of which half a dozen children were gathered around a table loaded with cakes. Several young ladies, as well as others who were older, were grouped here and there.

In short, Fleurange suddenly found herself, and for the first time in her life, in the midst of what seemed to her a very brilliant reunion, in which all the faces, even those of her hosts, were strange. The least timid would have been disconcerted, and Fleurange was completely abashed. The lady in gray with a cap trimmed with flowers, whom she supposed to be her aunt, took her by the hand, and hastily led her back into the passage, and thence into a small parlor lighted by a single lamp. In crossing the hall, they met Fleurange’s young guide.

“Is she ill? Does she need anything?” he asked in a kind and eager tone.

“Yes, she needs rest,” and with this reply Madame Dornthal shut the door in her son’s face.

Fleurange sat down and breathed more freely. Hitherto she had been unable not only to utter a word, but even to collect her thoughts. Now, thanks to the quiet room, she at once grew calm, and in a few minutes felt quite recovered. She was young and vigorous. She had scarcely felt the fatigue of the journey, and it was not in her nature to yield long to emotion and embarrassment, especially when in the depths of her heart she felt so happy! Had not a single glance, quick as a flash, sufficed to dissipate the burden which weighed on her heart, and to light it up with a transport of joy and hope? Her uncle’s voice, the words he murmured as he embraced her, “O Margaret, is it you?” gave her a thrill; then the soft glances of those fair young girls, the sight of the children gathered under the Christmas-tree, even the abrupt attentions of her young cousin--all gave her a delicious sensation of safety, an assurance of protection which in her moments of desolation she had desired more than joy or happiness.

She raised her head, and looked at her aunt, who stood silently regarding her. The latter was decidedly ugly--astonishingly so, yet even before she spoke or smiled there was an expression more desirable than beauty visibly imprinted on her face, otherwise devoid of all charm--an expression of intelligence and kindness.

“Remain here perfectly quiet, will you?” said Madame Dornthal, _tutoyant_ Fleurange as if she had known her from childhood.[160]

“There, look at the clock; a quarter of an hour will be sufficient. Do not try to talk, only listen to me. You are at home, you must 818 understand: remember that. No thanks are necessary. You are one of our children. We had five: now we have six. It was Clement, my oldest son, who went to meet you, because his father could not leave the children this evening. You saw Hilda and Clara at your arrival, as well as the two little ones, Fritz and Frida, who were also there to receive you. There is Gabrielle besides: that is all. Your uncle has mourned so much for his poor sister Margaret! Now he has found her again, it is a happy day for us all!”

Fleurange quietly wiped away her tears without replying. Just then some one knocked at the door.

“Who is there?”

“It is I.”

It was Clement with a cup of coffee, which, at her aunt’s injunction, Fleurange drank with docility.

“Will you now go up to your room for the night, or will you return to the drawing-room among the others?”

Fleurange replied without any hesitation: “I prefer to go back to the drawing-room and see them all, at once.”

A pleasant smile lighted up Madame Dornthal’s face. “I like you very much, Gabrielle, not because you are handsome, that has nothing to do with it; I should love you quite as much were it otherwise; but because there is so much simplicity about you--which is quite to my taste. Now, let me see: it is eleven o’clock, our friends are going to take their children home, and our youngest are going to bed. As to the rest of us, we shall presently go to the Midnight Mass, and not sup till our return. Make your own choice--to follow the children’s example, or go with us.”

“Oh! with you, with you!” cried Fleurange. “Pray, take me to church; I am neither feeble nor fatigued.”

“And yet you are fatigued,” replied Madame Dornthal, “only you do not yet feel it. But as it will do you no harm, you shall do as you wish. So save your strength, and do not return now to the drawing-room. You can remain here and wait for me.”

She left the room, and Fleurange remained where she was, happy to obey such kind orders without any resistance. Five minutes after, the door opened. It was Clement again, holding his little brother by the hand, and carrying his young sister in his arms.

“Fritz and Frida wish to bid you good-night,” he said. The little boy timidly approached. Fleurange immediately spoke to him in that language which all children understand, and which can only be learned and spoken by those who love them: he was speedily reassured. She then took Frida, and kissed her blue eyes, which, while looking at her with surprise, began to close. When she gave the child back to her brother, she was asleep, and he bore her away without awakening her, holding her with an ease that showed how accustomed he was to the care. His little brother followed him out of the room.

Half an hour of silent repose succeeded this interruption. It was more beneficial to Fleurange than sleep, which strong excitement kept her from feeling the need of. At the end of that time, Madame Dornthal reappeared with her two daughters. Clement and his father were waiting for them in the passage. They set off by starlight on foot, for the church was near. They were all silent and thoughtful, for the children’s festival had not made them forgetful of the solemnity of this great night.

In church, once more in church, Fleurange felt, as she knelt down, 819 that her overburdened heart could now find relief, and when solemn, harmonious, and accordant voices made the magnificent arches resound with unearthly chants, which seemed to be the spontaneous expression of universal prayer, the young girl bowed her head still lower: all the joy and gratitude of her heart overflowed in sweet tears and fervent prayers of thanksgiving. When Mass was over, one voice, which surpassed the rest--a voice sweet and manly--intoned beside her the Psalm _Laudate Dominum_. She involuntarily joined in the strain, and the two voices seemed for an instant to form but one.

When she turned around, she saw that this singer was her cousin, Clement Dornthal.

V.

When a friendly hand aids a shipwrecked traveller in reaching the shore, his first impulse is to express his boundless gratitude. Rest is sweet, even on the sand, to him who has just escaped the perils of the ocean; but if he finds no place of refuge on the shore, if his only hope of an asylum is the vague glimmer of some distant beacon, he is tempted to doubt his strength to reach the half-seen light, and if it will really prove a haven. Such had been the mixture of gratitude and apprehension the poor orphan felt the day she accepted from Mademoiselle Josephine the hospitality of the blue chamber, and it did not leave her the whole time of her stay in that first harbor of safety. But to-day, roused from her slumbers by the merry Christmas chimes, her first thought was: “Thank God, I have arrived at port”; and she rose from her spacious couch eager to begin her new life. She began the day by writing to Mademoiselle Josephine. Her old friend must be informed of her happiness before she could enter upon its enjoyment. It seemed only a debt of gratitude to share with her all her new and pleasing impressions. She also wrote to Madre Maddalena: she must without any delay link all the friends and joys of the past with her present happiness and truly transformed life.

Her aunt, in assuring her the previous evening she was among her own--that is, at home--seemed to have constituted her, as by magic, a child of the house. Everything around her was new and somewhat strange, but everything pleased her as if naturally conformed to her tastes; and yet the walls of her room, hung with sombre colors, the old press of carved wood, which easily contained her limited wardrobe, the high-backed chairs ranged around, the antique bureau in one corner, and in the other a great monumental stove, the spectral aspect of which alone was surprising--all this might easily have offended an eye accustomed to the smiling magnificence of Italy, but not an object in the house seemed capable of imparting any sad impressions. The word welcome appeared inscribed on every side, as on all faces, and in this sweet atmosphere she instinctively felt that the material comfort was only a type of the mental freedom much more necessary than the other to the happiness of life.

“You must not dress in black today, Gabrielle,” said her two fair cousins, as they entered her chamber for the third time since she rose an hour before, bearing a basket which contained garments similar to 820 their own.

“Why not?” said Fleurange, somewhat astonished.

“Do you not know that, in Germany, mourning is laid aside on great festivals?” replied Clara, the younger of the two. “You must dress like us to-day, as you will always do when the time for this sad mourning is over.”

The elder of the two sisters noticed that her cousin made no reply: she approached her and said affectionately:

“Excuse Clara if she has distressed you. She is so gay and happy herself, that she cannot comprehend misfortune and sadness.”

“I do not wish to remind her of them to-day,” said Fleurange, “and will do as she requests. But you, dear Hilda,” continued she--looking with admiration at her cousin’s golden locks and grave brow, which a queen’s diadem would have suited, or the aureola of a saint--“are you not as gay and happy as your sister?”

“Yes, as happy,” said Hilda, “but not as gay.”

After some explanations, Fleurange conformed to her cousins’ wishes. But when, before dinner, the beautiful Hilda, clothed in white, brought a garland like that she wore herself and wished to place it on her head, she objected: “As to this garland, Hilda, you must excuse me from wearing it.”

“Why so?”

“Because I have never worn any ornament of the kind: because, after all, I cannot and do not wish to forget I am a poor orphan, who should not dream of adorning herself, or mingling in the world.”

“But, Gabrielle, you must know we only adorn ourselves to celebrate at home the great annual festivals, and we never mingle in the world.”

“Never? But then, why wear flowers without any reason?”

“It is not without a reason. My father likes us to wear the flowers of the season at every feast. This poor wreath you have refused, Gabrielle, look at it: it is, like mine, of holly, reflecting the brightness of Christmas, with its shining leaves and berries red as coral. There, see if it is not becoming in your raven hair?” As she spoke, Hilda held the wreath over her cousin’s head: at that instant Clara appeared, and hesitation was no longer possible. She instantly took her sister’s place: the bright leaves and red berries were placed like a crown on Fleurange’s brow, who laughed and only made a feeble resistance, while the mirror reflected the forms of the three young girls--as graceful a picture as ever haunted an artist’s dreams.

“There,” cried Clara, “you are both beautiful--one fair as the day and the other brilliant as night. And I,” continued she, arranging her long curls, among which holly leaves were also twined--“let me see what I resemble myself.”

“A flower, a star, dear Clara: everything that is best worth gazing at by day or night,” said Fleurange affectionately.

She preferred the elder of the two sisters, but there was an irresistible grace about the other, whom she could not help caressing with her eyes and tones, as if she were a child.

“Ah! that is charming, poetic, and very applicable! Thank you, Cousin Gabrielle. I will presently ask our poet to divine my emblems. We shall see if he agrees with you.”

“If our poet is in a fit of abstraction, you must ask some one else who certainly will not be,” said Hilda.