Chapter XXVII: Carl Yorke’s Orbit (6)

When, then, Peter had taken possession of his city, the rapid spread of Christianity began. Here was the throne of the head of the church established in the very centre of civilization and of the Western World. We cannot think that Romulus and his wild robber-followers had any profound design in fixing the site of their city on those seven hills. No; but God had. It is remarkable that Rome seems built to be even naturally and physically the centre of the world. “Nothing,” says Father Lacordaire, “is isolated in things; the body, the soul, divine grace, everything is united; all is harmonious. The body of man is not that of the irrational animal; the configuration of a country intended for one destiny is not the same as that of a country appointed to another destiny, and the general form of our globe is as full of reason as of mystery.”[41] The ancients seem to have had a traditional knowledge of this; hence it was that, when they built their cities, they made a deep and religious study of the spot which was chosen as the site. Looking, then, first at Italy, we see that God formed it for a great purpose. It is curious to remark how Asia, Africa, and Europe are united, as it were, together by the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, which also opens toward the West to allow the vessels of all nations to sail to the American continent. Into this central Mediterranean Sea, Italy shoots out its long length. On its northern side it is strongly guarded by ridges of mountains, and seems thus designed to be defended from Europe, whilst it is its heart. Almost in the centre of this Italian peninsula, more to the south than the north, and more westward than eastward, Rome is seated. She is built on seven hills, and by the borders of the Tiber, whose yellow waters roll sluggishly along between banks bare and uninteresting, and destitute of that green verdure which gives such a charm to the rivers of our own country. At a distance of six leagues eastward rises the dark line of the Apennines; looking westward, you may catch a view from some elevated spot of the bright-glancing waters of the Mediterranean; northward rises the isolated Soracte, towering up like a mighty giant, and seeming to stand as guardian of the plain. Directing your gaze southward, your eye falls on the pleasant hamlets of Castel-Gandolfo, Marino, Frascati, and Colonna.[42] In this centre of the world, then, made such by God when he formed the globe; in this centre, so wonderfully adapted for easy communication with the rest of the world, God has his central city built, and when the hour comes which he preordained in his wise Providence, he conducts the Fisherman-Pope there, and bids him there abide till the end of time. It is not likely, then, that any other city of the world, either Jerusalem or Constantinople, or any great capital yet to be built, can supplant Rome in the honor of being the city of the Popes, or that any other country will be in as true a sense the chosen country of God as Italy is. Italy was chosen, as we have seen, to be the heart of the world. Then God chose to have this great central capital from which the light of Christianity was to radiate to the four quarters of the globe. It would be easy to show what a glorious and conspicuous part she has acted in all ages through the church’s history. It is Italy which has given to the church almost the whole long line of Pontiffs who have filled the chair of St. Peter. From Italy have gone forth almost all the greatest missionaries of the world. St. Innocent says, in his Epistle to Decentius, that all the great founders of Christian churches in Gaul, Sicily, Spain, and Africa came from this favored county. To her also is Germany indebted for her first apostles; and, unless we credit the legend of Joseph of Arimathea, we must own that Christianity was first brought over into Britain by missionaries from Rome. And we are not surprised that Italy is so prolific in apostles and preachers. Nearest to the heart does the life-blood flow most quickly. Under the eye of Christ’s Vicar, and under the shadow of his presence, has the Christian life always been best realized. We cannot, then, wonder that the history of Christian Italy should furnish the highest and the most glorious pages of the history of the church. She is glorious in her countless martyrs, in her learned doctors, in her great founders of religious orders. With all this before us, we can understand the soul-stirring words of Luigi Tosti to the Italian clergy. “State sa,” he cries out, “Leviti dell’ Italiano chericato, abitatori della terra in cui la chiesa impresse sempre la prima orma dei suoi passi, quando procede all’ assunzione di una forma novella. Scalza, perseguitata, cruenta di martirio in Pietro: ricca, guistiziera, fulminatrice in Ildebrando; bella, copulatrice di due civiltà nel decimo Leone; e sempre in Italia.” We lose much of the fire and vigor of the original by translating these words into our own language, but yet we may, perhaps, venture to render them thus: “Arise, Levites of the Italian clergy, dwellers in that land on which the church always imprints her first foot-mark whenever she is about to take up a new form. Barefooted, persecuted, red with the blood of martyrdom in Peter; rich, rigid, hurling anathemas in Hildebrand; beautiful, uniting the two civilizations in the tenth Leo; and always in Italy.”[43]

Returning, then, to what we have already said regarding the Roman Empire, and seeing how wonderfully God has arranged all things for the establishment of his holy religion, we may form to ourselves an idea how rapidly the truths of Christianity would spread throughout the world. Now we see a nobler and higher use for those grand Roman roads than ever entered into the minds of those who designed and constructed them; now we perceive the advantage of that one noble Latin language being the established language of the empire; now we take in more perfectly the great design of God in laying so many nations at the feet of Rome, and inspiring them with such veneration for her very name. Thus favored on all sides, Christianity soon made its way into the cities and towns of the wide-spreading empire. We have been amazed as we have observed God working out in detail this grand scheme for the propagation of his religion. We have seen and wondered at the mighty power of that Word which was confided by Jesus Christ to the apostles and their successors. We have seen it captivating the rich and the poor alike, and baffling and finally humbling at its feet the proud philosophers themselves. We know how in a few years the Christians could be counted by thousands in Rome itself, and how they were found wherever the Roman legions had penetrated. From Rome, as from a great central sun, the light of truth shone far out in all directions, and Christian churches seemed to rise as by an invisible power, in all cities and towns near and far distant, and then shoot forth their beautiful brightness into the surrounding darkness. In Africa, as Alzog and Döllinger relate, the Christians soon outnumbered the pagans. And we know well, for there is no one who has not read them, the famous words of Tertullian, in his _Apologetica_: “We are but of yesterday, and already we fill your towns, your villages, your fortresses, your islands, your assemblies and your camps, the senate and the imperial court; we leave you nothing but the temples.” In studying the first ages of the church’s history, what glorious things do we witness, and how strongly is the conviction forced upon us that God is there ruling events and using men for his own great purposes! We see the Roman legions transforming themselves, as did the Thundering Legion, into so many phalanxes of conquering Christians, who rushed to victory under the impulse of the grand idea that they were thus subduing new countries to the rule of Christ.[44] We see those victorious legions carrying with them their laws, their customs, and their schools to the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, and there planting civilization and the faith of Christ. We wonder less at this when we think what noble Christian hearts were burning in the breasts of those brave men, and how oftentimes they laid down their lives as martyrs for Christ’s name. We can never forget the noble Theban legions dying at the foot of the Alps, thus giving by their heroic martyrdom the first lessons of Christian teaching to the people of Switzerland. In the camps of Rhætia, Noricum, and Vindelicia, again, we see Christian soldiers sowing the seeds of their holy religion on every side of them. How beautiful a thing did it appear to the devoted Ozanam to follow the footsteps of these early missionaries, to represent to himself the hymns of redemption rising heavenwards amidst the silence of the pagan forests, and to see in imagination the barbarians receiving the waters of baptism at the same fountains which their fathers adored![45] The more closely, then, we study the manner in which Christianity was propagated in the first ages, the more clearly does the mission of the Roman Empire stand out before our eyes. It becomes more and more evident, the longer we look at facts, that Rome’s conquering legions, her great far-reaching roads, her laws, and her one universal language were all made use of by God in a wonderful way, not only to prepare the way for, but also for the establishment of his great spiritual kingdom upon earth.

Thus far we have considered the Roman Empire as working for God, as aiding in a remarkable manner the propagation of Christianity. Thus viewed, the Roman Empire was on God’s side. But from another point of view we know how bitterly she opposed God’s work. Never was there such dire war made against God as during the three hundred years of the persecutions. We have now to glance at these years of blood and hatred, since they are a part of the explanation why in later times there came, by God’s sending, such a whirlwind of wrath on the mighty empire that it was shaken to its very foundations, and fell with a crash which made the whole universe tremble. We do not intend to dwell on the more minute details of these strange, sad years, but only to refer in a general way to the cruelty of the persecutors and the heroic conduct of the children of the cross in the presence of death.

Towards the end of the first seventy years of the Christian church, we see the imperial garden at Rome the scene of a strange festivity. The Roman people are there assembled on a dark night for an entertainment. The Emperor Nero is seen passing to and fro in his imperial carriage, followed by the senators in their costly equipages amidst the shouts and plaudits of the people. It is the opening of the first persecution. The long, shady avenues are lighted up by living torches--human beings covered over with burning pitch are serving as festal lamps. In the open squares of this garden we see women and children, belonging to some of the noblest families of Rome, clothed with the skins of wild beasts, and cast to hungry dogs, which devour them alive. Meanwhile Nero laughs with savage glee at the success of his new invention, and his myrmidons congratulate him on the ingenuity he has displayed in it. This is only a glimpse--but we need no more.

Later on we see that other monster Domitian, shut up in a dark chamber of his palace, holding with fiendish satisfaction the end of the chain which binds the limbs of those who are brought before him for trial. We see him oftentimes presiding in person and gloating with a wild beast’s _gusto_ over the tortures inflicted on innocent Christians. In his reign, virtue became a crime, and the followers of Christ were put to death throughout the whole extent of the empire as being the declared enemies of the state. We do not wonder that Domitian acquired for himself the odious name of “the tyrant whom the universe detested,” as Suetonius tells us in his _Life_ of this emperor. Neither can we wonder that the Roman people endeavored to blot out even his very name from their memory. Lactantius tells us, in his _De Morte Persecutorum_, that his statues were broken to pieces, and his inscriptions effaced from the proud monuments which his hands had raised.

As we pass on to Trajan and Adrian, we find no reason to be partial to their memories. Though no new edicts of persecution were published during their reign, yet Christians were put to death in great numbers throughout the empire. When we think of Trajan’s persecution, a grand, saintly figure always rises before our minds--it is St. Ignatius of Antioch, as he himself has sketched in striking outlines, in his famous _Epistle to the Romans_, the sublime ideal of the Christian martyr, and he realized with wonderful exactitude that ideal in his own person.

The student of church history well remembers the bold independence of the holy man as he stood before the emperor at Antioch; and the courageous joy with which he went to the amphitheatre to be the victim of wild beasts and a spectacle to the bloodthirsty Romans, is one of those glorious things which the church points to as characteristic of her great martyr-bishops.

Again, when we think of Adrian, we recall that symbol of his cruelty, the brazen bull, into which, when heated to red-heat, the faithful veteran Eustachius with his wife and family was cast. His name, too, brings back to our memory the brave widow Symphorosa and her seven sons. The cruel scene of torment is again enacted before our minds. We think how the poor mother was suspended aloft by the hair, all bruised and mangled as she was by hard lashes, whilst the bodies of her children were opened before her eyes with knives and iron hooks. Such facts as these are certainly not calculated to persuade us that Adrian’s character was one of mildness and clemency, as profane historians would have us believe. To this emperor belongs, as Tillemont tells us, the odious distinction of having profaned in the vilest manner those holy places which are so dear to Christian hearts. He defiled the holy Mount of Calvary by erecting thereon the sensual figure of Venus; he desecrated the sacred Cave at Bethlehem by setting up the statue of Adonis; and he placed, as though in jeering triumph, the image of Jupiter over the tomb of our blessed Saviour. Under the influence of Adrian’s zeal, paganism experienced a temporary revival; idolatry seemed to regain new life and vigor, and made a great effort to substitute the trophies of the devil for those of Jesus Christ. Adrian went so far as to erect temples in his own honor, which, as Döllinger says, have been falsely supposed by some to have been places of Christian worship. Adrian died at last a wretched prey to his crimes. As he writhed in agony and rotted away under the violence of a loathsome disease, he called a thousand times upon death to come to his deliverance. But death came slowly to the cruel torturer of Symphorosa and her sons.

As we pass rapidly on down these years of blood, our eye is again arrested, in the time of Marcus Aurelius, by the grand figure of glorious Polycarp, who rises then distinct and clear to our view, as he stands up bravely on his funeral pile above the heads of the Roman rabble, overspanned by his triumphal arch of fire. As the venerable martyr went to his trial, a voice from heaven spoke to him these words: “Courage, Polycarp, quit thyself like a brave man.” And so he did. No one can read without emotion the beautiful, calm answer which the old man gave to the proconsul who ordered him to “blaspheme against Christ.” “It is now eighty-six years,” the aged martyr replied, “that I have served him. How then can I blaspheme against my Lord and Saviour?” His noble words and his heroic death inspired courage in thousands of Christians who afterwards gave their lives for Christ. We learn, also, that during this persecution Christians who had been for some time detained in the prisons were massacred _en masse_, and that the Rhone flowed all red and ghastly with the blood which countless martyrs had shed on its banks. But the emperor-philosopher felt his impotence to destroy the ever-dying yet ever-multiplying race of Christians. “Vary their torments,” he writes, in his despair, to the governors of the provinces; and then we see the victims of his hatred crucified, burned, or cast to the wild beasts. Modern men of science may rank Marcus Aurelius with philosophers, but we are inclined to believe, with M. Leroy, that it was his infamous cruelty towards the Christians rather than true wisdom which has made them pass over in silence his shameless turpitudes and grant him this proud distinction.

During the raging persecution which Septimius Severus had enkindled against the Christians, we see St. Perpetua going boldly to death, bearing in her arms her new-born child. Her aged pagan father, kneeling in tears at her feet and begging her to sacrifice to the gods, could not deter her from advancing, with firm step and calm look, to meet the wild beasts of the circus. We see Felicitas, Saturninus, Revocatus, and others accompanying her through the savage crowd to the same fate. What a grand procession of heroes--something to look at till our tears flow and our hearts are set on fire! As they advance proudly along, the voice of Satur, one of their number, is heard giving forth those scathing words to the wild crowd that surrounded them: “Look well at us, that you may know us again at the judgment-day.”

Turning our eyes to Alexandria, we find that city a great centre of persecution at this time. There it was that the most intrepid defenders of religion, and the stern, penitential men of the Thebaid, were summoned to crown their noble lives by the heroism of martyrdom. And again is the blood of martyrs flowing like water in the streets of Lyons. St. Irenæus and twenty thousand Christians are immolated in honor of Christ’s name. The work of extermination is continued with unrelenting vigor under the gigantic son of the Thracian peasant. Maximin deals out his blows of death with the power and fury of a Cyclops. But the brave Christian hearts, braced up to noble deeds by the secret indwelling presence of their Lord, do not quail before his terrors. And in the midst of the bloody fray, we hear the soul-inspiring voice of great Origen, calling aloud to his brethren in these words: “Behold, generous athletes, your portion--a tribulation above all tribulations, but yet a hope above all hopes; for the Lord knows how to glorify, by his rewards, those who have thought little of this poor earthen vessel, which death so easily breaks to pieces. I should like to see you, when the combat is at hand, bounding with joy as did the apostles in their day, who rejoiced that they were found worthy to suffer outrages for the name of Jesus. Remember ye the words of Isaiah, ‘Fear not the reproach which comes from men, and let not yourselves be cast down by their contempt.’ Men laugh to-day, and to-morrow they are no more; already the eternal pit swallows them up for ever. When you shall be on the arena of combat, think with Paul that you are a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. If you triumph, Christians will applaud your courage; the heavenly spirits will rejoice at your victory. But if you yield, the powers of hell will shout for joy, and will come forth in myriads from their fiery abyss to meet you. Fight, then, valiantly, and, in imitation of Eleazar, leave behind you, as a remembrance of your death, a noble example of constancy and virtue.”[46] These noble words are worthy of the generous soul and the marvellously gifted mind of the great doctor of Alexandria. They sound forth with a soul-stirring, awakening power, like a trumpet-blast from heaven. And, no doubt, many a trembling heart was nerved into courageous daring by them; many a glorious victory was won under their influence which would otherwise have been lost. And it was in the next persecution under Decius that such powerful, encouraging words were needed. Never yet since the empire began to make bloody war against Christ’s followers had the Christians more need of strength and help; never had they more need than now to picture to themselves the depths of the fiery abyss, and the bright glories of God’s kingdom. Decius came to his bloody work with a resolution to succeed at any cost. His orders went abroad over the empire to all governors and public functionaries, that every conceivable torture was to be used in order to force the Christians to renounce their faith. It was not, then, prompt, quick death that was now the order of the day, but slow, cruel torture. We have a picture of the horrors of this persecution in the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa. “The magistrates,” he says, “suspended all cases, private or public, to apply themselves to the great, the important affair--the arrest and punishment of the faithful. The heated iron chains, the steel claws, the pyre, the sword, the beasts, all the instruments invented by the cruelty of man, lacerated, by night and by day, the bodies of martyrs; and each tormentor seemed to fear that he might not be as barbarous as his fellows. Neighbors, relatives, friends, heartlessly betrayed each other, and denounced Christians before the magistrates. The provinces were in consternation; families were decimated; cities became deserts; and the deserts were peopled. Soon the prisons were insufficient for the multitudes arrested for their faith, and most of the public edifices were converted into prisons.”[47] We find, also, St. Denis of Alexandria speaking in moving language of the persecution which he witnessed in his own city. He tells us that the numbers of the martyrs were past counting. No regard was paid to sex, age, or rank; men, women, children, and old men were tormented with equal cruelty. Every species of torture was employed, and every imaginable cruelty used to increase the horrors of death.[48] Again, at Smyrna, Antioch, Lampsacus, Toulouse, Nîmes, and Marseilles, martyrs died in thousands. In fact, wherever we turn our gaze, we see throughout the length and breadth of the empire the blood of Christians flowing.

During the reign of Valerian the monotonous work of death goes on, but, perhaps, as we advance, the destruction of Christians becomes more wholesale. At Utica the heads of one hundred and fifty followers of Christ fell at once, and at Cirta in Numidia we see an atrocious butchery taking place which lasts the greater part of a day. The martyrs are led into a valley with ranges of hills rising to a great height on both sides, as if to favor the spectacle. They are ranged in line, their eyes bandaged, along the river-side; and the executioner passes on from one to another, striking off their heads.[49] It was, perhaps, a glad sight for the savage idolaters who thronged the high hill-sides to witness the bloody slaughter, but it was a sublime spectacle, too, for the angels of heaven, as they looked down upon those brave soldiers of Christ, and saw them standing in calm, joyful silence by that African river-bank and receiving their bright martyrs’ crowns.

The ages of blood came to an end with the Diocletian persecution. It would be difficult to imagine that anything new in the way of torture could be invented at this date. Ingenuity and malice had already done their worst in the matter of inventions; but Diocletian and his associates brought with them a qualification in which they were surpassed by none of their predecessors, and that was an intense hatred for the Christian religion. Never had the rage and fury of persecutors been greater than was displayed by these “three ferocious wild beasts,” as Lactantius calls them; and never, consequently, did the blood of Christians flow more copiously. Hell was making its last great effort. Though we are accustomed, in traversing these centuries of terrible bloodshed, to read of cruelties which are almost beyond belief, yet we are startled into new horror when we find in this tenth persecution an entire town with its twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants consumed by fire because it is a town of Christians. Each province has its peculiar species of torture. In Mesopotamia, it is fire; in Pontus, the wheel; in Syria, the gridiron; in Arabia, the hatchet; in Cappadocia, iron bars for breaking limbs; in Africa, hanging; the wooden horse in Gaul, and wild beasts at Rome.[50] Where, we ask, as we gaze over the wide-stretching empire, is not the blood of Christians flowing? Its voice rises heavenwards from the cliffs of Tangiers; it saturates the plains of Mauritania; it springs from wounded combatants on the shores of Tyr; but nowhere over the wide earth is it poured out for God’s glory without his taking count of it. The blood of martyrs will not cry to heaven in vain; God’s day of reckoning with the empire will surely come.

But we can dwell no longer on these ages of heroic sacrifice. Pascal has truly said that “the history of the rest of the Romans pales beside the history of the martyrs.” Whoever wishes to see the full force of this remark, let him read the _Acts of the Martyrs_, in the history of Eusebius, or the charming pages of Ruinart, or in the ponderous tomes of the Bollandists. Nowhere in Christian literature is there anything so simply and touchingly eloquent. The _Acts of the Martyrs_ constitute a drama whose character is most sublime, and the interest of which is more than ravishing. In order to express our idea more perfectly, we will borrow the words of Mgr. Freppel. “If there be a drama,” he says, “each of whose acts bears a special character, whilst at the same time perfect unity is preserved, it is the _Acts of the Martyrs_. Here we have a bishop who puts to confusion a proconsul by the calm constancy of his faith; there we have a virgin who mingles with her answers that enthusiasm of love with which her heart is on fire. In another place, we have the Christian mother surrounded by her sons, who confess one after another the simple faith of their infancy, and pass from mouth to mouth the testimony of truth. Again, we have the Christian soldier, who reveres in Cæsar the majesty of power, but who places above all imperial honors the worship of the King of kings. In this magnificent epopee of martyrdom, to which each persecution adds a new song, the scene varies according to time and place; it is the fidelity of love and the grandeur of sacrifice which constitute its unity.”[51] It is there that we have put before us the most beautiful and the most noble characters that have ever done honor to the human race. We find nothing sordid, nothing selfish, nothing haughty in these heroes. They are meek and humble, yet brave and high-souled, and strikingly grand in the face of death. Profane history may ransack its annals, but it will never be able to show us characters so noble and so admirable. Their equals are not to be found in the _Lives_ of Plutarch, nor in the pages of Eutropius. How true is it that the Catholic Church alone is the Mother of Heroes! The heroism of the martyrs was of that kind for which all ordinary theories fail to account. It gave strength to the tottering frames of venerable old men; it made timid virgins courageous in the presence of hideous racks; it spoke by the lisping tongues of frail infants. Let the profane historian point to any scene that can equal in simple grandeur the trial and death of the gentle, sweet St. Agnes, or in heroic endurance the painful, slow martyrdom of the beautiful Agatha, the glory of Sicilian virgins. Let him tell us of anything, either in profane fact or fable, which can equal in purity and strange boldness the beautiful history of Eulalia, the child-saint of twelve summers, whose name is celebrated in touching harmonies by Prudentius as the glory of Merida, the sweet Lusitanian city which stands on the flowery banks of the rapid Guadiana. Let him tell us of anything, even in the fancied facts of strangest romance, that is half as marvellous as the history of St. Cyr, the child-confessor and martyr of three years old, who, when he was taken up into the governor’s embrace to be coaxed into apostasy, lisped out his brave confession, “Christianus sum,” and was dashed to pieces on the steps of the tribunal. Will the profane historian speak of wonderful endurance? We invite him to look at the child Barallah, in his seventh year, who was suspended in the air and scourged before his mother’s eyes, and who, as his blood sprang out on all sides, and his little bones were stripped of their flesh, could be brave and unflinching whilst the rough executioners themselves shed tears of pity. As the blood flowed from his body, the little martyr cried out in the burning heat of his torments, “I am thirsty; give me a little water.” His brave mother reproved him, saying, “Soon, my son, thou wilt be at the source of living waters”; and she carried her child in her arms to the spot where he was to be beheaded, and as his head was severed from his body she received it into her veil. Tell us, profane historian, of great mothers like this. Tell us if your greatest heroes could be so invincible in the midst of suffering as the child-martyrs of the Catholic Church.

The three ages of martyrdom in the church’s history are emphatically the ages of great heroes. No brave man that ever went to death for any other cause went so boldly or was so calm and dignified as the Christian martyr in the presence of the executioner. Never before in the annals of the human race were men known to go to death rejoicing; never before were they seen to smile and be glad when brought in sight of the rack and the gibbet. This perfection of courage and sublime self-possession were seen every day among the martyrs of the church. This it was that amazed the frantic rabble which witnessed their sufferings; it was this that oftentimes enraged the Roman governors so far as to drive them to order the death-blow to be inflicted before the torturers had done their appointed work. The joy with which the martyrs gave their blood for Christ’s holy name is one of the problems which unchristian philosophers have never been able to solve. These so-called thinkers have never been able to comprehend the long, mysterious blood-shedding of those three hundred years. The Christian philosopher alone, with his great Catholic principles of history, can understand that _blood-shedding_ is the mysterious law which characterizes in such a striking manner the great work of the Incarnation. As he gazes into the past, he sees the sacrificial blood flowing in every nation’s worship. Far back in the ages of the patriarchs, he can discern the red stream glistening; and as his eye still gazes, he sees it flowing ever onward, with typical significance, through the centuries, until it meets the God-man’s sacred blood pouring down from the Cross of Calvary. There the typical was merged in the real. He can see, again, how congruous it seems that, after the great sacrifice of the cross had been typified through the proceding ages by an ever-flowing stream of blood, and after Christ had poured out all his own blood on the hill of Calvary, and it had flowed down so copiously on the sinful world, his first followers and disciples should in their turn shed their blood for him. This abundant blood-shedding, this wondrous heroic self-sacrifice, was a testimony which honest men could not withstand, for, as Pascal says, “men believe witnesses who shed their blood.” To die willingly and joyfully for another was something of which the world had not yet heard. Jesus Christ, then, wished to show the mighty power of his doctrine. He would let the world see what wonders his cross could work in the souls of men. He wished to make it manifest to all men’s eyes what courage it could give in the presence of the most terrible racks; how it could so influence the weak and timid as to make them joyful when they were taken to die; how it could be a consolation and an ineffable sweetness in the midst of torments the most painful. All this he did manifest to the world in the most striking light. His martyrs were such characters as the world had not seen before; what was terrible to others was not so to them; when others would shriek with agony, they would smile with joy; when others would languish and faint under the lash and the knife, they could calmly remark with St. Eulalia as she looked at her wounds: “They write your name all over my body, sweet Jesus.” Truly, the cross planted amidst a very sea of blood, generously shed for the love of the Crucified, is the grand central point of all history, which men may look back at, and gaze upon with admiration and ravishment to the end of time.

But, returning to our former point of view, and looking upon these centuries of terrible blood-shedding as the fierce, furious war which the Roman Empire waged against God and his religion, we naturally ask ourselves a question, Where is the great God of the Christians whilst his children are being immolated to pagan savagery throughout the whole earth? Does he from his high heaven take note of what is done? Oh! he who sees the sparrow fall does not lose sight of his children, nor does his eye fail to see the sufferings which they endure for him. The voice of his martyrs rose heavenwards with a mighty cry during those three hundred years. It rose from the saturated floor of the Roman amphitheatre; it spoke with pleading eloquence from the depths of the mines of Numidia; it echoed incessantly in the ear of God from amid the solitudes of Pannonia. God was not at any time deaf to that cry. He was slow in his anger, but, then, on that account he was the more terrible. Whilst Nero was shedding the first Christian blood at Rome, God was silently gathering together his avenging armies in the forests of the north. It took him more than three hundred years to marshal his overwhelming warrior-hosts; but, O heavens! what a direful shaking of the universe when they did come!

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Carlyle’s _Miscellanies_, vol. ii., “On History,” p. 151.

[34] Vol. i. p. 44, French ed.

[35] _Eccl. Hist._, vii. 10.

[36] _Hist._ ix. 6.

[37] Allies, _Formation of Christendom_, vol. i. p. 42.

[38] Allies, _Formation of Christendom_.

[39] See _Formation of Christendom_, by Mr. Allies.

[40] Dr. Newman, _Office and Work of Universities_, pp. 161, 162.

[41] _Œuvres_ du R. P. Lacordaire, tome vi. p. 172.

[42] See Père Lacordaire’s _Lettre sur le Saint-Liège_.

[43] Tosti, _Al Clero Italiano; Prolegom.-alla Storia Universale_, vol. i.

[44] See _Leroy_, vol. ii. p. 295.

[45] See Ozanam, _La Civilisation chrét. chez les Francs_, p. 4.

[46] Origen, _Exhortatio ad Mart., passim_, quoted by Leroy.

[47] St. Greg. of Nyssa, _Vita Thaumat._, p. 578.

[48] See the sixth book of Eusebius’ _Hist. of the Church_.

[49] See Darras’ _History of the Church_, Amer-edit., p. 262.

[50] See Eusebius’ _History_, book viii. ch. 12, and following.

[51] _Les Pères Apostoliques_, 20me leçon, p. 433.

ACOUSTICS AND VENTILATION.[52]

Every effort to elucidate what is obscure, or to provide a remedy for acknowledged evils, is a just title to that friendly acknowledgment which the writer of this little book bespeaks. It is a step in the direction of progress. But it is of the highest importance in the attempt to impart clear ideas upon any subject, that they should be so distinctly expressed as to leave no doubt concerning the identity of their subject. Thus, in treating of _sound_, it seems to us that the question first presented is this: _What is sound?_ Our author says that it “_receives_ its vitality or its life through the air, and without air sound loses it and becomes extinct.”

We object to this statement of the origin of sound, as both unsatisfactory and indistinct. It implies that _sound_ is something born and floating in the air, and external to the mind perceiving. We fancy that, without _an ear to hear_, sound would not become extinct, but have no existence; and that the _vitality_ of which our writer treats is not _in_ or _on_ the air, but in the mind itself. This exception to the supposed origin of the _life of sound_ may not seem to affect the discussion of acoustics as far as the practical purpose of the architect is concerned; but we insist that neither the drumsticks nor the drum, nor the air within it or without, nor even all these at work, are _sound_, more than the telegraph wire and the electric current are the _message_ sent from one operator to another.

That inaccuracy which we discover in our author’s use of terms, we find also in his quotations from others. For example: “The intensity of sound depends on the density of the air in which the sound is generated, and _not on that of the air in which it is heard_. A feeble sound becomes instantly louder as soon as the air becomes more dense. So you will always find, on great elevations in the atmosphere, the sound sensibly diminished in loudness. If two cannon are equally charged, and one fired at [from] the top of a high mountain, and the other in a valley, the one fired below, in the heavy air, may be heard above, while the one fired in the higher air will not be heard below; owing to its origin, the sound generated in the denser air is louder than that generated in the rarer. Peals of thunder are unable to penetrate the air to a distance commensurate with their intensity on account of the non-homogeneous character of the atmosphere which accompanies them; from the same cause, battles have raged and have been lost within a short distance of the reserves of the defeated army, while they were waiting for the sound of artillery to call them to the scene of action.”

It seems to us that the truth here expressed is not unmixed with error. In the very first sentence, we think that accuracy would require the suppression of the word _not_. The intensity of sound depends not only upon the density and elasticity of the air whose pulsation is an antecedent condition, but also upon the density and elasticity of the air _through which_ the pulse is transmitted. While it is true that a pulse given to the denser column or stratum of air may be transmitted through a _rarer_ medium with greater resultant force than if its origin and direction were reversed, it by no means follows that the intensity of sound is unaffected by the density of the air _in_ which it is heard. We apprehend the truth to be that the pulse given to highly rarefied air is very feeble; and its secondary effect upon a denser and more elastic fluid, correspondingly slight; while the pulse from the denser air would be transmitted with greater--but still diminished--force, through the rarer atmosphere _in which_ it reaches the ear. An _absolute vacuum_ could not transmit the pulse given through a column or stratum of elastic fluid. A _rarefied atmosphere_ could but transmit it with a force always varying with its own elasticity. And were it possible to preserve one’s consciousness within the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, we doubt if the most sensitive ear could be made to hear the roar of a cataract without.

“A feeble sound becomes instantly louder as soon as the air becomes more dense;” but _not as loud_ as if the same initial pulse were _immediately_ given to the denser air. In the case of two cannon equally charged, one of which is fired on the top of a mountain, and the other in a valley below it, to say that “_owing to its origin_, the sound generated in the denser air is louder than that generated in the rarer,” _sounds_ much like saying it is _because_ it is. If it be more than this, it is wrong. It is a clear case of _non causa pro causa_. The origin [of the _pulse_] of sound is in either case the same: the explosion of equal charges of gunpowder, in guns supposed to be of like material and equal size. The _effects_ are not the same, because the effect of a force depends upon its _transmission_ as well as upon its origin.

Does the atmosphere “_accompany_” peals of thunder? Or does this expression convey a distinct idea of the office of the atmosphere in the production of sound? We understand that the atmosphere receives the pulse or blow, and that its transmission to the ear is due to the elastic force of the intermediate air. It is not the _homogeneousness_ of air, but its _elasticity_ which transmits the pulse. And though, in architecture, the object sought is a uniformly elastic air throughout the _auditorium_, it does not follow, nor is it even desirable, that the _maximum effect at a given point_ should be obtained by it.

“Science,” says our author, “teaches us that, whenever a shock or pressure of any sort is suddenly applied to material of any nature, whether metal, wood, gas, water, air, etc., it is immediately affected in all its parts, from the point of contact to the whole extent of the material, in displacing and replacing the particles of a _determinate volume_; and the velocity of the movement of the particles of the mass, created by the concussion of shocks or pressure, depends _solely_ (?) upon its elasticity and density. Sound likewise _causes_ motions (?) with every particle of the air, and as far as the motion reaches; so that each particle, with regard to that which lies immediately beyond it, is in a progress of rarefaction during return.”

What is meant by affecting a mass of matter “_in all its parts_,” by “displacing and replacing the particles of a _determinate volume_,” we do not precisely understand. That whatever causes motion does it “as far as the motion reaches,” is as unquestionable as any other identical proposition. But that the velocity of the movement of the particles, created by the concussion of shocks, pressure, _upon an unconfined elastic fluid_, depends _solely_ upon its elasticity and density, we dispute. That _pulses_ “are propagated from a _trembling body_ all around in a _spherical_ manner” may be true, if the air is on all sides equally elastic. Such might be the case with those produced by the vibrations of a _bell_, when the surrounding air is undisturbed by other causes, and is uniformly elastic at equal distances from it. It would not be strictly true if the initial pulse were made only in a certain direction. “Every impression made on a fluid is propagated every way throughout the fluid, whatever be the direction wherein it is made;” but it is not true that the impressions are equal at equal distances from the initial pulse, irrespective of its _direction_. This result would presuppose a fluid _perfectly_ elastic; which we never have--and _then_ we might, with equal truth, say that the impressions would be equal at all distances.

Everybody is familiar with the fact that the “transmission of sound,” the pulse which strikes upon the ear to produce the sensation, _is affected_ by currents of air--the direction, force, and velocity of the wind--between the initial pulse and the hearer. _How_? and _how much_? _directly_ or _indirectly_? are questions distinct from the fact itself. The distance through which guns are heard, as well as the loudness of their report, varies with the _direction_, _force_, and _velocity_ of the wind; and, in very still air, with the _aim_ of the gun itself, the _direction of the initial pulse_. For short distances, these differences may be so minute as to escape notice; just as the false proportions of a miniature picture are unobserved until the magnifier displays them. And for longer ranges, they are so small, in contrast with the magnitudes compared, as to seem rather like _accidental_ than _legitimate_ differences. But the difference is not the less real because the reality is less. Words spoken in a faint whisper are clearly heard by a listener immediately _before_ the speaker, when quite inaudible or indistinct to one at an equal distance _behind_ him.

The _actual velocities_ of wind and sound differ so widely that the small fraction by which their _relative velocity_ is denoted is held as proof that the propagation of sound--_the pulse_--through distances of a few yards or feet, is not affected by currents of air: that there are no _differences in the “velocity of sound.”_ Yet the ear detects them as one of the small differences between discord and harmony in music; distinctness and confusion of speech. In music these differences may be blended by the prolonged intonation of _vowel sounds_; but in speech, whose distinct significance is due to _consonants_, “which cannot be sounded without the aid of a vowel,” these differences are fatally evident. The sharp edges of the vocal pulses, which give shape and meaning to vowel sounds, are destroyed alike by a husky voice and a puff of air. What remains is _vox et præterea nihil_.

It seems to us that some of the many failures in practical acoustics come from considering the air--the material involved--as perfectly elastic. From this it is inferred that sound is not affected by the direction of the initial _pulse_: that the direction and velocity of the _effective_ pulse are not varied by currents and blasts of air. In short, that the slight inaccuracy of these assumptions will be the actual measurement of resultant error.

Were the purpose only to ascertain the _acoustic_ properties of unadulterated air, varied experiments might eliminate the errors of anomalous results. But when the process is reversed, and we deduce _effects_ from _only one_ among concurrent and conflicting causes, theory is confounded by discordant facts. Theories of _sound in purely elastic air_ might give results approximately realized in practice, if the actual pulses with which we are concerned were given by a flail; but are pregnant of error when the atmosphere is mixed with vicious vapors, and the _pulse_ is a breath of air. Then, the assumption that “_pulses of sound_” proceed _equally_ in all directions from the initial point, is simply false; and theories based upon it can only complicate the problems to be solved.

Water, as well as air, is a highly elastic fluid, and, if confined and subjected to pressure, the force applied is exerted on all sides of the confined volume. But the _effect_ of a _pulse_ or blow upon a surface of large extent varies with the _direction_ of the force as well as with its _power_ and _velocity_. We have seen fish swimming near the surface killed or paralyzed by a blow upon the water immediately over them. And we have seen the blow fail of its intended effect _solely_ because it was _misdirected_. Perhaps the water in the latter case was _not perfectly elastic_! Neither is the air of churches and public halls, when their atmosphere has yielded a portion of its _oxygen_, and, in return, is charged with _carbonic acid_ and moist vapors from the breath of crowded assemblies. _Carbonic acid gas_ is heavier _by one-half_ than atmospheric air. It does not, then, always rise toward the ceiling or roof, but remains in solution with impure exhalations; or else, condensed by contact with the colder walls, descends to poison the lower air and impair its elastic force--its power of transmitting the “_pulse of sound_” to the ear.

We have just come from one of our city churches, where we have had a striking example of this result. The church in question will _accommodate_ (?) about two thousand people. Twenty-five hundred may be crowded into it. At the commencement of the sermon, the preacher’s voice was distinctly audible at points fifty or sixty feet from the pulpit, in spite of reflections of sound--_air pulses_--from galleries, wooden columns, and the arched ceiling and side-walls, of lath and plaster. Before it was ended, the exhalations of the breathing crowd had so filled the lower half of the “_auditorium_” that only vowel sounds could be distinguished; and the _peroration_ seemed to consist of spasmodic utterances--scarcely sounds--of _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_. _W_ and _y_ had lost their affinity to vowels, and the rest of the alphabet were no longer _consonants_, for they were not heard at all.

The acoustic and sanitary problems are here identical--to find a method of preventing an accumulation of foul and inelastic vapors around the breathing and listening congregation, and to give, instead, wholesome air to their lungs, while enabling their ears to hear. And since these poisonous and inelastic gases are specifically heavier than atmospheric air, and must fall to the floor by their own weight, the problem is reduced to providing a practicable way for their escape, and guarding it against counter-currents which might obstruct the passage.

The introduction of warm air through openings in or near the floor will not readily produce uniformity of temperature within a room. The simplest experiment in proof of this is constantly made by multitudes of people, who, in crowded assemblies, find their heads surrounded by warm and moist vapors, reeking with offensive odors, while their feet are chilled, though near the “hot-air register.”

A library, whose walls were 12 feet high, and whose floor--18 by 15--contained 270 square feet, was constantly warmed by a “Latrobe heater,” placed in the chimney at one end of the room. The pot holding the coal was raised one foot above the level of the floor, which was covered by a woollen carpet. Immediately under the library was a kitchen, whose temperature was kept at about 72° F. Three thermometers were placed thus: No. 1, standing on the carpet near the centre of the library floor; No. 2, three feet, and No. 3, six feet, above it. At the expiration of half an hour, No. 1 indicated 62°; No. 2, 66°; and No. 3, 72°. Numbers 1 and 3 were then placed side by side with No. 2, three feet above the floor. At the expiration of fifteen minutes, all three indicated the same temperature of 66°. The low temperature of the inferior stratum of air was certainly not due to that of the room beneath it, for that was above 70°. It was only the heavier, colder air of the room itself, and of adjacent apartments warmed in the same way, slightly affected by contact with the stratum of warmer air above it.

Such slight differences of temperature in small apartments could not greatly affect the transmission of “the _pulse of sound_.” But in larger and loftier rooms, like churches and public halls, corresponding differences of temperature would, and do, produce air _strata_ widely different in density and elasticity, and occasion serious acoustic defects. But the acoustic requirement is not satisfied by uniformly elastic _air_ alone; for its _pulses_ are reflected, and unity--distinctness--of sound, is lost in echoes or reverberations, from windows, columns, floors, and ceilings.

To know the difficulties to be encountered is always a step towards their alleviation; and these are sufficiently apparent throughout the little volume before us. They are, _First_, _inelastic air_--which cannot transmit its pulses to the ear. _Second_, strata and amorphous volumes, of unequal densities, which transmit the _air-pulses_ with unequal force; so that they produce _distinct sounds_ and _indefinite murmurs_ at equal distances from the initial pulse. _Third_, _reflecting surfaces_--the floor, the ceiling, walls, columns, and furniture of the _auditorium_; which variously reflect the waves caused by air-pulses, and produce effects analogous to the eddies and whirlpools made by conflicting currents of running water.

The _first_ and _second_ of these difficulties are clearly within the province of “heat and ventilation;” and any means by which a constant tidal flow--_not a current_--of wholesome air, _from floor to ceiling_, may be produced, and by which the _un_wholesome, inelastic, heavier _gases_ generated in crowded assemblies shall be prevented from accumulating but be _forced_ to give place to the purer air, will practically solve the problem which they present.