Chapter IX: Progress Grows Jolly (3)

Our readers have already had a sufficient taste of this author’s quality in “The Progressionists,” now going through our pages, to desire the further treat to be found in the new products of his pen. We do not recall any series of fictitious writings, designed to combat vicious principles and actions, more admirable as specimens of vigorous and effective composition. The most obtuse progressionist could scarcely fail to comprehend the drift of the underlying argument, while the more fastidious reader will be carried along by the interest of the tale through which it is conveyed. Father Noethen is performing an acceptable service in making these works known to the English reader.

Bolanden’s works fairly palpitate with the gravity of themes of living interest. The new German Government, the burthen of the present tale, has given evidence of their telling effect by ordering their suppression.

GERALDINE: A TALE OF CONSCIENCE. By E. C. A. New York: P. O’Shea.

_Geraldine_ was one of the first successful religious novels which followed the revival of Catholic doctrine in England, and bids fair to hold its own for many a year to come. It enjoys a wider reputation than either of Miss Agnew’s other works, one of which, _Rome and the Abbey_, forms a sequel to this.

Mr. O’Shea also issues a reprint of Cardinal Wiseman’s _Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion_; intended, apparently, as the commencement of an uniform series of the great author’s works.

It is to be regretted that this work had not undergone a thorough revision by some competent hand before its reappearance, in order to adapt it to the present state of scientific investigation. Although true science can never be out of harmony with revelation, its successive developments may enable us to see the conditions of that harmony and relation in a clearer light than when the _Lectures_ were originally published.

THE HISTORY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. Translated from the French
of the Abbé Orsini, by the Very Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G.
Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.

This work is already known to many readers in the presentation edition issued by the Messrs. Sadlier some years since, and the recent English edition of which the above is a _fac‐simile_. We are glad to see an edition like this made accessible to the great body of readers, though the fire in which the publisher was involved, will interfere for a time with that consummation. It has a number of pictorial illustrations, and there are appended the letters apostolic concerning the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception.

LIZA. By Ivan S. Turgenieff. New York: Holt & Williams. 1872.

_Liza_ is another work from the pen of M. Turgenieff, the distinguished Russian novelist, several of whose works are already familiar to us. His quiet sarcasm in depicting the Russian of the old school, who needs no scratching to reveal the genuine Tartar—crafty and brutal, but with a kindly streak withal—and the Russian of the present generation who has imbibed foreign habits and theories by no means elevating, is admirably calculated to correct the evils of a transition state of society. The former affords us two affecting pictures in this book of women of repressed lives, who humbly kiss with their dying lips the hand that has crushed them. One of them leaves a young son, Fedor Lavretsky, who never forgets his pale and gentle mother, who in turn hardly dared caress him for fear of the sharp eyes and cutting tongue of her sister‐in‐law, Glafira, who had taken charge of the child. He is brought up under a system of repression, and, when his father dies, he goes to Moscow determined to repair the defects of his education. There he falls in love with the face of a beautiful girl who regards him as a _schöne Partie_ and marries him. He gives himself up to the happiness of his new life, and is induced by his wife to leave his estate, and, after various changes, to go to Paris, where admiration seems to have intoxicated her. Fedor, becoming aware of her real character, settles an annuity on her, leaves her, and returns to his native land. He cannot bear, however, to go to his own seat where he passed the first happy days of his married life, but betakes himself to his aunt’s place—the stern Glafira, who had died during his absence. The desolate house is once more opened, and he stands alone in the room where she breathed her last, and looks with softened heart on the sacred icons in their gilded frames in the corner, and the worn carpet, covered with drippings from the wax candles she had burned before them, and on which she had knelt to pray. His old servant waits on him, he drinks tea out of the great cup he had used in his boyhood, looks over the large book full of mysterious pictures which he had found so wondrous in childish days. Everything recalls the earlier remembrances of his life. “On a woman’s love my best years have been wasted,” thought he.

Going to pay his respects to his great‐aunt, who is admirably drawn with a few vivid touches, he meets with Liza, whom he left a child, but is now nineteen years of age. There is a natural grace about her person; her face is pale, but fresh; her eyes lustrous and thoughtful, her smile fascinating, but grave, and she has a frank, innocent way of looking you directly in the face. Lavretsky is instantly struck with her appearance, and the impression is deepened the oftener he sees her. Liza’s mother is one of those women, _qui n’a pas inventé la poudre, la bonne daìne_, as one of her visitors ungratefully remarks. Her daughter owes the elevation and purify of her character to the nurse of her childhood, who gave herself up to penitential observances. Instead of nursery tales, she told Liza of the Blessed Virgin, the holy hermits who had been fed in their caves by the birds, and the female martyrs from whose blood sprang up sweet flowers. She used to speak of these things seriously and humbly, as if unworthy to utter such high and holy names, and Liza sat at her feet with reverent awe drinking in the holy influences of her words. Aglafia also taught her to pray, and took her at early dawn to the matin service. Liza grew up thoroughly penetrated with a sense of duty, loving everybody, but loving God supremely and with tender enthusiasm. Till Lavretsky came, no one had troubled the calmness of her inner life.

After some time, learning through a newspaper that his wife is dead, he confesses his love to Liza. She feels drawn towards him, her heart seems to respond to his love, but it is hardly with genuine passion; it is rather the agitation of a lily too rudely stirred by the breeze. Not that she has no depth of feeling; but, as she afterwards acknowledges, when she did indulge in hopes of happiness, her heart shuddered within her. Love seemed almost a profanation, as if a stranger had entered her pure maiden chamber.

Suddenly, the wife, supposed to be dead, reappears. It is all a mistake. Her husband is stunned. He feels he can never give back his love to one who has no longer his respect. And Liza is lost to him. After several attempts, he sees her again. Her eyes have grown dimmer and sunken, her face is pale, and her lips have lost their color. She implores him to be reconciled to his wife, and they part without her allowing her hand to meet his.

Six months later, Liza takes the veil in a remote convent in Russia. The Greek as well as the Latin convent seems to be the ideal refuge of startled innocence and purity. Once Lavretsky goes there, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He sees her as she is leaving the choir. She passes close by him with the quick, noiseless step of a nun, but keeps steadily on without looking at him. But he sees the almost imperceptible tremor of her eye; she bends her emaciated face still lower, and the hands that hold the rosary are clasped more tightly together.

But the chief value of M. Turgenieff’s novels to a Catholic lies not in the stories themselves certainly, but in the delightful pictures of Russian life and manners they present, and the influence they have had in softening the rugged manners of the north and changing the condition of the serfs.

WONDERS OF THE MOON. Translated from the French of Amédée
Guillemin, by Miss M. G. Mead. Edited, with additions, by Maria
Mitchell, of Vassar College. Illustrated with forty‐three
engravings. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

This little book contains a tolerably full account of all that is known about the moon, and that is of interest to the general reader. Our knowledge of our satellite is in some respects hardly equal to that which we have recently acquired of the much more distant sun; though so near, comparatively, to us, it is still too far away for the telescope ever to give us as clear a view of it as we need; and the spectroscope is of little use in its examination. We shall never know much about it, and especially about its other side, unless we go to see it; and a trip to the moon, chimerical as it may seem, may not always remain an impossibility for some adventurous person who is willing to run his chance of finding in the apparently uncomfortable little place the necessary conditions for human life. However, not a few of us will be content with the information given in this book, which is vastly greater than what most persons would probably acquire by examining the moon with the finest telescope; for a telescope is of little service to one unaccustomed to use it, and few things are more provoking to an experienced moon‐gazer than evident failure of others to see what seems to him so plain. To those, then, who really wish to get a good idea of the moon, and especially of its physical constitution and probable scenery, in really the most satisfactory way, this little volume, notwithstanding a few slight inaccuracies (such as the placing of Petit’s bolide at 9,000,000 miles from the earth), will be quite interesting and valuable. These inaccuracies, if in the original, should have been corrected in the translation.

THE GREAT PROBLEM: The Higher Ministry of Nature viewed in the
Light of Modern Science, and as an aid to advanced Christian
Philosophy. By John R. Leifchild, A.M., author of _Our Coal Fields
and our Coal Pits_; _Cornwall: Its Mines and Miners_, etc., etc.
With an introduction by Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., Chancellor of
the University of New York. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son. 1872.

Dr. Crosby introduces this really able and valuable essay with a just and manly rebuke of the unparalleled absurdity and impudence of our modern materialistic scientists; and it is high time for him, considering what balderdash he is obliged to listen to from his chancellor’s chair. The essay of Mr. Leifchild is a series of arguments on the topics of natural theology, in which some of the principal manifestations of the power and wisdom of God in the physical world are pointed out and referred to their true cause and end. The author most absurdly saws off the limb of the tree on which grows all the fruit he admires so much and gathers so carefully, by denying the value of metaphysics. But, in spite of that, his sound mind holds implicitly the very metaphysics he ignorantly despises, and he is therefore able to reason very well and conclusively. Most persons who read books of this kind are more ready to listen to a geologist teaching theology than to a professed theologian, and they prefer the roundabout method of coming to a point by induction to the straight road of logical deduction. This book is likely to be useful, therefore, and is, besides, printed in very clear, legible type, which makes it a pleasant book to read, though laboring under the sad inconvenience of having neither index nor table of contents. There are a good many interesting facts and statements about eminent writers interspersed, e.g., Spinoza and Leibnitz; but the author is seriously mistaken in ascribing any pantheistic doctrines or tendencies to Henry Suso and Tauler. We are happy to welcome such books from English writers who are adepts in the physical sciences. For these sciences, and the men who are really masters of them, we have a great respect in their own sphere. And we consider it a very praiseworthy and useful task for men of this kind, to undertake to show the conformity of these sciences with the queen over all the scientific realm—Christian philosophy.

THE MINNESINGER OF GERMANY. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd &
Houghton. 1872.

In this little book we have a very charming, as also very learned, exposition of mediæval art. The Minnesinger or minstrel‐knights of the latter half of the XIIth and earlier half of the XIIIth centuries are but little known outside of Germany. In this book we are introduced to the principal masters of this beautiful and ephemeral school of song, Gottfried von Strassburg, Walter von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, Hartmann von der Aue, Regenbogen, Conrad von Würzburg, and Henrich von Meissen, known as “_Frauenlob_,” or “ladies’ praise.” These poets sang chiefly of religion and love. But foremost among all women, the great Mother of God chiefly claimed their enthusiastic homage, as we see by the long extracts given by Mr. Kroeger of some of their glorious “Hymns to the Virgin.” Here is an example, from “The Divine Minnesong,” attributed sometimes to Gottfried of Strassburg:

“Thou art the blooming heaven‐branch,
Which blooming, blooms in many a grange;
Great care and strange
God lavished, Maid, on thee.”

We have, unfortunately, no space for a selection of the beauties collected for us in this book, and can only recommend our readers to procure it for themselves. It is full of gems, and is especially welcome to us as evidence of the high degree to which the burning faith of those days had led and guided lyrical art. Hartmann von der Aue’s “Poor Henry” is, so we are told, “the original of that sweet story of self‐sacrifice which Longfellow has made universally known as the ‘Golden Legend,’ (p. 190).” The same hymn we have already quoted has this allusion to the “living wine of true remorse” and the following words:

“He whom God’s love has never found
Is like a shadow on the ground,
And does confound
Life, wisdom, sense, and reason.”

Conrad von Würzburg, in his “Golden Smithy,” represents himself as a gold‐ smith working an ornament for the Queen of Heaven, and says, “If in the depth of the smithy of my heart I could melt a poem out of gold, and could enamel the gold with the glowing ruby of pure devotion, I would forge a transparent shining and sparkling praise of thy work, thou glorious Empress of Heaven.” Walter von der Vogelweide sings these grand words:

“Who slays the lion? Who slays the giant?
Who masters them all, however defiant?
He does it who himself controlleth;
And every nerve of his body enrolleth,
_Freed from passion, under strict subjection_.”

Mr. Kroeger has done a service to art, to history, and to religion in opening thus before our eyes a few of the treasures of the _so‐called_ dark ages.

COLLEGE JOURNAL. Georgetown College: Dec., 1872, Vol. I., No. 1.

This is as elegant a little paper in outward appearance as we remember to have seen. The articles are written with taste and correctness, and we offer a hearty welcome to the young gentlemen of classic Georgetown on their editorial _début_. We have only one piece of advice to give them, which is, to be careful that their wit and humor be as classic and scholarly as their serious pieces. Most papers, especially juvenile ones, break down on this point. We wish our young friends honor and success in their enterprise.

The Catholic Publication Society will publish in a few days Wild Times, a story by Miss Caddell.

Books And Pamphlets Received.

From C. DAREAU, Quebec: Francis Parkman. Par L’Abbé H. R. Casgrain. 18mo, paper, pp. 89.

From A. WILLIAMS & CO., Boston: The Blazing Star; with an appendix treating of the Jewish Kabbala. 12mo, pp. 180.

From JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: The Masque of the Gods. By Bayard Taylor. 12mo, pp. 48.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: Humanity Immortal. By L. P. Hickok, D.D., LL.D. 8vo, pp. 362.—God‐Man. By L. T. Townsend, D.D. 12mo, pp. 446.—Autobiography of Amos Kendall. Edited by his Son‐in‐law, Wm. Stickney. 1872.

From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: Paul of Tarsus: An Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By A Graduate, 12mo, pp. 401.

From D. VAN NOSTRAND, New York: A Treatise on Acoustics in Connection with Ventilation. By Alexander Saeltzer. 12mo, pp. 102.

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Philadelphia: Thoughts on Paper Currency, etc. By Wm. Brown. 18mo, pp. 240.—Black Robes; or, Sketches of Missions and Ministers in the Wilderness and on the Border. By Robert P. Nevin. 12mo, pp. 366.

From A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., New York: The Scripture Doctrine in Reference to the Seat of Sin in the Regenerate Man. 18mo, pp. 125.

From DESFORGES & LAWRENCE, Milwaukee: A Religion of Evolution: Letters of “Internationalist” Reviewing the Sermons of J. L. Dudley, Pastor of Plymouth Congregationalist Church, Milwaukee, 8vo, pp. 42.

From C. C. CHATFIELD & CO., New Haven: Hints to Young Editors. 12mo, pp. 31.

From CARROLL, Wheeling: Pastoral Letter of the Rt. Rev. Richard Vincent Whelan, Bishop of Wheeling, to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese. 8vo, pp. 12.

Ninth Annual Report of the New York Catholic Protectory. Paper, 8vo, pp. 66.

Constitution and By‐Laws of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America, with the Journal of Proceedings and Address of the First General Convention held at Baltimore, Md., Feb. 22, 23, 1872. 8vo, pp. 57.

Library Work in the Army. United States Military Post Library Association. Annual Report, 1871‐2. Paper, 12mo, pp. 57.

The English Inquisition worse than the Spanish. By an English Priest. Montreal. 18mo, pp. 34.

From Hon. EUGENE CASSERLY: Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S. transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, Dec. 4, 1871.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 95.—FEBRUARY, 1873.

Who Made Our Laws?

It is a characteristic of every succeeding century to consider itself much wiser than any or all that have preceded it. In this respect our beloved NINETEENTH is no exception; in fact, with a vanity that may be palliated, if not excused, it considers that, comparatively speaking, the world has hitherto been in its schoolboy days, and only attained its majority on the first day of January, 1800. It is true that the great advances made in the physical sciences, in chemistry, astronomy, and geology, and in the application of steam and electricity, have marked our age as one of true progress in a certain direction, and are substantial subjects of self‐ congratulation; but it must also be remembered that very little of the genuine happiness of mankind in general depends upon any or all of these discoveries and appliances. Man, being an intellectual as well as an animal being, must look to spiritual discoveries and mental agencies for his chief sources of enjoyment; and, as the soul controls the body, as his main duty in this life is to qualify that soul for an eternity of bliss, as the unlimited future is superior to the limited present, it follows that the things merely of this world play a small and insignificant part in the real drama of the life of a human being. The sad misconception of this solution of the problem of man’s destiny has been the principal mistake of materialists, and their consequent punishment here below has been so marked that the criticism of the charitable is considerately withheld.

Fortunately for us Catholics, the great desideratum—the law that includes all laws—is immovably fixed, and no new discoveries, no alleged progress, no experiment, can disturb it. Immutable as the eternal hills, it stands to‐day as when promulgated in Judæa over eighteen hundred years ago by its Divine Founder, and though the heavens and earth may pass away, we have the assurance that it shall not. But there have sprung out of the operation of this great law other laws which may be called secondary or subsidiary, which have long affected the welfare of Christendom, and upon the observance or rejection of which much of the welfare or misery of nations has depended and must for ever depend. Political justice, social order, art, science, and literature, everything which relates to the relations of man with his fellows, and brightens and beautifies life, have a great deal more to do with forming the character and insuring the purity of a people, as well as the regulation of their actions justly, than railroads, telegraphs, and anæsthetic agents. Respect for the memory of the dead and charity for the living prevent us from pointing out individual instances where men, remarkable for their skill and perseverance in forwarding the latter projects, have neither been distinguished for their truthfulness, liberality, nor for any moral quality typical of intelligent Christians. The best of these men are simply clever mechanists, increasing, it is true, our sum of knowledge of the effect of certain forces in nature, yet without being able to reveal the nature of the forces themselves, which seems impossible; but whoever teaches us true ideas regarding the active agencies that govern ordinary life is the true benefactor of his species, and is the governor of his audience or race. Have our discoveries in this science of making mankind more moral, humane, and refined kept pace with our more intimate acquaintance with the secrets of nature and the laws of mechanism, or have we to look back to the despised past for all our ideas of rectitude in legislation, honesty in the administration of government, and truthfulness in the plastic arts? We fear that a candid answer to this question would involve some loss of our self‐esteem. While, like the degenerate Hebrews, we have been worshipping graven images, the work of men’s hands, we have been neglecting the Tables of the Law.

All national governments reflect more or less correctly the ideas of the people governed. The absolutism of Russia is as much the reflex of the mental status of the inhabitants of that vast and semi‐civilized empire as that of the United States is of our busy, hasty, and heterogeneous population. The first is a necessity growing out of a peculiar order of things, wherein many tribes and barbarous races are to be found struggling towards light and civilization; the other is the creation of the matured minds of experienced and profound statesmen, acting as the delegates of a self‐reliant and self‐sustaining people. Still, though the framework of the government is _unique_, the ideas of justice and equality which underlie it are old. In one sense they are not American, but European, for it cannot be denied that the principles of our constitutions, state and national, the laws accepted or enacted in harmony therewith, and the modes of their interpretation and administration, are taken from the civil polity of the nations of the Old World, as those again have been the direct and palpable result of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Russia to‐day is mainly barbarous, and subject to the unfettered will of one man, because centuries ago the East broke away from the centre of Catholic unity, and, in losing the Apostolic authority, lost all its vivifying power, and the ministers of the so‐called Greek Church their capacity and efficiency as civilizers and law‐givers.

The West was more loyal, and consequently more fortunate. If we consider for a moment the chaotic condition of the greater part of Europe when the church commenced to spread far and wide the teachings of the Gospel, slowly but steadily pursuing her holy mission, we may be able to appreciate the herculean task before her. Then, in every part of Europe, from the pole to the Mediterranean, from the Carpathians to the Atlantic, disorder, ignorance, and rapine prevailed. Wave after wave of Northern and Eastern hordes had swept over the continent and most of the islands, submerging the effete nations of the South, and carrying destruction and death wherever they surged. The old Roman civilization, such as it was, was entirely obliterated, all municipal law was abolished, the conquered masses were reduced to the condition of serfs, and, as each successive leader of a tribe rested from his bloody labors and built a stronghold for his occupancy, he reserved to himself the exclusive monopoly of plunder and spoliation in his own particular neighborhood. This of course led to rivalry and unceasing warfare between rival marauders, and the incessant slaughter and oppression of their retainers and tenants.

It was with these fierce and lawless _nobles_, as they loved to style themselves, that the church for centuries waged most persistent and uncompromising warfare, and against them she hurled her most terrible anathemas. It was she who taught the sanguinary barons and chieftains that there was a moral power greater than armed force and stronger than moated and castellated tower, who took by the hand the downtrodden, impoverished serf, freed him from his earthly bonds, taught him the knowledge of God’s law, the principles of eternal justice and the rights of humanity, and instilled into his heart those ideas of human liberty which have since fructified and now permeate every free or partially free government in both hemispheres. Those great results were achieved in many ways, as local circumstances required; by teaching and exhorting, by persuasion or threats, by taking the serf into the ministry of the church and thereby making him the superior of his former master, by introducing gradually just and equitable laws, and when necessary forcing their adoption on unwilling sovereigns and reluctant nobles, and, perhaps, most potently by the example of her own organization, which permitted the humblest of her children to be crowned by a free election with the tiara of the successors of S. Peter.

The influence of the church in secular affairs was particularly remarkable in England, from which we have drawn so many of our political opinions and principles. The early missionaries to the Britons and Saxons were doubtless men of high intelligence as well as sanctity; but the Norman and Anglo‐Norman ecclesiastics who came into the country with William the Conqueror and clustered around his sons and successors were still more remarkable for astuteness and breadth of view. For many generations after the Conquest they may be said to have governed England in so far as they framed her laws, conducted her ordinary jurisprudence, and mainly directed her foreign and domestic policy. The most interesting, though by no means the most impartial, chapters in Hallam and Blackstone are those devoted to the struggles between the lay lawyers supported or subsidized by the nobility, and the clerical jurists who defended the privileges of their order and the natural rights of the oppressed masses. The Great Charter, of which we hear so much from persons who very probably never read it, was undoubtedly the work of the latter, though signed by all the barons with their seal or mark; trial by jury, the germs of which may be traced into remote antiquity, was systematized and as far as possible perfected under their auspices; courts of equity, for the rectification of “injustice which the law from its generality worketh to individuals,” were their creation, and even until comparatively late years were presided over by them; and representative or parliamentary government may justly be said to have been the fruit of their fertile and ever‐active brains. Its founder, in England at least, was de Montfort, who, though not in orders, was the follower, if not the pupil, of the great S. Bernard.

It is thus that we, the ungrateful or forgetful eulogists of the XIXth century, while laying the flattering unction to our souls that we have done more than put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, ignore the long, painful, and continuous efforts of our spiritual forefathers to christianize, civilize, and make free our ancestors in the order of nature whom pagan despotism and barbaric cupidity sought to degrade and brutalize. In our self‐glorification we forget that all we have in legislation, of which we are naturally so proud and for which we never can be too thankful, is the product of long years of toil and reflection of humble priests and learned prelates, whose names are now scarcely remembered. The ideas of justice and clemency generated in the minds of those men of the past by the spirit of Catholicity are the same which govern our daily actions, and regulate the most important affairs of our lives and of those most dear to us, though we are so occupied or so ungrateful that we fail to acknowledge the sources from whence they arose.

For instance, the possession of real estate forms one of the principal attractions for the ambition of industrious Americans, yet how few of them ever think that the laws regulating its disposition, acquisition, and inheritance are the very enactments framed by monks, hundreds of years ago, and recognized by armed laymen after long and at times doubtful contests with the advocates of the arbitrary feudal system. Personal liberty, speedy trial by our peers, were first secured in an incontestable form by an archbishop of the church which some of our so‐called and “loudly called” preachers are never tired of denouncing as tyrannical. That the right of the people governed, to elect representatives to make laws affecting their “lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,” was obtained and carried into practical effect by a Catholic statesman many centuries before Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin were born, seems to have been forgotten by our pseudo‐liberals; while the grand principle of political equality which lies at the foundation of our republic, instead of being less than a hundred years old, is coeval with Christianity itself, and in its operation within the church is more expansive and less discriminating as regards social rank and condition.

But though, in this inconsiderate age, we fail to acknowledge the deep debt of gratitude we owe to the workers and thinkers of the past for our laws, civilization, and correct ideas of government, we cannot if we would deny that we are still ruled by those very ideas, and that none of our boasted, and in their way valuable, discoveries have had the effect to give us a new or a better scheme of jurisprudence, whereby mankind can be made better, wiser, or happier.

The people of the United States are not generally considered a profoundly reflective people; we are too much engaged with the present to care much about either the past or future; but we respectfully suggest that, while we may be justly proud of our laws and system of government, it is hardly fair or generous to assume to ourselves all the credit for their formation and existence. We have done enough to secure the liberty of our fellow‐ men, and maintain our authority in the family of nations, not to be able to be just, if not generous, to the memory of the men who have bequeathed to us so invaluable a legacy; and let us therefore accord to our Catholic ancestors due credit for the conception and transmission of the laws under which we all so happily live. After all, their ideas rule more than our own, whether we will or not.

Dante’s Purgatorio. Canto Sixth.

When from the game of hazard men depart,
The loser stays, and, casting o’er his throws,
Learns a hard lesson with a heavy heart;
While with the winner all the assembly goes:
One runs before, one plucks his robe behind,
But he delays not, though beside his way
Another comrade calls himself to mind;
And every one perceives that he would say:
“_Press me no more!_” to whom he lifts his hand,
And by so doing keeps the crowd at bay;
Such I was, freeing me from that dense band,
To this and that one bending my survey,
And promising to answer each demand.

Here was that Aretine whose lethal wound
The savage hands of Ghin’ di Tacco made;
Also that knight who in pursuit was drowned.
Here with stretched palms Frederic Novello prayed,
The Pisan, too, at whose defeat his sire,
Good old Marzucco, showed a strength sublime.
I saw Count Orso, and that soul whom dire
Envy and spite, but no committed crime
Tore from his mortal frame, as he declared;
Pierre de la Brosse I mean: so, while she may,
Be that bad woman of Brabant prepared
Lest she go join a far worse flock than they.

When I had freed me from the gathering press
Of shadows praying still that others’ prayers
Might hasten forward their own blessedness,
I thus began: “Thy page, my Light! declares
Expressly, in one text, that Heaven’s decree
To no beseeching bendeth.(214) Yet this race
Prays with such purpose: will their praying be
Without avail? or have I in that place
Misread thy word?” He answered: “It is gross
And plain to reason: no fallacious hope
Is theirs, if thy sound mind consider close;
The topmost height of judgment doth not slope,
Because love’s fire may instantly complete
The penance due from one of these: but where
I closed that point with words which you repeat,
A gulf betwixt the Most High was and prayer:
No praying there could cover past defect.
Yet verily, in so profound a doubt
Rest not, till she who, ’twixt thine intellect
And truth, shall be thy light, herself speak out.
Dost understand me? Beatrice I mean:
Thou shalt behold her in a loftier place,
This mountain summit, smiling and serene.”
“Good Guide,” said I, “then let us mend our pace,
I feel no more my weariness: o’er us
The mountain shadow grows and hides mine own.”
“We will go forward”—he gave answer thus—
“Far as we can, ere this day’s light be gone;
But thy thought wanders from the fact. That height
Ere thou canst gain, thou shalt behold the day’s
Returning orb, who now so hides his light
Behind the hill that thou break’st not his rays.
But yonder look! one spirit, all alone,
By itself stationed, bends toward us his gaze:
The readiest passage will by him be shown”

Sordello.

We came up tow’rds it: O proud Lombard soul!
How thou didst wait, in thy disdain unstirred,
And thy majestic eyes didst slowly roll!
Meanwhile to us it never uttered word,
But let us move, just giving us a glance,
Like as a lion looks in his repose.
Then Virgil, making a more near advance,
Prayed him to show us where the mountain rose
With easier slope, and still that soul replied
Nothing to his demand; but question made
About life, and our country. My sweet Guide
Began to answer: “Mantua”—and the shade
From where it had been, separate from his band,
All rapt in self, sprang up towards him in haste,
Saying: “O Mantuan, I am of thy land,
I am Sordello.” And the twain embraced.

Ah slavish Italy! thou common inn
For woe to lodge at! without pilot, thou
Ship in great tempest! not what thou hast been,
Lady of provinces, but brothel now!
That gentle soul so quickly, at the dear
Sound that recalled his country, forward came
To grace his townsman with a greeting here;
And now thy living children, to their shame,
Are all at war, and they who dwell most near
Prey, each on each, with moat and wall the same!
Search, wretched! search all round thine either coast,
And then look inland, in thy bosom, see
If peace in any part of thee thou know’st!
What though Justinian made new reins for thee,
What boots it if the saddle remain void?
Without his mending thy disgrace were less.
And O ye tribe that ought to be employed
In your devotions, and let Cæsar press
The seat of Cæsar if God’s word you heed,
See, since your hand hath on the bridle been,
How wanton grown and wicked is the steed,
Through want from you of the spur’s discipline.
O German Albert! who abandonest
Her now run wild, unchecked by curb of thine,
When thou shouldst ride her with thy heels hard‐pressed;
May heaven’s just judgment light upon thy line,
And be it something strange, and manifest,
To make him tremble that comes after thee,
Because, for lust of barren fiefs out there,(215)
Thou and thy Father have not shamed to see
The empire’s garden desolate and bare.
Come see the Capulets and Montagues,
Monaldi and Filippeschi, O thou being
Without concern! these wan with fears, and those
Already crushed: come sate thyself with seeing,
Thou cruel man, the outrage that is done
To thy best blood, and make their bruises well!
And thou shalt see too, thou cold looker‐on,
Santafiore’s lords how safe they dwell.
Come see thy Rome that mourning all alone
Weepeth, a widow, calling day and night,
Why, O my Cæsar, dost thou leave thine own?
Come see what love there—how all hearts unite!
And if no pity move thee at our moan
Blush for thy fame beholding such a sight.
And, lawful if I speak, O most high Jove
Who wast for _our_ sakes crucified on earth,
Are thy just eyes who watchest men above
Turned elsewhere?—Or is this before the birth
Of some great good a preparation hid
From us in the abyss of thy intent,
That all the Italian towns are tyrant‐rid,
And every clown that comes on faction bent
Makes as much clamor as Marcellus did?

My Florence! well may’st thou remain content
At this digression; it concerns not thee,
Thanks to thy people, great in argument!
Many with justice in their hearts there be
Who stay the shaft lest, coming to the bow
Without discretion, it might err; but they
On their lips wear it. Many men are slow
To serve the state, and turn from place away;
Thy people do not—every one bends low,
Crying before he’s called for: “I obey.”
Now make thee joyful, who may’st triumph well;
Thou who art rich—so wise! and so at peace!
If I speak true in this—let the truth tell.
Athens and Sparta, that raised civil Greece
To such a height, and framed the ancient laws,
Towards the well‐ordered life made small beginning
Compared with thee, whose legislation draws
Threads out so fine that thy October spinning
Comes before mid‐November to a pause.
How many times hast thou renewed thy men,
Yea, within days that in thy memory dwell,
And changed thy laws and offices, and then
Customs and coins! if thou remember well
Thou wilt behold thyself, unless quite blind,
Like a sick woman, restless, that in vain
Seeks on her pillow some repose to find,
And turns and turns as ’twere to parry pain.

The Church The Champion Of Marriage.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” least of all the continued crusade the church has headed and now heads against the enemies of Christian marriage. What marriage is, what duties it involves, what holiness it requires, what grace it confers, we leave to other pens more learned or more eloquent to define. What are the Scripture authorities and allowable inferences concerning the married state, its indissolubility and its future transformation in heaven, we leave to theologians to state. Those who may feel curious as to that part of the question, or as to the local and civil enactments concerning marriage and divorce, we refer to two able articles published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of October, 1866, and July, 1867.(216)

But as witnesses are multiplied when a strong case has to be made out in favor of some important issue, let us turn to the tribunal of history, and look over the record of the church’s battles. Witnesses without number rise in silent power to show on which side the weight of church influence has ever been thrown—the side of the oppressed and weakly. Every liberty, from ecclesiastical immunities to constitutional rights, she has upheld and enforced, and it would be impossible that she, the knight‐errant of the moral world, should have failed to break a lance, through every succeeding century, for the integrity of the marriage bond.

Take, for instance, the history of the new Frankish kingdom in the VIth century, at the time when the church was laboriously moulding pagan hordes into Christian and civilized nations. The times were wild and unsettled, the very laws hardly established, heathen license barely reined in by the threatening barrier of solemn excommunication. They were times of great heroism, it is true, but none the less of great abuses and of startling crimes. The bishops of the Christian church stood alone in the midst of the universal depravity, like mighty colossi, defying the civil power and rebuking royal license. S. Nicetus, the Bishop of Trèves, was one of these. The young King of the Franks, Theodebert, who was betrothed to Wisigardis, the daughter of the Lombard king Wakon, had, during a war against the Goths, taken a beautiful captive named Denteria. He made her his mistress, and, forgetful of his solemn betrothal, lived with her for seven years. The bishop never ceased boldly to admonish him and warn him, but to no purpose. After a while, his powers of persuasion failing to effect his charitable design, he resorted to the penalties of the church, and excommunicated him. But, instead of suspending his evil career, the king persuaded many of his courtiers to follow his example. The holy bishop excommunicated them all with calm impartiality. Despite the censures under which they lay, they insolently attempted to assist at High Mass one Sunday in the bishop’s presence. S. Nicetus turned to meet the sacrilegious throng, and undauntedly announced that, unless those who were excommunicated left the church, the Mass would not be celebrated. The king publicly demurred to this, but a young man in the crowd, possessed by the devil, suddenly started up, and in impassioned language gave testimony to the holiness of the bishop and the vicious and debased character of the king himself. Four or five stalwart men got up to hold him, but were unable to do so; his strength defied their utmost efforts, and burning words of condemnation continued to fall from his lips. The king, abashed, was forced to leave the church, while S. Nicetus caused the young man to be brought to him. The touch of the holy bishop’s hand, and his efficacious prayer breathed over him, cured him at once of the grievous affliction which had beset him for ten years. Finally, the displeasure of the Franks at the insult offered to the King of the Lombards and his daughter grew so serious that, with S. Nicetus at their head, they called a general meeting to denounce his conduct. He listened to their reproaches, and at last agreed to dismiss his mistress and fulfil his contract with the Lombard princess.(217)

An eminent French writer, De Maistre, says of the part played by the popes in the middle ages: “Never have the popes and the church rendered a more signal service to the world than they did in repressing by the authority of ecclesiastical censures the transports of a passion, dangerous enough in mild and orderly characters, but which, when indulged in by violent and fierce natures, will make havoc of the holiest laws of marriage.... The sanctity of marriage, the sacred foundation of the peace and welfare of nations, is, above all, of the highest importance in royal families, where excesses and disorders are apt to breed consequences whose gravity in the future none can calculate.”

In the early part of the VIIth century, S. Columbanus, the great Irish monk who founded the powerful monastery of Luxeuil in Burgundy, began that opposition to royal license which finally cost him his exalted position, and made him an exile and wanderer from his chosen abode. Queen Brunehault was practically reigning in Burgundy under the name of her grandson Theodoric. She connived at the young sovereign’s precocious depravity, and herself furnished him with attractive mistresses, thereby preventing his marriage with a suitable princess, for fear of losing her own influence over him in public affairs. One day, as S. Columbanus, whose monastery the king had munificently enriched, came to see Theodoric on matters of importance, the queen rashly presented the king’s illegitimate children to the saint, and begged him to bless them. Columbanus refused, turning away his eyes and saying sternly, “These children are the offspring of guilt, and they will never sit upon their father’s throne.” Another time, after many vain threats and remonstrances, the saint again visited Theodoric, but, instead of accepting the hospitality of his palace, took up his quarters in a neighboring house. Brunehault and her grandson, keenly alive to the implied rebuke, and resenting the public slight thus put upon them before their court and subjects, sent some officers of their household with costly vases and golden dishes, full of delicacies from the royal table, to Columbanus, at the same time entreating him to come to them. The saint made the sign of the cross, and spoke thus to the messengers: “Tell the king that the Most High spurns the gifts of the unjust; heaven is not to be propitiated by precious offerings, but by conversion and repentance.” And as he spoke the vases fell to the earth and broke, scattering the food and wine that had been brought to bribe the servant of God. The king, afraid of the divine judgments, promised to amend, but did not fail to relapse into sin, upon which Columbanus wrote to him again, and finally excommunicated him. Theodoric then visited the monastery of Luxeuil, and in retaliation publicly accused the saint of violating his rule. Columbanus answered, “If you are come here to disturb the servants of God, and stir up confusion among them, we will relinquish all your aid, countenance, and presents, O Theodoric; but know that you and all your race shall perish.” The king retired, awed for this time into silence; but, being further incensed against Columbanus by his grandmother Brunehault, he had him exiled to Besançon. The saint’s reputation was such that no one would venture to guard him, and he of his own accord soon returned to Luxeuil. Theodoric, growing more obstinate the firmer he saw his judge become, again ordered him to leave, even threatening force. Columbanus defied him, and announced that physical violence alone could drive him from his post; but, upon the persecution of the monastery continuing unabated, he judged it more perfect and charitable to exile himself for the peace of his community. Three years after, Theodoric and his children were all killed, and Clotaire, his relative and ruler of a neighboring kingdom, reigned in Burgundy in his stead.

The Byzantine Empire also was constantly torn by schisms and dissensions originating in the unbridled passions of its ignoble sovereigns. In the VIIIth century, Constantine VI., surnamed Porphyrogenitus, the son of the Empress Irene, married at his mother’s instigation an Armenian woman of low birth but irreproachable morals, named Mary. It was not long, however, before he became enamored of one of his wife’s attendants, Theodota, whereupon he proceeded to divorce the Empress Mary and force her to take the veil. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Tarasius, refused to dissolve the first marriage and perform the second, as required by the dissolute emperor, who then attempted to blind him by alleging that his wife had conspired to poison him. This the patriarch firmly refused to believe, and, moreover, represented to the emperor the scandal of his conduct, the infamy that would attach to his name in consequence, and especially the incalculable evil his bad example would cause among his not too chaste courtiers and people. Constantine lost his temper, and violently replied that he would close the Christian churches, and reopen the temples of the heathen gods. The patriarch threatened to refuse him the right of entering the sanctuary, and of assisting at the sacred mysteries; but when an unworthy priest, Joseph, the treasurer of the church of Constantinople, was found willing to celebrate between the emperor and Theodota an invalid “marriage” in one of the halls of the palace of S. Maurice, Tarasius hesitated to pronounce the excommunication. At this distance of time, it is not easy to point out the reasons and excuses which the unsettled state of things in the Byzantine Empire may have furnished for this act of seeming compromise; much less should we rashly condemn a holy and zealous bishop; but it is noticeable that such instances have never been repeated when it was the popes themselves who were directly appealed to.

As the patriarch had foretold, evil results followed the sovereign’s licentious example, a frightful laxity of morals prevailed, and insubordination to the church went hand in hand with the violation of the marriage bond. Tarasius excommunicated the priest Joseph two years after, but, although he had refrained from directly and publicly censuring the principal culprit, he was none the less persecuted by him.

In the following century, a still worse case of the kind took place, the chief actors in it being Bardas, the ambitious uncle of the wretched Emperor Michael the Drunkard, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, S. Ignatius. The former, who had the practical control of the state, and had induced his sottish nephew to give him the title of “Cæsar” of the Byzantine Empire, deliberately left his lawful wife, and lived in publicly incestuous union with the wife of his own son. S. Ignatius indignantly reproved him, and when the prince, braving his censures, presented himself in church on the Feast of the Epiphany, the patriarch publicly refused to admit him to the Holy Communion. Bardas furiously threatened him before the faithful, but the holy prelate boldly presented his breast to the blows he seemed about to receive, and in a few solemn words invoked the wrath of God on the sacrilegious “Cæsar.” He was promptly exiled to the Island of Teberinthia, where Bardas, partly by threats and partly by hypocritical promises, induced all his suffragans to repair in a body, and entreat him to resign the patriarchate. With holy firmness he resisted the treacherous appeal, whereupon Bardas had him put in irons, deposed, and replaced on the patriarchal chair by Photius, a creature of his own and a layman. The famous schism of Photius thus sprang from the same cause as later heresies, and everywhere we see contumacy to ecclesiastical authority making common cause with abandoned passion and shameless license.