Chapter I: Crichton, and the Crichtonians (3)

Ah! it was a dreary day—a day that made one shiver and think of the poor, and shiver again. It spoiled the play of the children, and little Bessy would sit “anyhow,” as her nurse termed it, in her chair, with one hand mechanically endeavoring to pull the cane at the back of it to pieces, while her big round blue eyes would look out in silent wonder at the ugly day; and little Benny would flatten his already flat nose in desperation against the window-pane, creating quite a little atmosphere of fog around him; while Harry, the big brother, ten years old last birthday, would make a false attempt to keep up his spirits by riding that imaginary horse round and round the room, making him curvet and caper, and shy at that corner, and evince a particular dislike to the nurse, and kick so furiously at the door-key, till a crack of the whip suddenly brought the restive animal to his senses, and Harry would be still a moment, and gaze silently with the rest of the world out at the cheerless snow.

Was it the snow that Cranstone of Cranstone Hall was gazing at so fixedly out of the library window? Was it the snow that made those cheeks so deadly white, save for the two little purple spots on each of them? Was it the snow that made him clench his hands till the nails almost tore the flesh? What was he looking at so fixedly out there in the Park? What did he see out in the blinding snow, driving down on his own meadow-lands, and draping the strong forms of his ancestral oaks in mystic drapery, while from the bottom where the river ran, stole up a snaky mist in curling ashy-gray folds? He saw no snow, no mist, no oaks: he looked through them, beyond them, straight out at a tall form striding along, its back to Cranstone Hall, and its face to the wide, wide, bitter, cold world—striding on, and on, and on, and never looking back to the home where he fell one day like one of these little snowflakes out of heaven, and grew up straight, and tall, and honest, and true, and manly, with a head, and a handsome head too, on his shoulders, and such a heart in his bosom!—the pride of all the country-side, and the heir of Cranstone Hall. It was Dick Cranstone whose figure his father was gazing at so fixedly, though that figure had been gone three hours, and was far out of sight—Dick Cranstone, his father’s only son, the only relic of his dead mother, the boy on whom all the father’s strong heart was now set, who was striding along through the snow and the mist out into the bleak world on that winter morning, cast out from his father’s hearth and heart, driven away with a bitter curse.

What had Dick Cranstone done to bring down this curse and chastisement on his handsome young head? Dick and his father had been companions as well as father and son, for Ralph Cranstone was still a youngish man, and bore such years as he had well. His heart and his hopes were centred in this boy, whose mother had been snatched away so early; and when he saw the bright-eyed, laughing lad ripen into a great, handsome, clever young fellow, who rode with him, and played cricket with him, and scoured over the country neck and neck with him—for there was a dare-devil drop in the Cranstones—it would be hard to find a happier man in this world than Ralph, or a more loving son than Dick; in fact, “Oh! they’re as fond of each other as the Cranstones” had grown into a proverb in all the country-side. What, then, was Dick’s great crime that left him in a day fatherless, and his father childless, and rent asunder with a fierce wrench two hearts which all their lives had run together?

The Cranstones were an old family, older than Elizabeth, though it was at her time that Cranstone Hall first came into their possession. That was a good reign for people blessed with an elastic conscience. The Elizabethan Cranstone was a Catholic. He had the choice of running his neck in a noose and dying a martyr for his faith, or renouncing the religion he believed in, and taking instead the goodly Abbey of Cranstone, with its river, meads, and all its appurtenances. He did not hesitate long. Like most of his countrymen, he threw up his religion, and took to the abbey, turned out the monks, became a bitter persecutor of the church, changed the name of the place to Cranstone Hall, lived to a good old age, and the rich man died and was buried—in Cranstone churchyard. The old country folk round about tell you that this particular old Cranstone, whom they look upon as the first of the race, “died a-yellin’ for holy water like hell-foire”; but then, such people are always foolish. However, to come back to the story, the Cranstones remained from that day out a flourishing, wealthy family, strongly devoted to church and state, fierce persecutors of the Catholics whilst persecution was the fashion; when not so, what Catholics call bigoted Protestants.

Ralph was no exception to the rule. He honored the queen, and hated the pope and Papistry as genuinely as the old Elizabethan Cranstone had professed to do. He thought the country was going to ruin when he found Papists throwing up their heads, and walking about on English ground, just as though they had as much right there as anybody else. And when his old friend and neighbor Harry Clifford, who had been at Eton and Oxford with him, and whom Ralph had pronounced over and over again “the best fellow going,” turned Catholic one fine day, as soon as Ralph heard of it, and met Harry by chance at a friend’s, he turned on his heel, and walked out of the house, leaving the latter standing there with the old friendly hand outstretched towards him. From that day out, all intercourse ceased between the Cliffords and Cranstones, and the old friends were as dead to each other as though they had never met.

In good time, Dick went off to Oxford, with an Eton fame as a good bat and all-round cricketer, a handy man at the oar, the best runner and jumper in the school, added to the lesser reputation of being able to knock off the best Latin poem in the college, and running Old Barnacles hard for the head of the class—Old Barnacles, who did nothing but grub at his books night and day, and who sucked at Greek roots as little chaps would at lollipops. He made one of “the eleven” that year against Cambridge at Lord’s, and saved the game from becoming a disastrous defeat to his university by his plucky and cool play against that terrible left-hand bowler. How proud his father was of him that day! He could almost have gone up and shaken hands with Harry Clifford, whom he saw there with his wife and a beautiful young lady in the carriage, so divided in looks between Harry and his sweet wife that she could have belonged to no one else but to them. “A Clifford to the tip of her nose!” he kept repeating to himself, as he stole a sly glance at them now and then, and yearned for a grasp of his old friend’s hand; but the stubborn Cranstone blood was too strong within him, and he turned away slowly to watch the game.

It was going badly for Oxford in the second innings; the Cambridge men had a hard hitter in, who hit so hard and so furiously, and had so completely “mastered the bowling,” that the score mounted rapidly, and every new hit elicited shouts of applause for Cambridge. All over the field flew the ball, sometimes in among the rows of carriages which lined the ground. “They’ll never get him out,” said the spectators one to another, as the Cantab struck away right and left as freely as though he were playing with the bowlers. “There she goes! Bravo! Well hit!” they shouted, as the ball flew from the bat right across the field, straight and furious, full at the carriage where were seated the Cliffords. “Look out there! Look out—look out!” they shout, as the carriage party, conversing together, are utterly unconscious of the danger approaching them. It takes a long time to tell this here, though it was all over in half a minute. The cricket-ball was flying at lightning speed straight at the head of the young lady, who at the moment was looking in another direction, inattentive to the warning cries that rose from all parts of the field. The shouts were hushed into that deadly silence that will settle so awfully over a vast assembly when every eye is bent in one direction, and every heart beats as one great one with the expectation of immediate disaster. All saw the danger of the young girl, but no one could prevent it, when suddenly there is a rush of something white, a leap in the air, a bare arm flashes in the sun, and the ball is clasped in the hand of one who never missed a catch yet, as he falls back over the side of the carriage, right in among the party, holding the ball all the while, and the great Cantab is out.

“Bravo, Cranstone! Bravo, Cranstone!” What a shout from the Oxonians! What a shout and a rush from all sides of the field to applaud the young fellow whose Eton fame had not belied him for speed, and whose swiftness and agility, and that high leap in the air and splendid catch, had perhaps saved a young girl’s life, while it rid his side of a terrible foe, and revived the hopes of Cambridge! But Cranstone never heeded the shouts; he lay back there in the carriage, lifeless, his head on Harry Clifford’s knee, his eyes closed, and his face white, while the frightened ladies, who scarcely yet knew from what a danger they had escaped, bent over him in terror. He had fallen heavily on the side of the carriage, and the shock caused him to faint.

The crowd is parted by a strong man, who rushes wildly to the spot. “Dick, my boy, Dick, are you hurt? Good God! Harry, it’s my son. Water, some of you—water. Clear away there, and let him have air!” The water is brought, and in a few moments he revives, to open his eyes on a pair of the tenderest blue eyes looking pityingly and frightened into his. A shake or two, like a strong mastiff, and he is all right again; the game goes on, and, though Oxford was beaten, that catch lives in men’s memories; while Ralph Cranstone and Harry Clifford were old friends again, and Mr. Dick Cranstone was reintroduced to his old playmate, Miss Ada Clifford.

Dick went back to Oxford that year with another feeling creeping into his heart side by side with the great love for his father which had hitherto possessed it. He was not over head and ears in love with Ada Clifford, nor, since it must be confessed, she with him; but his father and himself rode over often that vacation, and Dick found the family one of the most agreeable in every way that he had ever met, while Ralph atoned for his former rudeness in a thousand ways that come with such an indescribable charm from a strong nature. Dick took back this memory with him to the university, and perhaps it saved him from getting among the “fast men”—a society only too fascinating for young fellows blessed with health, strength, good nature, good looks, and money.

Without actually giving up his practices of muscular Christianity, association with more intellectual minds brought him soon to perceive that there was a higher ambition in this life for a young man than being the captain of a cricket eleven, the “stroke” of a university eight, the best pigeon shot, or the proprietor of the most startling “turn-out” on the road. Association with intellectual men brought with it intellectual thoughts, inquiries, pursuits; while under all happily ran the boy’s innate love of honor, of what was fair and truthful, supporting him somewhat, and keeping him, on the whole, straight in the midst of the dangerous speculations and vexed problems which were being agitated around him, and discussed with all the boldness natural to undisciplined minds.

His Oxford course was drawing to a close, and he began to think of adopting some career, though the wealth and property to which he was heir necessitated no pursuit at all other than that of a quiet country gentleman living on his estates. During his last year particularly he had read and studied much, and the result of his studies and inquiries always came home to him in the form of the old question of Pilate, What is truth? He was, like his father, a loyal Englishman, a supporter of the state, rather because he found it there established, and could see no better, than for any divine right which, in his father’s mind, and in the minds of so many Englishmen, the glorious British Constitution possesses. But the church was another affair. That question puzzled him sorely. That it might be a very fine institution, that it had given birth to many splendid minds, that it still possessed many very amiable and worthy followers, he did not deny; but that an institution which was at best a very mixed affair, which was not believed in by the majority of his countrymen, which had been patched, and stretched, and mended, and cobbled to meet the exigencies of every changing hour, which was not believed in even by so many of its professed members and teachers, was in any sense a divine institution, he could not concede. To his truthful mind, it dated from Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, not from Jesus Christ; it was simply in its present form an amiable machine of state, not a divine organization which should command the approving consent of all were it what men who believed in salvation ought to follow. As for the rest of the wrangling sects, he looked upon them as so many ecclesiastical tinkerings, better calculated to bore holes in the edifice of faith than to build up a system strong, enduring, and right.

Filled with thoughts of this description, he came home restless, dissatisfied, questioning; too true and too earnest to throw quite overboard all belief as a sham, and take the world as he found it—a mixture of good and bad, inexplicable save as a result of chance and conventionality. He visited the Cliffords, and they found laughing Dick Cranstone an altered man, somewhat graver, and evidently unsettled. One day, when his father was not present, he unbosomed himself to Mr. Clifford, who was a very intellectual man. The latter listened kindly to the boy, though he knew the story well; he had gone through it all himself. He did not try to explain matters there and then; he merely told him that what he was then experiencing was the exact counterpart of what he himself had experienced. “If you like to come over in a few days, I expect to have F. Leslie here, a Jesuit, and a convert like myself. He will explain matters to you much better than I can, if you are not afraid of meeting a Jesuit, Richard.”

Dick winced a little at this proposal; he had never in his life met with a Jesuit, and his opinion of the society was formed on what he had read of them as the most deceitful, crafty, and cunning set of men ever organized to blind men’s eyes and lead them astray from freedom and light; though, when he came to think the matter over, he could not bring to mind a single case of any of his friends who had come across them and been converted to Catholicity, as some of them had, turning out fiends or blind enthusiasts. So he resolved to meet F. Leslie.

It was the old story. After due inquiry and preparation, he was converted, and immediately after went straight to his father, and told him all.

To describe Ralph Cranstone’s wrath at the news would be impossible. He only saw one terrible fact—his family disgraced for ever in the person of their last descendant his son, from whom he had hoped so much. The line of the Cranstones was poisoned, defiled in the person of one who could thus turn traitor to his queen and country. A Cranstone a Papist! And that Cranstone his son Dick! He did not ask him to retract—he rose up and cursed the boy, and turned him out of the house.

Protestant friends, this part of the story, though inwoven with fiction, is a very hard fact. It is not of unfrequent occurrence; the writer to-day has friends who in their own persons can corroborate it.

Ralph Cranstone could have borne anything rather than this—that his son should turn Papist. He might become an infidel, and believe in no God at all; he might join any one he chose of the sects, however low; he might even turn Mussulman or Jew—but a Cranstone a Papist! Good God! it were better that he had never been born.

And so Ralph sat there looking out into the storm, where the form of his brave, handsome boy had vanished. He was conscious only of the storm raging in his own breast, of the terrible curse he had uttered out of his heart on the head of the one he had loved more, infinitely more, than himself. That curse was ringing around the room still, and seemed to mock him like a fiend. He rose at last, and staggered to his room, not noticing the tearful old housekeeper, who knew that something dreadful had happened, and who came timidly asking him to take something to eat, for the day had gone. His day had gone out with his boy, and the light of his life went out with Dick into the winter storm, to be swallowed up and buried away in it for ever.

* * * * *

Dick had a hard time of it. He refused all offers of assistance tendered him by Mr. Clifford. He would not even go down to visit them; he would not appear in the neighborhood; for he could not meet his father again. He wrote to him many times, but his letters were always returned unopened. He soon received news from Mr. Clifford that his father had broken up his home, left the neighborhood, and gone no one knew whither. He could only pray for him to the God to whom, for the first time in his life, he found he could pray with a strong faith and earnest belief. He still would not go to the Cliffords’, though he corresponded with them from London, and saw them now and then when they came up. He had friends on the press, and with their assistance managed to eke out enough to live upon by means of his pen. He worked away, sustained, in his loss of father, fortune, and place, by the religion of Jesus Christ, discovering each day new wonders in an exhaustless region. His father he never heard from, nor gained any intelligence of his whereabouts, nor whether he was living or dead. The trial was a sore one, but he felt that perhaps he was in some small degree atoning for all the evils which had followed that first defection of his family from the religion to which they belonged. And so he worked away, and rose; for he had talent, and soon attained a position which relieved him from all fears of absolute want, though still poor enough.

The Cliffords were a great comfort to him, and the thought of Ada often inspired the weary pen to fresh exertion when it flagged from sheer fatigue. The more he found the love of her growing upon him, the more he avoided the presence of the family; for his poverty set a boundless sea, in his imagination, between himself and her. He excused himself for not calling on them by a thousand reasons—press of business, and the usual excuses; till at last their intercourse almost ceased, and poor Dick, laughing Dick, became wretchedly miserable, and began to look upon the world as a poor sort of place after all, while Cranstone Hall would force itself upon his mind, dreary and deserted, the garden weedy, and the oaks lonely, with that terrible, heartless curse hanging over all.

One night, while seated in his room thinking such thoughts as these, a hasty knock came to the door, and, opening it, the old housekeeper fell forward almost fainting in his arms, with the exclamation:

“O Master Richard! Master Richard, dear! he’s come back at last.”

Dick staggered as though the old woman’s trembling voice had been a giant’s arm which smote him.

“Yes, yes,” he murmured.

“For God’s sake and your dear mother’s, Master Richard, fly! He’s ill—he’s dying—he’s raving of you!... At the Hall.... Yes. Go, go, or you’ll be too late.”

He rushed into the street, she following him. The snow was falling again as bitterly as on the day when he last saw his father. The train, though it flew along, seemed to him to travel at a snail’s pace. The snow blocked the roads leading to the Hall: the chaise could not advance. He leaped out, unyoked one of the horses, bade the driver follow as best he could with the housekeeper, mounted the animal, and, by what means he never knew, found himself at the Hall. He was about to dash up to his father’s rooms, when a light in the library window attracted his attention. Mother of God! can that be his father?

The brown curls bleached to snow, the face white, and thin, and bloodless, the eyes staring wildly straight out of the window, the form shrunk, the mouth mumbling some incoherent words. The light of a candle shone full on his father’s face, altered to that of a ghost.

Dick entered trembling, uncertain whether it was a spirit or his father himself whom he saw before him.

“I want my boy, my Dick, my brave, handsome son. Bring him back to me. You stole him away. Where is he?”

“Father, he is here. Look at me, father. Here I am, Dick—your own son Dick, come back to you. Do you not know me?”

“You? You’re not my son. I’ve got no son. He went away from me. He hates his father—his poor father. I—I—cursed him, when I could have blessed him, and he believed me; and Dick’s gone—gone—gone.” And the poor creature moaned, and covered his crazed head with his hands, while the sharpest pang that ever rent his boy’s heart rent it at that moment with the thought that, perhaps, it was all his fault, and that, had he only forced himself upon him, his father might have forgiven him, all might have gone well, and he would not now have been summoned to the side of the lost wreck before him.

They bore him back to the bed whence he had stolen while those who should have watched him had dozed a little. The next day the Cliffords came over, and took up their abode in the old Hall, where Ada and her mother watched and tended the sufferer as only women can do. Dick was around them and about them, and in and out, and happy and miserable, and all contraries in a breath. Ada alone could set him right, and prevent him from going as mad as his father.

Ralph lay long between the two worlds. His strong reason; once forced out, seemed sullen to return. But it did come at last, and his weak eyes opened on his son, while the heart of the father, with all the pent-up feelings of these years, gushed out over his boy. He had gone away and wandered everywhere. He drank till his brain gave way, and only enough reason was left to lead him home to die.

But death seems a long way off from Ralph Cranstone yet. The saying is oftener than ever on people’s lips, “They’re as fond of each other as the two Cranstones.” Old Cranstone’s face—the Elizabethan—has taken a new scowl, for underneath his picture rises up an ivory crucifix which Ralph himself set there. The snow falls merrily and cheerily; the old oaks smile in their winter garb; no mist rises up from where the river runs. Yes; that’s young Ralph there dashing out of the hall door to meet his uncle and papa; there he goes climbing up uncle’s legs, and shaking him as though he were a telegraph post set up there for him to shake; and, if ever there was a happy couple, that couple is Ada and laughing Dick; and the old Cranstone frowns down on it all out of his dim canvas, for the Cranstone line has gone back to its old faith.

SONNET

TO A BOOK OF IMAGINATION; OR, THE LITERATURE OF THE FUTURE.

Go forth, fair book! Go, countenanced like that man
Upon whose brow all Eden’s light was stayed;
Beauteous as truth, go forth to cheer and aid,
Breathing of greatness ours ere sin began;
With angel-wing from eyes earth-wearied fan
Convention’s mist; revive great hopes that fade;
Bid nature rule where reigned but masquerade;
Bear witness to the joy divine that ran
Down to Creation’s heart, while, bending o’er it,
The great Creator saw that all was good—
The mightier joy, when, dying to restore it,
He rose who washed it in his conquering blood.
Go forth, a seer in minstrel raiment clad;
Say to the meek, “Be strong”; the poor, “Be glad!”

—_Aubrey de Vere._

THE PRESENT GREATNESS OF THE PAPACY.

FROM THE CIVILTA CATTOLICA.

I.

WE do not know that history, ancient or modern, offers a spectacle similar to the one presented to the world by the Vatican to-day. Upon the brow of that hill sits an august Pontiff and king, an octogenarian, unarmed, dethroned, a prisoner. He is strong only in the power infused into him from God; rich only in heavenly wisdom and the love of nations; great in his merits towards Christendom; great, above all, in the treasure of rights divine and human which he represents. The powers of earth have attacked or forsaken him; the base world concentrates against him all its rancor for the extermination of everything that Christian civilization holds sacred. Standing alone, with serene brow and heart unshaken, he lifts his head before this concourse. He humbles, confounds, sears them; the more furious the attack, the more does he show himself invincible to assault and terrible to assailants.

The enemy has hitherto triumphed over all and conquered all; subduing empires, destroying kingdoms, subjugating nations. He holds in his hand all the instruments of brutal force, and in his service all the passions of brute nature. He is to-day almost master of the civilized globe; yet he cannot rule that venerable man of eighty years, who stands as high in glory and authority as the opponent lies low in vile infamy.

Such is the spectacle, historically unique in all its accessories, which we have witnessed for several years, and have never seen so grand and august in aspect as to-day—the contrast between Pope Pius IX. and the Revolution. Unique, we say, for in no age of Christianity do we find its equal for the universality of war, and arms, and desolation, or for the duration and variety of outrages. Therefore, the contrasts between Gregory VII., Innocent III., Boniface VIII., and Pius VII., with the impious sovereigns who dared to oppress them, do not in several points present a parallel.

There are feeble spirits, unmindful of the past, and weak of faith in the unfailing promises of Christ, who cannot read the lucid words graven by his finger on the tiara of Pius IX.: I am the strength of God; let no man touch me!

Through the shower of hostile darts raining around the Vatican they do not discern the glory of moral grandeur radiating from it. Therefore they are discouraged and scandalized. For the comfort of such as these, it seems well to speak of this grandeur, which, in our opinion, is clearly shown in the glorious cause defended by the Pontiff, in the mode and circumstances of his defence, in the quality of the enemies who attack him, as well as of the friends who support him.

II.

The cause for which Pius IX. wages so stern a war is the cause of God and man; the cause of liberty, individual, domestic, and social; in short, a cause embracing all those ordinances without which no public or private right, no property, or virtue, or justice, or peace, could be maintained. In the Sovereign Pontiff temporarily imprisoned in the Vatican, the Revolution attacks not only the liberty of the supreme Catholic apostolate and the legitimacy of the most inviolable of thrones, but also all rational liberty of conscience, and the source of all social authority. In the Sovereign Pontiff, it attacks God, whose vicegerent on earth he is, and with God all rights and duties of nature and of grace, which proceed originally from him.

The Revolution, essentially satanic, full of hate towards God and man, _extollitur supra omne quod dicitur Deus_.[131] It tries to supplant God, whose every image in creation it would gladly see cancelled. From the beginning, it has always attacked the Papacy as the most vivid and universal representation of God among men; of God under the double aspect of Creator and Saviour, author of reason and faith, eternal founder of natural society and of the church; in one word, of Christ the God-man. As it cannot dethrone Christ in heaven, it would dethrone him on earth: and, to accomplish this hellish work of madness under the guidance of Satan, it directs all its efforts against the Roman Pontificate, truly the true vicariate of Christ, the king of the world.

All moral grandeur, human and divine, is therefore included in the cause defended by Pius IX. against the ministers and satellites of the enemy of human nature and of God’s Word. The accursed phalanx make use of innumerable frivolous and false pretexts to reach their aim; but in truth they thirst to destroy the Papacy because the Papacy embraces all morality of reason and faith emanating from the Word, the unchangeable and eternal wisdom. In vain the Revolution masks its batteries behind the dazzling names of liberty, civilization, and progress, pretending to seek the destruction of the Papacy as their implacable adversary. Indeed, after eighty years of experience, it is evident, palpably certain, that under its false liberty lies hidden the most ruinous tyranny that ever oppressed the world. It usurps the dominion of conscience and of family life, and confiscates at its wanton and fickle will the blood and gold of nations which it has trampled underfoot, giving them in return only the liberty of corruption and blasphemy. Its treacherous civilization covers a refined barbarism fully shown by the carnage and ruin of France in 1793, and of Spain in 1834, and by the massacres and conflagrations of the Commune in 1871. Its baleful progress tends to change the partnership of Christian nations into a horrible hell of disorder, where, as in the kingdom of Satan, _nullus ordo sed sempiternus horror inhabitat_.[132]

Therefore, strictly speaking, Pope Pius IX., with his indomitable resistance, defends all the wealth of humanity against the monster that would destroy it as the communists destroyed it before our eyes in Paris lately. The religious, civil, and material ruin of the human race is the final end for which, directly or indirectly, with or without deliberate purpose, all the partisans of the Revolution exert themselves, from the most hypocritical or dull of moderates to the grossest socialist.

The immeasurable grandeur of this cause defended by the Roman Pontiff is generally seen and felt by all, even more by the enemies than by the friends of the Papacy. Upon their war against the Vatican they have concentrated their best strength, sagacity, and industry. They care for nothing so much as for the least trifle connected with the Pope; they talk, and write, and vociferate of nothing so much as of the Pope’s sayings and doings; of the hopes and fears which agitate them in this war. Hence the first position in the political world and in what we call public opinion is held by the Pontiff. It is preserved to him and nourished by that very Revolution which would gladly annihilate for ever his name and memory. It cries a thousand times a day that he is dead and buried, and a thousand times a day it is forced to bewail his vitality and energy; neither more nor less than do the demons and the damned in the abyss, forced to glorify God for ever, in that they will eternally blaspheme him.

This is one of the marvellous sports of Providence in our day: to make use of the wild beasts of the Revolution to strengthen the Papacy. When they think to devour it, they find themselves drawing its triumphal car. So it was with Nero and Domitian in their persecutions against Christianity; so with Henry IV. and Barbarossa in the middle ages; so with the Directory and Bonaparte in modern times. What doubt can there be that the same will come to pass with the Lanzas, the Bismarcks, and their compeers in our own day?

III.

But the glories of the cause for which Pius IX. is fighting receive also wonderful lustre from the strange modes and conditions of his warfare. He has neither arms nor soldiers; he is poor in gold; neither diplomacy, nor journalism, nor the telegraph is subject to his orders; he is morally deprived of the liberty of leaving the precincts of the Vatican, whose outer gates are guarded by the cut-throats of the Revolution. Arms, money, diplomacy, newspapers, and the telegraphic wires are in the hands of the enemy who besieges him before the tomb of S. Peter, and who uses them as far as possible to his injury. The artifices, conspiracies, calumnies, outrages, and insults of the Revolution succeed each other like waves on a tempestuous sea. And to make them more exquisitely atrocious, the greater number are hurled at him with the absurd protest that his inviolability is guaranteed by the majesty of the laws.[133]

Literally speaking, no other arms are left to the Holy Father than his constancy and his word; but it is a constancy that makes the enemy despair, and a word that confounds him. That apostolic breast is inaccessible to seduction, those august lips are inexhaustible of truth. He boldly defines theft to be theft, injustice to be injustice, tyranny to be tyranny; his language does not change with the times, nor to suit any one whomsoever. In condemning crimes and reproving villany, he has no respect for persons. He fears the powerful no more than the faint-hearted. He does not suffer himself to be deluded by the promises or dismayed by the threats of those who boast innumerable armies and glory in formidable artillery. The heart of Pius IX. is undaunted by the flash of swords and the thunder of cannon. The Revolution, unable to shake the firmness or chain the tongue of Piux IX., regards him with a shuddering admiration, and exalts with demoniac yells his superhuman power.

In very truth, a strange case! We see a victim and an assassin. The victim has only the moral strength of dignity and right: the assassin is opulent in brute force; yet the victim does not tremble before the assassin, but the assassin before the victim. The Revolution does not make Pius IX. turn pale: Pius IX. intimidates the Revolution. A rebuke from the victim strikes sharper terror into the assassin than the whole arsenal of the assassin can infuse into the victim.

This fact alone, in our opinion, is a striking proof that the Papacy is divine in origin, in its prerogatives, its life, its activity, its manifestation. The mysterious power which, with the simple virtue of a _non possumus_ and a _non licet_, it exercises on earth, proves that God speaks in it, and its word proceeds from the Word of truth. What other mere mortal could by his own power produce effects so great with arguments so slight? A motto of Napoleon I. intimidated whole nations, because at his beck armed men stood forth and always victorious: his power was founded on iron and in blood. But on what soldiery rests the word of the Vicar of Christ, imprisoned in the Vatican? What invasion, what battle, can be dreaded as the result of a _non possumus_ and a _non licet_ of Pius IX.? Yet these words, uttered by his lips, strike perplexity into the leaders of all Revolutionary armies. How explain this wonder without admitting that the strength of Pius IX. is God’s strength? And after that, how deny that the stupendous greatness of the Roman Pontificate never shone more gloriously than now, whilst Pope Pius, in the name of the King of kings, and of the Lord of lords, _pugnat gladio oris sui_,[134] strikes with the sword of the Word, and conquers the satanic hydra of the insolent Revolution?

IV

The assailants of the Papacy are wont to say, in their own praise, that the Vatican has for its adversaries the most enlightened, cultivated, and virtuous men of our time. We, on the contrary, see the very opposite. With certain exceptions, including the blind, the dull, and the deluded, in the throng of declared enemies of the Roman Pontificate, we find only the moral dregs of society. There are great and small, of course, but, when put to a moral test, they are all equal, one as good as another, unless, indeed, the great are worth less than the small. In the throng, there are heretics without a creed, Jews without a Testament, atheists without a God, and Catholics without laws. We find deserters from every flag—those who betray their masters, and bite the hands of benefactors; doubled-faced deceivers—men who have instigated horrible massacres, and flattered every social crime; men guilty of infamous sacrilege, awful rapine, nefarious murders. We see corruptors of the people—burglars, brawlers, bombarders of harmless cities, mercenary writers, vendors of honor, protectors of evil haunts, worshippers of luxury. We notice all the apostates from the church and the priesthood: renegade Christians, silenced priests, unfrocked friars. We see men who insult God, disturb civil order, tear down thrones, cheat and defraud their neighbor—in short, men who blaspheme against the faith, and trample on the Ten Commandments. There is no kind of sectarian, from the most stupid of Freemasons to the most brutal of communists, that does not make part of this crowd of enlightened, cultivated, virtuous men of the present age.

The Prophet Daniel contemplated, in four shadowy, mysterious creatures, not only the four great monarchies of the earth, but the four great persecutions to which Christ’s church would be subjected in the course of ages. The interpreters of this acceptation of the vision agree in saying that the first, symbolized by the lioness, meant the persecution of Gentiles so cruelly prosecuted by the Roman Cæsars; the second, denoted by the bear, that of heretics; the third, represented by the leopard, that of false Christians; and the last, figured by a nameless creature awfully hideous, that of Antichrist, and so designated because, _in ea erit omnium perversitatum concursus_, it shall contain in itself the wickedness of the three preceding ones.[135]

It is, indeed, difficult to decide whether the terrible and universal persecution which the Catholic Church is now sustaining, especially in the person of the Sovereign Pontiff, should be referred to the third as its completion, or to the fourth as its preparation. When we consider the quality of the persecutors, they are undoubtedly false Christians, and worthy to be compared in ferocious malice to the leopard. But when we see in them the union of all perversity united to slay the church in its head, we suspect that the present is, indeed, a preparation for that final persecution which must forerun the consummation of the human race.

However that may be, it is beyond controversy that the persecution of to-day bears all the marks of Antichristianity, and that its promoters, followers, and accomplices accord with the description given by the apostle S. Paul to his disciple and Timothy. We give the text, let him deny it who can:

“Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times.

“Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked,

“Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness,

“Traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God;” and the following verses.[136]

Now, if, according to the proverb, the vituperations of the wicked are praise, is it not glory for the Papacy to see unchained against it to-day all the malice of the world, and to be lashed by all that Christendom holds in its bosom most odious, despotic, base, and abominable? Is not this the highest summit of grandeur? Is it not an unexampled participation in the glories of Christ?

V.

The more startling the contrast of opposite qualities in those who love and are faithful to the Papacy, the more must we admire them. To the moral dregs of society we see opposed the very flower of good men of every condition and in every country; not only among Catholic Christians, but among Protestants and schismatics, and even among Turks, Jews, and the barbarians of Asia. In vain does the Revolution try to vilify with terms of reproach those who are devoted to the Pope and to his sacred rights. It cannot prevent them from being what they are—an honor to the world, and the support of justice. It is impossible to be sincere, to understand clearly the significance of the cause defended by the Papacy, and not feel for it love and veneration. For this end it is not necessary to have supernatural faith, and to belong to the fold of the church: the light of reason, human understanding, are sufficient. Reason and sense make it clear to the least astute minds that the Pontiff is now defending all order, every right, every social law, against an enemy who hates God in humanity, and every good of God in the good of mankind.

The ardor of Catholics all over the world for Pius IX., and the close union of the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy with his see, constitute a plain and lasting fact which will surely be the greatest glory of this age in the annals of Christianity. It is a glory due chiefly to the Revolution, which has been providentially permitted and ordained by God, chiefly for the end of better strengthening and confirming unity in the hierarchy of his church. The result has been an exaltation of Papal authority among Christian nations so new and striking that it now forms a large part of the strength with which the Papacy repels the attacks of the Revolution, and promises to surpass before long the effective power which it possessed in the middle ages of our era. The complication of events leads nations to recognize in the Roman Pontificate the sole anchor of safety left to them in these tempests raised by the Revolution. We may say that an irresistible power is little by little bringing them to seek refuge in this asylum. Not only has the Pontiff’s voice found a wonderful echo in the soul of peoples, but his sacred person is oppressed, so to speak, with demonstrations of faith and love more solemnly magnificent than could be imagined. The voluntary tribute of blood has been and is offered to him by thousands of valiant men; that of gold is constantly given to him by millions of the faithful. He is truly the most beloved, praised, and honored among men. In our time, there is no name of magnate or of king which ranks so high as the name of Pius IX.

It is true that governments occupied almost everywhere by the Revolution strongly oppose, with a thousand corrupting and despotic artifices, this movement of nations towards the Papacy; but all in vain. The wind blows from that quarter, and it is a wind that crushes, sweeps, and grinds to powder all impediments. See how rapidly the deeds and men of the Revolution succeed each other in the nations oppressed by it; the instability of its kingdoms, the fragility of its empires, the fickleness of its victories, the inanity of its statistics, the weakness of its institutions; all about it is variable, changeable, inconstant: the buildings of yesterday crumble to-day.

This is because its satanic power is that of a meteor, not of a star; it appears, falls to ruin, and disappears. The power of the Papacy, on the contrary, is a sun which does not pass away, but lives; and the vivid flashes which it sends through the clouds gathering around the Revolution already show that the meteor is about to break and melt away.

VI.

Yes, the present greatness of the Roman Pontificate, impersonated in Pius IX., the visible pole of all social order in this world, the terror of bad hearts, and joy of upright souls—this glory is only the first gleam of that which his heroic and lingering passion is preparing for an approaching future.

For the comfort, meanwhile, of the weak and timid, we repeat, with the more sagacious minds of our own day, that the future is for the Papacy, not for the Revolution; that the Papacy has already conquered the Revolution. We will conclude by making our own those noble words upon the immortal youth of the Church, spoken by our Holy Father to the representatives of the Catholic youth of Italy, on Epiphany of this year, in the Vatican. We accommodate them with perfect propriety to the supreme office of the Vicariate of Christ, with which he is divinely invested, and which he so gloriously sustains in the presence of God, of angels, of men, and of the infernal Revolution itself:

“My sons, let us give battle, and fear nothing. Remember that the enemies of God are vanishing, and the Papacy remains. The Child Jesus fled into Egypt, but in the night-time he was told to return, ‘for they are dead who sought the life of the child.’ How many persecutors of the Papacy are dead! After giving vent to their fury, and decimating the faithful who served God, they are dead: and the Papacy is left. Yes; _ipsi peribunt_, but thou, beloved Peter, living in thy successors—thou, constituted by God his vicar on earth—thou remainest, and thou shalt always remain: _ipsi peribunt, tu autem permanebis_. Thou shalt remain, young, vigorous, constant, in contrast to the persecutions which purify the church, whose head thou art, wash away its every spot, and make it stronger. _Ipsi peribunt, tu autem permanebis._ Thou art still with us in the teaching of truth and morals, in many ways, under many appearances. _Ipsi peribunt, sed tu permanebis._

“Let this be our consolation, our comfort, our faith. Let us feel assured that _ipsi peribunt, Petrus autem permanebit usque in finem sæculorum_.”[137]

And you, great Pontiff, in uttering these sublime words, little thought that, three days later, he would perish suddenly who for many years had been the treacherous tormentor of the Papacy in your august person.

Napoleon III. perished uncrowned, humbled, in exile; that Napoleon who, in the intoxication of his empty triumphs, thought to hold in his hand, after your death, the victory over the Roman See, _periit_. He died, let us hope, repentant; and you, Holy Father, survive him to pray for his peace after death, with the same generous soul that, like your divine Model on Golgotha, always pardoned him in life. He has vanished like a shadow, first from the greatest throne in Europe, then from the sight of men, _periit_; and the Papacy _permanet_ in you more than ever invincible. You, Pope Pius, for the time a prisoner, continue, from the Vatican, with Christ and in Christ, to reign beloved, blessed, applauded, over all who have a believing heart, an upright soul. Napoleon III. has gone down to that city of the dead which shall form the pedestal of your greatness in all ages: _scabellum pedum tuorum_; peopled by beings like Cavour, Palmerston, Mazzini, and by a throng of many others, who girded their loins for the mad enterprise of crushing out in his Vicar Christ our God, King of Heaven and Earth.

A MAY CAROL.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

Is this, indeed, our ancient earth?
Or have we died in sleep, and risen?
Has earth, like man, her second birth?
Rises the palace from the prison?

Hills beyond hills ascend the skies;
In winding valleys, heaven-suspended,
Huge forests, rich as sunset’s dyes,
With rainbow-braided clouds are blended.

From melting snows through coverts dank
White torrents rush to yon blue mere,
Flooding its glazed and grassy bank,
The mirror of the milk-white steer.

What means it? Glory, sweetness, might?
Not these, but something holier far—
Shadows of him, that Light of Light,
Whose priestly vestment all things are.

The veil of sense transparent grows:
God’s face shines out, that veil behind,
Like yonder sea-reflected snows—
Here man must worship, or be blind.

“FOR BETTER—FOR WORSE.”

CONCLUDED.

“PRAY take an easier chair, Mrs. Vanderlyn,” says the invalid; “I thank you for your sympathy, and trust my cough has not disturbed you.”

“Oh! not at all,” says Agnes; “it only made me want to come to see you, and I hope you will not regard it as an intrusion on my part.”

“By no means. You are very kind. I see it in your eyes. You do not shun the sick. It is a good heart that leads you to me. I thank you.”

These words are interrupted by painful coughing, but, after the paroxysm has passed, she becomes more quiet, and Agnes has a better opportunity of studying her face while they converse.

In spite of her wasting disease, it is a beautiful and _saintly_ face still, and evidently has been much more beautiful in health and youth. Refinement and purity are stamped on every feature, and in every gesture and every fold of her raiment. The small, thin hands, folded over the book in her lap, are those of a delicately bred lady. A heavy plain gold ring, on the third finger of her left hand, is so loose that it is guarded by another and smaller one. These are all the ornaments she wears. A soft, warm wrapper of brown merino, a little white cap of thin muslin which does not altogether hide her abundant dark hair, are all of feminine costume to tell of the wearer’s character.

The room is very neat and comfortable, and shows no sign of poverty. On the walls are a few wood engravings, mostly of religious subjects, and a few photograph portraits finished in oils. A crucifix stands on the mantel, and a smaller one, attached to a rosary of Roman pearls, on the table by her side, where also is an exquisite Parian statuette of the Blessed Virgin and Child. Agnes sits on the other side of this table, and, while she converses with her hostess, her attention is drawn to a small book lying near her. Apparently only to read the title, she takes up this book, and opens at the fly-leaf. It is a prayer-book, and, in a lady’s writing, she reads:

“Martin Vanderlyn, from his wife.” Although prepared to know the truth, almost knowing it before she came into the room, Agnes feels her cheeks and lips grow pale; but she has always great command of herself, and now has not been taken quite by surprise.

“My husband is not a Catholic, although that book bears his name,” says Mrs. Vanderlyn. “Perhaps he is a relative of yours,” she adds, looking inquiringly at her guest.

“I never heard my husband speak of any relative of that name,” Agnes says. “The name is not a very common one, either. It seems strange that two of us should meet here. Is your husband absent?” She has remarked that Mrs. Vanderlyn had said, “My husband is not a Catholic,” and the avoidance of the use of the past tense gives her the chance to put her question, which she does to cover her own confusion, and mislead the lady as to herself. An expression of pain passes over Mrs. Vanderlyn’s face, as she quietly replies:

“Yes; he is absent, travelling.” It is not the first time that the poor lady has been obliged to answer a similar question, so she is not much disturbed; but Agnes feels sorry she has asked it. Mrs. Vanderlyn goes on speaking of her increased indisposition: “Mr. Vanderlyn does not know how very rapid has been the progress of the disease. I am much worse now than when he left home.”