Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Women often wonder in vain what the charm is by which other women succeed in pleasing, and, as Bossuet says, in “drawing after them captive souls.” In their eyes, at least, this charm is inexplicable. But this is not always the case; for there are some women who, while they reserve for one the absolute ascendency of their empire, like to feel able to exert it over every one. Such was Donna Faustina. However deep the strange, secret warning of my heart might be, it was beyond my power to resist her. While she was talking I felt my prejudices vanish like snow before the sun, and it could not possibly have been otherwise, perhaps; at least without a penetration I was not endowed with, a distrust I was wholly incapable of, and an experience I did not then possess.

Did she really feel a kind of attraction towards me that rendered her sincere at this first interview? I prefer to think so. Yes, I prefer not to believe that deceit and perfidy could disguise themselves to such a degree under an appearance of cordiality, simplicity, artlessness, and sincerity. I prefer to hope it was not wholly by consummate art she won my confidence while seeming to repose unlimited confidence in me.

She very soon learned all she wished concerning me, and in return gave me her whole history; and however singular this sudden frankness on the part of a stranger ought to have appeared to me—and, indeed, was—the grace of her manner and the charm of her language prevented any doubt or criticism from crossing my mind. Young, without position or fortune, she had married a man three times as old as herself, with whom she lived in strict retirement. Her meeting with Lorenzo (but how this happened she did not explain) had been the only ray of joy in her life. She did not hide from me either the grief his departure caused her or the extent of her disappointment when she vainly awaited his return after she was left free. But all these feelings, she said, belonged to the past. Nothing remained but a friendship which she could not give up. The death of the aged Marquis de Villanera had of course left her free again, but it had also taken away her only protector. She felt alone in the world now, and begged me, in the midst of my happiness, to consider her loneliness and take pity on her.

While thus speaking she fixed upon me her large, blue eyes bathed in tears. And as I listened to her, tears also streamed down my cheeks. I almost reproached myself for being happy. Lorenzo’s inconstancy weighed on my heart like remorse, and all that was generous in my nature responded to her appeal. Consequently, before our interview was over I embraced her, calling her my dear Faustina, and she clasped me in her arms, calling me for the twentieth time “her lovely, darling Ginevra.”

My _naïveté_ may seem astonishing. I was, indeed, _naïve_ at that time, and it would have been surprising had I not been. People of more penetration than I would have been blinded. Lorenzo himself was at that time. When he found us together at his return, and comprehended the result of our interview from the very first words he heard, he turned towards me with eyes lit up with tenderness and gratitude.

His first, and probably his only, feeling at meeting again the woman to whom he thought he had been ungrateful and almost disloyal, had been a kind of humiliation. To get rid of this feeling, he had sought some means of repairing this wrong, and, thanks to my docility to him and my generosity towards her, he persuaded himself he had found a way.

In the state of affairs at that moment I had the advantage. I gained that day a new, but, alas! the last, triumph over my rival!

XX.

Lorenzo accompanied the marchioness to her carriage, and then returned an instant to inform me she would dine with us that evening, and that he had invited Lando to join us. He embraced me affectionately before he went away, looking at me with an expression that caused me a momentary joy, but which was followed by a feeling of melancholy as profound as if his kiss had been an adieu.

But though my apprehensions of the evening before were allayed, I could not get rid of a vague uneasiness impossible to overcome—perhaps the natural result of the hopes that, on the one hand, had been disappointed since the previous day, and, on the other, the fears that had been removed. But my mind was still greatly troubled, and though the atmosphere around me had apparently become calm and serene, I felt, so to speak, the earth tremble almost insensibly beneath my feet, and could hear the rumbling of thunder afar off.

My interview with Donna Faustina lasted so long that I had not been alone half an hour before Mme. de Kergy and her daughter were announced. This call, which, under any circumstances, would have given me pleasure, was particularly salutary at this moment, for it diverted my mind and effected a complete, beneficial change of impressions. After the somewhat feverish excitement I had just undergone, it was of especial benefit to see and converse with these agreeable companions of the evening before. I breathed more freely, and forgot Donna Faustina while listening to their delightful conversation. My eyes responded to Diana’s smiling looks, and her mother inspired me with a mingled attraction and confidence that touched me and awakened in my soul the dearest, sweetest, and most poignant memories of the past. Mme. de Kergy perceived this, and likewise noticed, I think, the traces of recent agitation in my face. She rose, as if fearing it would be indiscreet to prolong her visit.

“Oh! do not go yet,” I said, taking hold of her hand to detain her.

“But you look fatigued or ill. I do not wish to abuse the permission you gave me.”

“You do me good, on the contrary. I have a slight headache, it is true, but it is soothing to talk with you.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, truly.”

“Well, then, let me propose, in my turn, a drive in my carriage. The weather is fine to‐day. Come and take the air with us. It will do you good, and afford us great pleasure.”

I felt quite disposed on my part to accept the sympathy manifested by Mme. de Kergy, and at once accepted her invitation. I took a seat in her _calèche_, and, after an hour’s drive with her and her daughter, I had not only recovered from the nervous agitation of the morning, but we had become fully acquainted, and for the first time in Paris I ceased to feel myself a stranger.

“What a pity you are going away so soon!” exclaimed Diana.

“Yes, indeed,” said her mother; “for it seems to me you would find some resources at my house you have not found elsewhere, and we might reveal Paris under a different—perhaps I may say under a more favorable—aspect than it generally appears to strangers, even in the fashionable world, which is, I imagine, nearly the same everywhere.”

I made no reply, for the regret she expressed awoke a similar feeling in my heart, and aroused all the recollections of the evening before. I once more felt for an instant an ardent desire to take refuge in a different sphere. I longed more earnestly than ever to escape from that in which some vague peril seemed to threaten me. We were, it is true, to leave Paris, but for what a motive!... What a pitiful aspect the life Lorenzo wished to escape from took in comparison with the one so different which Mme. de Kergy had just given me a glimpse of!... The thought of this contrast embittered the joy I felt in view of our departure.

We agreed, however, as we separated, to meet every day during this last week, and Mme. de Kergy promised to take me, before my departure, through various parts of the unknown world of charity in Paris, whose existence she had revealed to me, that I might, at least, have a less imperfect idea of it before leaving France.

On my return I found Lando as well as Lorenzo in the drawing‐room, and learned that, as the weather was fine, they had decided we should dine at some _café_ I do not now remember, in the Champs Elysées, and afterwards, instead of returning home, we should take seats under the trees, and quietly listen in the open air to the music of one of the famous orchestras. The hotel the Marquise de Villanera stopped at was on the way; we could call for her, and she would remain with us the rest of the evening.

This new programme did not displease me. I rather preferred this way of meeting the marchioness again, instead of the one I anticipated after Lorenzo told me she would dine with us. In spite of the favorable impression she produced, this prospect annoyed me. The arrangement now proposed suited me better. I unhesitatingly assented to it, but could not help thinking, as I did so, how much I should have preferred passing the evening alone with him!... I longed for solitude—but shared with him! My heart was full of things I wished to give utterance to, and it seemed as if a kind of fatality multiplied obstacles around us, and kept us absorbed in matters wholly foreign to the sentiments I found it impossible to awaken during the too brief moments in which we were together. My heart was filled with these desires and regrets while I was preparing to accompany him, and they cast a shade over the evening I am giving an account of.

Lando took a seat in front of us, and our carriage soon drew up at the door of the marchioness, who followed us in her little _coupé_. She descended when we arrived at our place of destination, and Lorenzo, as was proper, gave her his arm. I took Lando’s, and we proceeded towards the room that had been reserved for us, traversing on our way the principal coffee‐room, which was filled with people. Every eye turned towards us.

I saw that Lando’s vanity was more gratified than mine by the observations that reached our ears. I looked at Lorenzo; he too seemed to be proud of the effect produced by the one leaning on his arm, and for the first time did not appear to notice the flattering murmur of which I was the object. I noticed this, and it did not increase my good‐humor. But after we arrived at the little dining‐room that was ours for the time, Faustina seemed wholly occupied with me. We took off our bonnets, and while I was silently admiring her magnificent tresses, which made her resemble some antique statue, she went into open ecstasy about my “golden hair,” my form, and my features; but while she was thus going on, evidently supposing it was not displeasing to me, Lorenzo stopped her.

“Take care, marchioness,” said he, smiling, “you do not know Ginevra. Do not take another step in that direction. No one can venture on that ground _but myself alone_.”

He uttered these last words with an accent that made my heart beat and rendered Faustina silent. An expression flashed from her blue eyes quicker than the sharpest lightning, and seemed to give them a terrible brilliancy. However, she soon resumed her playfulness and graceful ease of manner. Like most Italian ladies, she had that naturalness, that total absence of affectation, which often gives to their conversation an originality without parallel, and makes all wit which is less spontaneous than theirs seem factitious and almost defective. It has an inexpressible charm which fascinates, enchants, sets every one at ease, and gives to their very coquetry an appearance of artlessness.

We were full of liveliness and gayety at the table. Never was a dinner more agreeable. Donna Faustina had an uncommon talent for relating things without appearing to try to win attention. She could mimic other women without any appearance of malice, and even sound their praises with an earnestness that made her more charming than those of whom she was speaking. Sometimes, too, she would change her tone, and, after making the room ring with our laughter, she would entertain us with some serious account which displayed a powerful, cultivated mind, with all her exuberant gayety. In short, when she was present, nothing was thought of but her, and even those whom she wittingly or unwittingly threw into the shade could not deny the charm by which they were eclipsed.

It was, however, with some surprise I recalled after dinner the conversation that had affected me so strongly some hours before, and I asked myself if this was the melancholy, forsaken woman whose fate had moved me to tears.

She seemed to have almost read my thoughts; for, as we were returning to the open air, she left Lorenzo’s arm, and came to take mine.

“Ginevra,” said she in a low voice, “you find me gay and happy as a child this evening. It is because I no longer feel alone. I have found, not only friends, but a sister!... I am filled with love and gratitude to you.”

The Champs Elysées were illuminated. We could see each other as distinctly as by daylight. She seemed much affected and sincere. Perhaps she spoke the truth at that moment.... Perhaps she had only looked deep enough into her own heart to feel persuaded that the romantic friendship she wished to make me believe in was real. However this may be, the illusion did not last long either for her, or Lorenzo, or myself.

The music was delightful, and I listened to it for some time in silence. Faustina had taken a seat at my right hand. Lorenzo sat next her, and Lando beside me.

“Bravo! Cousin Ginevra,” said the latter in a low tone as soon as the first piece was ended. “Thank heaven, your influence is still all it ought to be!... I am delighted, but not surprised!”

So many things had occupied my mind since my last conversation with him that I was at a loss to know what he referred to.

“You have persuaded Lorenzo to leave Paris?”

“No; he proposed going of his own accord.”

“Indeed! When was that?”

“Last evening.”

“And when are you to leave?”

“Next Monday.”

“A whole week! It is a long time.... In spite of my personal regret to lose you, I wish your departure could take place sooner.”

“And I also,” I murmured without knowing why, for at that moment I was not at all preoccupied with the cause of Lando’s anxiety.

“Endeavor, at least, to make him pass every evening like this. Your friend is pleasing; she amuses him, and may be able to divert him from other things.”

“Lando, stop!” I exclaimed with a vehemence I could not repress. He uttered a slight exclamation of surprise, and I hastily continued, lest he might have comprehended me:

“Yes, be quiet, I beg, while they are playing the _Marche du Prophète_. I wish to hear it undisturbed.”

But I did not listen to the _Marche du Prophète_. I only listened to—I only heard—the voices beside me. Lorenzo and his companion at first continued to converse in an animated manner on subjects apparently indifferent, but concerning people and places I was entirely ignorant of.... Recollections of the past were recalled which I knew nothing about. A long silence soon intervened, and when at last they resumed the conversation, it was in so low a tone I was unable to follow it.

Lorenzo and Lando returned on foot, and I took Donna Faustina home. Before separating we embraced each other once more, saying _au revoir_; but after leaving her I thought without any regret that before another week I should bid her a long farewell, and perhaps even then I should not have been sorry were it for ever.

XXI.

During the following week, that looked so long to Lando, and was indeed long enough to affect my whole life, what transpired?... Apparently nothing very different from the evening I have just described; nothing that did not seem the natural consequence of the intimacy so suddenly formed between Donna Faustina and myself, the recent date of which I alone seemed not to have forgotten. But little by little, I might say hour by hour, I felt a secret, powerful, subtle influence growing up around me, and the deepest instincts of my heart, for a moment repressed, were violently roused, causing me to suffer all the pangs of doubt, anxiety, and the most cruel suspicion. But as nothing new seemed to justify these feelings, I forced myself to conceal them, for fear of rendering myself odious in Lorenzo’s eyes and losing the charm of my generous confidence. Moreover, did not my continuing to manifest this confidence oblige him to merit it?... And could Faustina be treacherous while I was redoubling my cordiality and affection, and confiding in her as a friend? Was I not in a certain manner protecting myself by obliging both of them in honor not to deceive me?

But honor, we know, in such cases—honor alone, without the holy restraints imposed by conscience—is a feeble barrier and a mere mockery. Those who imagine they have not overstepped this barrier sometimes make it recede before them, and believe themselves still within its limits when they are already far beyond the line it first marked out....

A barrier so easily changed soon trenches on the enemy’s ground, and the honor that is purely human—insufficient guardian of vows the most solemn—after violating the most sacred obligations, often becomes subject to some imaginary duty, and, according to a barbarous code that keeps pace with that of the Gospel amid all our civilization, persuades him whose sole guide it is that he would be disloyal if he ceased to be a traitor!

This is a sad, commonplace occurrence in the world, which does not excite anything more than a smile or a shrug of the shoulders on the part even of those who would tremble with indignation if any one should think them capable of betraying the confidence of a friend—what do I say?—even of a stranger or an enemy!

I will not undertake to follow Lorenzo in this obscure phase of his life. Neither will I try to penetrate into the soul of Faustina. I will only speak of the influence her crossing my path had on my life; for the account I have undertaken is one of bitter trials and formidable dangers, and the extraordinary grace I derived therefrom!

During the last week of our stay in Paris my time was strangely divided between Mme. de Kergy, who came every morning to take me on the proposed rounds, and Donna Faustina, with whom I unfailingly found myself every evening. I thus daily went from one world to another exactly opposite, and seemed to undergo a periodical transformation, becoming, according to the hour, as different as the two women with whom I thus became simultaneously connected, but whom I never beheld together.

Every day I appreciated more fully the beneficial intimacy, that had commenced at the same time as the other intimacy, to which I already hesitated to give its true name, and I found more and more salutary the happy influences of the morning, which always diverted my mind from the annoying recollections of the evening before. Mme. de Kergy’s simple dignity and sweetness of manner were allied with a noble mind and a large heart. Though somewhat imposing, every one felt at ease with her, because she entered into every one’s feelings, criticised nobody, and only gave others the lesson of her example. I considered myself fortunate to see her so often, and wished I could always remain under her guidance.

I accompanied her in her charitable rounds through Paris, and at the sight of the misery I thus witnessed I felt I had never understood before to what an extent both misery and charity can extend. And yet poverty and humanity are to be found in all countries and in all climes. Certainly, we also have the poor amongst us, and Southern Italy is called, _par excellence_, the land of beggars and wretchedness. Nevertheless, when my imagination transported me to the gates of the convent where Don Placido daily distributed alms, without any great discernment perhaps, but accompanied with pious words, received by those to whom they were addressed as alms of almost equal value, I asked myself if this did not somewhat counter‐balance the excessive poverty and the lack of a more rigid and discriminating way of alleviating it. And when I witnessed the profound misery at Paris, augmented by the climate, and often embittered by hatred; when I saw this vast number greedy for the things of this world, but without any hope of those in a better, I asked myself if any possible compensation in the world could be given the poor who are deprived of the precious faith that would console, sustain, and ennoble them. Yes, _ennoble_ them; the word is not too strong to express the living exemplification of the Gospel I had often observed in accompanying Livia and Ottavia to the miserable habitations where they were welcomed so cordially. “Ah! signora,” these so‐called wretched creatures would sometimes say, looking at us with an air of compassion, “yes, we will pray for you, and our Lord will hear us; for, after all, _we poor_ are his favorites. He chose to take upon himself our likeness, and not that of the rich.”

A thousand expressions of the same nature crossed my mind while accompanying my noble, saintly friend to the places where she exercised, and taught her young daughter to exercise, a double mission of charity. One day in particular, seeing the charming Diana kneeling beside the bed of a poor old woman whose infirmities were incurable, but who was without religion, I recalled the words that fell from the lips of a poor woman at Naples who had implored the cure of her malady through the intercession of some saint, _and had obtained it_, “Ah! mia cara signora, doctors are for the rich; as for us, we have the saints.”

“You must relate all this to Gilbert,” said Mme. de Kergy, listening to me with a beaming face. “In spite of the absorbing interest he takes in discoveries and inventions of all kinds, he is not incapable of comprehending this solution—the highest and most simple of all—of the great problem repeated under so many different forms. He would readily acknowledge that, viewed in this light, the inequalities of social life assume a wonderfully different aspect.”

This was not the first time I had heard her speak in this way of Gilbert de Kergy since we had daily met. Among other things, she explained, on one occasion, the object of various associations of which he was an active member.

“He could explain all this much better than I,” she added; “but I have urged him in vain to accompany us in our explorations through what I call his domain. He absolutely refuses, and, though I am accustomed to his uncivilized ways, they afflict me, because he often yields to them to the injury of others as well as himself.”

One day, however, I found his card at my door when I returned home; but I had seen him only once since the meeting at the Hôtel de Kergy.

Saturday arrived, the day but one before our departure, and I was to take my last drive with Mme. de Kergy. I was suffering from a thousand conflicting emotions, agitated and melancholy, and sorry to be separated from her, and yet happy and impatient to leave Paris, where I now seemed to behold nothing but two large blue eyes following me everywhere. On the other hand, however, a strange, inexplicable regret weighed on my heart when I thought of the world into which I had not yet penetrated, except in imagination, but where I longed to be transplanted with Lorenzo, that our lives might bring forth better fruit. While conversing with Mme. de Kergy such a life seemed less chimerical. I felt my wishes might easily be realized if ... I could not wholly define my thought, but it was there, alive, actual, and poignant, and the recollection of its source added a degree of tenderness to the affectionate farewell I bade Mme. de Kergy when her carriage stopped to leave me at my door. My eyes were filled with tears. I found it difficult to tear myself away. She, on her part, pressed my hand, and, fastening her softest look on me, finally said:

“My dear Ginevra” (I had some time before begged her to call me so), “would it be indiscreet to ask you to come and dine with us to‐morrow, and spend your last evening with us?”

“O madame!” I exclaimed with a joy I did not try to conceal, “how happy I should be to come!”

“Then I shall depend on seeing you—both of you; for of course my invitation extends likewise to the Duca di Valenzano.”

I felt my face turn red simply at these words. Alas! why? Because I was at once terrified at the thought of conveying an invitation to Lorenzo which, ten days before, he would have eagerly accepted. Now I felt if he replied in the affirmative, it would be a triumph for me; if in the negative, a painful defeat.

All this rapidly crossed my mind, and made me silent for a moment. Finally I replied:

“I do not know whether my husband has any engagement for to‐morrow or not; but as for me, I hope nothing will prevent my coming. At all events, you shall have my reply in a few hours.”

This reply was despatched at a late hour that same evening, and was to this effect: “That important business would oblige my husband to be absent the whole day, and I alone should be able to accept Mme. de Kergy’s invitation.”

What it cost me to write this note Mme. de Kergy never imagined. And yet, when I hastily wrote these lines, I had no positive reason for doubting the truth of the excuse assigned for Lorenzo’s absence—no reason except the promptings of my own heart, to which I was less able than ever, within a few hours, to impose silence.

But to relate what took place from the time I left Mme. de Kergy till I wrote her the above note:

That evening, as usual, I was to meet Donna Faustina, but not her alone. Our friends were to assemble to bid us farewell, and it was at this _soirée_ I saw her for the first time in all the _éclat_ of a brilliant toilet. And, though I was far from foreseeing it, it was there I spoke to her for the last time!... And I was still further from foreseeing in what place and in what way I should afterwards find myself beside her for an instant!...

We both attracted much attention that evening. Which of us was the more beautiful I cannot tell. As to this, I was indifferent to the opinion of all but one. What he thought I longed to know, and I now watched him in my turn. As I have said, he had good reason to pride himself on his penetration; but that was a faculty by no means lacking on my part, and one, it may be remarked _en passant_, that Sicilians of both sexes are said to be rarely devoid of. In this respect we were well matched. I knew every line in his forehead, and understood every movement of his mouth and the slightest change in his mobile, expressive face, and during the whole evening, when for the first time I was able to observe them together without attracting his attention, I used as much art in studying him as he knew how to use in studying others. I followed them with my eyes around the room; whereas, separated from me by the crowd, he forgot my presence, and, by some phenomenon akin to that of second sight, every word they uttered seemed to resound distinctly in my ears!... It was with reluctance I gave her my hand when I left her. It was she, and not Lorenzo, who was at that moment the object of the resentment that burned in my heart.

I had doubtless overcome some of my faults at that time, but far from all. I was not so frivolous as is usually the case at my age. I loved everything great and noble. But with all this, I was impetuous, wilful, and jealous, and, though not occupied about my appearance, I was with myself. The happiness I had an indisputable right to was menaced. All means of defending my rights seemed allowable, but to use address, prudence, and management would have amounted almost to insincerity in my eyes.

Pretexts, and even excuses, are seldom wanting for yielding to the impulse of the moment. Therefore I yielded to mine when I again found myself alone with Lorenzo, breaking a long silence which he did not notice, or would not ask the reason of, with a violent outburst I afterwards regretted, but which, at the moment, it seemed impossible to repress.

“I have tried to please you, Lorenzo, and must still believe in your sincerity, which it would kill me to doubt; but I can no longer have any faith in the false, perfidious friendship of that woman.... My heart, my whole soul, revolts against her.... God forgive me, Lorenzo, I really believe I hate her, and feel as if I could never see her again!...”

Such were a few of the hasty, incoherent words that escaped from my lips. Lorenzo, with folded arms, compressed brow, and a cold, ironical look of surprise, listened without interrupting me.

As I gazed at him, I felt my impetuosity die away and give place to intolerable anguish. My heart swelled, and I should have burst out into sobs had not a certain pride hindered me from responding to the icy coldness of his smile with tears. He did not excuse himself, and by no means tried to defend her whom I thus attacked. He made neither protestations nor reproaches.

“As you please, _cara mia_,” said he with a calmness that seemed a thousand times more cruel than anger. “I will not attempt to oppose the furious fit of jealousy I see you are in. Indulge in it at your leisure.... Nothing is easier than to find some excuse for not spending to‐morrow evening with Donna Faustina—and the day after, _ma belle Ginevra_,” continued he with a sarcastic look that was more marked than his words. “You seem to forget we are both going away, and very probably you will never see her again.... This is a reassuring circumstance, and ought to have sufficed, it seems to me, to prevent you from making so absurd a scene as this.”

His manner and words completely disconcerted me. I now felt painfully mortified at my outburst, and an earnest desire to repair it. And yet the sensation caused by his injustice still raged in my heart. But I repressed this by degrees, and when Lorenzo was on the point of leaving the room, I said in a low tone:

“Forgive me; I was too hasty. But I have suffered more than you may have supposed.”

He made no reply, and his coldness restored my self‐control.

“It is not necessary to seek any pretext to avoid meeting Donna Faustina,” continued I with a _sang‐froid_ nearly equal to his own. “Mme. de Kergy has invited me, and you also, to dine there to‐morrow, and pass the evening.”

“Very well, go; nothing could be more fortunate. As for me, I shall not go with you. I have business I am obliged to finish before my departure. To‐ morrow I shall be absent all the morning, and shall not return in season to accompany you.”

I knew through Lando what business he referred to. I knew he was to settle the next day the important accounts I had learned about the preceding Sunday. I recollected likewise that he was afterwards to dine with Lando....

It was not, then, an imaginary excuse I had to transmit to Mme. de Kergy, and yet, when I wrote the note before mentioned, it was with a trembling hand and a heart heavier than it had ever been in my life!

To Be Continued.

September—Sabbath Rest.

Most holy of the numbers, sacred Seven!
Which reverently the ancient sages held,
And by thy hidden charm the music swelled
Of rare old prophecies and songs of heaven,
We wonder, yet the secret have not riven
(So closely are the mysteries sentinelled),
If only by the calendar(10) compelled,
Thy sign of grace unto this month was given.
Rather, we think, a fair connection lies
Between the blessedness of Sabbath peace,
When all of labor finds divine surcease,
The while rich incense rises to the skies,
And that sweet rest from summer’s burdened days,
Which makes the ripe year now yield sevenfold praise!

The Present State Of Anglicanism.

A bill for the regulation of public worship, prepared by Dr. Tait, Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, and which after certain modifications has passed through Parliament, is causing the state church to undergo another of those feverish crises which for about thirty years past have marked with a new feature its internal as well as its external disorganization.

Before that period it had been the chief boast of that church, in every section of her members, whether “High” or “Evangelical,” to have repudiated the “blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits” of the ancient faith from which she had apostatized, the ancient unity from which she had severed herself, and the ancient doctrines which she denounced.

Since that period, however, a change has come over a portion of the Establishment, by the formation in its bosom of a new party, differing from all its predecessors, and possessing, moreover, its own scale of belief, graduated _ad libitum_.

The thoughtful and earnest writers of the _Tracts for the Times_, becoming painfully conscious of the want of consistency of belief, and also of the need of a spiritual head or centre of authority in their own communion, sought anxiously into the details of its origin and history, and also into the past and present of the ancient church, from whose venerable features they removed the veil of obloquy and misrepresentation which had been thrown over them. Their search proved that to be a merely human institution which they had regarded as divine, and the unveiling of that long‐hidden countenance revealed to them the divine lineaments of the one true Mother who for three weary centuries had been to England a “Mother out of sight.”(11)

Most of those men transferred their allegiance whither alone it was due; having dug to the foundations of their edifice to find them giving way at every corner, they took refuge in the city against which so often the “hail descended, and the wind blew, but it fell not; for it was built upon a rock.” But they did not fail to leave an abiding impression upon the communion they abandoned. Many who forbore to follow their example were yet unable to deny the truth of the principles which had found their ultimate resolution in this exodus, although they persuaded themselves and others that it was their duty to remain in order to solidify and adorn that structure which they designate the “church of their baptism,” slow to believe that it is a house “built on the sand.”

Thus, during the last thirty years or so, it has been the aim of a small but increasing number of Anglicans to claim consideration for their communion on higher grounds than its founders would by any means have approved, and, becoming suddenly shy of its state parentage, to declare it to be a “Branch” and a “Sister” of that church which the creators of their own moved heaven and earth, or rather the gates of hell, to destroy.

In order to support their claim, they find it necessary to distort the meaning of their formularies in the vain endeavor to coax or to force them into some resemblance to the teaching of the Council of Trent, those which are hopelessly irreconcilable being left out of the account as little differences which it is inconvenient to remember. In numerous cases they are practically set aside, or contradicted, notwithstanding the fact that at their “ordination” the ministers of the Church of England solemnly bind themselves to teach in accordance with these very formularies.

Moreover, finding their own mutilated communion service insufficient, and yet claiming and professing to “say Mass,” which they were never intended to say, and which in their present position they are utterly incapable of celebrating, the ritualistic ministers are in the habit of supplementing the deficiencies of their own liturgy by private interpolations from the Roman Missal, which, in case they are questioned on the subject, they designate as “prayers from ancient sources,” a statement less honest than true. One thing after another do they imitate or claim as their own, now a doctrine, now a practice, which for three hundred years their communion has emphatically disowned: vestments, lights, prayers for the dead, confession, transubstantiation, in some “extreme” quarters intercession of the saints; here a gesture and there a decoration, which only has its fitness and meaning in the ancient church and her venerable ritual, but which with them can claim no title but that of doctrinal, disciplinary, and decorative disobedience—however great may be the pains they take to force the false to simulate the true, and however pertinaciously they may dare, as they do, to appropriate to themselves and to their chaotic schism the very name of the Catholic Church, out of whose fold they are content to remain in hereditary apostasy.

Among the four principal sections of “High,” “Low,” “Broad,” and “No” church, into which the Anglican communion is divided, the “Low” or (so‐ called) “Evangelical” school is the sternest opponent of the new “Extreme” or “Ritualistic” party, which it very mistakenly honors with the name of _Romanizers_. We say mistakenly, because, however they may imitate according to their various shades of opinion the outward ceremonial of the church, or adopt, at choice, more or less of her doctrines, yet all this in their case is but a double development of Protestantism (to say nothing of the effect it produces of making them rest satisfied with the shadow instead of seeking the substance);(12) for none are so bitter as they against the church they are so desirous to resemble, and also none are so practically disobedient to their own ecclesiastical superiors, in spite of reiterated professions to the contrary. It is this persistent disobedience which has brought about the present crisis.

In the Evangelical party there exists a society calling itself the “Church Association,” of which one principal object is to watch over the principles of the reformation,(13) and to keep a jealous eye upon the movements of tractarianism in all its varied developments.

Chiefly in consequence of the representations of this society, and also of the determination of the High‐Church clergy not to obey the decision that has been given against various of their practices in the “Purchas judgment,” until they should have obtained a redecision from another court to which they had appealed, Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, laid before the Houses of Parliament a bill entitled the “Public Worship Regulation Bill,” of which the object is to secure the suppression of all the illegal practices in which Ritualists habitually indulge, and also to secure obedience to their legally and ecclesiastically constituted authorities. Rightly or wrongly, all the innovations or changes that have been gradually rousing “the Protestant feeling of the country,” and which are in fact, if not in intention, imitations of Catholic ritual, were to be put down. The bill requires that in each diocese a local court should be established, before which any church‐warden, or three parishioners, “having cause of complaint against the incumbent, as failing to observe the directions contained in the Book of Common Prayer, relating to the performance of the services, rites, and ceremonies of the said book, or as having made or permitted unlawful addition to, alteration of, or omission from such services,” etc., etc., shall be empowered to lay their complaint against the said incumbent, who is to be allowed the space of fourteen days in which to give his answer. Should no answer be given, it will be considered that the charges laid against him are true, and proceedings will be taken accordingly. Should an unsatisfactory answer be given, “the bishop may, if he think fit, within six months after he has received a representation in the manner aforesaid, proceed to consider the same in public, with the assistance of the chancellor of the diocese or his substitute, ... and the bishop shall, after due consideration, pronounce judgment in regard to such representation.”

To this an amendment was suggested by Lord Shaftesbury, which was adopted, namely, that instead of a local bishop, a secular judge, to be selected by the two Archbishops of Canterbury and York, should be appointed, under the title of “Judge of Public Worship,” and whose office it should be to assist the bishop of any diocese where his services might be required for the hearing of cases, after which not the bishop, but the judge, should, in conclusion, pronounce sentence according to law.

Upon this, the _Spectator_, a leading periodical of the Broad Church party, observes: “So far as the bill is intended to ascertain and enforce the existing law of the church in relation to public worship, the change (namely, from a bishop to a secular judge) makes the whole difference between a tribunal which Englishmen will respect and trust and one which they would hardly have taken the trouble even to consult, so deep would have been, in general, their distrust of the oracle consulted.... Lord Shaftesbury having provided a genuine judge, the complainant who prefers a bishop will not often get his antagonist to agree with him, and such complainants will be few.”

Of this general mistrust of the Anglican bishops we have more to say, but for the present we keep to the consideration of the bill.

Lord Shaftesbury’s suggestion was followed by one from Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, which, although not adopted, is too remarkable a specimen of Episcopal counsel to be unnoticed. (_The Church Times_ respectfully designates it as “one of the prettiest bits of log‐rolling ever seen”!) Bishop Magee proposed, and his proposal was “powerfully seconded by the Lord Chancellor,” that there should be “neutral regions of ritual laid down by the bill, within which a variety of usages as practised in many churches at the present time should _all_ be admissible, even though the actual directions of the rubric against some of them be explicit.” Whereupon the _Spectator_ goes on to suggest that a varied selection of “concessions” should be made, suitable to the divergent or opposite tastes of Extreme, High, Low, Broad, and No Churchmen; such as, for instance, the optional reading or omission of the words as to the regeneration of the child by the act of baptism, as a concession acceptable to the Evangelicals. For its own part it would like an optional reading or omission of the Athanasian Creed, and so on, and, “to make the compromise a thoroughly sound one,” the laity of each parish, it considers, ought to be consulted as to the usage to be adopted. It is hard to imagine anything better calculated to make “confusion worse confounded” than plans like these, at a time, too, when all the Anglican parties alike confess that “in no day has there been so wide a variety of tendency, opinion, and belief in the Church of England as now.”

One of the great features in the checkered progress of this bill has been the speech of the late premier, the negative and destructive character of which it is difficult adequately to estimate, and which, upon its delivery, to quote the words of the _Westminster Gazette_, “produced an ecclesiastical conflagration.” Even Mr. Gladstone’s late colleagues hold aloof from his propositions, and the outcry that was raised soon indisposed his humbler followers to agree with him; yet he laid bare many real difficulties and told many plain truths which might make the friends of the archbishop’s bill reasonably hesitate. But as it is, this speech has only fired the zealous determination of the great majority of the House, both liberal and conservative, to strike a blow at the external manifestations of ritualism, come what may, and has set the “Protestant feeling of the country” on horseback.

The bill is doubtless peculiarly vulnerable, and Mr. Gladstone did not spare its weak points, amply demonstrating its dangerous scope and character, and the extreme probability of its leading to convulsions far more serious to the welfare of the Established Church than what he termed any panic about Ritualism. It enforces the observation of the rubrics with a rigidity dependent only upon episcopal discretion in the use of a certain dispensing power. The bishops may protect whom they please, provided they are ready with written reasons for vetoing the proceedings against the accused, which is certainly an adroit expedient for catching obnoxious ritualists and letting offenders of another class escape. All might work well if only bishops will be discreet.(14) Mr. Gladstone showed, however, that he entertained profound doubts of the discretion of twenty‐seven or twenty‐eight bishops. But, whether his fears are well grounded or not, many minds would agree with him in recoiling from such slippery legislation, although, on the other hand, he launches himself into a course of which it would be difficult to foresee the results. In his six remarkable resolutions he not only reduces the bill so that it should only effect its real objects, but he explicitly asserts the impolicy of uniformity in the matter of enforcing the rubrics. It is really little less than the repeal of the Act of Uniformity, and the six resolutions involve the abolition of that religious settlement which has prevailed in England for more than two centuries. Finding them rejected by an overwhelming majority, Mr. Gladstone withdrew them; “but they may yet furnish a fruitful contribution to the discussion of the position of the Church of England.”

But if, as we have seen, the Broad‐Church section openly proclaims its deep mistrust of its ecclesiastical rulers, and one object of the Evangelical “Church Association” is declared to be “to teach them the law,” it is reserved for the organs of the extreme ritualistic party to treat their bishops, week after week, to an amount of supercilious insolence, which is occasionally varied by invective and abuse, unsurpassed in the annals of even Puritan polemics. In the _Church Times_ for May 22 we find a lengthy monition, headed in double‐sized capitals, “What the Bishops ought to do,” and which, in a tone of mock compassion, thus commences: “It has been a hard time lately for our Right Reverend Fathers‐in‐God.... According to their wont, their lordships have seemed, with one noble exception, to give their support to Dr. Tait’s plan for stamping out ritualism.” “The gods have evidently a spite against the primate, or he would scarcely have committed such blunders, etc.” “The poor archbishop has, however, excuse enough for his peevishness.” “We have been compelled repeatedly, in the interests of truth, etc., to point out what their lordships ought not to do; unfortunately the occasions which necessarily call forth such remarks occur too frequently; it is therefore only right that we should also give the bishops the benefit of our own experience, and explain to them how they might hope to gain that respect which they certainly do not now possess.” And further on the same modest writer requests his ecclesiastical superiors to remember that they are immensely inferior to many of their clergy in natural gifts, mental culture, and parochial experience, adding: “Take, for instance, the question of confession. It is evident from their lordships’ utterances respecting it that they are in the darkest ignorance both as to its principles and practice, ... and this though there are plenty of clergymen who, by long experience in the confessional, are well qualified to instruct their lordships about it.”

Now, this is too unreasonable! As if an Anglican bishop ought fairly to be expected to trouble himself about an obsolete custom that had practically disappeared from the Anglican Prayer‐Book, of which there is no mention in the Catechism, and none in the communion service but one ambiguous phrase which may mean anything!(15)

But to return to the _Church Times_, which with its compeers of the “extreme” school seems to do its best to expose the Babel of confusion in which it dwells, and which its own voice does its little utmost to increase. From this we learn that “it is now decided by archiepiscopal authority, and illustrated by archiepiscopal example, that truth is not one, but two.”

Why only _now_, we should like to know, when no true successor of the archapostate Cranmer could consistently teach otherwise—Cranmer, of whom his biographer, Alexander Knox, writes as follows:

“To form a church by any sharply defined lines was scarcely Cranmer’s object.... He looked more to extension than to exactness of periphery.” And this man, “whose life was the incarnation of theological and moral contradictions, and whose creed was only consistent in its gross Erastianism, left these as his double legacy to the national Establishment, of which he was the principal contriver.”(16) The same writer (Knox) demonstrates the success of Cranmer’s idea in another place, where he describes the constitution of the Anglican communion in the following remarkable words: “In England, as I have already been endeavoring to show, all is peculiar. In the Establishment, the theology common to Luther and Melanchthon was adopted in the Articles, but the unmixed piety of the primitive church was retained in the daily liturgy and occasional offices. Thus our church, by a most singular arrangement of Providence, has, as it were, a Catholic soul united to a Lutheran body of best and mildest temperament.... May we not discover traces of the All‐ wise Hand in these principles of liberality, which are implanted in the very bosom of our Establishment by the adoption of articles that are deemed by different men to countenance their different opinions?” And Bishop Burnet, in the Introduction to his _Commentary on the Articles_, declares that “when an article is conceived in such general terms that it can admit of different senses, yet even when the senses are plainly contrary one to another, both (_i.e._ persons of opposite opinions) may subscribe to the Articles with a good conscience, and without any equivocation.” Well indeed did Dr. Newman describe these articles as the “stammering lips of ambiguous formularies.” After these confessions of Anglicans themselves, what reason have they to be surprised if their present archiepiscopal authority decides that truth is not one, but two?

The same ritualistic organ we have been quoting speaks of a certain proposal as one which could only be made “by a madman or a bishop.” In the _Church Times_ for June 12, under the title of “The Worship Bill in the Lords,” we find the following courteous, charitable, and refined observations: “The scheme devised by Archbishops Tait and Thompson for harrying the ritualists, and nearly pulling down the Church of England in order to do so, like that lord chief‐justice in China who burnt down his town‐house to roast a sucking‐pig, is not going quite as its authors hoped,” etc. Again: “But Dr. Tait has been contented to remain to the present hour in entire ignorance of the laws, usages, and temper of the Church of England, and therefore it is impossible for the most charitable critic to give him credit for religious motives. The best that can be said of him is that he has a creed of some kind, which is Erastianism, and therefore prefers the English Establishment to the Scottish, as the wealthier and more dignified of the two. [The bishops] have collectively betrayed their trust, and convinced churchmen that the episcopal seats in the House of Lords are a weakness and not a strength to the church.” “This misconduct of the bishops will do much to destroy the unreal glamour which their official position has enabled them to throw over the eyes of the moderate High‐Church clergy, who now learn that no considerations of faith, honor, and duty have the least weight with their lordships when any personal questions intervene, and therefore their wings will be clipped pretty closely when,” etc. “But there is, we are thankful to say, a deep‐ rooted distrust of the bishops,” and “even archiepiscopal mops and brooms cannot drive back the waters of ritualism!” With specimens such as these before us, we do not wonder that Dr. Pusey, who is a gentleman as well as a Christian, thought it advisable at the opening of his speech before the recent ritualistic meeting at S. James’ Hall, against the archbishop’s bill, to express his hope that the words of S. Paul would not be forgotten, “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of my people.”