Chapter XIII: The Search Nearly Over (2)

“When M. le Comte _dreamt_ that he got up and lighted his candle,” corrected the incorrigible sceptic. Raymond laughed and gave it up. But it was true, notwithstanding Angélique’s obstinate incredulity, that he did pass many white nights now, and the wakefulness was insensibly and imperceptibly telling on his health. It was a curious fact, too, that the more the want of sleep was injuring him, the less he was conscious of suffering from it. He had been passionately fond of astronomy in his youth, and he had resumed the long-neglected study with something of youthful zest, enjoying the observation of the starry constellations in the bright midnight silence with a sense of repose and communion with those brilliant, far-off worlds that surprised and delighted himself. Perhaps the feeling that he was now cut off from possible communion with his fellow-men threw him more on nature for companionship, urging him to seek on her glorious brow for the smiles that human faces denied him, and to accept her loving fellowship in lieu of the sympathy that his brothers refused him.

But rich and inexhaustible as the treasures of the great mother are, they are at best but a compensation; nothing but human love and human intercourse can satisfy the cravings of a human heart. Raymond was beginning to realize this. His forced isolation was becoming poignantly oppressive to him. He longed to see Sir Simon, to hear his voice, to feel the warm clasp of his hand; he longed, above all, to get back his old feeling of gratitude to him. Raymond little suspected what a moral benefactor his light-hearted, worldly-minded friend had been to him all those years when he was perpetually offering services that were so seldom accepted. Sir Simon was all the time feeding his heart with the milk of human kindness, making a bond between the proud, poor brother and the rest of the rich and happy brotherhood who were strangers to him. Raymond loved them all for the sake of this one. Nothing nourishes our hearts like gratitude. It widens our space for love, and enlarges our capacity for kindness; it creates a want in us to send the same happy thrills through other hearts that are stirring our own. We overflow with love to all in thankfulness for the love of one. This is often our only way of giving thanks, and the good it does us is sometimes a more abiding gain than the service that has called it forth. It was all this that Raymond missed in Sir Simon. In losing his loving sense of gratefulness he seemed to have lost some vital warmth in his own life. Now that the source which had fed this gratitude was dried up, all that was tender and kind and good in him seemed to be running dry or turning to bitterness. The estrangement of one had estranged him from all; he was at war with all humanity. Would any sacrifice of pride be too great to win back the old sweet life, with its trust, and ready sympathy, and indulgent kindness? Why should he not write to Sir Simon? He had asked himself this many times, and had written many letters in imagination, and some even in reality; but Angélique had found them torn up in the waste-paper basket next morning, and had been surprised to see the fresh sheets of note-paper, which she recognized as her master’s, wasted in that manner and thrown away. He knew what he was doing, probably; it was not for her to lecture him on such matters, but she could not help setting down the unnatural extravagance as a part of the general something that was amiss with her master.

One morning, however, after one of those white nights that gave rise to so much discussion in the family, Raymond came down with his mind made up to write a letter and send it. He could stand it no longer; he must go to his friend and lay bare his heart to him, so that they might come together again. If Sir Simon’s silence was an offence, Raymond’s was not free from blame. He sat down and wrote. It was a long letter--several sheets closely filled. When it was finished, and Raymond was folding it and putting it into the envelope, he remembered that he did not know where the baronet was. If he sent it to the Court, the servants would recognize the handwriting and think it odd his addressing a letter there in their master’s absence. He thought of forwarding it to Sir Simon’s bankers; but then, again, how did matters stand at present between him and them? He might have gone abroad and not left them his address, and the letter might remain there indefinitely. While Raymond was debating what he should do he closed up and stamped the blank envelope, making it ready to be addressed; then he laid it on the top of his writing desk, and wrote a few lines to the bankers, requesting them to forward Sir Simon’s address, if they had it or could inform him how a letter would reach him.

He seemed relieved when this was done, and, for the first time for nearly a month, called Franceline to come and write for him. She did so for a couple of hours, and noticed with thankfulness that her father was in very good, almost in high, spirits, laughing and talking a great deal, as if elated by some inward purpose. Her glad surprise was increased when he said abruptly:

“Now, my little one, run and put on thy bonnet, and we will go for a walk in the park together.”

The day was cold, and there was a sharp wind blowing; but the sun was very bright, and the park looked green and fresh and beautiful as they entered it, she leaning on him with a fond little movement from time to time and an exclamation of pleasure. He smiled on her very tenderly, and chatted about all sorts of things as in the old days of a month ago before the strange cloud had drawn a curtain between their lives. He talked with great animation of his work, and the excitement it would be to them both when it was published.

“We shall go to Paris for the publication, and then I will show thee the wonderful sights of the great city: the Louvre, and the Museum of Cluny, and many antiquities that will interest thee mightily; and we will go to some fine _modiste_ and get thee a smart French bonnet, and thou wilt be quite a little _élégante_!”

“Oh! how nice it will be, petit père,” cried Franceline, squeezing his arm in childish glee; “and many learned men will be coming to see you, will they not, and writing articles in praise of your great work?”

“Ha! Praise! I know not if it will all be praise,” said the author, with a dubious smile. “Some will not approve of my views on certain historical pets. I have torn the masks off many _soi-disant_ heroes, and replaced others in the position that bigotry or ignorance has hitherto denied them. I wonder what Simon will say to it all?”

Raymond smiled complacently as he said this. It was the first time he had mentioned the baronet. Franceline felt as if a load were lifted off her, and that all the mists were clearing away.

“He is sure to be delighted with it!” she exclaimed. “He always is, even when he quarrels with you, petit père. I think he quarrels for the pleasure of it; and then he is so proud of you!”

They walked as far as the house, and then Raymond said it was time to turn back; it was too cold for Franceline to stay out more than half an hour.

An event had taken place at The Lilies in their absence. The postman had been there and had brought a letter. Raymond started when Angélique met him at the door with this announcement, adding that she had left it on the chimney-piece.

He went straight in and opened it. It was from Sir Simon. After explaining in two lines how Clide de Winton had arrived in time to save him at the last hour, the writer turned at once to Raymond’s troubles. Nothing could be gentler than the way he approached the delicate subject. “Why should we be estranged from one another, Raymond? Do you suppose I suspect you? And what if I did? I defy even that to part us. The friendship that can change was never genuine; ours can know no change. I have tried in every possible way to account satisfactorily for your strange, your suicidal behavior on that night, and I have not succeeded. I can only conclude that you were beside yourself with anxiety, and over-excited, and incapable of measuring the effect of your refusal and your conduct altogether. But admitting, for argument’s sake, that you did take it; what then? There is such a thing as momentary insanity from despair, as the delirium of a sick and fevered heart. At such moments the noblest men have been driven to commit acts that would be criminal if they were not mad. It would ill become _me_ to cast a stone at _you_--I, who have been no better than a swindler these twenty years past! Raymond, there can be no true friendship without full confidence. We may give our confidence sometimes without our love following; but when we give our love, our confidence must of necessity follow. When we have once given the key of our heart to a friend, we have given him the right to enter into it at all times, to read its secrets, to open every door, even that, and above that, behind which the skeleton stands concealed. You and I gave each other this right when we were boys, Raymond; we have used it loyally one towards the other ever since, and I have done nothing to forfeit the privilege now. All things are arranged by an overruling Providence, and God is wise as he is merciful; yet I cannot forbear asking how it is that I should have been saved from myself, and that you should not have been delivered from temptation--you, whose life has been one long triumph of virtue over adversity! It will be all made square one day; meantime, I bless God that the weaker brother has been mercifully dealt with and permitted to rescue the nobler and the worthier one. The moment I hear from you I will come to Dullerton, and you and Franceline must come away with me to the south. I will explain when we meet why this letter has been so long delayed.” Then came a postscript quite at the bottom of the page: “Send that wretched bauble to me in a box, addressed to my bankers. Rest assured of one thing: you shall be cleared before men as you already are before a higher and a more merciful tribunal.”

Many changes passed over Raymond’s countenance as he read this letter; but when his eye fell on the postscript, the smile that had hovered between sadness, tenderness, and scorn subsided into one of almost saturnine bitterness, and a light gathered in his eyes that was not goodly to see. But the feelings which these signs betrayed found no other outward vent. M. de la Bourbonais quietly and deliberately tore up the letter into very small pieces, and then, instead of throwing them into the waste-paper basket, he dropped them into the grate. The fire was low; he took the poker and stirred it to make a blaze, and then watched the flame catching the bits one by one and consuming them.

“It is fortunate I did not send mine!” was his mental congratulation as he turned to his desk, intending to feed the dying flame with two more offerings. But where were they? Raymond pushed about his papers, but could not find either of the letters. Angélique was called. Had she seen them?

“Oh! yes; I gave them both to the postman,” she explained, with a nod of her flaps that implied mystery.

“How both? There was only one to go. The other had no address on it,” said Raymond.

“I saw it, M. le Comte.” Another mysterious nod.

“And yet you gave it to the postman?”

“Yes. I am a discreet woman, as M. le Comte knows, and he might have trusted me to keep a quiet tongue in my head; but monsieur knows his own affairs best,” added Angélique in an aggrieved tone.

“My good Angélique, explain yourself a little more lucidly,” said M. de la Bourbonais with slight impatience. “What could induce you to give the postman a letter that had neither name nor address on it?”

“Bless me! I thought M. le Comte did not wish me to know who he was writing to!”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Raymond, too annoyed to notice the absurdity of the reply. “But how could the postman take it when he saw it was a blank envelope?”

“I did not let him see it; I slipped the two with my own hands into the bag,” said Angélique.

M. de la Bourbonais moved his spectacles, and shrugged his shoulders in a way that was expressive of anything but gratitude for this zeal. He hesitated a moment or two, debating what he should do. The only way to ensure getting back his letter immediately was to go off himself to the post-office, and claim it before it was taken out to be stamped with the postmark, when it would be opened in order to be returned to the writer. There might be no harm in its being opened; the postmaster was not a French scholar that Raymond knew of, but he might have a friend at hand who was, and who would be glad to gratify his curiosity, as well as exhibit his learning, by reading the count’s letter.

Raymond set off at once, so as to prevent this. It was the first time for some weeks that he had shown himself in or near the town; and if his mind had not been so full of his errand, he would have been painfully conscious and shy at finding himself abroad in open daylight in his old haunts and within the observation of many eyes that knew him. But he did not give this a thought; he was calculating the chances for and against his arriving at the post-office before the postman had come back from his rounds and handed in the out-going letters to be marked, and his imagination was running on to the wildest conclusions in the event of his being too late. He walked as if for a wager; not running, but as near to it as possible. The pace and his intense look of preoccupation attracted many glances that he would have escaped had he walked on quietly at his ordinary pace. He was not a minute too soon, however, just coming up as the postman appeared with his replenished bag. M. de la Bourbonais hastened to describe the shape and color of his blank envelope, and to explain how it had come to be where it was, and was most emphatic in protesting that he did not mean the letter to go, and that he was prepared to take any steps to prevent its going. There was no need to be so earnest, about it. The postmaster assured him at once that the letter would be forthcoming in a moment, and that his word would be quite enough to identify it and ensure its being returned to him. It seemed an age to Raymond while the letters were being turned out and sorted, but at last the man held up the blank envelope, with its queen’s head in the corner, and exclaimed jubilantly: “Here it is!”

The count seized it with avidity, and hurried away, leaving the postmaster half-amused, half-mystified, at his excited volubility and warm expressions of thanks. There was no necessity to rush home at the same pace that he had rushed out, but Raymond felt like a machine wound up to a pitch of velocity that must be kept up until the wheel stopped of its own accord. His hat was drawn over his eyes, and his head bent like a person walking on mechanically, neither seeing nor hearing what might be going on around him. He was soon beyond the streets and shop-windows, and back amidst the fields and hedges. There was a clatter of horses coming down the road. M. de la Bourbonais saw two gentlemen on horseback approaching. He recognized them, even in the distance, at a glance: Sir Ponsonby Anwyll and Mr. Charlton. Raymond’s heart leaped up to his throat. What would they do? Stop and speak, or cut him dead? A few seconds would decide. They were close on him now, but showed no sign of reining in to speak. Ponsonby Anwyll raised his hat in a formal salutation; Mr. Charlton looked straight before him and rode on. All the blood in his body seemed to rush at the instant to Raymond’s face. He put his hand to his forehead and stood to steady himself; then he walked home, never looking to the right or the left until he reached The Lilies.

Angélique called out from the kitchen window to know if he had made it right about the letter; but he took no heed of her, only walked in and went straight up to his room. She heard him close the door. There certainly was something queer come to him of late. What did he want, going to shut himself in his bedroom this time of day, and then passing her without answering?

Franceline was in the study, busy arranging some primroses and wild violets that she had been gathering under the hedge while her father was out. A noise as of a body falling heavily to the ground in the room overhead made her drop the flowers and fly up the stairs. Angélique had hastened from the kitchen to ask what was the matter; but a loud shriek rang through the house in answer to her question.

“Angélique, come! O my God! Father! father!”

Raymond was lying prostrate on the floor, insensible, while Franceline lifted his head in her arms, and kissed him and called to him. “Oh! What has happened to him? Father! father! speak to me. O my God! is he dead?” she cried, raising her pale, agonized face to the old servant with a despairing appeal.

“No! no! Calm thyself! He has but fainted; he is not dead,” said Angélique, feeling her master’s pulse and heart. “See, put thy hand here and feel! If he were dead, it would not beat.”

Franceline laid her finger on the pulse. She felt the feeble beat; it was scarcely perceptible, but she could feel it.

“We must lift him on to the bed,” said Angélique, and she grasped the slight form of her master with those long, brown arms of hers, and laid it gently on the bed, Franceline assisting as she might.

“Now, my petite, thou wilt be brave,” said the faithful creature, forgetting herself in her anxiety to spare and support Franceline. “Thou wilt stay here and do what is necessary whilst I run and fetch the doctor.”

She poured some eau-de-cologne into a basin of water, and desired her to keep bathing her father’s forehead and chafing his hands until she returned. This, after loosing his cravat and letting in as much air as possible, was all her experience suggested.

Franceline sat down and did as she was told; but the perfect stillness, the deathlike immobility of the face and the form, terrified her. She suspended the bathing to breathe on it, as if her warm breath might bring back consciousness and prove more potent than the cold water. But Raymond remained insensible to all. The silence began to oppress Franceline like a ghastly presence; the cooing of her doves outside sounded like a dirge. Could this be death? His pulse beat so faintly she hardly knew whether it was his or the pulse of her own trembling fingers that she felt. A chill of horror came over her; the first vague dread was gradually shaping itself in her mind to the most horrible of certainties. If he should never awake, never speak again, never open those closed eyes on her with the old tender glance of love that had been as familiar and unfailing as the sunlight to her! Oh! what a fearful awakening came with this first realization of that awful possibility. What vain shadows, what trivial empty things, were those that she had until now called sorrows! What a joy it would be to take them all back again, and bear them, increased tenfold in bitterness, to the end of her life, if this great, this real sorrow might be averted! Franceline dropped on her knees beside the bed, and, clasping her hands, sent up one of those cries that we all of us find in our utmost need, when there is only God who can help us: “O Father! thy will be done. But if it be possible, … if it be possible, … let this cup pass from me!”

There were steps on the stairs. It was Angélique come back. She had only been ten minutes away--the longest ten minutes that ever a trembling heart watched through--but Franceline knew she could not have been to the doctor’s and back so quickly. “I met M. le Vicaire just at the end of the lane, and he is gone for the doctor; he was riding, so he will be there in no time.”

Then she made Franceline go and fetch hot water from the kitchen, and busied her in many little ways, under pretence of being useful, until Dr. Blink’s carriage was heard approaching. The medical man was not alone; Mr. Langrove and Father Henwick accompanied him.

Angélique drew the young girl out of her father’s room, and sent her to stay with Father Henwick, while the doctor, assisted by Mr. Langrove and herself, attended to M. de la Bourbonais.

“Oh! what is it? Did the doctor tell you?” she whispered, her dark eyes preternaturally dilated in their tearless glance, as she raised it to Father Henwick’s face.

“He could say nothing until he had seen him. Tell me, my dear child, did your father ever have anything of this sort happen him before?” inquired Father Henwick, as unconcernedly as he could.

“Never, never that I heard of, unless it may have been when I was too little to remember,” said Franceline; and then added nervously, “Why?”

“Thank God! It is safe, then, not to be so serious,” was the priest’s hearty exclamation. “Please God, you will see him all right again soon; he has been overdoing of late, working too hard, and not taking air or exercise enough. The blade has been wearing out the sheath--that’s what it is; but Blink will pull him through with God’s help.”

“Father,” said Franceline, laying both hands on his arm with an unconscious movement that was very expressive, “do you know it seems to me as if I were only waking up, only beginning to live now. Everything has been unreal like a dream until this. Is it a punishment for being so ungrateful, so rebellious, so blind to the blessings that I had?”

“If it were, my child, punishment with God is only another name for mercy,” said Father Henwick. “Our best blessings come to us mostly in the shape of crosses. Perhaps you were not thankful enough for the great blessing of your father’s love, for his health and his delight in you; perhaps you let your heart long too much for other things; and if so, God has been mindful of his foolish little one, and has sent this touch of fear to teach her to value more the mercies that were vouchsafed to her, and not to pine for those that were denied. We seldom see things in their true proportions until the shadow of death falls on them.”

“The shadow of death!” echoed Franceline, her white lips growing still whiter. “Oh! if it be but the shadow, my life will be too short for thanksgiving, were I to live to the end of the world.”

“Ha! here they come,” said Father Henwick, opening the study-door as he heard the doctor’s steps, followed by Mr. Langrove’s, on the stair.

Franceline went forward to meet them; she did not speak, but Dr. Blink held out his hand in answer to her questioning face, and said cheerfully: “The count is much better; he has recovered consciousness, and is doing very nicely, very nicely indeed for the present. Come! there is nothing to be frightened at, my dear young lady.”

Franceline could not utter a word, not even to murmur “Thank God!” But the dead weight that had been pressing on her heart was lifted, she gasped for breath, and then the blessed relief of tears came.

“My poor little thing! My poor Franceline!” said the vicar, leading her gently to a chair, and smoothing the dark gold hair with paternal kindness.

“Let her cry; it will do her good,” said Dr. Blink kindly; and then he turned to speak in a low voice to Father Henwick and Mr. Langrove.

He had concluded, from the incoherent account which Mr. Langrove had gathered from Angélique, that he should come prepared for a case of apoplexy, and had brought all that was necessary to afford immediate relief. He had recourse to bleeding in the first instance, and it had proved effective. M. de la Bourbonais was, as he said, doing very well for the present. Consciousness had returned, and he was calm and free from suffering. Franceline was too inexperienced to understand where the real danger of the attack lay. She fancied that, since her father had regained consciousness, there could be nothing much worse than a bad fainting fit, brought on by fatigue of mind and body, and, now that the Rubicon was past, he would soon be well, and she would take extra care of him, so as to prevent a relapse. Her passionate burst of tears soon calmed down, and she rose up to thank her visitors with that queenly self-command that formed so striking a part of her character.

“I am very grateful to you for coming so quickly; it was very good of you,” she said, extending her hand to Dr. Blink: “May I go to him now?”

“No, no, not just yet,” he replied promptly. “I would rather he were left perfectly quiet for a few hours. We will look in on him later; not that it is necessary, but we shall be in the neighborhood, and may as well turn in for a moment.” He wished them good-afternoon, and was gone.

“And how did you happen to come in just at the right moment?” said Franceline, turning to Father Henwick. “It did not occur to me before how strange it was. Was it some good angel that told you to come to me, I wonder?”

“The very thing! You have hit it to a nicety!” said Mr. Langrove. “It was an angel that did it.”

“Yes,” said Father Henwick, falling into the vicar’s playful vein, “and the odd thing was that he came riding up to my house on a fat Cumberland pony! Now, we all know S. Michael has been seen on a white charger, but this is the first time, to my knowledge, that an angel was ever seen mounted on a Cumberland pony.”

“Dear Mr. Langrove, how good of you!” said Franceline, with moistened eyes, and she pressed his hand.

“Had you not better come out with me now for a short walk?” said the vicar. “I sha’n’t be more than half an hour, and it will do you good. Come and have early tea at the vicarage, and we will walk home with you before Blink comes back. What do you say?”

“Oh! I think I had better not go out, I feel so shaken and tired; and then papa might ask for me, you know. I shall not go near him unless he does, after what Dr. Blink said.”

“Well, perhaps it is as well for you to keep quiet. Good-by, dear. I will look in on you this evening.”

“And so will I, my child,” said Father Henwick, laying his broad hand on her head; and the two gentlemen left the cottage together.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE FRIENDS OF EDUCATION.

To pass from the discussion of arguments to the question of motives is a most common yet most unjustifiable manœuvre of popular debate. This is usually done when the field of calm and logical reasoning has become tolerably clear. The flank movement is attempted as a final struggle against defeat otherwise inevitable. If the motive thus impugned be really indefensible; if it be, at the same time, glaring or manifest, a positive advantage is sometimes gained by a vigorous diversion from the real object of contention. But if such a motive has to be alleged--or, still worse, invented--the demonstration against it, however violent, is but a reluctant and ungracious acknowledgment of defeat and a flight from the real point at issue. The most recent instance of this sort is taking place before the American public, and has been afforded by those who endeavor to represent Catholics as opposed to free and liberal education, thereby attainting the motives of the position which Catholics have been forced to assume with regard to what are falsely called “common” schools.

This attitude of our opponents, however, we regard not without complacency. Our object is not war, but peace and good-will among citizens. We hail the present violent misrepresentation as a sign that the enemy is close to the “last ditch,” and that the discussion approaches its conclusion. When this final effort to distort the Catholic object and to asperse the Catholic character has exhausted itself and been held up to the inspection of the American people, we shall have seen the end of the “school question.” We insist upon an improvement in our educational system which is necessary to perfect its character and to satisfy the requirements of the times. The present system does not meet the wishes of a very large portion of the community, is unfair to others besides Catholics, and is out of harmony with the spirit of free institutions. A system is wanted which shall at least be equal to that of monarchical countries, fair to all citizens alike, and which will relieve Catholics from the double burden of educating their own children, besides paying for a system of education of which they cannot conscientiously avail themselves.

The correctness of the Catholic position is so manifest, and is so rapidly gaining the recognition of all thoughtful classes, that those who are unwilling to allow Catholics equal rights as citizens are forced, in order to hide the truth, not only to maintain that the present system is absolutely perfect and incapable of any improvement, but to accuse Catholics of harboring ideas of which they are not only innocent, but which it would be wholly impossible for them to entertain--such as that they are afraid of the light; that they attack the present system because they are inimical to all education; and that their object is, if possible, to do away with it altogether. Accusations similar to these are daily repeated, garnished with rhetoric, and sent forth to alarm our fellow-citizens and to encourage them to turn a deaf ear to whatever Catholics may say. The weak point of this movement against us is that the people will notice that it does not deal at all with the validity of Catholic claims, and that it shirks the only question at issue. They will be led to suspect that it is emphatically a “dodge”; and the mere suspicion of this will awaken curiosity as to what Catholics really have to say--a curiosity fatal to the success of the flank attack.

In the language of those who advance the charge with which we propose to deal, education means either primary instruction in the elements of knowledge, or else higher academic culture, such as is to be furnished by colleges and universities. If, therefore, Catholics are hostile to education, in this sense of the word, they must be opposed either to the general spread of such information as is aimed at in elementary and normal schools, or to the existence and growth of the higher institutions of science and art.

We are perfectly aware that there is another meaning given to the word education, to which reference is made, simply in order to avoid obscurity.

Philosophers of the class to which Mr. Huxley belongs understand by education a certain specific course of moral and intellectual training, the aim of which is to ensure its pupils against ever being affected by “theological tendencies.” Such impressions are to be made upon childhood, and matured in more advanced stages, as will rid men of that natural but awkward habit of reasoning from cause to effect; which will free them from all hope of any life but the present, and any fear of future responsibility, in order that they may be impelled to devote themselves solely to the analysis and classification of material phenomena, since this is the only purpose of man’s existence--such a course of spiritual defloration as was practised upon the tender and noble genius of the late John Stuart Mill, the results of which, as manifested by the revelation of his biography, afford, in the words of an ingenuous, critic, “a most unpleasant spectacle.” A process of this kind is not education; it is a heartrending and lamentable destruction of that which is noblest and most essential in man, and as a definition has not yet obtained a place in the English language.

If any of our readers would care to know our own ultimate definition of education, we should describe it as the complete and harmonious development of all the powers of man in reference to his true end. But for present purposes it is sufficient to adopt the ordinary sense of the word, as meaning the diffusion of knowledge by scholastic exercises in academies and colleges.

If it appears singular to enlightened Protestants to hear a demand for circumscription and discouragement of Catholics, and, if possible, the suppression of religious education, from that faction whose motto is “Liberty and Light,” we trust that it will seem none the less paradoxical to hear the charge of favoring ignorance urged with most vehemence against us by those whose boast, up to within a few years, has been “a ministry without education, and a way to heaven without grammar.”

The first demand does not in the least surprise us, coming, as it does, from a crude and undigested assumption of the principles of European radicalism. We have seen its consistency illustrated by madmen chasing, robbing, and killing one another to the cry of “liberty, equality, fraternity.” We understand what it is to be assaulted by this party, which knows not how to act except in the way of destruction, which is never at rest except in the midst of agitation, and never at peace, so to speak, except when at war.

Nor is it strange to see an attempt against Catholics made outside the field of theological controversy, inasmuch as the result of controversy for the past two centuries has tended rather to the disintegration of Protestantism than to the conversion of Catholics to the new faith. Nor is it surprising to find this assault directed against the equal rights of Catholics in education; for here some earnest but short-sighted men imagine that there is not simply ground to be gained, but that the present system is a stronghold not to be given up. It is a stronghold, truly, but rather of infidelity than of Protestantism.

But educated Protestants and heathen will marvel with us that the attack has been made on the theory that Protestantism is the born friend, and Catholicity the natural enemy of education, knowing as well as we the fatal evidence of history.

The contempt for education which, until more recent times, has always existed, to a certain extent, among the orthodox Protestants, was founded upon their erroneous doctrines of the total depravity of human nature, the consequent invalidity of human reason, and the principle of private illumination.

When Luther said, “The god Moloch, to whom the Jews immolated their children, is to-day represented by the universities” (_Wider den Missbrauch der Messe_), it was not simply on the ground of the universities being centres of association for boisterous and disorderly youth, or fortresses of the ancient faith, but because of that “pagan and impious science” which was taught in them.

In his furious onslaught against them Luther was sustained by his well-known hatred of anything which tended to assert the prerogatives of human nature or the dignity of reason. No man was ever more intemperate in denunciation than this so-called “liberator of humanity and emancipator of human reason.” “True believers strangle reason,” said he; and he never alluded to it except in terms of most outrageous abuse. The last sermon of his at Wittenberg[253] is monumental in this respect; and his well-known reply to the Anabaptists is one of the most startling examples of his intensely idiomatic style.[254]

The feelings of the master were fully communicated to the disciples. The results were fearful. The free schools which existed in every city were overturned by the very men whom they had educated; the _gymnasia_ were in many places wholly destroyed, in others so reduced as never to recover their former position.

At Wittenberg itself the two preachers, Spohr and Gabriel Didymus, announced from the pulpit that the study of science was not simply useless but noxious, and that it was best to do away with the colleges and schools. The upshot was to change the academy of that city into a bakery. Similar measures were carried into effect throughout the entire duchy of Anspach. The history of the Reformation by Dr. Döllinger gives a long list of the numerous scholars, rectors of high schools and colleges, who were driven into exile, and also details a minute account of many of the institutions which were destroyed.

The statements of Erasmus, as to the disastrous results of the Reformation on studies, are constant and numberless. They may be formulated in a sentence of one of his letters to Pirkheimer (1538): “_Ubicumque regnat Lutheranismus, ibi litterarum est interitus_”--“Wherever Lutheranism reigns, there is the destruction of letters.”

The testimony of Sturm, Schickfuss, Bucer, and others is no less forcible. Luther and Melancthon in later days seem to have been appalled by their own work, and George Major thus sums up the melancholy condition of things in his own day: “Thanks to the wickedness of men and the contempt which we ourselves have shown for studies, the schools have more than ever need of patrons and protectors to save them from ruin, and to prevent us from falling into a state of barbarism worse than that of Turks and Muscovites.”

The interesting works of the Benedictines of St. Maur of the XVIIIth century, the Bollandists, and the collections of a few other Catholic scholars have preserved nearly all the material that is left from which to construct the history of the middle ages, so thorough was the work of destruction done on libraries by the Calvinists and Huguenots. The Bodleian library is but a fragment--a few torn leaves of the literature which was weeded out of England by the enlightened zeal of the much-married father of Anglicanism.

“What mad work this Dr. Coxe did in Oxon, while he sat chancellor, by being the chief man that worked a reformation there, I have elsewhere told you,” says Anthony Wood “To return at length to the royal delegates, some of whom yet remained in Oxford, doing such things as did not at all become those who professed to be learned and Christian men. For the principal ornaments, and at the same time supports, of the university--that is, the libraries, filled with innumerable works, both native and foreign--they permitted or directed to be despoiled.… Works of scholastic theology were sold off among those exercising the lowest description of arts; and those which contained circles or diagrams it was thought good to mutilate or burn, as containing certain proof of the magical nature of their contents.”

What was left undone by the royal delegates was thoroughly attended to by the Puritans, who never did their work by halves, and whose views with regard to the Bible and literature bore a close resemblance to those of the early Mohammedans in their comparative estimate of the Koran and secular writings.

For a full account of the effect of the revolution of the XVIth century on learning, people who may suspect Catholic writers of exaggeration can compare their statements with those of the learned Protestant Huber, in his exhaustive history of the universities. Even “honest Latimer,” who certainly was not a zealot for profane learning, lifted up his voice in complaint: “It would pity a man’s heart to hear that that I hear of the state of Cambridge; what it is in Oxford I cannot tell.” How it was at Oxford we have already seen. Throughout the length and breadth of the land the monastic schools, which were asylums both of mercy and learning, were destroyed; the mere list of their names, as given by the Protestant historian Cobbett, occupies one hundred and forty-five pages of his work. The present condition of the lower classes in England, which is due to their being thus deprived of means of education and assistance in distress, is the Nemesis of the Reformation. In listening to the demand that the government shall dispossess the present landlords as it despoiled the churchmen of old, we hear arguments of fearful power as to the extent of eminent domain. When it is asked why the crown and people shall not exercise for the common good the prerogative which was conceded and exercised formerly for the benefit of the crown alone, the present holders of property acquired by sacrilege may well take alarm at the progress of revolutionary ideas. And the question as to how far the people were forcibly deprived of the benefits of a trust vested for them in the church, may be decided “without constitutional authority and through blood.” God avert such a calamity from England! May the prayers of Catholic martyrs, of More and Fisher, intercede in her behalf, and save her from the consequences of that act, to prevent which, these, her truest sons, did not hesitate to offer up their lives! However, with these facts in view, it is scarcely wise for English Protestantism to assume the position of a necessary and perpetual friend of popular education. It is best to wait until the ink has become dry which has scored from the statute book of that realm the law making it felony to teach the alphabet to Catholics.

It would be gratifying to us to contrast with the conduct of the authors of Protestantism that of the great educators of Europe who laid the foundations of our civilization. A fierce and violent revolution has turned that civilization aside, and introduced into it principles of anarchy and death. A shallow and ungrateful era has failed to perceive and to acknowledge its debts. It is only in the pages of scholars such as Montalembert, the Protestants Maitland and Huber, and the author of that recent modest but most charming book entitled _Christian Schools and Scholars_, that we begin to notice a thoughtful inquiry into the history of our intellectual development. The masters slumber in forgetfulness and oblivion. We know not the builders of the great structures of the middle ages; and people generally know almost as little of its great intellectual and social system. The history of the human race for a thousand years of most intense activity is summed up in a few unmeaning words.

Time and space fail for such a comparison. But the fact that the first Protestants found themselves educated, the fact that they found schools to denounce and to destroy, in the XVIth century, is sufficient to justify us with regard to history prior to that date.

It would also be a pleasure to describe the progress of those magnificent bodies of Catholic educators which rose, under divine inspiration, as a check to the wave of revolution, and whose successes first stimulated the action of Protestants by the wholesome influence of fear. But this also is beyond our compass. We are ready to discuss the charge that Catholics are opposed to education, independently of all reference to Protestantism, by the test of positive facts, and to stand or fall by the Catholic record in modern times.

It is not necessary to cross the ocean or to visit countries where the munificence of ages has endowed the universities of Catholic lands; as, for instance, the seven great universities of the Papal States--Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino, Macerata, Camerino, Perugia, and Rome, each containing thousands of students. Nor is it necessary to remind the reader that the great Protestant universities, and notably those of England, are, to use the expression of a distinguished Anglican prelate, “a legacy of Catholicism.” The charge that Catholics are opposed to university education is simply laughable, considering that the university is essentially a Catholic idea, and has never, even in Europe, been successfully counterfeited.

It is not necessary, although it may be instructive, to refer to the free schools of the city of Rome, which, according to the testimony of a Protestant traveller, thirty years ago surpassed even those of Berlin in efficiency and relative number. They were, before the recent seizure by the Piedmontese government, the most numerous in proportion to the population and the most varied in character of any city in the world. They presented to their scholars the choice of day or night with regard to time, and prepared them for every profession, art, and trade. This matchless variety was doubtless the result of centuries of growth; but it was also the spontaneous outcome of zeal for education, and laid not a penny of taxation upon the people. So high was the standard of gratuitous education that private schools, at the beginning of the reign of our Holy Father Pius IX., had to struggle hard in order to retain the patronage of the wealthy classes. At that time there were in Rome 27 institutions and 387 schools for free education. Of these last, 180 were for little children of both sexes. Of the remainder, 94 were devoted to males and 113 to females. The total number of pupils in elementary schools amounted to 14,157, of which number 3,790 were of the infant class. Of those more advanced, 5,544 were males and 4,823 females. In elementary schools, _purely gratuitous_, 7,579 received education--viz., 3,952 boys and 3,627 girls.

There appears, however, in Cardinal Morichini’s report, a feature which has never yet been introduced into the American system--to wit, in _schools paying a small pension_ there were 1,592 boys and 1,196 girls; making a total in such schools of 2,788. This last item may furnish a hint to those who are anxious to secure the attendance of poor children in our own schools; although it is scarcely practicable where common education has to be provided by taxation alone. Of these 387 schools to which we have referred, 26 belonged to religious communities of men, and 23 to religious communities of women. The rest belonged to, or were conducted by, seculars. Besides these, 2,213 children of both sexes received free instruction in special conservatories.

In addition to this system of free primary education, there was the vast system of colleges and academies connected with the university, the advantages of which were at the command of the most limited and humble means.

It would be interesting to ask some of the high-school graduates in this country the simple historical question, “Who, in modern times; have done most for free education?” General Grant has doubtlessly contributed liberally towards it; so, it is to be presumed, has Mr. Blaine; so have many other distinguished lecturers on the subject of education. But if the question is rightly answered, the date will have to be assigned much earlier, and St. Joseph Calasanctius, Venerable de la Salle, Catherine McAuley, and a hundred thousand other “Papists” will have to take precedence of our illustrious fellow-citizens. The spectacle of one Christian Brother, or Ursuline Nun, or Sister of Mercy whose life is devoted to the instruction of the poor, with no recompense but the sweet privilege of being worn out in the service of fellow-men for the sake of Jesus Christ--such a spectacle as was afforded by the gifted Gerald Griffin, or by Mother Seton in our own country, and is daily shown among us by thousands of calm, intelligent men and amiable women, in the various religious orders--this is a testimony to education which none but Catholics can produce. And yet these men and women, these bright martyrs of charity, are they whom it is thought good to attack by every means within the reach of calumny.

Let it be understood that we do not overlook the efforts made by noble men and women in the ranks of Protestantism. Though few, and insignificant in intensity of zeal when compared with the daily and common sacrifices made by Catholics, nevertheless it must be borne in mind that these isolated attempts have been ineffectual, save only in so far as they have produced imperfect copies of the great works of Catholicity. Protestantism, as such, has never prompted or organized any great attempt at general free primary education. Indeed, it might be safely challenged to produce any instance of the kind. And if the American people to-day were to be seized with remorse for its injustice towards Catholics, and to propose immediately to do away with all public schools, we should object most strongly on the ground that no adequate means would then exist for the education of Protestant children. The problem of general education has never been faced by Protestantism. The system of godless education is an extremely modern and thoroughly pagan idea. If it has found favor among the leaders of Protestantism, this has been because they have accepted it as a solution of the educational problem; not having given the matter sufficient attention to observe the ruinous effect which it is producing on themselves.

From similar thoughtlessness comes their maintenance of the present system. It is a comparatively cheap solution, as far as individuals are concerned. It calls for no sacrifices. It is supposed to be sufficiently Protestant as long as the Bible is read in the schools. But if the present movement of the infidel party succeeds, and the “common” schools are reduced to purely irreligious institutions, the matter will soon force itself upon Protestant attention. We are convinced that they will perceive that Catholics have given the subject much more consideration than they supposed, and have been right throughout. Many of them will regret having misunderstood our views, and will be prepared to endorse the proposition that such schools are subversive of Christianity and demoralizing in their tendency. They will then endeavor to repair the evils which may still result from their ill-judged neglect of Catholic remonstrance. They will demand to be put upon at least an equal footing with infidels, probably with as much vehemence as Catholics have demanded an equal footing for all citizens alike. If they find themselves hopelessly debarred from this by the radical changes in the constitution which some of their number are even now proposing, they will impeach these amendments. This failing, they will find themselves in the position in which Catholics now are. Then, for the first time in history, will Protestantism have a fair chance to show how much it cares for education.

But, as already intimated, it is not necessary to cross the seas to discover testimony in rebuttal of the gratuitous slander which is urged against Catholics. Nor is there need to summon from the tomb the teachers of those who founded the so-called Reformation, nor to institute an historic comparison between the labors of Catholics and Protestants. Still less need is there to attempt to penetrate the future as to what Catholics may do for education when they are relieved of one-half of their present twofold burden.

We live in the XIXth century and in America; and in this, very age and country Catholics are doing more for education than is actually done by any other denomination, and, in proportion to their numbers and means, more than is done by all other denominations put together, which outnumber Catholics by at least four to one--Catholics, forsooth, who are impudently charged with being opposed to primary schools and collegiate training!