Chapter XIV: The Episode Explained (5)

The maritime strength of the Italian republics, especially of Genoa and Venice, corresponded to their vast commercial interests and the number of colonies they were expected to enlarge and defend. Thus, the Pisans in 1114 sent an armament, consisting of 300 vessels of various sizes, carrying 35,000 men and 900 horses, to the conquest of the Balearic Islands, which had become a nest of Moorish pirates. A great part of these troops were mercenaries procured from all parts of the world, and contingents drawn from their possessions in Sardinia. In 1293 the Genoese fitted out in a single month, against the Venetians, 200 galleys, each of which bore from 220 to 300 combatants recruited within the continental limits of the republic; and in the vast arsenal of Venice during the fourteenth century 800 men were continually at work, and 200 galleys, not to count the smaller craft, were kept ready in port for any emergency that might arise. Such formidable fleets were manned either by voluntary enlistments or impressment; the hope of heavy plunder, according to the barbarous war-system of those days, which the church strove against but could not wholly change, appealing to young men to serve as sailors or soldiers. The furious rivalry between Genoa and Venice began to show itself soon after the taking of Constantinople by the Franks in 1244, each desiring to reap alone the profits of the Levant trade. After many bloody encounters a peace was patched up in 1298, by which the latter was excluded for thirteen years from the Black Sea, along whose shores the former had colonies, forts, and factories, and was forbidden to send armed vessels to Syria. Terms so propitious raised the pride and influence of Genoa to the utmost; and feared by all, and claiming to be mistress of the seas, she upheld the honor of her flag with extravagant solicitude. In 1332 she wasted the coast of Catalonia with a force of 200 galleys, and inflicted great injury on the commerce of Barcelona; and two years later, having captured twelve ships of the enemy, heavily freighted with merchandise, in the waters of Sicily, Cyprus, and Sardinia, with an example of ferocious cruelty which only the “accursed greed of gold” and a determination to exclude the Catalans from any share in Eastern commerce could prompt, six hundred prisoners were hanged at a single execution. She was resolved to command the seas, and consequently the trade of the world; but her rival, although crippled, was not prostrate, and the fourth war broke out between them in 1372 for possession of the classical island of Tenedos, so valuable as a naval station and renowned for its wheat and excellent red wine. The Genoese actually got into the lagoons of Venice, vowing to reduce her to the stagnant level of the waters, and approached so near to the city that their admiral could shout to the affrighted people on the quays, _Delenda est Carthago_! but by a singular freak of fortune they were themselves totally defeated, and glad to accept the mediation of Amadeus VI., Duke of Savoy. It was agreed that neither party should have the island in dispute, but that the duke should hold it at their common expense for two years and then dismantle the fortress.

During this war, called the War of Chioggia, which lasted until 1381, an unusually large number of corsairs roved the seas; but the Italians had long practised piracy, and whole communities were corsairs by profession, just as on land _condottieri_ could be hired to sack cities and castles and desolate whole provinces. The little town of Monaco was notorious during the middle ages for its pirates, as it still is for its ravenous land-sharks. There were two sorts of corsairs. Some were private individuals who went to sea through lust of gain, or because driven from their homes during the fights of faction, and seized whatever they could. These robberies and depredations marked piracy in its original form. Nevertheless during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries many otherwise honorable characters, who were often unjustly despoiled of their patrimony and driven as outcasts from their native cities, took to this occupation not entirely from inclination, but impelled by the brutality of their countrymen. We may recall as an extenuating circumstance what that grave judge, Lord Stowell, observed (2 Dods. 374) of the buccaneers, whose spirit at one time approached to that of chivalry in point of adventure, and whose manner of life was thought to reflect no disgrace upon distinguished Englishmen who engaged in it.

Other corsairs were patriotic citizens who armed their ships to injure the enemy during lawful hostilities; and although there was abuse in the system, they were not pirates, but privateersmen. Foreign nations used to buy ships from the Italians to increase their own armaments, or engage them to harass their opponents. It is curious, considering how completely maritime supremacy has deserted the Mediterranean for northern seas, to know that the poet Chaucer was sent by King Edward III. in November, 1372, as envoy to the republic of Genoa to hire vessels for his navy; and Tytler says (_Hist. of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 261) that in the same century many of the privateers employed by the Scots against England appear to have been vessels of larger dimensions and more formidable equipment than those of England, probably from their being foreign built, and furnished by the Genoese or the Venetians, for the purposes both of trade and piracy.

It was now that the word _Jane_ came into the language—Chaucer and Spenser use it—for a small coin so-called from Janua (Genoa). It is termed in the old English statutes a _galley half-pence_.

The Florentines had originally no seaboard, and were obliged to charter ships wherever they could. In 1362, having taken into the service of the republic Pierin Grimaldi of Genoa, with two galleys, and hired two more vessels, their little fleet took the island of Giglio from the Pisans, and the following year, having broken into the port of Pisa itself, they took away the chains that protected it and hung them as trophies on the porphyry columns of their Baptistery.

The foreign commerce for which the maritime cities of Italy, and particularly Genoa and Venice, so savagely disputed, to the scandal of the Christian name among the infidels, as the old English traveller Sir John de Mandeville shows, was certainly very considerable, and a source of almost fabulous profit to those engaged in it who were fortunate in their ventures. Commerce was the foundation of Italy’s prosperity, which was greater than that of any other European country from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. The Italian merchants got cottons, silken goods, brocades, Cashmere shawls, spices, rhubarb and other medicines, amber, indigo, pearls, and diamonds from India and Central Asia. From Persia there came silks, carpets, skins, and manufactured articles used by the great for clothing or for the comfort of their homes. Tartary and Russia furnished hemp, canvas, ship-timber, tar, wax, caviare, raw-hides, and peltries. From the ports of Syria and Asia Minor, and particularly from Smyrna, were shipped to Italy hare-skins, leather, camel’s hair, valonia, cotton stuffs, damasks, dried fruits, beeswax, drugs and electuaries, arms, armor, and cutlery; and many articles of Asiatic luxury and magnificence found their way thence through Italian merchants to the courts and castles of England, Scotland, France, Germany, and other northern nations. Greece sent fine wines, raisins, currants, filbert-nuts, silk, and alum. A large quantity of grain was brought into Italy from Egypt and the Barbary States; but the supply to the colonies in the Levant came mostly from the Black Sea. Wool, wax, sheep-skins, and morocco came from the Moorish provinces of Africa. These were the principal imports, and were exchanged for the products and manufactures of Italy and the countries to the north, for which the Italians acted as agents. The Genoese exported immense quantities of woven fabrics from the looms of Lombardy and Florence, fine linens from Bologna, and cloths of a coarser make from France, for which a ready market was found in the East and among the Italians settled in the Archipelago and Levant. The oils of Provence and the Riviera of Genoa, soaps, saffron, and coral, were also largely exported. Quicksilver was a valuable article in the hands of the Venetians, who got it from Istria and sold it in Spain and the Levant; they also extracted a great amount of salt from Istria and Dalmatia, which was sold at a good profit in Lombardy and other parts of Italy. Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples also did a large foreign business; the last city importing cargoes of delicate Greek and Oriental wines, such as the famous Cyprian, Malmsey, and Muscatel, much of which was sent to different parts of Italy, and into England and the Netherlands. Spain, Portugal, and Flanders were supplied with the products of the Indies and Levant principally by Genoese and Venetian merchants. The latter especially had many privileges and fiscal exemptions in Flanders, and in returning from the North loaded their ships in Portugal with tin, silver bars, wines, and raisins; while the former had the greater part of the trade with the Moors of Africa and southern Spain, from whom, in return for spiceries and other Eastern products, they got gold, cordovans, and merino wool, which were sold to advantage in France and Italy.

The Italians were the best cloth-weavers in Europe in the fourteenth century, although the Flemings were not contemptible rivals. The manufacture of cloth was industriously carried on in many of their cities; in those of Tuscany particularly, the finest kind of work being done in Lucca. When this city was taken by Uguccione della Faggiuola, in 1314, the factories and goods were destroyed, and many citizens emigrated to other parts of Italy, and even into France, Germany, and England. Yet long before this Italian operatives had introduced, or at least improved, the art in the northern countries. Crapes, taffetas, velvets, silks, camelots, and serges were extensively made in Italy, the richest quality being sold at Florence, where the home industries seemed to centre, and only the most skilled artisans were employed. The art of weaving wool was practised by thousands of citizens, and, nominally at least, by some of the noblest families of the city and _contado_ (commune), since there was a law that no one could aspire to public office unless he were a member of one of the trades-corporations of the republic. The citizens of Florence were classed from 1266 into twelve companies of trades or professions, seven of which were called _arti maggiori_, viz., 1. lawyers and attorneys; 2. dealers in foreign stuffs; 3. bankers and money-changers; 4. woollen manufacturers and drapers; 5. physicians and apothecaries; 6. silk manufacturers and mercers; 7. furriers. The lower trades were called _arti minori_. The records of these corporations are now preserved in a part of the Uffizi palace devoted to the public archives of Florence. They range from A.D. 1300 to the end of the eighteenth century. Around the hall, which was fitted up a few years ago to receive them, are the portraits of some of the distinguished men who belonged to these guilds: Dante, Cosimo de’ Medici, Francesco Guicciardini, and others. Balmes gives an interesting account, after Capmany, in his _European Civilization_, p. 476, of “the trades-unions and other associations which, established under the influence of the Catholic religion, commonly placed themselves under the patronage of some saint, and had pious foundations for the celebration of their feasts, and for assisting each other in their necessities.” Although his long note refers principally to the industrial organization of the city of Barcelona, it is acknowledged that Catalonia borrowed many of its customs and usages in this matter from the towns of Italy.

Before the middle of the fourteenth century there were over two hundred drapers’ shops in Florence, in which from seventy to eighty thousand pieces of cloth were made every year, to the value of 1,200,000 gold florins, and employing more than thirty thousand people. The historian John Villani says that the trade had been still more flourishing, when there were three hundred shops open and one hundred thousand pieces were made yearly, but that they were of a coarser quality and consequently did not bring as much money into the city, although more people got work. The art of dyeing cloths and other stuffs was cultivated by the Italians during the middle ages with considerable success. Alum, which is much used for this purpose, was eagerly sought after, and the Genoese obtained from Michael Palæologus, on payment of an annual sum, the exclusive right of extracting it from a certain mine in the Morea that had previously been worked by Arabs, Catalans, and others. The lessees began operations with a force of fifty men, and soon built a castle to protect themselves, and finally a town, which was destroyed by the Turks in 1455. The Florentines were so expert in dyeing wool that the material was sent to them for the purpose from other parts of Italy, and even from Germany and the Netherlands. It was only in 1858 that an immense wooden building for stretching and drying cloth in the sun, called _Il tiratoio della lana_, which had been used for over five hundred years, was torn down as too liable to catch fire.

The cloths of France and other northern countries found a sale in Florence, not so much for home use as for exportation through the Genoese and Venetians. An exception, however, must be made for a rich article called _say_, manufactured in Ireland, and esteemed so beautiful as to be worn by the ladies of that refined city.[33] John Villani, already mentioned, says that there was a quarter of Florence called Calimala, containing twenty stores of the coarser cloths of the North, of which thirty thousand pieces, of the value of three hundred thousand gold florins, were yearly imported.

Florence in the middle ages had a territory extending only a few miles round its walls; but the industry and speculative spirit of its citizens wonderfully enriched them, and, since “all things obey money” (Ecclesiastes x. 19), they soon became the predominant power, and finally the masters in Tuscany. They were money-changers, moneylenders, jewellers, and goldsmiths for the whole of Europe and no little part of the East. The elements of a business education were given to its youth in numerous schools, attended by some twelve hundred boys, who were taught arithmetic and book-keeping. A great deal of money circulated within the city itself, and a large amount was necessary, particularly before the introduction of bills of exchange, to accommodate merchants in their visits to other countries. The public mint coined annually during the fourteenth century from three hundred and fifty thousand to four hundred thousand gold florins, and about twenty thousand pounds weight of coppers, called _danari da quattro_, or half-farthings; and eighty private banks assisted the circulation. The beautiful golden florins were first coined in the year 1252, bearing on one side the impression of St. John Baptist, the patron, and on the other that of a lily, the device of the city. This was considered the finest coin in the world, and so much admired that many princes and governments began to imitate it while preserving its original name, and consequently perpetuating the monetary renown of Florence. It was current in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The workmanship of the Florentines was so superior that they were often called upon to conduct or superintend the coinage in foreign countries. During the reign of King David II., in the first half of the thirteenth century, he appointed a Florentine one of the two keepers of the exchange for all Scotland, and masters of the mint; and under King Robert III. (1390-1424) gold was minted for that kingdom by Bonaccio of Florence.[34] In 1278 the Exchange at London was under the direction of some Lucca merchants; and it seems to be directly from the Italian that we get our English word cash, derived from _cassa_, the chest in which Italian merchants kept their money. We may have some idea of what a money-centre Florence was in that age from the fact that the notorious French adventurer, the Duke of Athens, who was elected Lord of Florence in 1342, contrived in the course of only ten months to draw four hundred thousand golden florins out of the city. The Florentines, who had the reputation of being the smartest people in Italy, were extremely fond of banking in all its branches. While the middle and lower orders of society were mostly engaged in mechanical occupations, the higher classes handled the money, and would appear to have taken lessons of the Jews. The great feudal nobles of the north, with more land than gold, would often ask their chaplains to reprove them with some holy text of Scripture—Ecclesiasticus X. 10 being a favorite one—when interest was demanded or mortgages were forfeited. They were not by any means the only Italians who publicly courted the queen _Regina Pecunia_; the ancient name in England for a banker, which was _Lombard_, and the street in London called Lombard Street, preserving the memory of the Milanese and others out of Lombardy who took up their first residence there before the year 1274, and were great moneychangers and usurers. The stupendous fortunes of the Chigi, who gave Pope Alexander VII. to the church and are now Roman princes, and before them of the Medici family, which became royal, were amassed chiefly in the banking business; but it is a popular error that the well-known sign of the pawnbrokers’ three gilt balls is derived from the armorial bearings of the latter, which their agents in England and other countries placed over the doors of their loan-shops. The arms of the Medici were _or_, six torteaux _gules_ except the one in chief, which was _azure_ charged with three fleurs-de-lis _or_. Whether these roundlets had any allusion, as has been suggested, to doctors’ pills and the professional origin whence the family name is supposed to be derived, we cannot determine; but the gold pieces called bezants because coined at Constantinople—Byzantium—and so common at an early period in Italy that the saying _Aver buoni Bisanzi_ was a proverbial expression of one who had plenty of money, seem to have been early the distinguishing sign of money-lenders and changers, and are the true origin of the pawnbrokers’ balls.

The shrewdness of the Italians in money matters did not always save them from disastrous failures and bankruptcies caused by wars, breach of faith in persons too high to be reached, loss of goods and bullion by fire, piracy, shipwreck, and other accidents. The first great failure of this kind was that of a mercantile company in 1296, which had existed for one hundred and twenty years, and became insolvent for 400,000 gold florins, due to citizens and strangers. It was felt throughout the republic of Florence like the loss of a battle. Even worse was the failure of the Bardi and Peruzzi in 1347. They were both merchants and bankers, and stood at the head of their class in Italy. Loans to the kings of England and Sicily brought them down. The first owed them 900,000 and the second 450,000 gold florins. These were unavailable assets when the 550,000 florins they owed their fellow-citizens and others began to be called for, and therefore they broke. This downfall carried with it a large number of smaller houses, and among them that of Corsini, of the since princely family of that name, which gave St. Andrew and Pope Clement XII. to the church. The celebrated historian John Villani was a great loser by this failure, and was even imprisoned in the _Stinche_ in consequence of it as an insolvent. The law punished fraudulent failures very severely; but if it could be proved that the failures resulted from unavoidable accidents, the debtors were allowed to go free, after surrendering all they possessed to their creditors. For the convenience of customers, the bank-offices used to be on the ground-floor of the houses—sometimes palaces—the masters living above. The rate of discount on exchange was from one and one-half to two per cent., and four per cent. on sums advanced. Jacques Savary, in his _Parfait Négociant_, says that the invention of bills of exchange is due to French Jews who were driven out of France by Philip the Fair in 1316, and took refuge in Lombardy. By means of such bills they were able to get the value of the property they had left in the hands of friends. They were imitated by certain Ghibellines who, being exiled, went to Amsterdam and saved some of their goods left in Italy. In negotiating these bills and effecting the sale of goods, persons called _sensali_ (brokers) were employed.

No duties were levied on exports, but imported goods had to be stored in government buildings called _dogane_—_i.e._, custom-houses, or, perhaps more accurately, bonded warehouses—from which, although they might be hypothecated, they could be withdrawn only after payment of a certain sum. There was a chamber of commerce called _Mercanzia_ at Florence, and all the other commercial cities had their merchants’ exchange for the transaction of business, the sordid use to which they were put being often disguised by the beauties of architecture, painting, and sculpture. Thus, the _Sala del Cambio_ at Perugia was decorated with frescoes by the celebrated Pietro Perugino, assisted by his immortal pupil Raphael of Urbino.

In all seaports there were certain judges, elected by and from among the merchants, who composed a tribunal called _Consolato di Mare_. They settled disputes between traders and ship-owners, gave assistance in distress, and watched over the interests of commerce. The origin of such boards of trade was very ancient among the Italians, for as early as the year 1129 one was established at Messina. It is said that the Pisans were the first to make laws regulating navigation, and that their code was approved in 1075 by Pope Gregory VII.[35] There was no appeal from the decisions of these admiralty courts, and in cases of fraud or other misdemeanor the guilty party was punished by public authority.

Sericulture began in Italy in the fourteenth century, and was practised with success, especially in Lombardy. The statutes of Modena obliged the peasants to plant a large number of mulberry-trees, in order to promote it.

The wide extent of Italian commerce and the industrial prosperity of Italy, which was a consequence of it, greatly enriched her higher classes and led to the most extravagant luxury during the latter part of the middle ages. Nations now reckoned highly civilized, and where the comforts of life are within the reach of all, were then badly clothed and poorly fed. The effeminacy of the wealthier Italians during the fourteenth century, when commerce was most extended, caused them to despise, amidst the delicacies of the East and the fruits of their own intelligence, the rude simplicity of their more northern neighbors. Even the lower classes among them felt a desire for greater convenience and refinement. Dante, Boccaccio, the chroniclers, and other writers of this period portray or lament the ever-increasing luxury of the age, and we can gather from them an accurate idea of the style of living and magnificence of the patricians in their provisions, furniture, and dress during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Nuptial entertainments and civic festivals were the occasions of most display; and Chaucer, who had partaken of such, writes probably as much from recollection as after Petrarch, whom he has imitated, when he describes the preparations for Griselda’s wedding to the young Marquis of Saluce.

The women were particularly dainty, and many sumptuary laws were enacted to restrain the excess of refinement in houses, furniture, and apparel. A very fine sort of thin, transparent linen, made in Cyprus, was much worn by the female sex. It resembled, but was not quite so indecent as the _Coa vestis_ of the ancients. They also carried much jewelry, and were clothed in garments worked in silver and gold stuff. Their minds naturally ran on money:

“_Julia._ What thinkest thou of the rich Mercutio?
_Lucetta._ Well of his wealth; but of himself, so, so.”
—_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act i. sc. 2.

The habits and head-dress of the men were often bespangled with precious stones, and their whole attire answered to their haughty bearing, which bespoke successful foreign ventures and a splendid style maintained at home. In innumerable ways they exemplified Dr. Johnson’s observation: “With what munificence a great merchant will spend his money, both from his having it at command and from his enlarged views by calculation of a good effect upon the whole.” Few of them would have dared to say with _Bassanio_:

“Gentle lady,
When I did first impart my love to you,
I freely told you all the wealth I had
Ran in my veins; I was a gentleman.”
—_Merchant of Venice_, act iii. sc. 2.

When Shakspere uses the expression “royal merchant” in the play from which we have just quoted, it is, as Warburton remarks, no ranting epithet; for several Italian merchant families obtained principalities in the Archipelago and elsewhere, which their descendants enjoyed for many generations, and others of their class made sovereign alliances. For instance, James, King of Cyprus, married Catherine Cornaro, daughter of a Venetian merchant, who gave her a dowry of 100,000 golden ducats.[36]

[31] The Cathedral of Pisa, one of the most remarkable
monuments of the middle ages, owes its origin to such
an expedition; for it was built with part of the rich
booty taken from the Saracens at Palermo in the year
1063.

[32] This city was taken from the Genoese by the Turks in
1474, but the Christians were not all driven out. The
late Father Theiner has published an interesting letter
from the Papal Nuncio in Poland in 1579, in which he
mentions having met some Kaffa people at Wilna and
tells of their strange manner of obtaining a priest,
reminding one a little of Michas and the Levite in
Judges xvii.

[33] McPherson’s _Annals of Commerce_, vol. i. p. 562.

[34] Innes, _Scotland in the Middle Ages_, p. 309.

[35] Muratori, _Ant. Ital._, tom. ii. p. 54.

[36] The ducat was the great money of Venice, as the florin
was of Florence, and bears in its name a proof of the
more aristocratic government of the former city. The
first gold ducats were coined by the Doge John Dandolo
in 1280, and are inscribed I0. DANDVL. DVX.

A DAUGHTER OF THE PURITANS.

Rose Standish Howson—that was her name, and very proud she was of it. Back of the _Mayflower_, she knew little about her ancestors; but certain it was that in that well-filled vessel one of her forefathers had come to America, and, marrying a distant connection of the veritable Standish family, had handed this name down to all succeeding generations. Rose boasted, so far as it is proper for a well-bred New England girl to boast, that, however it might have been outside of her own country, here at least her lineage was most democratically noble; she belonged—and could prove it, too, out of a little book compiled by her grandfather—thoroughly to the old Puritan race. In all her books the name was written in full—Rose Standish Howson; and it was her unfailing source of regret that her only brother had not been called Miles. John Howson laughed good-naturedly at his sister’s foible, but was really quite as proud as she, though in a more passive way.

Their home was not in Boston. Let this important fact receive our prompt attention. But, since it could not be there, it was in the next best place—an old academic town; in which New England State matters little to our story. There for thirty years Rose Howson’s father had been the academy’s honored principal. His wife had died young, leaving only this son and daughter. John fitted for Harvard at the academy; Rose went steadily through grammar-school and high-school in her native place, then went to Boston with hopes of at least a two years’ added course of study there. It resolved itself into one brilliant winter and spring of hard work and exhausting pleasure, symphony concerts, Shakspere clubs, Parker Fraternity lectures, abstruse reading, and keenly exciting conversation; one merry June, one gay class-day, one delightful commencement, when Dr. Howson came to Cambridge to meet old pupils and friends, and see his son bear off the highest honors; then they went home for vacation, and before it was over Dr. Howson sickened and died.

The whole town was in a fervor of excitement; there was a funeral, to which people came from far and near; resolutions were passed, and in the flush of enthusiasm John Howson, young as he was and just out of college, was elected on trial to fill his father’s place. So the brother and sister still lived on in their old home, but into it they infused a new manner of living. Fresh from the intellectual arena, they sought to shape society about them into some likeness to that they loved so well, and they found their old friends and playmates more than ready to meet them half-way. A book club was started, into which the current literature of the day was crowded, and from which, it was placidly affirmed, all “trash” was excluded; but Mill was there, and Darwin, and a strange mixture of German philosophy, which the young men, but more especially the young women, read, or fancied they read, and about which they talked much, after a fashion revealing more ideas than thought. There were “musicals” too, and a Shakspere club, and German and French conversations and readings, and the second winter after Dr. Howson’s death there were dramatic entertainments and concerts; and it came to pass that almost every afternoon and evening of Rose’s life was filled with some sort of intellectual work or pleasure. She was a capital housekeeper, and so her early mornings were occupied with household cares; but, later, she was always ready for a walk or talk, and her reading was done in snatches by day and by long hours of steady work late at night.

About religion “experimentally” she knew little. The old meeting-house, which the Puritan settlers had built, was still standing, but it had been enlarged and made over, though not beautified. There Rose had been accustomed to go Sunday after Sunday as a matter of course, and sometimes to the Friday evening prayer-meeting; but she was not “a Christian.” Once there had been a revival, when she tried to be converted, but she had failed. Then in Boston she had been taken to hear preachers who were not “orthodox” at all; she had almost feared them at first, because of strange names she had heard applied to them—they had German tendencies, rationalistic tendencies, were free-thinkers. But when she came under the spell of their presence and their eloquence she was fascinated. They appealed to what she thought the highest faculties of her nature—her intellect, her love for the beautiful, her reason. She missed it when she came home and she did more than miss it: she began to doubt. Was old Mr. Gray wiser than the cultured men she had been hearing? He claimed that they were wrong; how did he know that? How could she tell that he was not mistaken? In this one small town, originally occupied by orthodox Congregationalists only, there were now Orthodox Unitarians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Universalists. A Roman Catholic priest was serving there too, in a dingy hall in a back street, but “society” rarely noticed him or his work; he and his alike were out of its pale, anomalies, hardly worth mentioning except with pitying wonder or idle jest and scorn. What made Mr. Gray superior to any or all of these in his power of discerning truth?

And while Rose queried thus on Sunday mornings, sitting wearily in her accustomed place at the right of the pulpit, sometimes trying to find out how to be good, but oftener losing herself in memories of the feasts of reason she had known for so brief and bright a while, some one came to town who was to influence her life greatly. Looking up suddenly from one of these reveries, she found herself still in the meeting-house, but opposite her was a new face, a lady’s, thin and pale, with searching eyes fixed upon hers, and after service the lady came straight to her pew and held out her hand.

“I am sure you are Miss Howson,” she said. “Your friend Grace Roland has told me much of you. I am Ellen Lawton.”

Rose’s heart leaped up. In those happy Boston days she had often heard Ellen Lawton spoken of as one of the most elegant and cultured women of her time, and she had read her writings with delight, but she had hardly hoped to meet her. It took her breath away with joy when she learned that Miss Lawton had come to live for a while in this quiet country place.

It was a season of keen delight. Rose had thought she knew what it was to revel in intellectual pleasure, but it was something new to meet one so superior to herself, yet so loving; always ready to listen to her ideas, to help her unfold them, and yet so calm and tranquil. Miss Lawton was an invalid, and, after that first Sunday, Rose never saw her at church again. Once, when Rose stopped on her way thither to leave her some flowers, Miss Lawton said that she was going to sit in the sunshine; would not Rose stay with her? And when Rose demurred, Miss Lawton said gently, “Shall we not please God as well in the beauty of his sunshine as in that bare and cheerless house where you know you do not like to go?”

This was the beginning of Rose’s first knowledge of Ellen Lawton’s so-called religious life; they sat and talked all that morning about it. With a sweet smile upon her calm face, the invalid said quietly that she believed there might be a God; she was not sure, of course; but if there was one, he was kind and good, and loved to see her happy. She made life as bright and beautiful as she possibly could always; it was given her to enjoy. Books and music and art and flowers were parts of her religion; beyond this world she did not look; what came after death she knew not and cared not; if there was a God, he was good and would be good to her; if there was not, the thought of annihilation did not distress her. Rose watched her closely after this; she never heard an impatient word or saw a hasty movement; the life was an exposition of what a great many people would call “the beautiful,” and Rose found in it more and more satisfaction for her extreme intellectual cravings.

One morning a servant ran in with blanched face to tell her that Miss Lawton was dead. Rose had known that heart-disease was the fatal malady which was surely sapping at her friend’s life, yet this blow fell upon her with an awful suddenness. She went to the house, where they left her to do as she would, for she was the nearest friend Miss Lawton had there; she went up to the silent room, and shut herself in alone with the silent dead. Ellen Lawton lay as they had found her; she must have risen in the morning and dressed with her usual dainty care; then, perhaps feeling some acute pang of the pain to which she was subject, she had sunk upon the couch by the window. Her face was, as in life, calm and noble; about her lay her books that she had loved, her rare pictures looked down upon her, her flowers scented the room; outside the sun shone brightly on the grand hills she had been used to watch, finding in them food for heart and soul both, she said. None of these moved her now at all.

Rose went close to her and looked at her, and looked, and looked, as if she would waken her by the very fixedness of her gaze. What was this _thing_ lying there, this beautiful clay, this voiceless, motionless, tenantless body? Yesterday it spoke to her, kissed her, loved her; what had changed it, gone out of it? The spirit? The soul? Where was that soul then?

She knelt down trembling, and put her hand where the heart had beat not five short hours ago. There was no movement now; and the silence in the room grew terrible. Where was that which yesterday she spoke with? Nowhere? Then to-morrow she herself might be nowhere and nothing.

Suddenly there came to her a memory which she had striven for years to banish. A stranger had preached at the time of that unforgotten revival; he had painted vividly and unsparingly the torments of the lost. Often in the night Rose had wakened from a dream of it, and found herself cold with horror, and cried out, “I never will believe it.” Now like a painting she seemed to see it all again, and through her mind rang the words with which the sermon had ended, “Doubt on as you will, O unbeliever, O careless soul, O faithless Christian! Laugh on as you will, forget as you will. But suppose that you wake up after death and find this true! _What then?_”

John Howson, hearing the news at school, hurried home at noon to comfort Rose, but she was gone. He found her in that room of death, rocking to and fro upon her knees, her hands held out over the dead, while she was whispering in hoarse tones: “Ellen, is it true? Tell me it is not true.” And no one answered.

John lifted her tenderly, and she clung to him like a little child. “Take me home!” she cried, quivering all over. She could not walk; he had to carry her, and all the way she clung to him as if the very touch of something that lived and loved was comfort. “O John! I am so glad you are alive,” she sobbed. “Dear John, do not die, do not die!”

He could hardly bear to leave her for afternoon school, and when he came home she was crouching by his arm-chair, while Abby, their old servant, sat looking at her with pitying horror. “You’d best do what you can for her, Master John,” she said, “or she’ll kill herself going on in this way.”

“No, no! not kill myself,” Rose answered hysterically. “It is awful to live, but it is worse to die.”

John sat down near her, and she took his hand and held it tightly. “I want to _feel_ that you are here, and warm and well,” she said. “O John! tell me what is true.”

“What is true?” he repeated. “Why, I am, I hope; and you, dear child.”

“Oh! no,” she exclaimed, as if his tender lightness were unbearable. “Is God true? Is there a God? What comes after death?”

He answered her honestly; he had even less faith than she, but his doubts did not trouble him. He lived a life as upright and fair as his neighbors; whether there was a God or not, what difference did it make, so long as he behaved himself? This was John Howson’s creed, if such a title could be applied to it.

How strong and kind he looked, how honorable he always was! Why should Rose worry, if he did not? Either there was no God, and what they did made no difference—they could live as they liked and get all the pleasure possible—or, if there was a God, he was too good to be ever angry with them. It was a consoling belief; she would take the comfort of it. But alone at night the horror returned. Suppose there was a God who demanded something—she knew not what—from his creatures; she could only express it by the vague term, “to be Christians.” She held her head between her hands and tried to think what that meant. Yes, she must be converted, and be sorry for all her sins, and join the church. How were people converted, and what church should she join? Perhaps she had better say a prayer. “O God!” she began, then paused. Her brain was reeling with the doubt whether there was any God at all; and even if there were, what was the use of prayer?

The next morning she went to Mr. Gray. With nerves unstrung by intense feeling, she had little thought left for ordinary greetings or for ceremony. The old man was jarred and hurt by what he thought her rudeness, never dreaming that he was dealing with a soul which was fast losing all care for earthly joys or pains, or for any earthly thing at all, in the one absorbing fear of eternal things. For forty years he had labored in this place in a calm routine, hearing something but comprehending little of the doubts through which the world without was passing. It filled him with horror to hear Rose talk; he had never imagined what thoughts had been working in the mind of his old friend’s child.

“What must one do to be a Christian?” she had asked abruptly.

He had not expected such a question, and looked surprised, but he answered simply enough: “You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, my child, and come to him in repentance.”

“And where is he?” Rose cried, “and who is he, and what does he want of me?”

Mr. Gray stared at her in amazement and sorrow. “My dear,” he said, “who is he? He is God, and he is everywhere, and he wants your heart.”

“How do you know that?” Rose exclaimed. “Tell me how you know it.

The old man laid his hand upon his Bible. “Where should I know it but here?” he asked.

“But other people think differently,” Rose said. “I have read it myself, and I don’t find what you preach. The Baptists read the Bible, and so do the Methodists, and so do the Episcopalians, and you cannot agree to be one. How do you know the Bible is true?”

It was of no avail to tell her of internal evidence, or of spiritual conviction, or of visible effects. Quickly enough it became clear that Rose Howson had no faith left in the Lord Jesus Christ as God. She did believe as an historical fact that he had lived once upon earth, and was man, and possibly something more than man; that was all. To everything Mr. Gray said she returned the answer, “_How do you know it?_ Is not the Baptist minister a Christian?—and yet you differ. Is not the Unitarian minister a scholar, and does not he pray to God?—and yet you say he is mistaken.” And when Mr. Gray reminded her of her father, and asked how he would have felt to hear her speak thus, she cried out that she was a woman grown, and it was her own soul she was talking of, and her father could not save that; fathers made very little difference when it was heaven and hell you were thinking about.

“All Christians agree on the vital points,” Mr. Gray said; “at least, all evangelical Protestants.”

“And what about the unevangelical Protestants and the poor Catholics? and who decides what are the vital points? and why cannot you and the Baptists commune together, then?” The eager questions were poured forth, overwhelming the listener.

Mr. Gray shook his head sadly. “I do not think you are in a fit state to speak of such matters, Rose,” he said. “The Lord Jesus Christ died for you. Pray to him that he will himself teach you.”

Rose stood up. “Good-by, Mr. Gray,” she said gently. “I am afraid I have troubled you. Perhaps you will say a prayer for me sometimes.”

“I will indeed, my child,” he answered her, with a very troubled look upon his face; “but you must pray too.”

“Pray?” she repeated to herself mechanically as she went out of the room. “I wonder how they do it, and what they mean by it, and what good it ever does? Pray? Oh! if I only could.”

After this Rose was never seen inside the old meeting-house again. Everybody learned that she was in some religious difficulty; most persons never mentioned the subject to her; some told her not to worry, but to trust; others that it made no manner of difference what she believed, so long as she was sincere. To the one she answered that the only belief she was sincere in was that she did not know what to believe; to the other she made no reply. But to John once she answered wearily: “If you sat here studying, and I told you the house was on fire, and you could smell it burning, would you keep still at your books, and trust and not worry, because other people said it was not your house?”

On one occasion she took up a Protestant Episcopal _Book of Common Prayer_ which she found in her father’s library, and, turning its pages, came to the Apostles’ Creed. It comforted her to read it; she thought it must be a blessed thing to be brought up always with that impressed upon one, and never to know anything else. She had some Protestant Episcopal friends; they seemed very content. But, still idly turning the leaves, she came to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and her eye lighted on the words, “As the Church of _Jerusalem_, _Alexandria_, and _Antioch_, have erred; so also the Church of _Rome_ hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.” So then even they could not be sure and settled in their belief, she said to herself; for if Rome and Jerusalem and Antioch had erred, why not the Protestant Episcopal Church of America? It was the closing drop of bitterness. John found her that noon in as terrible a state as on the day of Ellen Lawton’s death.

“Rose,” he said gravely, “for some time, as you know, I have doubted the existence of a God; but I will tell you now that my doubts on that point are settled. Wherever and whatever he may be, there surely is one; for I am convinced that no one could suffer as you do without some reality to cause it.”

The unexpected words brought a ray of comfort; she lifted her poor pale face to his with a look of pitiful longing. “Then, John,” she said, “don’t you think he must know how dreadful the suffering is, and that he will tell me some day where to find him?”

The tears—a man’s rare tears—sprang to John Howson’s eyes. “I surely think he will, Rose,” he answered; and he stooped and kissed her with great compassion. His love was the only comfort Rose had now, and at times she found no comfort even in that.

Fanny Mason came to see her in the afternoon. People did not come to the house as freely as they used to come; Rose showed too plainly that she did not care to see them. But Fanny had been an intimate family friend always; the affection between the two girls was more like that of relatives than of friends. Fanny was not at all intellectual, had never known a shadow of doubt; she ran in to chat and gossip, not waiting for replies, and brought a sense of refreshment, or at least of change, to Rose’s burdened mind.

“To-morrow is Ascension Day,” she said. “The Episcopalians are going to have service and trim their church beautifully—white lilacs and wistaria and lilies of the valley and bunches of forget-me-not. It will be lovely; wouldn’t you like to see it?”

“I am tired and sick of prettiness and pettiness,” Rose said.

“Rose Howson! What next? You used to say that the beautiful satisfied you entirely.”

“I thought it did,” Rose answered sadly. “But where is it? All at once it failed me. Now I see a death’s-head behind all.”

“Rose! Not really?”

Rose almost smiled at Fanny’s scared face. “No, Fanny; not literally, at least. Once, though, I did really see it in the very centre of loveliness, and I cannot forget.”

“I wish you could forget,” Fanny said pityingly. “I wish we could be little girls once more, Rose.”

“No, no!” Rose answered, shuddering. “Not to live all these years over again. But, O Fanny! if I only could forget for ever so short a while!”

The strained, wild passion of her look and manner frightened Fanny; she tried to return to her former chatty lightness. “I’ll tell you what you had better do,” she said, “since you are tired of the beautiful. The Catholics are going to keep Ascension Day too. What a queer set they are! Do you know that they call this the month of Mary, and in their hall her image is dressed in lace and flowers, with candles burning around it all day long? It is not so pretty there, I assure you. Suppose you try that.” Then laughing as if she had suggested the most absurd of absurdities, Fanny went away.

The dark cloud of depression which had come upon Rose that morning, and had lifted slightly at John’s words, shadowed her now more densely than ever. She looked about the room which John’s taste and hers had made so fair. How everything palled upon her! What good was it to try to make life as beautiful as possible, if even in life she ceased to care for the beautiful? The strong, the true, the lasting, was what she needed now.

It seemed to her that there was no hope anywhere. She fled out into the open air, and walked fast to escape her haunting thoughts; but there was no escape from self. Passing the hall where the Catholics had services, she saw an old woman climbing the steps, remembered Fanny’s words, and followed her. “Since the beautiful fails me,” she thought with a bitter smile, “I will look at what is not beautiful.”

It was a very dingy hall, and uninviting. On the side walls were poor wood-cuts representing the scenes of the Passion. On a plain white wood altar a lamp was burning. Near by hung a colored print of the Saviour, but as Rose had never seen him portrayed before—with his Heart exposed upon his breast, and great blood-drops falling from it. Rose shrank from the sight; it displeased her. Close by the altar-rail was a highly-colored and gaudily-decorated statue of the Blessed Virgin, with flowers distastefully arranged about it. The old woman had fallen on her knees before it, and was praying. Rose wondered at her.

But she was strangely conscious of a peculiar quiet in the place; it soothed her. She sat down on one of the benches, and took up a book lying there. _The Key of Heaven_ it was called; a very soiled and worn book it was; she hardly liked to touch it. It opened at the Apostles’ Creed. “He ascended into heaven,” she read.

Who was “he”? Jesus Christ—God! So Catholics believed as well as Mr. Gray; in this they were agreed. But, oh! what difference did it make? God and heaven were so very far away—if indeed there were a heaven anywhere—that who on earth could tell anything about them? She looked up wearily from the book; again her eyes met the poor print of the Sacred Heart, the poor statue of the holy Mother. Like a flash the thought came into her mind, “Jesus Christ—God—ascended into heaven, and he had a heart like ours, and he had a mother.”

It was not as if she were uttering a belief—whether Jesus Christ was God she did not know; she was not even thinking about it then. But it was as if she had grasped a link in a mighty chain, which, if one other link could be supplied, would solve and settle all doubt for ever. Over and over she said the words, fearing to lose or forget them: “Jesus Christ—God—ascended into heaven, and he had a heart like ours, and he had a mother.” If this was true, how God in heaven must pity her, how he must love her!

And suddenly the tears were falling on Rose’s cheeks. When she had wept last she could not tell; certainly not since Ellen Lawton’s death, though she had often craved the relief of tears. Now they fell softly and plenteously, while she kept repeating the strange formula with a keen sense that it soothed her and she was resting; and oh! she had been so tired. A mother, a mother—how very sweet it must be to have a mother! And a God with a heart like ours, a heart that could be wounded and bleed and suffer sorely; oh! how one must love a God like that.

“John,” she said abruptly, when they were sitting by the study-lamp after tea, “what are Catholics? I mean, what do you know about them?”

“Not much of anything,” he answered in some surprise, “except as one is always coming upon them in history and the papers. Why?”

“What makes them different from Protestants? Aren’t you always coming upon them too?”