Chapter XXXII: Prologue (8)

Three miles from the village of Passa is the hermitage of St. Luc on an elevated plateau, surrounded by thorny furze and the cistus, and a few old mulberry-trees. It overlooks a vast plain dotted with villages, and in the distance is the Mediterranean—no melancholy main, but a golden sea of light beneath a burning sun. This is a place of strategical importance, and in time of war has been alternately occupied by French and Spanish troops. The chapel has been restored, and a hermit lives in the adjoining cell. Near by is a fountain shaded by plane-trees to slake his thirst. On great festivals the peasants come to sing the _Goigs_ relating to the chapel, and votive Masses are frequently offered up for the cure of various maladies.

About two miles from the little walled town of Ille in the valley of the Tet, on the side of the mountains that separate it from the valley of the Tet, is the hermitage of St. Maurice shaded by walnut-trees (what we call the English walnut). It is a lonely spot, but there is an agreeable view over the broad valley. The chapel is dear to the people, and they come here with holy songs on the feast of St. Maurice, who is invoked for fevers, common in this region. Over the altar is his statue as a Roman soldier, and near him are two sainted virgins who overcame the fiery dragon—St. Martha and St. Marguerite. In the pavement is inserted—a rare thing to find in these chapels—the tombstone of an old hermit who died here in 1758, with its

_Pregau per ell_.

Further up, on the right bank of the Tet, you came to Prades, a village north of the Canigou, in a valley teeming with wheat, vines, delicious peaches noted in the market of Toulouse, and fruit of all kinds. The very hills are terraced for cultivation. A few miles distant is the hermitage of St. Etienne on a spur of the Canigou inaccessible to carriages—a wild, desolate place where rocks are piled on rocks, out of which gush clear, sparkling rills that keep alive the few plants and shrubs that grow wherever soil can collect. It once belonged to the counts of the Cerdagne. The chapel often serves as a refuge to the shepherds of the mountain in storms. Here is a picture of St. Stephen with a stone on his head, as he is painted by Carpaccio. Just beyond the chapel rises the _Roc del Moro_, a high peak crowned by the ruins of an old watch-tower—perhaps a Moorish Atalaya.

Near Prades, on an elevation overlooking the fertile valley, is the ancient hermitage of St. Jean Baptiste, now private property, though the chapel is open to the public. The Canigou presents an imposing aspect from the terrace, and not far off are the interesting ruins of an old monastery.

“The long ribbed aisles are burst and shrunk,
The holy shrines to ruin sunk,
Departed is the pious monk,
God’s blessing on his soul!”

The hermitage of St. Christophe is on a mountain shelf shaded by a venerable hermit oak, looking off over a beautiful valley sprinkled with villages such as Ria, Sirach, etc. Beyond tower the calm, grand heights of the Canigou, that, like the contemplative soul, stands above the world, its gray sides relieved by no soft green pasture-land, and yielding no corn or oil to man, but holding in its stern recesses the cold glacier springs whose waters pour down through summer heat from its storehouses of ice and snow to refresh the thirsty plain, fit emblem of the holy influences that rain down from the sanctuaries it overshadows. The huge St. Christopher may well be set up among these giant peaks, ’mid flood and fell. His beautiful legend is told in a series of bas-reliefs around the walls of the old chapel of rubble-work. On the 10th of July, when he is specially honored here, as in Catalonia, the surrounding villages come here in procession, stopping on the way to pray at the oratory of St. Sebastian. After their devotions at St. Christopher’s they eat their lunch among the rocks and drink from the stone basins in the caves. Not far off is Ria with its castle—the cradle of an historic race from which descended the old counts of Barcelona, as well as many a king and queen of Aragon, Navarre, France, etc. Several of the present sovereigns of Europe, in fact, might trace their descent from the old lords of the obscure hamlet of Ria.

The valley of the Tet contracts to a mere gorge at Villefranche, where there is barely room for the river and the two streets that constitute the town. This is one of the first places fortified by Vauban. Further on there is only a mule-path along the ravine shut in by wild, rocky mountains whose sides are lashed by fierce torrents. On one of these is the hermitage of St. Pierre de la Roca, reached by climbing a steep path cut in the sides of the cliff. The chapel fell to ruin at the Revolution, and the Madonna, which had been found ages before in a cave, was carried to the parish church. It is now owned by private individuals, who have had it restored. Adjoining is the hermitage, that looks down on the beautiful villages of Fulla and Sahorre. Directly behind rise tall cliffs, and beyond is a vast amphitheatre of mountains, above which towers the majestic Canigou. A convent once stood close by, the monks of which served the church of the _Tour Carrée_ at the foot of the mountain, now in ruins. The convent, too, is gone. You see only the remains of the old kitchen with its marble pavement and fine cistern; and, climbing up the side of the cliff by means of a ladder, you come to a terrace where the monks had their parterre of flowers for the garden. Close by is the Virgin’s Cave, where the Madonna was found. The chapel, which is only twenty-five feet long and ten wide, has few ornaments except the statues of St. Peter and St. Teresa. Before the entrance are several tombstones, on one of which is this inscription:

“Thou who regardest this tomb, why dost thou not despise that which
is mortal? A similar dwelling is reserved for all mankind. What thou
art, I was. What I am, thou wilt be. I was honored in the world, and
now I am laid away and forgotten in the tomb. I shone in the world
with my rich garments; now I am naked in the grave. I only inspire
horror. I lived in delights....”

Unfortunately the inscription is incomplete. There is no name, no device, to indicate who it was that had thus tested the pleasures of life. The stone only echoes the eternal refrain: _Vanitas vanitatis_.

The hermitage of Notre Dame de Doma Nova is on a peak in the ancient seigneurie of Domanove. At the foot is a rivulet that feeds the stream of Riu-Fagés. The terrace is shaded by evergreens. You enter by a pretty porch and find yourself before a mediæval-looking altar with a Madonna dressed in the Spanish style. This statue was found under a juniper by means of a lamb that had strayed thither. Among the _ex-votos_ on the walls is a painting of a hermit tied to a pillar by a band of Huguenots who are setting fire to the chapel he is in. This commemorates a pleasing instance of Protestant toleration in 1580.

The Huguenots of Béarn made several raids into Roussillon in the sixteenth century, and a company was organized to resist them, for which several communes were rewarded by the king of Spain with special privileges. Ille, for instance, was allowed to hold a fair.

The hermitage of Notre Dame de la Roca stands on a naked cliff not far from Nyer. In the depths of the ravine below flows the Mantet ’mid rocks and frightful precipices. Near by are the ruins of an old battlemented tower, and on the other side of the stream, in a still wilder, more inaccessible spot, is the cave where the Madonna was found by a girl in search of fagots. The chapel is vaulted and adorned in Spanish fashion, with a retablo over the altar, on the panels of which are painted the mysteries of religion. The Virgin and Child are in silken garments; and an iron _reja_ protects the sanctuary. People come here to pray in time of calamity, and often hang their votive offerings on the wall.

The hermitage of St. Jacques de Calahors is but little frequented. It has a poor desolate chapel with rude images of the Virgin and St. James, and an altar to St. Antich, probably some Spanish saint. If any one wishes to live in poverty and undisturbed solitude, he could find no more suitable place than the wild, desolate region of which St. Jacques is the culminating point.

“Never was spot more sadly meet
For lonely prayer and hermit feet.”

The hermitage of La Trinité is known to have existed in the ninth century. Think of that! A thousand years of prayer in this sacred desert! What fruits of immortal life from this obscure region! The present chapel is of the twelfth century. Here is a curious crucifix known as the _Santa Majestad_, said to have come down from the age of Charlemagne. It is in great veneration, and sung in quaint Catalan _Goigs_ perhaps as ancient as the image itself. The Christ is clothed in a long tunic that allows only the hands and feet and head to be seen. He is fastened to the cross by four nails, and around the head project long rays. There are several of these singular crucifixes in the Pyrénées Orientales, and we remember seeing a similar one at Naples, clad in its long crimson tunic.

The chapel is surmounted by three crosses, of which the central one is the highest. Behind rises a peak, on which stands the old donjon of Belpuig that dates at least from the thirteenth century. La Trinité is very popular in this pastoral region, and on St. Peter’s day and Trinity Sunday the mountains ring with the _Goigs_ of the shepherds and herdsmen.

One of the most picturesque hermitages in the valley of the Tet, and certainly the most popular, is Notre Dame de Font Romieu, a mountain solitude surrounded by pines, delightful in summer, but so snowy in winter that the chapel is closed to the public about the middle of November, and scarcely opened again till spring. But in the summer it is open night and day, that the shepherds may come here at any hour they are at leisure. The actual chapel is of the seventeenth century, but it is on the site of one much older, built to receive the Virgin found here in 1113. This venerated statue is kept at Odello the greater part of the year. On Trinity Sunday it is brought here in solemn procession and left for a few months, when it is carried back with equal pomp. On these days there are five or six thousand pilgrims. The Virgin and Child are crowned and clothed in rich garments, so their faces alone are visible, but they are evidently very ancient. The fountain that, according to the _Goigs_, sprang up where the statue was discovered is beneath the high altar, and the water is conveyed by pipes beneath the pavement of the chapel to the court, where the pilgrims go to drink. It is remarkably pure and cool. One pipe extends to a private room, where there is a large reservoir, twelve feet square, made of a single block of granite, for the purpose of bathing. This tank is inscribed: _Fons salutis Maria_. Those who come here to bathe first say the rosary before a statue of the Virgin at one end of the room, after which they walk several times around the reservoir, praying Our Lady de la Salud as they go. A short distance from the hermitage is another fountain, called St. Jean.

One peculiarity about the chapel is that one-half of it is higher than the rest. You traverse part of the nave, and then ascend seven steps to the remainder, into which open the side chapels and the sanctuary. The retablo of the high altar is covered with bas-reliefs of the life of the Blessed Virgin, which, as well as the other sculptures, were done by Suñer, an artist of the seventeenth century from Manresa, Spain. The walls are covered with an infinite number of _ex-votos_, such as crutches, long tresses of hair, rude pictures of the Virgin invoked in time of danger, etc. The whole edifice is rich with gilding and sculpture, and, when filled with lights and flowers on great festivals, is quite dazzling. Over one of the altars in a niche is an old painting of San Ildefonso of Toledo receiving the Santa Casulla from the hands of the Virgin. We love to find this great servant of Mary in her churches—him who seemed clothed with her virtues as with the garment she gave him, and who is never weary of dwelling on her exalted mission. “Lo, by means of this Virgin the whole earth is filled with the glory of God!” exclaims he. The Mass here on his festival is obligatory for the parish of Odello.

Near the church is a still higher eminence, to which you ascend by a path winding around the mount with the Stations of the Cross up the sad, funereal way, terminating in a Calvary with the uplifted image of Him who alone can heal the serpent’s wounds that filled our souls with death.

The buildings at Font Romieu are quite extensive. There is a hostelry with a gallery of eleven arcades in front, where meals are prepared and rooms furnished those who wish to make a retreat. During the summer not a day passes without visitors. But the great day of the year is the patronal festival on the 8th of September, when the people of all the neighboring valleys come here, displaying a variety of physiognomy and costume hardly to be found elsewhere. Sometimes they amount to ten or twelve thousand. From the earliest dawn you can see them flocking in from every quarter, in the costume of their own valley, praying aloud or singing sacred hymns. As soon as they come in sight of the Calvary they fall on their knees to salute the uplifted Image so powerful to save, and again at the sight of the holy chapel. They hear Mass, go to Holy Communion, and, after completing their devotions, they scatter over the green to eat their lunch, when the whole scene assumes the aspect of a rural festival full of innocent gayety. Venders of fruit, cakes, and all kinds of wares, secular and holy, fasten themselves upon you with amusing pertinacity, while wandering musicians, in hopes of a few sous, begin to play on various rustic instruments—the flageolet, oboes, and perchance, at a proper distance from the holy chapel, the tambourine and bag-pipe.

Meanwhile, _Goigs_ succeed each other all day long in the chapel, sung by peasants to rude mountain airs quite in harmony with the words and place. Every valley awaits its turn to sing its hymn before the Holy Mother of God.

“Love of Mary is to them
As the very outer hem
Of the Saviour’s garments blessed!”

One would think the age here still Golden, so naïve is the piety, so simple the manners, of these mountaineers.

We come now to the valley of the Tech, abounding in harvests and rich meadows kept verdant by the mountain streams. The air is pure and exhilarating. The pastures are full of sheep and goats. On one hand are the ridges of the Canigou with watch-towers and ruins of old castles on the tops, and mines of iron ore in their bosom. The sides of the gorges are bristling with gloomy pines, and the rocky cliffs aflame with the rhododendrons that grow in their crevices. On the other hand is the long line of the Albères with pleasant villages in their folds, and torrents of crystal coursing down their sides. Beyond is Spain, true land of Mary. Prats-de-Mollo is the last town on the frontier. It is an old place, at the very source of the Tech, surrounded by the fortifications of a bygone age, and commanded by a fort on one of the heights above. A few miles from the town is the hermitage of Notre Dame de Coral, delightfully situated on a mountain among trees that afford an agreeable shade to the weary pilgrim, while cool springs are at hand to quench his thirst, and rooms provided should he wish to tarry. The Madonna is in great repute, not only in the province but across the border. The word _coral_ is supposed to refer to the heart of the oak in which the Virgin was found. But that was ages ago. It is known to have existed in 1261. This ancient image is now enclosed in another, likewise very old, as if to enshrine it. It is over the high altar, behind which is a stairway that enables the votary to approach it. At one of the side altars is another of those ancient crucifixes similar to the Santa Majestad at La Trinité, supposed to be of Spanish origin. It came from an old hospice at the entrance of a Coll, or mountain pass, not far from Prats-de-Mollo, where lodged pilgrims to Compostella in the middle ages. There is still a round building remaining that formed part of this hospice, with four openings towards the different points of the compass, in which lights used to be placed to guide the traveller by night. The chapel, too, called Notre Dame du Coll d’Ares, is still standing, but is sequestrated.

But to return to our hermitage. Among the numerous _ex-votos_ on the chapel walls is a curious painting of a young man, seized by two demons, invoking the aid of the Virgin, who appears and carries him off by the hair of his head. Beneath is the inscription: “This miracle was wrought by Maria Santissima del Coral in favor of Joan Solána in the year 1599. Thomas Solána, his descendant, had this painting done in 1704 for the honor and glory of the _Verge Purissima_.”

Mgr. Gerbet, Bishop of Perpignan, visited this hermitage in 1857, and commemorated his visit by a graceful poem which runs thus in more sober English prose:

“Señora del Coral, for ages the protectress of the pious people of
Prats, Tech, and St. Sauveur, as soon as a turn in the mountains
brought thy chapel in view, the song of the pilgrim burst from my
heart. The rock of Aras, once consecrated to false gods, exorcised
at thy coming, has ever since proclaimed the true Lord. Let thine
ancient power be again renewed. Destroy in us all devotion to
worldly idols with their lowering influences. And accept this
ephemeral homage in union with the _Goigs_ that for so many ages
have resounded in these mountains. Let my verse mingle with these
ancient hymns, as among thy venerable elms the flower of a day
springs up and then dies.”

Between Prats-de-Mollo and Tech, not far from the source of the Comalada, a branch of the Tech, is the hermitage of St. Guillem de Combret in the midst of the ridges that shoot off from the Canigou like huge buttresses. In ancient times there was a _Pausa_ here where pilgrims to Spain found shelter—a kind of station or hostelry, where pious people exercised their charity in allaying the fatigue of such holy wanderers. The Pausa Guillelmi is spoken of in the donation of a part of Mt. Canigou to the abbey of St. Martin by Count Wifredo of Barcelona. In the eleventh century it seems, however, to have belonged to the Benedictines of the neighboring village of Arles, whose church, still standing, contains the shrine of SS. Abdon and Sennen, noted for the perpetual flow of miraculous water. These saints are very popular all through these valleys, and are called by the peasants _Los Cossos Santos_, or the Sewed-Together Saints, perhaps because they are never mentioned apart. There is only a part of their remains here, brought from Rome at some remote period, as the guide-book sneeringly says, to free the neighborhood from the dragons and other wild animals that infested it. We know that when these saints were exposed to the fury of two lions and four bears in the Coliseum, the animals became tame and harmless before them. No wonder that, crowned in heaven, they should be equally powerful against error, or the wild beasts, whichever it might be, that infested these mountains.

The lives of the saints do not mention St. William of Combret, but the ancient _Goigs_ and sculptures of the chapel set forth a few details of his life. According to these, he was a Frank who came to seek solitude and oblivion among these Pyrenees. The wild goats used to come and offer him their milk for nourishment. And to confound the impiety of the smiths (who are still numerous at Arles) he wrought, as by miracle, a bell in their presence that still rings the hour of prayer—an iron bell, very broad in shape and sharp of clang. The rough altar of solid stone he is said to have brought here unaided. He died at Alp in the Spanish Cerdagne, and two blind women are known to have recovered their sight at his tomb. His statue in the chapel represents him with book and crosier, as if an abbot. Beside the hermitage is a small garden and a fountain of delicious water. On St. Guillem’s day the parish of Tech comes here in procession; High Mass is offered; four gospels are sung in the open air, as if to proclaim it to the four quarters of the globe; benediction is given with a relic of the True Cross; and _pains bénits_ are distributed in remembrance of the hospitality of the old Pausa. Prats-de-Mollo comes here on St. Magdalen’s day, for to her the place was dedicated before the time of St. Guillem. Religious traditions never seem to grow dim in the memory of these tenacious mountaineers.

Three miles from the watering-place of Amélie-les-Bains is the hermitage of St. Engracia in a green valley that once belonged to the Benedictines of Arles. The cell is in ruins, and the little chapel very poor. The walls are about four feet thick, and the dim light makes it seem like a cave. There is only one altar, with the virgin martyr of Zaragoza on it, a palm in her hand and a nail piercing her brow. Her legend is told in some old paintings on the wall. There are statues, too, of the _Cossos Santos_.

Coming down to Ceret, where the Albères sink into the plain, the Tech is spanned by an immense arch, by no means so pretentious in the spring, when the snow melts in the mountains and the waters come pouring down through the wild gorges, sweeping everything before them. A little way from the village is the hermitage of St. Ferréol on the plateau of a mountain. The road to it passes through vineyards, and is bordered by cherry, walnut, and other trees. The chapel is in such veneration that the peasants often used to ascend the mountain on their knees with a candle in their hands, in fulfilment of their vows, and perhaps do so still. Before it is a terrace shaded by elms, beneath which are two springs. Here is a fine view over the valley of the Tech extending to the very sea, while in the background are the everlasting mountains. In the chapel is a statue of St. Ferréol in the garb of a Roman soldier, with a sword in his left hand. He is said to have been an officer of some high grade, martyred for the faith at Vienne, in Dauphiné, in 303.

There is an altar here to Notre Dame dels _Desemparats_—the Catalan for abandoned or forsaken. There are times in every one’s life when one feels the need of invoking such a Madonna, and she may well be set up here in a solitude that harmonizes with the feelings of those who have need to appeal to her. To be friendless is solitude, says Epictetus. The women of Valencia wear combs on which is graven the image of Nuestra Señora de los Desemparados, but whether this is by way of bewailing their forsaken condition, or to announce their readiness to be consoled, or merely by way of averting the possible contingencies of life, we cannot say.

A Catalan inscription on the holy-water vase states that it was given by a hermit of St. Ferréol who had been a slave at Constantinople twenty-four years. The chapel is specially frequented in time of epidemics, and on the festivals of SS. Lawrence and Ferréol, when worship is conducted with great pomp, the _Goigs_ never cease around the altars.

The hermitage of Notre Dame del Castel is on a mount belonging to the chain of the Albères, a few miles from the pretty village of Sorrède. The pathway up the height is bordered with violets, wild thyme, furze, and various shrubs. You pass three crosses, and a small oratory where the processions of Rogation week stop on their way to the mount to sing a hymn to the Virgin. The hermitage is in a fine position, shaded by trees, the terrace overlooking a vast extent of country with the immensity of the sea in the distance. In sight are several places of interest—the rock of Montblanc, where once stood a royal château; the _Cova de las Encantadas_, or the fairies’ cave; and, on the top of an isolated peak, the ruins of the old castle of Ultrera, which history says was taken by Wamba, King of the Visigoths, in the seventh century. Don Pedro of Aragon received its keys from Don Jaime of Majorca in 1344. Finally, it became the property of the lords of Sorrède. Marshal Schomberg took it from the Spanish in 1675, and the place his troops occupied is still pointed out as the Camp des Français. The castle being dismantled by order of Louis XIV., Jeanne de Béarn, who had seigneurial rights over it, took possession, among other things, of the ancient Madonna in the chapel, and built another to receive it. This statue had long before been miraculously discovered in a cave of the mountains. There is a singular expression of sweetness in the face, and both Mother and Child are considered _muy hermosos_. She is dressed in Spanish style, the veil that falls around her partly covering the Child. Great crowds come here on the festivals of the Virgin, where Mass is sometimes sung at an altar under the trees, and the people, spread around on the neighboring heights, give it the aspect of an amphitheatre.

Not a mile from the hamlet of La Roca, where Philip le Hardi in his campaign against Aragon lodged with all his court, is a pleasant valley watered by a limpid stream and shaded by trees. Out of it rises a low hill from which you can see the Albères and their forests of cork-trees, and among them the ruins of the castle of La Roca, where the king of Majorca took refuge from Don Pedro of Aragon. Here is the hermitage of Notre Dame de Tanya, with a well before it shaded by fine old plane-trees. On the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary the people of La Roca come here in procession. There are daily services during the octave, among which is the rosary at sunset. On the eighth day there is a Mass of thanksgiving, after which the people return processionally to La Roca.

Near the Coll de Prunet, through which passed Hannibal and the hosts of the Cæsars, is Notre Dame del Coll, shut in by the mountains and their forests of evergreen oaks and cork-trees—a popular chapel, where people come to pray to be delivered from the _goître_ and all throat diseases common in the mountains. The _Goigs_ contain the only accounts of its history, from which it appears that the chapel was built in the ninth century to receive a Virgin discovered by means of an ox. There is a painting over the altar of a herdsman and dog kneeling before the Virgin. The statue has been gilded, and the dress only allows the head to be seen. Here are manacles worn by captives in Moorish times, brought in gratitude for their deliverance and suspended before the image of Him “whose pierced hands have broken so many chains” other than those of material bondage. There is an altar, too, to St. Quitterie of Aire, to whom there are also special _Goigs_. She is invoked for hydrophobia.

About two miles from Argelés is the hermitage of St. Ferréol in a wild, solitary place among the cliffs of the Albères, the savage aspect of which is softened by the almond, fig, cherry, and oak trees. Before the chapel ran the ancient “Carrera de Espagna,” by which Philip le Hardi went with his army when he undertook the disastrous war against Pedro III. of Aragon, in 1285, continuing along beneath the castle of Ultrera to the Coll de la Massane. The chapel used to have two holes in the wall to receive the alms of the passer-by when the doors were closed. It has been restored from the ruin into which it had fallen, but is seldom visited.

On a bare rock not far from Argelés is the hermitage of Notre Dame de Vic, apparently very ancient, from the thick walls and low heavy arches of the chapel. Just below is a dark ravine lined with trees, and a cistern that catches the water trickling down the rocks. A family now lives in the hermitage. From it you can see over a vast plain, and beyond is the Mediterranean Sea, a perpetual beauty in itself.

The hermitage of Notre Dame des Abeilles is near the sea-coast, not far from the Spanish frontier, in a region once noted for its honey. In some seasons it is approached by the dry bed of a mountain torrent that comes down in the spring through the undulating hills covered with vines and olives. As far back as 1657 the chapel was known as the Capilla Antigua, and was famous for the perpetual miracle of its ever-open door which no human hand could keep closed. It contained one of those images which was “not willing to be shut up.” This was an old Madonna, black as that which Giotto loved to pray before, with a honeycomb in her hand, sweet to the taste as the knowledge of wisdom to the soul, reminding one of the spouse of the Canticles, whose lips drop as the honeycomb. People used to come from Spain to revere this Virgin, but it was removed for safety in 1793, and is now in the parish church of Banyuls-sur-Mer, where, as in ancient times, a lamb is offered at her altar on Whit Tuesday, the feast of Notre Dame des Abeilles, which is afterwards sold to the highest bidder to defray the expenses of the festival. On the top of a neighboring mountain, about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, may be seen the old historic tower of Madeloc.

Three miles from the town of Collioure is the hermitage of Notre Dame de Consolation, to which you ascend out of vines and plantations of olives, almonds, and figs by a path cut in the rocks. By the wayside is an oratory here and there with some saint in the niche, as St. James, St. Ann, and Our Lady of Many Griefs. You seldom find a more charming spot in summer. The terrace before the chapel is shaded by alleys of lindens, chestnuts, and elms, some of which are of enormous size, and beneath them are fountains that diffuse their cooling waters. Below is a vineyard noted for its products, and through an opening between two hills can be seen the fortress of Miradon, the belfry of Collioure, and the sea in the distance. The ancient image of Our Lady has disappeared, but there is a modern one in the sculptured retablo. Here on certain days, as St. Ferréol’s, is a great gathering. The popular _Goigs_ are sung to airs of simple melody, and every one goes down the eighteen steps to drink at the miraculous fountain. He who has prayed in this mountain chapel among the pious peasantry, and wandered in the shady alleys of the delightful terrace, and drunk of the waters, finds it difficult to tear himself away.

Such are a few of the ancient hermitages of the Pyrénées Orientales. Not one is without some beauty of its own that would commend it to the heart of the poet; not one without the balmy fragrance of some holy legend so attractive to the imagination; not one without its altar where God has for ages revealed himself, and the solitude where he loves to speak to the heart. Well may we exclaim with one[100] who was himself a hermit for a time on the shores of this very sea: “How delightful this boundless solitude where nature silently keeps watch! This silence has a thousand tongues that prompt the soul to soar away to God and wrap it in ineffable delights. Here no noise is heard but the human voice rising heavenward. These sounds full of sweetness alone trouble the secret solitude. Its repose is only interrupted by murmurs sweeter than the repose itself—the holy murmur of the lowly psalm. From the depths of the fervent soul rise melodious harmonies, and the voice of man accompanies his prayer to heaven.”

Footnote 100:

St. Eucher.

ROSARY STANZAS.
GLORIOUS MYSTERIES.

I.

PSALM cxxv. 5.

Once lost and found, again the Lost is found!
Drinking his voice, and feeding on his face,
Again her care and grief of heart are crowned;
Her lifelong grief outmeasured by the grace
That rained upon her in each moment’s space
As she beheld Him living who was dead.
Away the clouds of Time such meetings chase.
Wells of delight like those by tears are fed;
The soul to joy like hers by sorrow must be led.

II.

PSALM lxxxiii. 6-8.

The mountain-roots lie in the lowly vale.
Mother bereaved! from height to vaster height
Ever ascending, his last triumph hail!
On wings of fire her love has taken flight,
To follow where he is gone beyond her sight;
Heaven is not far off, Love’s wing is strong.
She sees the royal portals clothed in light;
To Son and Mother there high thrones belong:
Whom dying will unite, life cannot sever long.

III.

ACTS i. 14.

In the pale light of subterranean glooms,
Rude art of early centuries portrays
Upon the wall of Roman Catacombs
Jesus’ great Mother, Mary, as she prays,
With arms uplifted, while apostles gaze.[101]
Even so she prayed before the Spirit came
To consecrate the Pentecostal days,
With rushing power and tongues of lambent flame.
Can aught be then denied, if prayed in her great name?[102]

IV.

CANTIC. ii. 17.

Shades yield to light. The Twelve from every land
Are gathered round the dying Mother’s bed;
Tranquil she lies, awaiting the command
To arise and come. She hears, and bows her head:
One _Fiat_ more, and Mary is with the dead;
But, sought the third day in her empty tomb,
On wings of angels borne, had upward fled,
Where flowers of Paradise undying bloom,
And glories passing thought her future home illume.

V.

JOHN xvii. 22.

From tiny rills the mightiest rivers grow;
Insensibly from small to great they glide,
City and plain rejoicing as they go.
But never less than great the treasures wide
Of Mary’s peerless grace. Full they abide
For evermore; and deep and strong and free
The current of that overflowing tide;
Beyond all ear can sound, all eye can see,
Mingling her glorious wealth with the Everlasting Sea.

Footnote 101:

_Le Oranti_ of the archæologists.

Footnote 102:

John xvi. 26.

PANTHEISM _VERSUS_ ATHEISM.

Protestantism is very unfortunate in its warfare against modern unbelief. It is daily losing battles, losing men, and losing ground; and it feels so little reluctance to give up one dogma after another as to create the impression that the time is not far off when it will deliver up its last citadel and accept the yoke of the enemy. The fact is so well known that it needs no proof; nevertheless, as we have a striking illustration of it in a phase of the struggle which is now going on between Protestant and infidel thought on the all-important dogma of the existence of God, we will make it the subject of a short discussion, that our readers may form a clearer conception of the suicidal strategy of some Protestant controversialists.

A work has recently appeared which purports to be a natural history of atheism.[103] Its author is an accomplished Protestant scholar, a learned professor, an elegant writer, and an earnest advocate of religious ideas in accordance with the Bible as interpreted by his private judgment. His object is to refute atheism. Of course history, reason, and revelation are all on his side, so he is well armed; whilst his antagonist, though boisterous and aggressive, is by no means formidable, having had his strength thoroughly broken by former defeats. In such a condition of things the victory should evidently belong to the champion of Divinity. And yet no. Our champion strikes, indeed, some heavy blows, but while thus struggling with the enemy he falls into a quagmire. In other words, he grapples with a senseless atheism only to plunge into an equally senseless pantheism.

With regard to the first chapters of the work we have little to say. The author proves pretty conclusively that atheism is against reason. He shows that the belief in the existence of God has been universal not only among civilized nations but also among barbarous tribes. “Atheism,” says he, “is a disease of the speculative faculty.” “It indicates a chaotic state of mind.” “It is a doctrine so averse from the general current of human sentiment that the unsophisticated mass of mankind instinctively turn away from it, as the other foxes did from that vulpine brother who, having lost his tail in a trap, tried to convince the whole world of foxes that the bushy appendage in the posterior region was a deformity of which all high-minded members of the vulpine aristocracy should get rid as soon as possible.” This argument against atheism was well known to the ancients, who laid great stress upon it, as they saw that a universal agreement of mankind on the existence of God could not but proceed from our rational nature; but our author considers it as a simple “presumption,” rather than a proof in favor of the theistic doctrine.

He then argues from the principle of causality and from the wonderful wisdom displayed in the architecture of the universe. This, too, is very good. Next, he meets the objection drawn from the existence of evil in the world.

“If there were no poverty,” says he, “where were charity? If every
person were equally independent and self-reliant, where would be the
gracious pleasure on both sides which arises from the support given
by the strong to the weak? Where again would be the topping virtue
of moral courage, unless the majority, at some particular critical
moment, were cowards?... In fact, always and everywhere the
development of energy implies the existence of that which energy
must subdue—namely, evil in some shape or other. Therefore the
existence of evil is not a proof that there is no God; but it is by
the overcoming of evil constantly that God proves himself to be God,
and man proves himself to be God-like, when in his subordinate
sphere he does the same.”

This answer is tolerably good; but we doubt if the atheist will be silenced by it. The author should have distinguished physical from moral evil. The existence of physical evil he could have shown to be perfectly reconcilable with God’s infinite goodness and providence; whereas the existence of moral evil should have been shown to be in no manner derogatory to his infinite sanctity. This has been done very fully by a multitude of philosophers and theologians; but it could not be done consistently by our pantheistic writer, because, as we shall see, all moral evil, according to his pantheistic theory, would either emanate from God or be immanent in him, with a total ruin of his infinite sanctity. Hence the atheist, after all the reasonings of the learned professor, may still urge that the existence of a God is incompatible with the existence of sin; and we think that the professor will be at a loss how to answer the difficulty so long as he holds to his pantheistic views.

As to the genesis of atheism the author makes many good and thoughtful remarks. There is a sort of atheism which arises from an absolute feebleness or babyhood of intellect. This he calls “atheism of imbecility”; but, says he, “we need not detain ourselves with this type of intellectual incapability. It is not atheists of this class that we are likely to meet with in the present age; and if we did meet them we should be much more likely to remit them summarily to some hospital of incurables than to a thinking school.”

The next type of the atheistic disease has its origin in moral depravity. There are men whose career is “like a piece of music made up of a constant succession of jars, which shakes the strings so much by unkindly vibrations that the instrument, from the force of an unnatural strain, cracks itself into silence prematurely. Now, unharmonized characters of this description are naturally indisposed, and practically incapacitated from recognizing order, design, and system in the constitution of the universe, and of course cannot see God.” This root of atheism is very well illustrated by Mr. Blackie. Here is a beautiful passage:

“It occurs to me to set down here the features of one of the most
notable of those disorderly characters who lived in ancient Rome at
the same epoch when the hollow atheism of Epicurus was dressed up
for a day in the garb of poetical beauty by a poet of no mean genius
called Lucretius. The man I mean is Catiline. Hear how Sallust in a
well-known passage describes him: ‘Lucius Catiline, born of a noble
family, a man of great strength, both of mind and body, but of a
wicked and perverse disposition. To this man, from his youth
upwards, intestine broils, slaughters, rapines, and civil wars were
a delight; and in these he put forth all the energy of his youth. He
could boast of a bodily frame capable of enduring heat and cold,
hunger and watching, beyond all belief; he had a spirit daring,
cunning, and full of shifts, ready alike to simulate what he was not
and to dissimulate what he was, as occasion might call. Greedy of
others’ property, he was lavish of his own; in passion fiery, in
words copious, in wisdom scant. His unchastened ambition was
constantly desiring things immoderate, incredible, and beyond human
reach.’ This is exactly the sort of character, to whose completeness
if anything like a philosophy is to be attributed, atheism will be
that thing.”

In our age, however, according to the author, all the varieties of speculative and practical atheism which we meet with in common life are “weeds sprung from the rank soil of irreverence.” Man being naturally a religious animal, atheism can then only spring up when, in the individual or in society, any influence arises which nips the natural bud of reverence in the soul. Thus power may foster a strong feeling of independence, which may end in a monstrous self-worship. But liberty also, as the author well remarks, when unlimited, leads to godlessness. There is an atheism of democracy no less than of despotism. From extreme democracy, as from a hot-bed, atheism in its rankest stage naturally shoots up. There is nothing in the idea of mere liberty to create the feeling of reverence. The desire of unlimited liberty is an essentially selfish feeling, and has no regard for any Power from above. The fundamental maxim of all pure democracy is simply this: “I am as good as you, and perhaps a little better; I acknowledge nobody as my master, whether in heaven above or on earth beneath; I will not be fettered.”

But, continues the author, unlimited power and unlimited liberty are not the only social forces that are apt to run riot in the exaggerated assertion of the individual and the negation of all superhuman authority. There is the irreverence begotten of pride of intellect. Knowledge, of course, does not directly produce irreligion or extinguish piety, on the contrary, the more a wise man knows of the universe, the more he is lost in admiration of its excellence. But the knowing faculty is not the whole of a living man, and to bring forth its healthy fruits it must go hand-in-hand with a rich moral nature; divorced from this, knowledge begets intellectual pride and opens the way to godlessness.

Here the author points out the fact that there is something in the researches of modern science, at least in certain conditions of the intellectual atmosphere, not apparently favorable to the growth of piety and the cultivation of religious reverence. In not a few modern books of physical science we find nothing but “a curious fingering of wretched dumb details utterly destitute of soul. Whatever is in the book, depend upon it, God is not there. You will hear no end of talk about laws and forces, developments and evolutions, metamorphic forms, transmuted energies, and what not; but it is all dead—at least all blind. For seeing intellect and shaping reason there is no place in such systems.” The author strongly condemns this godless science, and shows at length its fickleness and unwisdom; and we might almost mistake him for a Catholic apologist, were it not that he ventures to speak of “non-sense” in connection with the Council of Trent, at which he irreverently sneers.

In the next chapter he treats of polytheism, whose origin he traces to misdirected reverence towards the powers of nature. He shows that polytheism was not atheism, and that polytheistic society could reach a certain degree of morality not to be found among atheists. To our mind, this chapter, though learned, is nearly superfluous; for it has scarcely any bearing on the history of atheism. In like manner we think that the chapter on Buddhism, which comes immediately after, and which fills seventy pages, was uncalled for. The author says that the British atheism of Bradlaugh, John Stuart Mill, Miss Martineau, Tyndall, and others called his attention to the assertion that in the far East atheism had been publicly professed for more than two thousand years, and was at present the corner-stone of the faith of more than four hundred millions of the human race. Could such an assertion be true? He could not believe it. To talk of a religion without God was, to his mind, “as to talk of the propositions in Euclid without the postulates on which they depend.” He therefore determined to get at the root of the matter, and thus he discovered that Buddhism was not atheism. It is to show this that he gives an elaborate explanation of the Buddhistic system. We need not discuss it, though we believe that some Buddhistic errors which he points out are somewhat exaggerated. We only repeat that the natural history of atheism would have lost nothing, and perhaps gained something, if this long digression on Buddhism had been omitted.

And now we have reached the last chapter of the work, where the author endeavors to make theologians responsible for a kind of modern atheism which he calls “atheism of reaction,” and where he makes his strange and foolish profession of pantheism. It is with this chapter alone that we shall be concerned in the following pages; for it is the evil doctrine contained in this objectionable chapter that spoils the whole work and gives it a totally anti-Christian character. Is the author a Freemason? Is he the mouth-piece of the Scotch and English lodges, whose members are anxious not to be ranked among atheists, though they have no definite creed? We do not care to know. But we may well affirm that his book is full of the Masonic spirit, and answers so well the present needs of British Freemasonry that we cannot be much mistaken if we call it a Masonic work. It is well known that the English Freemasonry, either because less advanced or because more prudent than the Masonry of France, thought it necessary to protest against a suicidal resolution lately passed by the latter, which permits the admission of candidates to membership irrespective of their belief or disbelief in the Great Architect of the universe. This resolution was strongly condemned by the English lodges, which lost no time in sending out a public official declaration that, so far as the English fraternity was concerned, no member would be recognized who did not profess to believe in the Great Architect, according to the old Masonic constitution. The wisdom of this measure cannot be doubted; for the English Masonry enjoys still a certain degree of respectability, which must not be compromised by a low sympathy with the desperate atheism of the French communists. Nevertheless, so long as they talk of a “Great Architect of the universe” without explaining more particularly what they mean by these words, there is reason to fear that their protest against the French infidels is a deceit. The pantheist, the Buddhist, and the agnostic, and even the materialist and the fatalist, can admit an Architect of the universe, provided they are allowed to put upon these words a free construction. One will identify him with Law, another with Nature, a third with Force, a fourth with Matter, and perhaps a fifth with Satan himself; for, as the old Manichæans held that this material world was the work of a bad principle, so there are now men (not unknown to Freemasonry) who consider Satan as their friend, their master, and their god. There are lodges where the “Great Leonard,” a satanic apparition, is an object of worship. No doubt these lodges recognize him as the “Great Architect of the universe.” And Proudhon was so bold as to publish that he was in love with Satan: “_Viens, Satan; viens, que je t’embrasse!_”

At any rate, if the book we are criticising has been written in the interest of the British Freemasons, it fails to show that they are more orthodox than their French brothers whom they have excommunicated. The pantheism professed in the book is just as worthless as the French atheism; for pantheism, just as much as atheism, makes all religion impossible. Hence a book which refutes atheism in order to establish pantheism, however filled with Scriptural quotations to make it look religious, is an anti-Christian book.

The atheism of reaction, of which the author speaks in the first part of this chapter, is, according to him, “a recoil” from the exaggerations and dictatorial imperiousness of theological orthodoxy. “Even theism,” he remarks, “the only reasonable theory of the universe, in the blundering fashion in which you state it, may possibly produce atheism, the most unreasonable of all theories.” The Reformation “was unquestionably a reaction from the excess of sacerdotal assertiveness, and the abuse of ecclesiastical power in the latter centuries of the middle ages.” This excess “gave sharp offence to the delicate conscience of Martin Luther, and roused his sleeping wrath into a thunder-storm of holy indignation.” How? “By parading the public places, and marching through the highways of Christendom with a sacerdotal gospel of salvation by works—by conventional and arbitrary works, penances, and payments of various kinds imposed by authority of the all-powerful clergy, and having little or nothing in common with the morality of a pure life and a noble character.” “Against this abuse Luther protested exactly in the same way, and with similar effect, as St. Paul protested against the ritualism of the Jews.” “_The just liveth by faith._ This great doctrine has saved the world twice, once from the cumbrous and narrow-minded ceremonialism of the Jews, and again from the despotic and soul-stupefying sacerdotalism of the Romanists.”