Chapter M: J. Spalding, D. D. Archbishop of Baltimore, is a native of (2)

1. Once this soft turf, this rivulet’s sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and arméd hands
Encountered in the battle-cloud.

2. Ah, never shall the land forget
How gushed the life-blood of her brave,—
Gushed, warm with hope and valor yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save.

3. Now all is calm, and fresh, and still;
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
And talk of children on the hill,
And bell of wandering kine,[624] are heard.

4. No solemn host goes trailing by
The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;[625]
Men start not at the battle-cry;—
O, be it never heard again!

5. Soon rested those who fought; but thou,
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,—
Thy warfare only ends with life.

6. A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year;
A wild and many-weaponed throng
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

7. Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot!
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown—yet faint thou not!

8. Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn,
For with thy side shall dwell at last
The victory of endurance born.

9. Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshipers.

10. Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
When those who helped thee flee in fear,—
Die full of hope and manly trust,
Like those who fell in battle here.

11. Another hand thy sword shall wield,[626]
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet’s mouth is pealed[627]
The blast of triumph o’er thy grave!

[624] KINE, cows.

[625] WAIN, a wagon.

[626] WIELD, use with the hand; handle.

[627] PEALˊ-ED, rung; resounded; sounded loudly.

CI.—THE RELIGION OF CATHOLICS.

DR. DOYLE.

Right Reverend James Doyle was born at New Ross, County Wexford,
Ireland, in 1786; died in 1834. His letters written over the
signature of J. K. on all the great topics of the day in Ireland,
are classed among the ablest documents of the kind ever written.

1. It was the creed, my lord, of a Charlemagne and of a St. Louis, of an Alfred and an Edward, of the monarchs of the feudal times, as well as of the Emperors of Greece and Rome; it was believed at Venice and at Genoa, in Lucca and the Helvetic nations in the days of their freedom and greatness; all the barons of the middle ages, all the free cities of later times, professed the religion we now profess. You know well my lord, that the charter of British freedom, and the common law of England, have their origin and source in Catholic times.

2. Who framed the free constitutions of the Spanish Goths? Who preserved science and literature, during the long night of the middle ages? Who imported literature from Constantinople, and opened for her an asylum at Rome, Florence, Padua, Paris and Oxford? Who polished Europe by art, and refined her by legislation? Who discovered the New World and opened a passage to another? Who were the masters of architecture, of painting, and of music? Who invented the compass, and the art of printing? Who were the poets, the historians, the jurists, the men of deep research, and profound literature?

3. Who have exalted human nature, and made man appear again little less than the angels? Were they not almost exclusively the professors of our creed? Were they who created and possessed freedom under every shape and form, unfit for her enjoyment? Were men, deemed even now the lights of the world and the benefactors of the human race, the deluded victims of a slavish superstition? But what is there in our creed which renders us unfit for freedom?

4. Is it the doctrine of passive obedience? No, for the obedience we yield to authority, is not blind, but reasonable? our religion does not create despotism; it supports every established constitution which is not opposed to the laws of nature, unless it be altered by those who are entitled to change it. In Poland it supported an elective monarch; in France an hereditary sovereign; in Spain, an absolute or constitutional king indifferently; in England when the houses of York and Lancaster contended, it declared that he who was king _de facto_ was entitled to the obedience of the people.

5. During the reign of the Tudors, there was a faithful adherence of the Catholics to their prince, under trials the most severe and galling, because the constitution required it; the same was exhibited by them to the ungrateful race of Stuart; but since the expulsion of James (foolishly called an abdication), have they not adopted with the nation at large, the doctrine of the Revolution: “that the crown is held in trust for the benefit of the people; and that should the monarch violate his compact, the subject is freed from the bond of his allegiance?” Has there been any form of government ever devised by man to which the religion of Catholics has not been accommodated?

6. Is there any obligation, either to a prince, or to a constitution, which it does not enforce? What, my lord, is the allegiance of man divided who gives to Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar, and to God what belongs to God? Is the allegiance of the priest divided who yields submission to his bishop and his king?—of the son who obeys his parent and his prince? And yet these duties are more distinct than those which we owe our sovereign and spiritual head. Is there any man in society who has not distinct duties to discharge?

7. May not the same person be the head of a corporation, and an officer of the king? a justice of the peace, perhaps, and a bankrupt surgeon, with half his pay? And are the duties thus imposed upon him, incompatible one with another? If the Pope can define that the Jewish sabbath is dissolved, and that the Lord’s day is to be sanctified, may not this be believed without prejudice to the act of settlement, or that for the limitation of the crown? If the Church decree that on Fridays her children should abstain from flesh-meat, are they thereby controlled from obeying the king when he summons them to war?

CII.—A BIRTH-DAY OFFERING.

DR. NEWMAN.

Dr. John Henry Newman, a distinguished Catholic Ecclesiastic, was
formerly a minister of the Established Church in England, and
leader of what has been called the Puseyite movement. He is a man
of very remarkable ability.

1. Dear Frank, this morn has ushered in
The manhood of thy days;
A boy no more, thou must begin
To choose thy future ways;
To brace thy arm, and nerve thy heart,
For maintenance of a noble part.

2. And thou a voucher[628] fair hast given,
Of what thou wilt achieve,
Ere age has dimmed thy sunlit heaven
In weary life’s chill eve;
Should Sovereign Wisdom in its grace
Vouchsafe to thee so long a race.

3. My brother, we are linked with chain
That time shall ne’er destroy;
Together we have been in pain,
Together now in joy;
For duly I to share may claim
The present brightness of thy name.

4. My brother, ’tis no recent tie
Which binds our fates in one,
E’en from our tender infancy
The twisted thread was spun;—
Her deed, who stored in her fond mind
Our forms, by sacred love enshrined.[629]

5. In her affection all had share,
All six, she loved them all;
Yet on her early-chosen Pair
Did her full favor fall;
And we became her dearest theme,
Her waking thought, her nightly dream.

6. Ah! brother, shall we e’er forget
Her love, her care, her zeal?
We cannot pay the countless debt,
But we must ever feel;
For through her earnestness were shed
Prayer-purchased blessings on our head.

7. Though in the end of days she stood,
And pain and weakness came,
Her force of thought was unsubdued,
Her fire of love the same;
And e’en when memory failed its part,
We still kept lodgment in her heart.

8. And when her Maker from the thrall[630]
Of flesh her spirit freed,
No suffering ’companied the call,
—In mercy ’twas decreed,—
One moment here, the next she trod
The viewless mansion of her God.

9. Now then at length she is at rest,
And, after many a woe,
Rejoices in that Saviour blest,
Who was her hope below;
Kept till the day when he shall own
His saints before His Father’s throne.

10. So it is left for us to prove
Her prayers were not in vain;
And that God’s grace-according love
Has fallen as gentle rain,
Which, sent in the due vernal[631] hour,
Tints the young leaf, perfumes the flower.

11. Dear Frank, we both are summoned now
As champions of the Lord;—
Enrolled am I, and shortly thou
Must buckle on thy sword;
A high employ, nor lightly given,
To serve as messengers of heaven!

12. Deep in my heart that gift I hide;
I change it not away,
For patriot-warrior’s hour of pride,
Or statesman’s tranquil[632] sway;
For poet’s fire, or pleader’s skill
To pierce the soul and tame the will.

13. O! may we follow undismayed[633]
Where’er our God shall call!
And may His Spirit’s present aid
Uphold us lest we fall!
Till in the end of days we stand,
As victors in a deathless land.

[628] VOUCHˊ-ER, a warrant; a testimony.

[629] EN-SHRINˊ-ED, enclosed.

[630] THRALL, bondage.

[631] VERˊ-NAL, belonging to Spring.

[632] TRANˊ-QUIL, peaceful; undisturbed.

[633] UN-DIS-MAYEDˊ, with courage.

CIII.—SPEECH OF LOGAN, CHIEF OF THE MINGOES.

JEFFERSON.

1. I may challenge the whole of the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and, indeed, of any more eminent orators, if Europe, or the world, has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, delivered to Lord Dunmore, when governor of Virginia. As a testimony of Indian talents in this line, I beg leave to introduce it, by first stating the incidents necessary for understanding it.

2. In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery was committed, by some Indians, upon certain land adventurers[634] on the Ohio river. The whites in that quarter, according to their custom, undertook to punish this outrage in a summary[635] way. Captain Michael Cresap, and one Daniel Greathouse, leading on these parties, surprised, at different times, traveling and hunting parties of the Indians, who had their women and children with them, and murdered many. Among these, were unfortunately the family of Logan, a chief celebrated in peace and war, and long distinguished as the friend of the whites.

3. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized[636] himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the same year a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanhawa, between the collected forces of the Shawnees, the Mingoes, and the Delawares, and a detachment[637] of the Virginia militia. The Indians were defeated, and sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants: but, lest the sincerity of a treaty from which so distinguished a chief absented himself, should be distrusted, he sent by a messenger, the following speech to be delivered to Lord Dunmore.

4. “I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said ‘Logan is the friend of the white men.’ I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, last spring in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace: but do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

[634] AD-VENTˊ-UR-ERS, those who attempt difficult enterprises.

[635] SUMˊ-MA-RY, short; brief.

[636] SIGˊ-NAL-I-ZED, made remarkable.

[637] DE-TACHˊ-MENT, a party sent off from the main body.

CIV.—GOD IS EVERY WHERE.

1. Oh! show me where is He,
The high and holy One,
To whom thou bend’st the knee,
And pray’st, “Thy will be done!”
I hear thy song of praise,
And lo! no _form_ is near:
Thine _eyes_ I see thee raise,
But where doth God appear?
Oh! teach me who _is_ God, and where his glories shine,
That I may kneel and pray, and call _thy_ Father _mine_.

2. “Gaze on that arch above:
The glittering vault admire.
_Who_ taught these orbs to move?
_Who_ lit their ceaseless fire?
_Who_ guides the moon to run
In silence through the skies?
_Who_ bids that dawning sun
In strength and beauty rise?
There view immensity! behold! my God is there:
The sun, the moon, the stars, his majesty declare.

3. “See where the _mountains_ rise;
Where thundering _torrents_ foam;
Where, vailed in towering skies,
The _eagle_ makes his home:
Where savage nature dwells,
My God is present too;
Through all her wildest dells
His footsteps I pursue:
_He_ reared those giant cliffs, supplies that dashing stream,
Provides the daily food which stills the wild bird’s scream.

4. “Look on that world of _waves_,
Where finny nations glide;
Within whose deep, dark caves
The ocean-monsters hide:
His power is sovereign there,
To raise, to quell the storm;
The depths His bounty share,
Where sport the scaly swarm;
Tempests and calms obey the same almighty voice,
Which rules the earth and skies, and bids far worlds rejoice.

5. “No human thoughts can soar
Beyond His boundless might;
_He_ swells the thunder’s roar,
_He_ spreads the wings of night.
Oh! praise His works divine!
Bow down thy soul in prayer;
Nor ask for other sign,
That God is everywhere:
The viewless spirit, He—immortal, holy, blest—
Oh! worship Him in faith, and find eternal rest!”

CV.—CHARACTER OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY.

BARRINGTON.

Sir Jonah Barrington was born in Ireland in 1767, and died in
1834. He was a member of the Irish Parliament which met in
Dublin before the act of Union in 1800, and which numbered among
its members a great many men of distinguished character and
brilliant talents, such as Grattan, Curran, Plunkett, Flood, and
others. His “Personal Sketches” are racy, humorous, and full of
interesting anecdotes.

1. The Irish people have been as little known, as they have been grossly defamed, to the rest of Europe. The lengths to which English writers have proceeded in pursuit of this object would surpass all belief, were not the facts proved by histories written under the immediate eye and sanction of Irish governments; histories replete with falsehood, which, combined with the still more mischievous misrepresentations of modern writers, form altogether a mass of the most cruel calumnies that ever weighed down the character of a meritorious[638] people.

2. This system, however, was not without its meaning. From the reign of Elizabeth, the policy of England has been to keep Ireland in a state of internal division; perfect unanimity among her inhabitants has been considered as likely to give her a population and a power incompatible[639] with subjection,[640] and there are not wanting natives of Ireland, who, impressed with that erroneous idea, zealously plunge into the same doctrine, as if they would best prove their loyalty to the king by vilifying their country.

3. The Irish peasantry, who necessarily compose the great body of the population, combine in their character many of those singular and repugnant[641] qualities which peculiarly designate the people of different nations; and this remarkable contrariety of characteristic traits pervades almost the whole current of their natural dispositions. Laborious, domestic, accustomed to want in the midst of plenty, they submit to hardships without repining, and bear the severest privations with stoic fortitude. The sharpest wit, and the shrewdest subtilty, which abound in the character of the Irish peasant, generally lie concealed under the semblance of dullness, or the appearance of simplicity; and his language, replete with the keenest humor, possesses an idiom of equivocation,[642] which never fails successfully to evade a direct answer to an unwelcome question.

4. Inquisitive, artful, and penetrating, the Irish peasant learns mankind without extensive intercourse, and has an instinctive knowledge of the world, without mingling in its societies; and never, in any other instance, did there exist a people who could display so much address and so much talent in the ordinary transactions of life as the Irish peasantry.

5. The Irish peasant has, at all periods, been peculiarly distinguished for unbounded but indiscriminate[643] hospitality, which, though naturally devoted to the necessities of a friend, is never denied by him even to the distresses of an enemy.[644] To be in want or misery, is the best recommendation to his disinterested protection; his food, his bed, his raiment, are equally the stranger’s and his own; and the deeper the distress the more welcome is the sufferer to the peasant’s cottage.

6. His attachments to his kindred are of the strongest nature. The social duties are intimately blended with the natural disposition of an Irish peasant; though covered with rags, oppressed with poverty, and perhaps with hunger, the finest specimens of generosity and heroism are to be found in his unequaled character.

7. An enthusiastic attachment to the place of their nativity is another striking trait of the Irish character, which neither time nor absence, prosperity nor adversity, can obliterate or diminish. Wherever an Irish peasant was born, there he wishes to die; and, however successful in acquiring wealth or rank in distant places, he returns with fond affections to renew his intercourse with the friends and companions of his youth and his obscurity.

8. An innate spirit of insubordination to the laws has been strongly charged upon the Irish peasantry; but a people to whom the punishment of crimes appears rather as a sacrifice to revenge than a measure of prevention, can never have the same deference to the law as those who are instructed in the principles of justice and taught to recognize its equality. It has, however, been uniformly admitted by every impartial writer on the affairs of Ireland, that a spirit of strict justice has ever characterized the Irish peasant.[645]

9. Convince him by plain and impartial reasoning, that he is wrong; and he withdraws from the judgment-seat, if not with cheerfulness, at least with submission: but, to make him respect the laws, he must be satisfied that they are impartial; and, with that conviction on his mind, the Irish peasant is as perfectly tractable as the native of any other country in the world.

10. An attachment to, and a respect for females, is another characteristic of the Irish peasant. The wife partakes of all her husband’s vicissitudes; she shares his labor and his miseries, with constancy and with affection. At all the sports and meetings of the Irish peasantry, the women are always of the company; they have a great influence; and, in his smoky cottage, the Irish peasant, surrounded by his family, seems to forget all his privations. The natural cheerfulness of his disposition banishes reflection; and he experiences a simple happiness, which even the highest ranks of society might justly envy.

[638] MERˊ-I-TOˊ-RI-OUS, having merit, deserving well.

[639] IN-COM-PATˊ-I-BLE, inconsistent.

[640] SUB-JECˊ-TION, under control, being subject to.

[641] RE-PUGˊ-NANT, opposite; inconsistent.

[642] E-QUIVˊ-O-CA-TION, ambiguity of speech.

[643] IN-DIS-CRIMˊ-IN-ATE, not making distinction.

[644] It has been remarked that the English and Irish people form their judgment of strangers very differently:—an Englishman suspects a stranger to be a rogue, till he finds that he is an honest man; the Irishman conceives every person to be an honest man till he finds him out to be a rogue; and this accounts for the very striking difference in their conduct and hospitality to strangers.

[645] Sir John Davis, attorney-general of Ireland, who, in the reign of James the First, was employed by the king to establish the English laws throughout Ireland, and who made himself perfectly acquainted with the character of the inhabitants, admits that “there were no people under heaven, who loved equal and impartial justice better than the Irish.”

CVI.—ADVICE TO A YOUNG CRITIC.

POPE.

1. ’Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning join;
In all you speak, let truth and candor shine;
That not alone what to your sense is due
All may allow, but seek your friendship too.
Be silent always, when you doubt your sense,
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.[646]

2. Some positive, persisting[647] fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so:
But _you_, with pleasure, own your errors past,
And make each day a critic on the last.
’Tis not enough your counsel to be true:
Blunt truths more mischief than slight errors do;
Men must be taught, as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed, as things forgot.

3. Without good breeding truth is disapproved;
That only makes superior sense beloved.
Be niggard[648] of advice on no pretense;
For the worst avarice is that of sense.
With mean complacence[649] ne’er betray your trust
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;
Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.

4. But where’s the man who counsel can bestow,
Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know;
Unbiassed, or by favor, or by spite;
Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right;
Though learned, well-bred; and, though well-bred, sincere;
Modestly bold, and humanly severe;
Who to a friend his faults can freely show,
And gladly praise the merit of a foe?

5. Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfined;
A knowledge both of books and human kind;
Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride,
And love to praise with reason on his side;
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;
Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame;
Averse alike to flatter or offend;
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend?

[646] DIFˊ-FI-DENCE, want of confidence.

[647] PER-SISTˊ-ING, persevering steadily.

[648] NIGˊ-GARD, meanly; parsimonious.

[649] COM-PLAˊ-CENCE, civility.

CVII.—MARIE ANTOINETTE.

BURKE.

Edmund Burke was born in Ireland in 1728, and died in 1797. Such
was the transcendent ability of Burke, that, at a time when
England was richest in brilliant orators, and great statesmen, he
rose from his obscure position, as a young and unknown Irishman,
to be the great central figure in the array of great names which
shed a lustre over the closing years of the Eighteenth century.
But to his unrivaled merits as an orator and statesman, can be
added the still higher praise of being a man of unblemished honor
and probity.

1. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled, melancholy repose.

2. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, to save herself by flight—that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give—that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment.

3. This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people), were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated[650] carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous[651] slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family, who composed the king’s body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace.

4. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; while the royal captives, who followed in the train, were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and thrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies,[652] and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shapes of the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted[653] to six hours, they were, under a guard, composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings....

5. It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart I must have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration, to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace, concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers.

6. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded: and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage, while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

[650] MU-TIˊ-LAT-ED, mangled; maimed.

[651] PRO-MISˊ-CU-OUS, indiscriminate; confused.

[652] CONˊ-TU-ME-LIES, reproaches; offensive treatment.

[653] PRO-TRACT-EDˊ, lengthened.

CVIII.—ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

GRAY.

Thomas Gray was born in London, December 26, 1716, and died in
1771. The following poem has been always deservedly popular. The
manuscript of it was sold in London in 1854 for £131.

1. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea;
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

2. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

3. Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

4. Beneath those rugged elms, that ewe-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

5. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow, twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children ran to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield;
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund[654] did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

8. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

9. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Await, alike, the inevitable[655] hour;—
The paths of glory lead—but to the grave.

10. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If memory o’er their tomb no trophies[656] raise,
Where, through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

11. Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

12. Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid
Some heart, once pregnant[657] with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy[658] the living lyre.[659]

13. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury[660] repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

14. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

15. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

16. The applause of listening senates to command
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation’s eyes.

17. Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed[661] alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

18. The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame;
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the muse’s flame.

19. Far from the madding crowds ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray:
Along the cool, sequestered[662] vale of life,
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

20. Yet, even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial, still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

21. Their name, their years, spelled by the unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

22. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing, anxious being e’er resigned,—
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,—
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies;
Some pious drops the closing eye requires:
Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

24. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,
If, chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

25. Haply, some hoary-headed swain may say,
“Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn,
Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

26. “There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

27. “Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove;
Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

28. “One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,
Along the heath, and near his favorite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he

29. “The next, with dirges due, in sad array,
Slow through the churchyard path we saw him borne—
Approach, and read (for thou canst read), the lay,
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”

THE EPITAPH.

30. “Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;
Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark’d him for her own.

31. “Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav’n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to mis’ry all he had—a tear;
He gain’d from heaven (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

32. “No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode;
(There they, alike, in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.”

[654] JOCˊ-UND, merry, gay, lively.

[655] IN-EVˊ-I-TA-BLE, unavoidable.

[656] TROˊ-PHIES, memorials of victory.

[657] PREGˊ-NANT, teeming, fertile.

[658] ECˊ-STA-CY, excessive joy, rapture.

[659] LYRE, a musical instrument.

[660] PENˊ-URY, poverty, indigence.

[661] CIR-CUM-SCRIBEDˊ, inclosed, limited, confined.

[662] SE-QUESˊ-TERED, set apart, seized upon.

CIX.—THE VOLUNTARY CONFESSION OF SIN.

LACORDAIRE.

1. The most important of the divine penalties with which the Church is armed is confession, voluntary[663] confession. And in that penalty there is justice; for if you have had the courage to commit the fault, why not do so before the world? If you have not been afraid of doing evil before your own heart, why not do so before the whole human family?

2. And yet this justice is merciful; for it is not to the world, to a severe and corrupt world, that you are directed to avow your faults, but to a single man, in the most profound secret; to a man humble and meek, subject to temptation like his brethren, but purified by victory; and that avowal humbles without dishonoring you, touches rather than strikes you, reconciles you to yourself and to God: to yourself by the good which you feel living in your heart, to God by the pardon which he grants to you.

3. When Protestants abolished[664] confession, when they sent men to confess to God, what did they do? They only left the soul alone with sin, and drove away mercy by the fear of justice. And when, gentlemen, by a better instinct, you occupy yourselves about penitentiary[665] systems, are you not upon the traces of Jesus Christ and His Church? Do you not seek to transform public vengeance into expiation,[666] so that the guilty might leave your hands punished but saved, wounded by shame and grief but brought back by them to the sense and honor of virtue? It is your object, and one of your most cherished desires, one also most worthy of respect; why, then, do you despise the mystery of expiation in the Church? Why do you not perceive that the work accomplished by her is the very one which it is your ambition to realize? For you are as yet only making experiments, and what experiments they are!

4. You may build very ingenious prisons, you may stifle a man well between four walls, you may impose upon him many privations which you do not consider to be tortures because they do not shed blood; but, whatever you may do, you will always dishonor man, and you will find the road to his heart only to pour into it more deeply the poison of despair. Yes, penitence is more needed than penalties; expiation rather than repression; rehabilitation[667] rather than death. Yes, but you cannot effect this.

5. Think that this is accomplished; let men come to the feet of the priest, and you will do more than with your chains, your executioners and your dreams. Besides, what crimes do you extinguish with all this penal preparation? Murder, theft, violence. But there exists an evil which pierces men’s hearts, which gnaws the peace of families, which corrupts nations, and delivers them over, bound hand and foot, to the first conqueror who comes. Does not this evil escape from you? We, with our voluntary confession, reach all public as well as secret crimes; we reach them in the thought that prepares them, on the throne as well as in the shop of the artizan. See these princes, who are men like ourselves, more men than we, and on that account more to be pitied. They have their vices surrounded with guards and honors; truth does not reach them even when men are able to insult them, for insult teaches nothing.

6. Stand by a moment; behold a poor priest, a Capuchin, whose name is unknown; he ascends the superb stairs, he enters, he penetrates even where confidential friends are not admitted; he sits, and the prince, kneeling, says to him, “_Confiteor tibi Pater_.” And to whom does he say that? It is not to a man, but to the whole of humanity. It is the whole human kind which seizes and compresses him, which says to him, “Sire, you have sinned, you are not worthy to draw near to God.”

7. If some one had said to Augustus, whilst he was walking in his gardens with Horace or Mecænas, “There is a man below with a staff and wallet, who says he is sent from God to hear the confession of your faults;” would he not have looked upon him as a madman? And yet, gentlemen, that folly has prevailed! And observe, I pray you, that, on all occasions, in Christianity we find nothing but follies; and we justify these follies before you—you, the _élite_ of this age—and you listen to them and exclaim, “Nevertheless it is grand!”

[663] VOLˊ-UN-TA-RY, free; proceeding from choice or free will.

[664] A-BOLˊ-ISH-ED, annulled; abrogated; put an end to.

[665] PEN-I-TENˊ-TIA-RY, a house of correction.

[666] EX-PI-Aˊ-TION, the act of atoning for a crime or sin; atonement; satisfaction.

[667] RE-HA-BIL-I-TA-TION, restoration to former condition or position.