CATHOLIC WORLD. (continued 2)

But when that time came, and houses were locked tight and no one else dared face him as he went raging about the town, falling on the uneven streets, bruising and wounding himself, there was one who did go out to meet him. A tottering, feeble creature went meekly forth, stood in his path, took blows and curses without resistance, and presently—no one knew by what magic spell—led him to his own poor cabin and locked himself in with him alone.

That was the reason why Master Reuben never did what his tender and lonely heart yearned to do—to make a home for the orphan children of Gomorrah. No one but himself must be allowed to see what passed in his cabin while the Doctor was there; no one else must be exposed to the dangers he had to meet. But the room where they had watched the mysterious joy of Esther’s Christmas feast saw far other sights and echoed to far other sounds than angel music as the winter wore away. There were mornings when no children came to Reuben’s house, when some

And he—as the winter passed, the only truly happy faces that Gomorrah saw were Reuben Armstrong’s and little children’s. By and by they heard him sing sweet carols and hymns and chants; he taught the children to sing with him, and used to lead them down the streets, and into the snowy fields, and to visit Esther’s grave, to the sound of holy song. People stopped in many an evil deed or word to listen; then left the word unsaid, the deed undone. It came to be a fashion in Gomorrah to stroll to Reuben’s cabin of a Sunday to see how joyfully the children kept the day. Nay, it was even known that once a whole party at the tavern had left their drinking-cups, to stand for an hour at the next door, listening to the music. Truly, good and evil were in strange contrast that winter in the almost forgotten place which had no intercourse with the outer world. There was a world, unseen, in which it was remembered night and day.

At length they asked Reuben why he looked so happy, and he answered: “It is almost spring. Then the priest will come.” And when they laughed and asked him how he knew, he answered simply: “God will send him.”

When the snow began to melt Pg 612 and the streams ran gayly down the hillside, and grass was green, one week, remembered for years after in that region, the whole place rang with the story of a carousal which even Gomorrah wondered at; the whole place waited to see whether the Doctor or Reuben would ever come forth alive from their self-imposed prison. When Reuben opened his door again, and gathered his children round him, there was a look of peculiar expectation on his face. He greeted each child with special gladness, and told one of the mothers that he was quite sure the priest was coming very soon, “for we need him a good deal now,” he said.

That afternoon there came into Gomorrah a man wearing the religious habit, and asked at the tavern if a Mrs. Armstrong was living in that place.

Syles stared at him blankly. “What do you know of her?” he said.

“I met some one,” the priest answered, “while on my way to the States, who begged me, if I ever came this way, to find such a woman and give her a message from him. Is she here?”

“Dead,” said Syles briefly.

“She had a husband. Where is he?”

“Next door with a madman. We leave him alone such times.”

“No, no, Parson,” said a lounger near by. “Where’ve ye been that ye haven’t heard? Doctor’s out of his fit to-day, and Reuben’s got his school again. I’ll take ye there, stranger. It’s a sight we’re proud of in Gomorrah.”

Out of the tavern into the filthy street, followed by a dozen or more wretches, the priest went sadly with a load upon his heart. The horrors he had seen already were enough

“They’re used to spectators,” said his guide. “We watch ’em as we like. Door or window—’tan’t no difference to them; we an’t particular here.”

It was a bare, small room, with a table and some benches, an empty fireplace, beside it a powerfully-built man trembling and crying by himself, like one unnerved by some long illness; on one wall was a print of the Blessed Babe and the Holy Mother, and below this was a crucifix. Facing these was a band of twenty little children in soiled and ragged garments, but with clean hands and faces, too absorbed by what was being said to them to heed what passed without. All eyes were fixed on a small man with a great fresh cut across his forehead and a bruised and very simple face.

“Yes, children,” he was saying, “it was the blessed child Jesus who was born on Christmas night. He loves us all very much indeed, and of course we all want to love him. Some time he is going to send his priest here to baptize you; then what will you all be?”

“God’s little children.” The answer rose sweetly and with a kind of merriment from every lip, and Reuben’s face shone.

“Surely, surely,” he said. “Now we will sing, because we love him and want to thank him. Yes, I know the song you want—‘The Three Poor Shepherds.’”

Then once more, like a chorus which even the children just beginning to talk seemed to know in part:

The door opened slowly and a voice which all ears could hear said reverently, “Pax vobiscum.” The good days were begun.

Strange how calmly they all received

“You’ll stay here and be good, Doctor,” he said soothingly. “I shall only be in the other room, and I’ve locked the door hard.”

The Doctor made a sort of moaning assent.

“He’s just had a very sad time,” explained Reuben, “and he needs you very much, father. By and by please let him speak to you.”

How wonderful to listen, in that place of revenge and murder, to Reuben’s quiet, brief confession—no complaints, no bitterness, no anger, except that for one day he had felt hatred toward some one, against whom, however, he brought no accusation, and for this sin he felt especial contrition.

“I met lately,” the priest said slowly, when the confession was finished, and marking with care the effect his words would have, “a man known sometimes as Lazell.”

Reuben gave a start as of joyful surprise, and would have spoken, but the priest continued:

“I saw him die a felon’s death upon the gallows.”

“No, no!” cried Reuben in distress—one might have supposed he Pg 614 had been told of a brother’s shameful death. “Oh! no, father.”

“It was a just punishment,” the priest replied.

“No, no!” cried Reuben. “You do not know this place. They do not have helps here like other people, or like me. Oh! but God saved his poor soul at the last?”

“He spoke to me,” said the priest, “of a woman named Esther Armstrong, to whom he had done a great injury. Was not that true?”

“He did not understand,” said Reuben with sorrowful compassion—“I am sure he did not understand what harm he did, because, you know, he couldn’t have hurt her. And he did not see good women here; they have such hard times here, poor things.”

“He said he could not forget her—that something always reminded him of her. He begged me to find her out and ask her to forgive him.”

“She died,” said Reuben softly. “She forgave him. She prayed for him a great deal, I think.”

“God answered her, then,” the priest said. “I trust that he repented truly.”

A great light of joy woke upon Reuben’s face. “Then he will save the rest,” he exclaimed triumphantly.

“But you,” the priest asked—“do you forgive him?”

“I?” repeated Reuben with a puzzled look. “O father! it was very wrong of me; I was angry with him at first. But it was my fault, really, though Esther never blamed me; I was a poor fool, father, or I never should have brought her here.”

And so Reuben Armstrong took to himself his lifelong title humbly—so poor a fool, indeed, that he had forgotten that he had anything to forgive his fellow-men.

The next day Reuben saw his

The Doctor had sullenly refused to be present. Reuben found him, on his return, lying face downwards on the cabin floor, the picture of despair.

“There is no hope,” he said when Reuben knelt by him, and begged him to have recourse to confession. “I want drink—nothing but drink. I must have it. I cannot save myself.”

“That’s true enough,” said Reuben. “You can’t, and I can’t, but God can. You keep saying that I don’t know everything about you, and that nobody does, and that God will never forgive you. But he has sent his priest at last, and you need not be afraid to say anything to him. You must not hide anything, and he has the power to hear it and tell you what God says.”

Like one driven to a last resort, the Doctor turned to the waiting priest, and Reuben in the next room gave thanks and prayed, while, in the place where a saint had made her last confession, this man, who was indeed of “the scum of sinners,” made his first.

Truly, the Sacrament of Penance is a divine and awful thing. God grant that they who vilify and reject and misrepresent it know not what they do! The burden of souls which a missionary priest in the far West has to bear in the confessional is a tremendous one; this priest had been in prison-hulks of Australia, and through all the mining regions of California and Arizona, yet had never met a case so desperate as that before him now, where hope Pg 615 seemed so hopeless, the power for better things so nearly overcome. But the poor penitent, as one by one without reserve he revealed the sins so long kept secret, as well as those that were known of men and noised abroad, felt keen relief through all the degradation, tasted somewhat of the sweetness hid in this sacrament of blessed bitterness, won from it that strength which is a better thing to have than joy or consolation, met there and knew there Him “at whose feet Mary Magdalene came to kneel in the house of Simon the leper.”

“I am going away, Reuben,” the Doctor said that night, abruptly and sadly. “Yes,” seeing the other’s look of surprise, “there is hope for me, perhaps, but not here.”

“Away?” Reuben repeated. “Away from me? I thought I’d have you always, Doctor.”

“To be the hurt and the trouble I have been to you?” said the Doctor, deeply touched. “No, no, Reuben, I cannot keep my promise here. I must leave the past entirely, and the old associates, and go where I can repent—if I ever can. There is no such thing as an easy repentance for me.” And Reuben felt in his tender heart, once more to be bereaved, that the words were true.

When the priest left Gomorrah the next day, promising that it should not be forgotten, one went with him for whom no other hope remained but the total surrender of will and liberty, the total crucifixion of the flesh. Reuben heard from him once, in the course of his journey, then all tidings ceased; but he was too simple and too busy to wonder at it, too full of faith to doubt the final triumph. His character was not like Esther’s; the burden of souls could never be to

But in a lonely monastery, high up among frowning rocks and perpetual snows, a man who had come to it from far across the seas lived, for a few sad years, a life of deepest penance. Never by day or night did the battle with evil cease, yet over him there seemed to be by day and night a special heavenly care. That lonely cell was haunted constantly by visions of the past, by temptations that were maddening, by thoughts and words of evil import, which an increasing approach to holiness made flesh and heart shrink to recall. No sign of the cross, no prayer, no penance, could banish them. Pursued, haunted, tempted to the very end, yet to the very end he called on Jesus, Mary, and to the very end the answer came.

None but those whose lives were one of close union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus dared minister at that death-bed, learning there, in fear and trembling, new lessons of the hideousness of sin, and of the power which an evil life can give to Satan in the hour of death. But again and again they heard the poor lips whisper, “I deserve it, I deserve it; I thank God”; they saw the weak hands cling to the crucifix, the glaring eyes gaze in their anguish upon the Word made flesh; and he who endured to hear the last confession brought to him afterward, with awed and pitying reverence, the Body of the Lord. It was no saint, no life-long, scarred, victorious warrior of the Cross, whom they laid to rest at last, his hard fight done; yet over that body—which, even in their snow-clad region, they had to hurry to its burial—they dared to give God thanks Pg 616 in humble faith for another sinner ransomed.

Humbly and faithfully, in far-away Gomorrah, Reuben Armstrong lived to a good old age his poor fool’s life; and men and women came to look with gentle reverence upon the feeble form which went in and out among them on errands of daily mercy, never tiring. By and by the neighbors learned to know the place by a better name than the evil one which it grew to hate rather than glory in. “It cannot be so very bad,” they said, “when there are such good children in it.” And as from time to time a priest came there, he always found one more soul desirous for confession, or one more child or grown person ready for holy baptism, and Reuben never again knelt alone to receive holy Communion.

When the Doctor went away, Reuben opened his heart and home to the vagrant orphans, and

A railroad runs through the town now, and it is becoming a place of some importance—poor enough and bad enough, alas! but stamped outwardly and openly with the sign of the Cross. For over Esther’s grave loving hands have reared a little chapel—a constant token that the offering of her broken heart has been accepted, that her dying prayer has been remembered.

And there, troubled by no doubts and haunted by no fears, weak in body and weaker still in intellect, but very strong in his immortal soul, Reuben waits patiently and happily till his work is done.

THREE LECTURES ON EVOLUTION.

We live in a time when scientific men seem to acquire celebrity almost in proportion as they succeed in perverting the conclusions of natural science so as to make them contradict revealed truth. At this we are not surprised; for the management of the interests of science has lately fallen, to a great extent, into the hands of an anti-Christian sect, which is either unable to understand or unwilling to recognize the testimony that nature bears to the existence, power, and wisdom of its Creator, and to the veracity of his word. To this sect Professor Huxley belongs. They call him “a great scientist” and “a great philosopher”; and people invite him to lecture; and a certain press hastens to publish his thoughts, that the world may learn how religious dogmas can be swept away by “scientific” discoveries, and especially by “scientific” reasonings. Unfortunately for Prof. Huxley, his lectures on the Evidences of Evolution, which are the last effort of his mind, are as deficient in logic as most of his other productions. In other words, the conclusions of the lecturer are not legitimate, and the premises themselves are not always exempt from objectionable features. We hardly need tell our readers that neither any Christian dogma Pg 617 has been swept away by these lectures nor any evolution established, except in so far as the lectures themselves may be considered as an evolution of sophistry.

In the first of his three lectures Prof. Huxley begins with a false statement of facts:

“It has taken long indeed, and accumulations of often fruitless labor, to enable men to look steadily at the glaring phantasmagoria of nature, to notice her fluctuations and what is regular among her apparent irregularities; and it is only comparatively lately, within the last few centuries, that there has emerged the conception of a pervading order and definite force of things, which we term the course of nature. But out of this contemplation of nature, and out of man’s thought concerning her, there has in these later times arisen that conception of the constancy of nature to which I have referred, and that at length has become the guiding conception of modern thought. It has ceased to be almost conceivable to any person who has paid attention to modern thought that chance should have any place in the universe, or that events should follow anything but the natural order of cause and effect.”

The truth is that “modern thought” has had no part whatever in the discovery of the constancy of nature. This discovery is as old as mankind. All ancient philosophers, even before Aristotle, knew the constancy of the natural laws, and this knowledge has never died away, that modern thinkers should claim the honor of reviving it. The same is to be said of “the conception of a pervading order and definite force of things,” as we find that old Greek and Latin books are full of this conception, which is likewise common to all our mediæval writers, and, indeed, to all reasonable men. That “chance” could have no place in the universe was so well known to the ancients that Cicero emphatically declared any [152] Hence no person ever needed “to pay attention to modern thought” to conceive that chance could have no place in the government of the world. Finally, that events cannot but follow “the natural order of cause and effect” is the oldest of scientific truths, and the first principle of scientific reasoning. A lecturer who pretends that we owe these truths to “modern thought” shows no respect for his audience. On the other hand, if “modern thought” is so poor and barren that it envies the scientific claims of past generations, and stakes its reputation on fiction and plagiarism, what can we say of the wisdom of the modern thinker who affords a ground for arguing that “modern thought” stands convicted of dishonesty as much as of incapacity?

The professor a little later says:

“Though we are quite clear about the constancy of nature at the present time and in the present order of things, it by no means follows necessarily that we are justified in expanding this generalization into the past, and in denying absolutely that there may have been a time when evidence did not follow a first order, when the relations of cause and effect were not fixed and definite, and when external agencies did not intervene in the general course of nature. Cautious men will admit that such a change in the order of nature may have been possible, just as every candid thinker will admit that there may be a world in which two and two do not make four, and in which two straight lines do not enclose a space.”

This sentence shows that we are dealing rather with an empiricist than with a natural philosopher. Why should not the constancy of Pg 618 nature at the present time justify our conviction that nature has been no less constant in the past? Surely, if we proceed only empirically, the facts of the present will teach us nothing certain as to the facts of a remote and unknown past. But it is remarkable that this purely empirical method would leave us equally uncertain as to the facts of the future, though modern scientists assure us that “the future must be similar to the past.” The truth is that no valid induction can be made from mere facts without the aid of a rational principle as the ground of our generalization. If such a principle is certain, our inference is certain; and if the principle is only plausible, our inference will be plausible in the same degree. Now, have we not a certain principle from which the constancy of nature can be demonstrated with no reference to particular time? We have such a principle. We infer the constancy of nature from the constancy of the agencies by which the physical order is ruled. All elementary substances are permanent; their matter and their active power are never impaired; the law of their activity is as fixed and definite as their permanent constitution; and therefore they do not, and they cannot, act at present in a different manner from that in which they have acted from the beginning, or from that in which they will act as long as they last. This is the principle by which we are fully justified in extending the constancy of nature to all antiquity and to all futurity, and in averring that such a constancy is not an accidental result of circumstances, but a necessary consequence of the principle of causality.

But Mr. Huxley seems not to understand this principle. He imagines

The lecturer says also that there may have been a time “when external Pg 619 agencies did not intervene in the general course of nature”; but we believe that this must be a lapsus linguæ; for, as he does not admit that external agencies do now intervene in the general course of nature, to say that the case may have been exactly the same in all remote times is not to adduce a reason of the supposed disturbance of the relations of cause and effect, of which he is speaking, nor would it serve to limit, as he wishes, our “generalization.” The context, therefore, shows that what the lecturer intended to say was that there may have been a time when external agencies did intervene in the general course of nature. In fact, however, he said the contrary. Perhaps the professor, considering that he was speaking to an American audience with whose religious opinions he was little acquainted, thought it wise to give such a turn to his phrases as to avoid all profession of belief or disbelief in the existence of a Creator. But, however this may be, the idea that God’s intervention in the course of nature would disturb the relation of cause and effect is quite preposterous; for if God intervenes, his action carries with itself its proportionate effect, while the actions of other causes maintain their natural relations to their ordinary effects. When a man raises a stone from the ground, does he disturb the relation of cause and effect? or does he abolish gravitation? Certainly not. Gravity continues to urge down the body, while it is raised; but the effect corresponds to the combined actions of the two distinct causes. Now, the same must be said of God’s intervention with natural causes. The effect will always correspond to the combined causalities; and therefore the relation of the effect

To assume, as the lecturer does, that at the present time God has ceased to intervene in the course of nature, is to assume something for which there is not the least warrant. God’s intervention in the course of nature is continuous; for without it nature can neither act nor exist for a single moment, as every one knows who is not absolutely ignorant of philosophy. But this is not all. God, seeing that men try to blind themselves to the fact of his intervention in the ordinary course of nature, gives us in his mercy not unfrequent proofs of his intervention by works so far above nature that no effort of scientific infidels can evade their testimony. These works are miracles. “Modern thought” denies miracles, as irreconcilable with the “constancy of nature”; but the history of the church is full of well-authenticated miracles, and there are to-day living in different countries thousands of unexceptionable witnesses who can testify that miracles are, even now, an almost daily occurrence among the Christian people. We, too, admit “the constancy of nature,” but we are not so dull as to interpret this constancy as modern thought strives to interpret it. It is the laws of nature that are constant, not the course of nature; the former alone are connected with the essence of things and are immutable; the latter depends on accidental conditions, and can be interfered with not only by God, but even by man, as daily experience shows. Hence the intervention of external agencies does not impair the constancy of nature, and the argument of modern thinkers against the possibility of miracles falls to the ground.

Pg 620 Mr. Huxley, after stating that the question with which he has to deal is essentially historical, affirms that “there are only three views—three hypotheses—respecting the past history of nature.” The first hypothesis is that

“The order of nature which now obtains has always obtained; in other words, that the present course of nature, the present order of things, has existed from all eternity. The second hypothesis is that the present state of things, the present order of nature, has had only a limited duration, and that at some period in the past the state of things which we now know—substantially, though not, of course, in all its details, the state of things which we now know—arose and came into existence without any precedent similar condition from which it could have proceeded. The third hypothesis also assumes that the present order of nature has had but a limited duration, but it supposes that the present order of things proceeded by a natural process from an antecedent order, and that from another antecedent order, and so on; and that on this hypothesis the attempt to fix any limit at which we could assign the commencement of this series of changes is given up.”

Of these three hypotheses, the first is discarded by the lecturer as untenable, because “circumstantial evidence absolutely negatives the conception of the eternity of the present condition of things.” In this we agree with him, not only on account of geological evidence, but also, and principally, because the world is mutable, and therefore contingent; which proves that it must have had a beginning. It is remarkable that he denies the eternity of the present condition of things, but does not deny the eternity of matter. Modern thought could not admit of such a denial; because, if matter is not eternal, the admission of a Creator becomes unavoidable.

“I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise in your minds that I should have spoken of this as Milton’s hypothesis rather than I should choose the terms which are much more familiar to you, such as ‘the doctrine of creation,’ or ‘the Biblical doctrine’ or ‘the doctrine of Moses,’ all of which terms, as applied to the hypothesis to which I have just referred, are certainly much more familiar to you than the title of the Miltonic hypothesis. But I have had what I cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which I have pursued. For example, I have discarded the title of the hypothesis of creation, because my present business is not with the question as to how nature has originated, as to the causes which have led to her origination, but as to the manner and order of her origination. Our present inquiry is not why the objects which constitute nature came into existence, but when they came into existence, and in what order. This is a strictly historical question, as that about the date at which the Angles and Jutes invaded England. But the other question about creation is a philosophical question, and one which cannot be solved or approached or touched by the historical method.”

Then he gives his reasons why he avoids the title of Biblical hypothesis:

“In the first place, it is not my business to say what the Hebrew text contains, and what it does not; and, in the second place, were I to say that this was the Biblical hypothesis, I should be met by the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, who, in recent times, have absolutely denied that this doctrine is to be found in Genesis at all. If we are to listen to them, we must believe that what seem so clearly defined as days of creation—as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no mistake—that these are not days at all, but periods that we may make just as long as convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent Pg 621 with that phraseology to believe that plants and animals may have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out of similar rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand by and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations.” (At these last words the audience is said to have laughed and applauded.) “In the third place, I have carefully abstained from speaking of this as a Mosaic doctrine, because we are now assured upon the authority of the highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the church, that there is no evidence whatever that Moses ever wrote this chapter or knew anything about it. I don’t say—I give no opinion—it would be an impertinence upon my part to volunteer an opinion on such a subject; but that being the state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is well for us, the laity, who stand outside, to avoid entangling ourselves in such a vexed question.”

Then the lecturer makes a short refutation of Milton’s hypothesis, and concludes his first lecture by promising to give in the following lectures the evidences in favor of the hypothesis of evolution.

It seems to us that the whole of the preceding reasoning is nothing but plausible talk, and that the explanations of the lecturer lack sincerity. First, he pretends that the “doctrine of creation” is a philosophical question, which cannot be solved by the historical method. Why can it not? Creation is no less a historical than a philosophical fact. The book in which we read it is a historical book, more than three thousand years old, whose high authority has been recognized by the wisest men of all past generations, and whose truthfulness has been confirmed by monuments of antiquity and by the study of profane histories. If, then, Prof. Huxley was truly anxious to follow the historical method, why did he not

As to the philosophical treatment of the doctrine of creation, we are glad to see that the professor has had the good sense of abstaining from it. This forbearance on his part was imperative for many reasons, and especially because, as appears from some expressions of his, he was quite incompetent to judge of the doctrine on its philosophical side. He says that it is not his present business to investigate “the causes which have led to the origination of nature,” nor to inquire “why the objects which constitute nature came into existence”; as if there were any other why besides the will of the Creator, or any other causes besides his omnipotence. But Mr. Huxley seems afraid of a Creator; hence he does not speak of a God, but of “causes” and “external agencies”; nor does he mention creation, but only “origination.” Vain efforts! For, if nature has had an origination, it either originated in something or in nothing: if in nothing, then such an origination is a real creation; if in something, then such an origination was only a modification of something pre-existing contingently (for nothing but the contingent is modifiable), whose existence must again be traced to creation. Had the lecturer honestly followed the historical method, he would have boldly started with those profound words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” and he would have found a Pg 622 solution, no less philosophical than historical, of his question.

These remarks go far to show that the professor’s reasons for ignoring the Biblical history (which he, of course, calls the “Biblical hypothesis”) are mere pretexts. Surely it was not his business to explain the Hebrew text; but this is no excuse. The only point which had a real importance in connection with the question at issue was whether the so-called days of creation were natural days of twenty-four hours or periods of a much greater length. Now, this point could have been investigated with the Latin or the English text as well as with the Hebrew. Moreover, since “many eminent scholars,” and even “men of science,” as he states, have absolutely denied that the doctrine of the six natural days is found in Genesis at all, was it not plain that the geological epochs, wholly unknown to Milton, could not be considered as contradicting the Biblical record, but might rather coincide with that narrative, and help us to clear up some obscure phrases which we read in it? Prof. Huxley pretends that, if we listen to these eminent scholars and men of science, “we must believe that what seem so clearly defined as days of creation are not days at all, but periods that we may make just as long as convenience requires.” This is, indeed, the conclusion we draw from a full discussion of the subject; but we should like to know on what ground the professor assumes that the Genesis speaks so clearly of natural days. It is the contrary that is clearly implied in the language of the sacred writer; for it is evident that the three days which preceded the creation of the sun could not be natural days of twenty-four hours; and since their day is used indefinitely for long periods of time, led many old interpreters, St. Augustine among others, to deny what Prof. Huxley so confidently asserts about the clearness of the Scriptural testimony in favor of natural days. The professor evidently speaks of a subject which he has never studied, with the mischievous purpose of creating a conflict between science and faith.

What shall we say of his amusing hint at the “marvellous flexibility” of the Biblical language? Though greeted with applause and laughter (by an audience that knew nothing about the Hebrew language), such a hint was a blunder. It is not the flexibility of the language that has ever been appealed to as the ground of different interpretations; it is the extreme conciseness of the narration, and the omission of numerous details, which might have proved interesting to the man of science, but which had nothing to do with the object pursued by the sacred writer. For the aim of the writer was to instruct men, not on science, but on the unity of God and his universal dominion. On the other hand, all languages have numbers of terms which can receive different interpretations; and the very word day, which the lecturer takes to mean so clearly twenty-four hours, is used even by us in the sense of an indefinite length of time. We say, for instance, that to-day anti-Christianity is rampant, just as well as that to-day it has rained; and we hope that Professor Huxley will not on Pg 623 this account find fault with the English language, or sneer at its “marvellous flexibility.”

Finally, the professor says that he spoke of the Miltonic theory rather than of the “Mosaic doctrine,” because “we are now assured upon the authority of the highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the church, that there is no evidence whatever that Moses ever wrote this chapter or knew anything about it.” This allegation is not creditable to the judgment of the lecturer.

The Genesis is the undoubted work of Moses, as all ancient and modern scholars, both Jew and Christian, testify. If, however, Professor Huxley, upon the authority of his perverse or ignorant critics and of the rationalistic dignitaries of a false church, believes the contrary, it does not follow that the historical method obliged him to substitute the Miltonic theory for the Biblical history under pain of “entangling himself in a vexed question.” If there was a vexed question, he could discard it with a word. Nothing prevented him from speaking of “what is styled the Mosaic doctrine.” The truth is that the professor labored all along to demolish the Mosaic doctrine under the name of Miltonic hypothesis, thinking, no doubt, that by this artifice he might just say enough to satisfy his friends the free-thinkers, without shocking too violently the public mind. The artifice, however, proved unsuccessful; and if the professor has seen the criticism passed on his lectures by the American press, he must now have acquired the conviction that the Miltonic hypothesis did not deserve the honor of a scientific refutation.

In his second lecture Mr. Huxley begins to deal with the evidences of evolution. He points out that viz., indifferent, favorable, and demonstrative. The first two kinds he is prepared to examine at once, whilst the third he keeps in reserve for his last lecture. One might ask what an “indifferent evidence” is likely to mean. For, if any fact has no greater tendency to prove than to disprove a theory, such a fact does not constitute “evidence” on either side. This, of course, is true; but, in the language of the professor, “indifferent evidence” designates those facts which are brought against his theory, and which he believes to admit of a satisfactory explanation without abandoning the theory. Thus he relates how

“Cuvier endeavored to ascertain by a very just and proper method what foundation there was for the belief in a gradual and progressive change of animals, by comparing the skeletons of all accessible parts of these animals (old Egyptian remains)—such as crocodiles, birds, dogs, cats, and the like—with those which are now found in Egypt; and he came to the conclusion—a conclusion which has been verified by all subsequent research—that no appreciable change has taken place in the animals which inhabited Egypt, and he drew thence the conclusion, and a hasty one, that the evidence of such fact was altogether against the doctrine of evolution.”

Again, the professor states that the animal remains deposited in the beds of stone lining the Niagara “belong to exactly the same forms as now inhabit the still waters of Lake Erie”; and these remains, according to his calculation, are more than thirty thousand years old. Again:

“When we examine the rocks of the cretaceous epoch itself, we find the remains of some animals which the closest scrutiny cannot show to be in any respect different from those which live at the present time.” “More than that: Pg 624 At the very bottom of the Silurian series, in what is by some authorities termed the Cambrian formation, where all signs appear to be dying out, even there, among the few and scanty animal remains which exist, we find species of molluscous animals which are so closely allied to existing forms that at one time they were grouped under the same generic name.… Facts of this kind are undoubtedly fatal to any form of evolution which necessitates the supposition that there is an intrinsic necessity on the part of animal forms which once come into existence to undergo modifications; and they are still more distinctly opposed to any view which should lead to the belief that the modification in different types of animal or vegetable life goes on equally and evenly. The facts, as I have placed them before you, would obviously contradict directly any such form of the hypothesis of evolution as laid down in these two postulates.”

Here, then, we have facts which “contradict directly” any form of necessary evolution. Now let us see how the professor strives to turn them into indifferent evidences of spontaneous evolution. He says:

“Now, the service that has been rendered by Mr. Darwin to the doctrine of evolution in general is this: that he has shown that there are two great factors in the process of evolution, and one of them is the tendency to vary, the existence of which may be proved by observation in all living forms; the other is the influence of surrounding conditions upon what I may call the parent form and the variations which are thus evolved from it. The cause of that production of variations is a matter not at all properly understood at present. Whether it depends upon some intricate machinery—if I may use the phrase—of the animal form itself, or whether it arises through the influence of conditions upon that form, is not certain, and the question may for the present be left open. But the important point is the tendency to the production of variations. Then whether those variations shall survive and supplant the parent, or whether the parent form shall survive and supplant the variations, is a matter which depends entirely on surrounding conditions.”

Pg 625 It is singular that Professor Huxley himself, after telling us that the tendency to vary is proved by observation, immediately refutes his own assertion by showing that the whole theory of evolution rests on no actual observation, but on the mere hope of some possible observations which the future may keep in reserve for its triumph. Here is what he says:

“The great group of lizards, which abound so much at the present day, extends through the whole series of formations as far back as what is called the Permian epoch, which is represented by the strata lying just above the coal. These Permian lizards differ astonishingly little—in some respects—from the lizards which exist at the present day. Comparing the amount of difference between these Permian lizards and the lizards of the present day with the prodigious lapse of time between the Permian epoch and the present age, it maybe said that there has been no appreciable change. But the moment you carry the researches further back in time you find no trace whatever of lizards, nor any true reptile whatever, in the whole mass of formations beneath the Permian. Now, it is perfectly clear that if our existing palæontological collections, our existing specimens from stratified rock, exhaust the whole series of events which have ever taken place upon the surface of the globe, such a fact as this directly contravenes the whole theory of evolution, because that postulates that the existence of every form must have been preceded by that of some form comparatively little different from it.”

So far, then, as existing specimens of palæontology are concerned, everything “directly contravenes the whole theory of evolution”; that is to say that observation, far from proving the theory, tends to disprove it. The lecturer, however, not dismayed by this crushing evidence, appeals to “the whole series of events” which must have preceded the epoch of the oldest existing specimens; and he Prof. Huxley saw this, and, anticipating the objection which was sure to rise in the minds of his hearers, made an effort to evade it by saying: “Those who have not attended to these matters are apt to say to themselves, ‘It is all very well; but when you get into difficulty with your theory of evolution, you appeal to the incompleteness and the imperfection of the geological record’; and I want to make it perfectly clear to you that that imperfection is a vast fact which must be taken into account with all our speculations, or we shall constantly be going wrong.” The reader will notice how bluntly the lecturer ignores the drift of the objection. The objection is: “When you appeal to the remotest epochs, about which geology gives us so very scanty information, you appeal to the unknown; and this is a very singular method of answering that series of known facts which directly contravene the theory of evolution.” The answer of the professor is: “You have not attended to these matters. Do you think that the geological record is perfect? I tell you that it is most imperfect and incomplete, and I am going to show that such is the case.” This answer confirms the objection, and shows that the theory of evolution is illogical.

The professor then mentions “the tracks of some gigantic animal which Pg 626 walked on its hind legs,” and remarks that, although untold thousands of such tracks are found upon our shores, yet “up to this present time not a bone, not a fragment, of any one of the great creatures which certainly made these impressions has been found.” And he concludes: “I know of no more striking evidence than this fact affords from which it may be concluded, in the absence of organic remains, that such animals did exist.” Of course they did exist; but their existence is no argument against those innumerable facts which bear positive witness against the theory of evolution. And yet the lecturer ventures to say:

“I believe that having the right understanding of the doctrine of evolution on the one hand, and having a just estimation of the importance of the imperfection of the geological record on the other, would remove all difficulty from the kind of evidence to which I have thus adverted; and this appreciation allows us to believe that all such cases are examples of what I may here call, and have hitherto designated, negative or indifferent evidence—that is to say, they in no way directly advance the theory of evolution, but they are no obstacle in the way of our belief in the doctrine.” That a long series of positive facts establishing the fixity of species during a great many thousand years are no obstacle in the way of our belief in an opposite theory, owing to the mistiness of all older geological records, which allows us to dream of facts contrary to the course of things, ascertained by constant observation, is an idea which “modern thought” may consider brilliant, but which common sense absolutely rejects.

In the remaining part of this whatever they may be,” comprises rational animals—that is, all mankind; which would imply that our rational soul should be traced “to the lowest speck of gelatinous matter” as its first origin. We need not dwell here on this absurdity. The professor confesses that “we have crocodiles, lizards, snakes, turtles, and tortoises, and yet there is nothing—no connecting link—between the crocodile and lizard, or between the lizard and snake, or between the snake and the crocodile, or between any two of these groups. They are separated by absolute breaks.” Such being the case, it would seem that the professor had a sufficient ground for denying the theory of evolution altogether. But, no; whilst confessing that there is “no connecting link,” he pretends that we must show that no connecting link has ever existed. His words are:

“If, then, it could be shown that this state of things was from the beginning—had always existed—it would be fatal to the doctrine of evolution. If the intermediate gradations which the doctrine of evolution postulates must have existed between these groups—if they are not to be found anywhere in the records Pg 627 of the past history of the globe—all that is so much a strong and weighty argument against evolution. While, on the other hand, if such intermediate forms are to be found, that is so much to the good of evolution, although … we must be cautious in assuming such facts as proofs of the theory.”

The wisdom of this last caution is undeniable; but is there not a contradiction in the phrases “there is no connecting link” and “the intermediate forms may be found”?

He then proceeds to show some osteologic relations by which birds and reptiles seem to be connected, but from which, as he concedes, no proof of the theory of evolution can be formed, and he concludes in the following words: “In my next lecture I will take up what I venture to call the demonstrative evidence of evolution.” Let us, then, give up all further examination of the second lecture, and proceed to a short inquiry upon the kind of evidence condensed in the third.

We must say at once that the evidence contained in the whole of this third lecture neither directly nor indirectly demonstrates that one species of animals has been evolved out of another species. Granting that the animal remains described by the professor correspond entirely to his description of them, and waiving all question about the correct interpretation of the same, we shall merely pass in review the logical process by which such remains are made to give testimony to the Darwinian view.

In the exordium Mr. Huxley assumes, as a point already established in his second lecture, that the evidence derived from fossil remains “is perfectly consistent with the doctrine of evolution.” We have seen that this is not true. The professor, entirely forgetful of all the

“That, as it happens, the intermediate forms to which I have referred do not occur in the exact order in which they ought to occur if they really had formed steps in the progression from the reptile to the bird; that is to say, we find these forms in contemporaneous deposits, whereas the requirements of the demonstrative evidence of evolution demand that we should find the series of gradations between one group of animals and another in such order as they must have followed if they had constituted a succession of stages in time of the development of the form at which they ultimately arrive. That is to say, the complete evidence of the evolution of the bird from the reptile should be of this character, that in some ancient formation reptiles alone should be found, in some later formation birds should first be met with, and in the intermediate formations we should discover in regular succession forms which I pointed out to you, which are intermediate between the reptile and the birds.”

This answer proves not only that the evidence alleged is not the highest kind of evidence in favor of evolution, but also that the evidence conflicts with the hypothesis of evolution Pg 628 in such a manner as to cut the ground from under the feet of the lecturer. For if the intermediate forms between the reptile and the bird are contemporaneous with the reptile and the bird, it follows that the bird has not been evolved from the reptile through those intermediate forms. It is therefore in vain that Mr. Huxley appeals to this evidence as “so distinctly favorable to evolution.”

The body of the lecture consists of an attempt to show, from the osteology of the genus Equus, that our modern horse proceeds from the Orohippus. The lecturer first describes the characteristics of the horse, using the term “horse” in a general sense as equivalent to the technical term Equus, and meaning not only what we now call the horse, but also asses and their modifications—zebras, etc. He invites us to pay a special attention to the foot and the teeth of the horse; and then he reasons as follows:

“If the hypothesis of evolution is true, what ought to happen when we investigate the history of this animal? We know that the mammalian type, as a whole, that mammalian animals are characterized by the possession of a perfectly distinct radius and ulna-two separate and distinct movable bones, We know, further, that mammals in general possess five toes, often unequal, but still as completely developed as the five digits of my hand. We know, further, that the general type of mammals possesses in the leg not only a complete tibia, but a complete fibula. The small bone of the leg is, as a general rule, a perfectly complete, distinct, movable bone. Moreover, in the hind-foot we find in animals in general five distinct toes, just as we do in the fore-foot. Hence it follows that we have a differentiated animal like the horse, which has proceeded by way of evolution or gradual modification from a similar form possessing all the characteristics we find in mammals in general. If that be true, it follows that, if there be anywhere preserved in the series of rocks

The professor then proceeds to show that all these conditions are fulfilled:

“In the middle and earlier parts of the pliocene epoch, in deposits which belong to that age, and which occur in Germany and in Greece, to some extent in Britain and in France, there we find animals which are like horses in all the essential particulars which I have just described, … but they differ in some important particulars. There is a difference in the structure of the fore and hind limb, … but nevertheless we have here a horse in which the lateral toes, almost abortive in the existing horse, are fully developed.”

This horse is the Hipparion.

In the miocene formations “you find equine animals which differ essentially from the modern horse … in the character of their fore Pg 629 and hind limbs, and present important features of difference in the teeth. The forms to which I now refer are what are known to constitute the genus Anchitherium. We have here three toes, and the middle toe is smaller in proportion, the lower toes are larger … and in the fore arm you find the ulna, a very distinct bone,” etc., etc.

Lastly, in the oldest part of the eocene formation we find the Orohippus, which is the oldest specimen of equine animals:

“Here we have the four toes on the front limb complete, three toes on the hind limb complete, a well-developed ulna, a well-developed fibula, and the teeth of simple pattern. So you are able, thanks to these great researches, to show that, so far as present knowledge extends, the history of the horse type is exactly and precisely that which could have been predicted from a knowledge of the principles of evolution. And the knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in the anticipation that when the still lower eocene deposits and those which belong to the cretaceous epoch have yielded up their remains of equine animals, we shall find first an equine creature with four toes in front and a rudiment of the thumb. Then probably a rudiment of the fifth toe will be gradually supplied, until we come to the five-toed animals, in which most assuredly the whole series took its origin.”

To say plainly what we think of this long argumentation, we believe that it demonstrates nothing but the eminent talkative faculty of the lecturer. It all comes to this: Unmodified mammals have five fingers and five toes, whereas the modern horse has only one. Therefore the modern horse is but a modification of a pre-existing form, and is to be traced to the hipparion, the anchitherium, the orohippus, and other more ancient forms which we have not yet discovered, but which we hope to discover hereafter. Now,

First, even granting all the premises of the professor, the conclusion that one species is derived from another by evolution would still remain unproved. For who told Prof. Huxley that the animal remains on which he bases his argument belong to different species, and not to different varieties of one and the same species? Surely, a greater or less development of one or two bones cannot be considered a sufficient evidence of specific difference; for we know that even in the same variety there may be a different development; as in the hound, which sometimes possesses a spurious hind toe, and in the mastiff, which occasionally shows the same peculiarity. Hence the professor has no right to assume that the horse, the hipparion, the anchitherium, etc., are animals of different species; and therefore his argument has nothing to do with the evolution of one species from another.

Secondly, to assume without proof that “unmodified mammalia” have five fingers and five toes is to assume without proof the very conclusion which was to be demonstrated; for it is to assume that the modern horse, which has neither five fingers nor five toes, is not an unmodified mammal, but a product evolved by some more ancient form. Now, this is what logicians call petitio principii.

Thirdly, what does Prof. Huxley mean by unmodified mammalia? What are they? For, in his theory of evolution, every animal is a modification of a preceding form, and the whole series of living beings contains nothing but modified organisms. To find, therefore, an unmodified mammal, it would be Pg 630 necessary to find the first of all mammals from which all other mammals of the same class have proceeded. This first mammal is still to be discovered, as the professor concedes. How, then, could he know that the unmodified mammal has five fingers and five toes? And if he did not know this, how did he assume it as the very ground of his pretended demonstration?

Fourthly, how does Prof. Huxley know that the horse proceeds from the hipparion, the hipparion from the anchitherium, and the anchitherium from the orohippus? Of this he knows nothing whatever. He has no other ground for his assertion, except the different ages to which those deposits belong: but a difference of age does not prove that the older is the parent of the younger. Alexander the Great existed before Annibal, Annibal before Cæsar, Cæsar before Napoleon. Will our professor infer from this that Napoleon was the lineal descendant of Alexander the Great?

Fifthly, it is not true that “the history corresponds exactly with what one could construct a priori from the principles of evolution.” The principles of the theory of evolution demand that the more complex organisms be considered as evolved from the less complex, and the more developed as evolved from the less developed; for, according to the theory, the further we go back towards the origin of life, the nearer we approach the “protoplasm” or the “gelatinous matter.” It would therefore be more in accordance with the theory of evolution to say that the five-toed animals must have proceeded from animals possessing a simpler and less developed organism, and that the horse is the parent of the

Sixthly, the whole argument of the professor may be condensed in the following syllogism: If the theory of evolution is true, then we must find such and such fossils. But we find such and such fossils. Therefore the theory of evolution is true. By this form of reasoning one would prove anything he likes. Thus, for example, we might say, if Professor Huxley has graduated at Yale College, New Haven, he must know the English language. But he knows the English language. Therefore he has graduated at Yale College, New Haven. The fallacy consists in supposing that such and such fossils could not be found, except in the hypothesis that evolution is true. Hence, to avoid the fallacy, the conditionate proposition should have been inverted—that is, it should have been: If we find such and such fossils in such and such deposits, then the theory of evolution is true. But this proposition could not be assumed without proofs.

But, says the lecturer:

“An inductive hypothesis is said to be Pg 631 demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance with it. If that is not scientific proof, there are no inductive conclusions which can be said to be scientific. And the doctrine of evolution at the present time rests upon exactly as secure a foundation as the Copernican theory of the motion of the heavenly bodies. Its basis is precisely of the same character—the coincidence of the observed facts with theoretical requirements. As I mentioned just now, the only way of escape, if it be a way of escape, from the conclusions which I have just indicated, is the supposition that all these different forms have been created separately at separate epochs of time; and I repeat, as I said before, that of such a hypothesis as this there neither is nor can be any scientific evidence; and assuredly, so far as I know, there is none which is supported, or pretends to be supported, by evidence or authority of any other kind.”

These sweeping assertions are all founded on the assumption that the facts have been shown to be in entire accordance with the hypothesis. But we have shown that the facts contradict the hypothesis. It is therefore a scientific necessity to deny the hypothesis. Moreover, scientific hypotheses are not proved by the mere coincidence of the observed facts with theoretical requirements; it is necessary to show, further, that the observed facts cannot be reconciled with a different theory. Hence, even if the professor had shown the agreement of the facts with his hypothesis, he would still have had no right to conclude in favor of his hypothesis on that ground alone; for he would have been obliged to show also that the Mosaic theory does not agree with those facts. What he says about “the only way of escape” is a vain boast, which has no real importance except in as much as it may serve for rhetorical effect. We have no need of seeking a way of escape; for we still follow our own old way, which remains unobstructed. We primâ facie evidence in favor of said supposition. But the supposition is not needed, as we have remarked.

The professor concludes his lecture thus: “I shall consider I have Pg 632 done you the greatest service which it was in my power in such a way to do, if I have thus convinced you that this great question which we are discussing is not one to be discussed, dealt with, by rhetorical flourishes or by loose and superficial talk, but that it requires the keenest attention of the trained intellect, and the patience of the most accurate observer.”

These words were applauded by the audience, and we too are glad to applaud. But we may be allowed to doubt if the lecturer, in dealing with the question of evolution, has shown much respect for the maxim which he proclaims. We do not mean, of course, that Professor Huxley’s intellect is untrained, or that his scientific observations are inaccurate, but we think we can safely say that his logic is not as accurate as his scientific observations, and that his trained intellect is apt to relish sham arguments and superficial talk. When a man can gravely express the opinion that “there may be a world where two and two do not make four,” the intellect of that man makes a poor show indeed; nor does it make a better show by assuming that “there may have been a time when the relation of cause and effect was still indefinite.” In like manner, when a man in the discussion of a historical question ignores all historical documents except those which he thinks favorable to his views; when he strives to evade the evidence of certain facts which cannot be reconciled with his theory;

The lecturer’s misfortune is that he is a victim of that proud and absurd system of knowledge which is named “modern thought.” The apostles of this system strive to suppress God. The universe, according to them, is not necessarily the work of an intelligent Being. Give them only a few specks of “gelatinous matter,” and they will tell you that nothing else is required to account for the origin of life, intellect, and reason. If you say that this is impossible, because the effect cannot be more perfect than its causality, they will inform you that the words cause and effect, though still tolerated, are becoming obsolete, just as the ideas which they express. If you ask, How did the “gelatinous matter” itself originate? they will let you understand that their science cannot go so far as to attempt a clear answer; because, as Prof. Huxley adroitly puts it, “the attempt to fix any limit at which we should assign the commencement of the series of changes is given up.” This suffices to form a just estimate of the scientific hypotheses concocted by the leaders of “modern thought.” We are apt to boast of our superior knowledge: but it is one of the disasters of our time that the absurd theories of such a perverted science find ready acceptance among educated men.

Pg 633

UP THE NILE.

I.

When Philip’s son, on his way to the temple of Jupiter Ammon in the African desert, selected the abode of the fabulous Proteus for his future city, the gods encouraged their much-loved child with a favorable omen. For whilst Dinocrates, the architect, was marking out the lines upon the ground, the chalk he used was exhausted; whereupon the king, who was present, ordered the flour destined for the workmen’s food to be employed in its stead, thereby enabling him to complete the outline of many of the streets. An infinite number of birds, says Plutarch, of several kinds, rising suddenly like a black cloud out of the river and lake, devoured the flour. Alexander, troubled in mind—as the workmen, no doubt, were both in mind and body, although the historian does not so relate—consulted the augurs. These discreet men, who read the divine Mind in their own fashion, advised him to proceed, by observing that the occurrence was a sign the city he was about to build would enjoy such abundance of all things that it would contribute to the nourishment of many nations. The workmen having swallowed their indignation in place of their food, the work proceeded, and Alexander, before continuing his journey, witnessed the commencement of his flourishing city, B.C. 323. Thus rose up Alexandria, the gate of the Orient. Centuries are as naught in its calendar; nay, thousands of years give but a feeble idea Pg 634 donkey-hire; will take you anywhere—to Pompey’s Pillar, Assouan, the Mountains of the Moon. And when you timidly inquire where the mountains are, thinking you might like to make a short visit, he smiles patronizingly, and waves his hand gracefully to the south. Up there!—three thousand miles or more. But what is that to him? You are surprised that he should have creditors, a man of his appearance; but you are relieved, for he pays his debts, and the custom-house officials smile, place their hands on their hearts, and bow your luggage out of the custom-house. You are already beginning to feel proud at being the friend of so great a man. That famous flirt Cleopatra lived here, and toyed with the hearts of men—some of them real men, too; not the Egyptian fops of the day, the Greek society men, or the Roman swells, but such men as Antony, who lost half the world for her at Actium. She it was who amused herself by swallowing pearls, and finally left this world to avoid the honor of adorning the triumph of Octavius. The augurs were right. Alexander’s city did contribute to the nourishment of many nations, physically and intellectually. Its sails whitened every sea, bearing to the capital and provinces of the empire the treasures of Egypt, Arabia, and India. Students flocked to its schools; its great library contained over seven hundred thousand volumes. Even as late as A.D. 641, when Amru captured the city after a siege of fourteen months, in his letter to Omar he tells him that he found there four thousand palaces, as many baths, four hundred places of amusement, and twelve thousand gardens. Amru was inclined to spare the library, being urged to do so débris. Pompey’s Pillar is a column of highly-polished red granite ninety-eight feet nine inches in height, twenty-nine feet eight inches in circumference, erected by another of those modest Roman emperors—Diocletian by name—for the same purpose that Tiberius set up the old obelisk. It is a wonder that some of these unpretentious rulers, with their characteristic modesty, did not carry out the idea proposed to Alexander by Dinocrates, and have Mount Athos cut into a statue of themselves, Pg 635 holding in one hand a city of ten thousand inhabitants, and from the other pouring a copious river into the sea. Perhaps they thought this city would be deserted, the inhabitants fearing that natural instinct would cause the hand to close and grab up everything, people and all. What a motley mass of humanity throng its narrow streets—Greeks, Jews, Turks, and people of almost every nation in Europe, but few Copts, the descendants of the old Egyptians. When Cambyses made his trip to Egypt, 524 B.C., he persuaded most of them to leave the Delta and retire to the Thebaid, where their descendants are found to this day. It is hard to understand the Copt. In other parts of the world a man who can trace his pedigree a few centuries back carries that fact in his face, and considers himself, and is considered, above other men. Here we talk in an off-hand, familiar way with Copts living in the same place where their ancestors have lived for six thousand years or more—men who can trace their ancestry through a long roll of illustrious names to the world’s conquerors, the Rameses and Ositarsens; and they were not proud of it—in fact, they did not seem to know anything about it. Perhaps it was such an old, old story that it had been forgotten ages before.

A well-managed railway leads to Cairo. Strange!—a railway in the land where the grandson of Noe settled, where Joseph outwitted the king’s cunning ministers: Mash el Káheral, the victorious city, called Cairo by the Western barbarians, with donkeys and camels, eunuchs and harems, palm-trees and dahabeeáhs, all within sight of the station, and yet to be pushed into an omnibus! O Western civilization! will you never let this picturesque world Pg 636 went to the East. Most writers think an apology due their readers for leaving home, or, at least, that they should give their reasons, the difficulties of engaging a dahabeeáh, to report what the reis said, and how our dragoman answered him—all in broken English, of course. But I will simply tell a short story—how certain pale-faced howadjii from the West sailed up to the second cataract of the Nile and back again, and what befell them.

The wind blew from the north, and we started. Now, it is a peculiarity of the Nile trip that the wind always blows from the north before the dahabeeáhs start, although it generally takes four or five pages to tell it, after “everything is on board and all impatient for the start,” and the reader is left in some doubt as to whether the boat is going at all. But as the course is to the south, and these boats cannot tack, the reader may now understand why he is kept so long waiting until “the breeze blows fresh from the north, the great sail drops down like the graceful plumage of some giant bird, and the shores glide past like the land of the poet’s dream.” We commenced the voyage by running aground, and we continued it somewhat in the same way. We did not travel on land; for I said something above about the direction of the wind and its connection with our starting, so that one might infer we were on a boat. But scarce a day passed that we did not run aground at least once, and often three or four times. Finally we became so used to it that, seated in the cabin, we could tell by the shouting what means were being employed to shove the boat off. The invocations were always the same. Would a good Moslem, think you, call upon Sitta Mariam, as we called it, was ninety-seven feet long, sixteen in width, and drew three feet of water. The forward part was reserved for the use of the crew. In the hold they kept food and clothes. On the deck they slept—the more fastidious ones on sheepskins, the others upon the bare boards. In the Orient everything is just the reverse of the Occident. We cover our feet and expose the head while sleeping. They wrap up the head with care, and expose the feet to the sometimes chilly air of the night. A box placed near the bow, six feet high, the same width, and two feet deep, served for a kitchen. Aft of the forecastle were nine state-rooms, and a dining-saloon fifteen feet square. A flight of steps led to the upper deck, which extended to the stern of the boat. Handsome Turkey rugs, divans, and easy-chairs made this a most comfortable lounging Pg 637 place for the howadjii; and, in sooth, when not eating or sleeping, we spent all our time here. Near the stern we had a poultry-yard, several coops filled with turkeys, chickens, and squabs. We always had one or two live sheep with us, carried in the rowboat—called felluka—which floated astern. The foremast was placed near the bow, and from its summit, forty-two feet from the deck, swung the large yard or trinkeet, one hundred and fifteen feet long. From this was suspended the triangular sail called “lateen.” When furled, the rope was so bound around it that, although securely held, yet, by a strong pull directly downwards, it was immediately let loose. In the rear, aft the rudder, we carried a smaller sail of the same description, called a “balakoom.” The boat was of three hundred and eighty ardebs—about forty tons—burden. I have said that we called it the Sitta Mariam, or “Lady Mary.” Originally it was named The Swallow, and the year before a native artist had been engaged to paint this name upon it. Thinking the word should be written as an Arabic one, he commenced at the wrong end. To add to this, by some mischance he omitted a letter; the result was the name on the side of the boat in large, bold letters, “Wallow.”

A few words concerning the ship’s company. The howadjii were four Americans. The next most important personage is Ahmud Abdallah—i.e., servant of God—our dragoman, he of the olive-green suit and red fez. Has any one ever determined the precise etymology of the word dragoman? Often I am constrained to think that it is an abbreviation of the words “dragger-of-man.” On one point I am clear: this will give a more accurate idea of the per diem; in return he was to supply boat, sailors, food, and everything requisite for the voyage—as he expressed it: “You pay me so much every day; no put hand in Pg 638 pocket at all.” When reproved, he would become sulky like a spoilt child, and remain in that state for several days, replying as concisely to our questions as politeness would permit, and otherwise having nothing whatsoever to say to us. Ali Abdakadra, his brother-in-law, was a fine-looking young Arab of twenty-three. He was supposed to be the assistant dragoman. My private opinion—of course not communicated to him—is that he was solely interested in supplying those materials with which the highways of another and still warmer clime are thought to be paved. This is not a very lucrative occupation, nor one conducive to man’s advancement in this world; but, notwithstanding our advice, he persisted in it. I do not think there ever issued from the lips of any man so many resolutions of doing so much, so many good intentions; and I am morally certain that so many resolutions and intentions never before were so utterly fruitless. Shortly after we started he came to me full of excitement, and informed me that he was going to write a guide-book for the Nile. “Now,” said he, “there is Ibrahim, our waiter; he has made this trip several times, and yet knows nothing about the temples or tombs—I doubt whether he has even seen them. This is my first trip. I will take notes and write a book. Will you lend me your Murray to assist me?” I consented. The book remained unopen in his room for two months. I then called the loan. He took not a note, but left many, on temples, obelisks, and tombs. When visiting temples, Ali was the first to arrive, and when we came up we were informed by enormous letters, written with a burnt stick, that Ali Abdakadra had visited that temple on the current day. When sent upon an Pg 639 towns wherein any of the sailors reside, for them to leave the boat for a few hours—or for the night, if we remain so long—and visit their homes. Reis Mohammed lived at Minieh; when we reached it he would not leave, preferring to stay with his boat to the pleasure of seeing his wife or wives. I can see Reis Ahmud, the second captain, before me now, leaning like a statue upon the broad handle of the rudder, the only evidence of life being the thin clouds of smoke issuing from his lips. Hour after hour he would maintain that position, moving only when it was necessary to shift the helm, and then not using his hands, but moving it by the weight of his body resting against it. His eyes were most singular in appearance, and for a long while I was puzzled to account for their strange effect. Coming on the quarter very early one morning, I found him kneeling before a small glass and staining around his eyes with a black substance called kohl. He is the drummer of the crew, and in the evenings, seated with the sailors, he plays the darbooka, or native drum. This instrument is of the same shape and material as those used at the festive gatherings of the Egyptians ere Moses was—nay, even before the wrath of God had showered the deluge of waters upon the iniquitous world. It is made of earthenware in the shape of a hollow cylinder surmounted by a truncated cone; this is covered with sheepskin. It is played with the fingers. Ali Aboo Abdallah, our cook, is to be noticed principally on account of his name, which illustrates the system of nomenclature in vogue among certain Mohammedans. Before he was married his name was Ali something or other. His first boy was named i.e., the father of Abdallah—the son giving the name to the father, to show the world that the latter was the proud possessor of an heir. A seeming bundle of old clothes lying on the deck, but showing, by faint signs of animation at meal-time, that animal life existed within it, represented Ali el Delhamawi, Reis Mohammed’s uncle, the oldest man of the crew. The duty of this animated rag-bag was to hold the tail of the sail during the upward voyage, and to go through the movements of rowing on the home-trip. Next in order come Haleel en Negaddeh, a surly, well-built Arab, appointed by the owner to look after the welfare of the boat; Mahsood el Genawi, a slim, cross-eyed fellow; Ahmud Said el Genawi, a fine specimen of a man, the most powerful and the hardest worker among them all; Hassein Sethawi, a tough, wiry little fellow, the barber of the crew; Ashmawi Ashman, the baby of the party, the best-dressed man, petted by the others, and, as a natural consequence, doing but little work; Gad Abdallah, another servant of the Deity; Ahmud es Soeffle and Hassein es Soeffle, known to us by their most striking non-Arabic peculiarity—silence—and Haleel el Deny, the queer-looking old man who cooks for the crew. Last, but not least, comes Mohammed el Abiad, or Mohammed the White, the blackest man of all. He was the funny man, the court-jester. He was always saying funny things, so we were told, and whenever he opened his lips the others burst out laughing, including sober old Reis Mohammed. He was useful to us by keeping the crew in good-humor. All his physical strength was exhausted in expelling the sallies Pg 640 of wit from his mouth. He had his own ideas concerning manual labor, which, summed up into a maxim, were about as follows: Make it appear to others that you do more work than any one else; do as little as you possibly can. For squatting and doing nothing he was unsurpassed. In grunting, singing, and contorting every lineament of his visage when at work he excelled all the others taken together. Here is a specimen of his funny sayings: On asking him, through Ahmud, why he was called “the white” when he was so black, he said it was because his father was called Mohammed the Green, and he was the blacker of the two. At this the crew laughed immoderately. Oriental wit or humor is doubtless unappreciable by the dull minds of the Western Christian dogs.

Now that you know us all—boat, crew, and howadjii—come, sail with us, see the strange scenes, watch the moving panorama, and witness the daily comedies enacted around us.

We are about to stop under the cliffs of Gebel Aboo Layda, the Arabian chain, which here borders immediately on the river—not a very safe place, either; for Ali requests me to fire some pistol-shots to frighten away the thieves. There is no village near, and we have no guard. When we stop near a village, two or three miserable-looking creatures crouch around a fire on the bank. They are our guard. I feel morally certain that as soon as we leave the quarter-deck the guard goes to sleep. I have come to this determination from a study of these Arabs. Their idea of worldly happiness is eating, smoking, and sleeping; of heavenly bliss, the same, with the beautiful houri added. The next day we reach Pg 641 these are modern Egyptian hieroglyphics. The train tells us that the owner has travelled; and where should a good Moslem go but to Mecca? So the owner is a hadji and wears a green turban. All the children suffer with ophthalmia. This ophthalmia must be something like lumps of sugar; the flies seem to think so, at least. What a crowd is following us! But they are respectful; seem amused at the pale faces and curious garments of the howadjii. How their eyes dilate at the sight of Madam’s gloves! “The Sitta has a white face and black hands. Allah preserve us! she is actually taking off her hands. No, it is the outer skin; and now they are pale like her face. By the Prophet! this is strange.” They crowd around her, touch her hands, then her gloves, timidly and respectfully; no, they cannot understand it. Abiad is going to ask for a sheep; the crew have selected him, for they feel confident we cannot refuse him when he asks in his humorous way. Followed by the grinning crew, he appears before us, and, putting up his hands to the sides of his head to represent long ears, ejaculates, “Ba-a! ba-a!” We were not convulsed with laughter, but the good-hearted “Sitta” promised them a sheep for Christmas-time, which was near at hand.

This fertile country contains about five millions of inhabitants. Above Cairo the valley of the Nile and Egypt are synonymous. For, where neither artificial irrigation nor the magic waters of the Nile give life to the parched soil, the sand of the desert renders the country as utterly unproductive as the bitter waters of the Dead Sea. The river varies in width from three hundred and sixty-five yards at Hagar Silseleh to a mile or more in Pg 642 showing more ignorance than the former, but more marvellous. The third way of resolving this difficulty is by far the most specious, but most untrue: the Nile flowing from melted snow. For how, he asks in his quaint way, since it runs from a very hot, from Libya through the middle of Ethiopia to a colder region—Egypt—can it flow from snow? And he then goes on, with seeming modesty, to venture his own opinion: “During the winter season the sun being driven from his former course by storms, retires to the upper part of Libya. This, in a few words, comprehends the whole matter; for it is natural that the country which the god is nearest to, and over which he is, should be most in want of water, and that the native river streams (i.e., the sources of the Nile) should be dried up. He attracts the water to himself, and, having so attracted it, throws it back upon the higher regions. I do not think, however, that the sun on each occasion discharges the annual supply of water from the Nile, but that some remains about him. When the winter grows mild, the sun returns again to the middle of the heavens, and from that time attracts water equally from all rivers. Up to this time those other rivers, having much rain-water mixed with them, flow with full streams; but when the showers fail Euterpe). From that time many able minds have given to the world vain conjectures upon this most interesting subject. The extensive discoveries of modern African explorers have furnished a much clearer idea of the cause of this beneficent overflow than the ingenious theory of Herodotus or the opinions of his wise Grecian friends. During the first few days of the inundation the water has a green tint, which is supposed to be caused by the first rush of the descending torrents, carrying off the stagnant waters from the interior of Darfour. This is thought to be unwholesome, and the natives store up beforehand what water they may need for these few days. A red tint follows this, caused by the surface-washing of red-soiled districts. When the inundation subsides, the water is of a muddy color, pleasant to drink, and quite innocuous. The paintings of the old Egyptians represent these three conditions of the river by waters colored green, red, and blue.

Pg 643

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.