Part 11 — CHAPTER XXII. (continued 4)

The more we listened to her and observed her, the less surprised we were at the universal respect, worship I might almost call it, that greeted her presence everywhere—it was so spontaneous and so free from anything like fear or servility. As soon as she appeared at the door of a work-room, or a class, or a dormitory, the prisoners rose immediately to salute her; and several times I noticed some of them make signs to others who were not looking, or touch them on the shoulder, to stand up and welcome the mother. She generally said a word to them en passant: “Good-morning, my children! Are you behaving well?” etc., and then there was a ripple of curtsies and a perfect clamor of “Yes, mother, thank you!” and the hard, bad faces would brighten for one moment with a smile.

The influence of the nuns with the prisoners is indeed little less than a permanent miracle, Among other instances of it, the superioress told us the following: “A desperate woman, charged with misdemeanors of the worst kind, was brought to the prison. She was the daughter of a butcher, and,” added the superioress, laughing, “I beg you to believe that her manners were just what might have been expected.” A few days after her arrival she broke out into a fit of mad fury, and the gardiens had to be sent for to take her to the cachot; but as soon as she saw them enter the salle, she drew a huge pair of scissors from her pocket—how she came by it we never discovered—and, holding it open and pointed at them with one hand, she beckoned them with the other to come on, yelling all the while like a raging lioness. The men tried to terrify her, to dodge her, but it was all useless, she baffled every attempt to seize her. They gave it up as hopeless, and came for me. She no sooner saw me than she cried out: ‘Send them away, and I will go with you; but I will never move a foot with these men!’ I sent them away, and told her to give me the scissors; she gave it at once, and then I took her by the hand and led her off without a word.

“On another occasion, one section of prisoners got up a scheme for killing the gardiens. They were to tie their wooden sabots into clusters of eight together, and when the gardiens came to convey some refractory subject to the cachot, the others were to fling several batches of these formidable missiles at their heads. The effect must have been fatal, but fortunately there was some delay in the appearance of the gardiens, and the prisoners, having all ready, grew impatient, and at last, losing all control, they began to yell and call out for them and brandish their sabots furiously. The nun who was in waiting ran down to warn the gardiens not to come up, and then came to tell me what had happened, and to consult about sending for the soldiers, who are always ready at the poste outside the prison; the gardiens were frightened, and advised this being done. I thought, however, the storm would subside without having recourse to such an extreme measure. I was not the least afraid of the women personally; I knew they would never lay a finger on one of us, whatever their fury might

“‘What is this row about?’ I said. ‘I am ashamed of you; let me hear no more of it.’ Then taking the ringleader—we always know the one to pitch upon—I told her I must put her in prison; she made no resistance, only stipulating that the gardiens were not to touch her.”

“Are the gardiens cruel to them that they hate them so much?” I asked.

“No, never,” she answered; “they have no opportunity for it if they felt so inclined; but they represent strength and justice, whereas the nuns represent only weakness and pity; the prisoners resent the one, but not the other.”

Some one asked the superioress if she had ever known a conspiracy attempted to kill or hurt any of the sisters. She replied never, on which we related to her an episode of the Roman prisons, told us recently by the Papal Nuncio. The female prisons in Rome are, like St. Lazare, conducted entirely by nuns, without even the moral support of a poste at the gates to enforce their authority. One day a plot was organized for doing away with the nuns and making their own escape from the prison. The prisoners were sixty in number and the nuns twelve, so the scheme offered little serious difficulty. It was agreed that on a certain day when all the community were assembled with the prisoners in the workroom, the latter were to seize the nuns and fling them out of the windows into the yard. The signal agreed upon was the close of the work-hour, when the superioress clapped her hands for them to put aside their work. The secret was so well kept that not a hint transpired, but the superioress felt instinctively there was something abnormal brewing. She had no apprehension at the moment, however, and gave the signal as usual when the clock struck the hour. No one moved. She repeated it. Still no one stirred. She gave it a third time more emphatically, and then the leader of the band walked straight up to her and struck her a blow on the face. The meek disciple of Jesus quietly knelt down, turned the other cheek, and said:

“If I have done you any harm, tell me so, but if not, why do you strike me?”

The woman fell upon her knees, burst into tears, and confessed everything. When the superioress had heard her to the end, she said:

“Now, my daughter, I must take you to the dungeon; you know this is my duty.”

“Yes, mother, I know it is,” and she gave her hand, and let herself be led away as meekly as a lamb.

How omnipotent is the power of love, and how lovely this world would be if love were allowed to rule over it everywhere!

Before we had finished our inspection of the house, we went to benediction in the prison chapel. There was a short sermon first on the gospel of the day. About eight hundred of the prisoners were present. Some were yawning, and evidently only there because they could not help themselves, others assisted with edifying devotion, but all were respectful in their attitude and demeanor. The organ was played by one of the nuns, and the choir, was formed of prisoners from the class already alluded to. The singing was not very scientific, but it struck us all as peculiarly touching, the more so, no doubt, from the associations connected unconsciously with the choristers. The superioress said it was looked upon as a great privilege to sing in the choir, and it is held

And many are the joys given to him and his saints by the inmates of this great emporium of sinners. Last All Saints’ day five hundred of the prisoners approached the sacraments, some in the most admirably penitent spirit, but all of their own free will, and for the moment at least with hearts touched by grace and turned away from evil. They were prepared for the feast by a retreat of eight days, preached by a Marist father.

After benediction we resumed our inspection, and came finally to the pétroleuses. There was nothing in the room where they were, or their surroundings, to distinguish them from the other prisoners, and if the superioress had not whispered to us as we were entering the dormitory that these were the women, we should never have suspected the bright, orderly room to be the den of wild beasts it was. An American lady who was of our party amused the nuns by asking repeatedly: “But where are the wicked ones?” She could not persuade herself—and indeed it was difficult—that the hundreds of women we saw so gently ruled, and held as it were with silken cords, were the most dangerous and abandoned characters of the metropolis. The fourteen pétroleuses were not dressed in the prison livery, but wore their own clothes: some of them were very spruce and comfortable, but all were tidy and clean—none of them had a poverty-stricken look. They were nearly all of them standing in sullen silence beside their beds; one woman was dandling a baby, a white-faced, shrivelled little object, tricked out in a fine blue frock with little flounces. We think we said there had been four hundred and thirty of these pétroleuses in the prison. The superioress said they had behaved very well there, and never once obliged the soldiers to interfere. They were cold-blooded, defiant creatures, but this was not their sphere of action; they bore no ill-will to the sisters; quite the contrary, many shed tears on going away. They fell into the discipline of the prison with great docility as to hours and rules, and seldom broke silence. On one point only they were intractable—they would not work.

“It’s bad enough to be conquered and butchered by Versailles,” they would answer, “but we are not going to work for them.” And neither threats nor entreaties could induce them to take a needle in their hand, or to sit down to a sewing-machine. It was no use explaining to them that they would not be working for Versailles, that they would work for themselves, and might buy extra food at the cantine with their day’s earnings; St. Lazare. Many of her companions expressed the same regret with quiet effrontery, that would have been amusing if it had not been so appalling. Every one of them declared that if it were to begin over again, they would do just the same, only better, because now they had more experience.

“And what is your opinion, ma mère?” we said; “do you think it will begin again, and that the pétroleuses are still in existence, or was it a type born with the Commune, and passed away with it?”

She replied unhesitatingly that she believed it would begin again, and that the pétroleuses would come out in greater force than ever; that they were neither daunted nor disarmed by the failure of the Commune, but rather infuriated by defeat, and more resolute and reckless than before—reckless to a degree that only bad women can be, and ready to stake body and soul on their revenge. She said that the conduct of Versailles was weak and ill-judged beyond her comprehension; that they had far better have left these women free at once on the plea that they were women, if they did not mean to deal out their deserts to them; but now these desperate creatures were exasperated by incarceration, and by a mockery of a trial that either liberated them or sentenced them to a punishment they knew perfectly well the government did not mean to carry out. It was like letting loose so many bloodhounds on France to set these women at large again.

“We have seen them de près,” continued the superioress, “and we are one and all convinced that the next attempt will be worse than the first; we have terrible days in store—the pétroleuses have not said their last word.”

Speaking of the Commune led to our asking about her own experiences under it. It appears that the employees at St. Lazare, the director, inspector-general, and their assistants, were among the first turned out, and agents of the Hôtel de Ville installed in their places. The first thing these guardians of public justice did was to set free one-half of the population, such as were available for the public services; and able servants they proved themselves on the barricades and as incendiaries. To account for and in some measure palliate the superhuman ferocity displayed by the women of the Commune, we may as well mention here a fact not generally known, and which was told to us by a distinguished medical man, who was here all through that terrible saturnalia, and by a Sister of Charity, who could also speak from personal knowledge. It would seem that the snuff dealt out to the people from the government manufactories was mixed in large proportions with gunpowder. The effect of this ingredient, taken in very small quantities, is to excite the brain abnormally, but taken in large ones it brings on a kind of savage delirium tremens. The wine distributed to the pétroleuses on the barricades and elsewhere was also heavily charged with some such element of madness. It seems to us that it is rather a consolation to hear this, for though it reveals a diabolical instinct of soul-hatred in the few, it

The superioress said that for the first three weeks that the nuns did duty for the Commune, nothing could exceed the respect and consideration they received from them.

“They were as docile as little girls to us,” she said, “and never did anything without coming to consult us. The inspecteur-general named by the Commune happened to have formerly been a clerk at the prison. My surprise when I saw him in his new character, and with such credentials, was great; but he seemed himself very much ashamed, and when I asked him what had induced him to join the Commune, he replied that it was really devotion to the nuns; he had accepted the office because he knew we would want a protector, and he preferred being on the spot to watch over us. It was not laughing matter, or I could have laughed at his audacity. And he actually pleaded this argument on his trial at Versailles, and was acquitted on it! He had always been a well-conducted, honest man, and I am not sure but in the bottom of his heart this good intention toward us may not have been mixed up with a great many other less worthy ones. During all the time he was in constant communication with me, he never had the courage once to raise his eyes to my face. He told us a good deal about what was going on outside, and especially what the women were doing. He spoke in enthusiastic praise of their spirit and courage. He said the fort of Montrouge was lost one day but for a girl of seventeen, who, seeing the soldiers demoralized, and the gunners abandoning their guns and turning to fly, rushed up to one of them, and seized a light and put it to the cannon, and so mocked the cowards, and taunted them all with cowardice and want of mettle, that she rallied every man of them and saved the place. But for this Versailles would have taken it. Ten minutes later, and the defence was abandoned. ‘Had it not been for this plucky little diablesse, we were lost!’ he exclaimed. Such traits as this prepared us for the pétroleuses of a few weeks later, but he only saw patriotism and valor in them.”

Things went on very amicably between the gentlemen of the Commune and the sisters for three weeks. Then a change came over them. They were not openly rude, but there was what the superioress described as restrained fury in their manner toward the nuns, and the latter felt that the blood-fever was rising in them, and that they would soon break out into open mutiny. The superioress felt this more strongly than the rest, and she was sorely perplexed how to get her flock out of the way of the wolves while it was yet time. It was no easy matter, for, as she quaintly said, “One cannot send off fifty religious like fifty pins, in a box by mail,” and in the present state of mind of the Communists, to awake suspicion was to have the whole community seized and locked up forthwith. The first thing to be done was to procure permission from the Hôtel de Ville. She had been obliged to go of late several times to the prefecture on one business or another connected with her functions in the prison, so the authorities there knew her, and had always treated her with marked civility. She said that the first time she went there the faces of the so-called officials struck her as demoniacal, they were all of them half-drunk—men taken from the gutters of Belleville and Villette to fill offices of whose

She applied for a permission to leave, and got it without any difficulty. She kept it in her pocket all that day, and the next morning she seemed to hear a voice saying to her interiorly: Now is the moment; send them off! The exodus was planned well, and carried out so discreetly, the nuns going in threes and fours at a time, that not a shadow of suspicion dawned on the employees—their jailers as they now considered them. All that day the superioress kept constantly with them, never letting them lose sight of her for a quarter of an hour at a time, coming and going perpetually, and making future arrangements for one thing or another, so as to put them more completely off the scent. It was only when evening came and there were but eight nuns in the house besides herself, that the flight was discovered. The rage of the director was undisguised. But if he could not catch the fugitives, he could revenge himself on the devoted ones who had shielded their flight at the peril of their own lives. The superioress was at work in the midst of the little remnant of her flock, when he rushed into the room, pistol in hand. A few words passed between them, angry on his part, calm and resolute on hers, then with an oath he left the room abruptly.

“I knew as well as if he had told me,” she said, “that he was gone to see if there was a vacant cell to put me in. I did not feel terrified—God gives such strong graces in moments like that!—but I felt the same kind of internal voice saying to me: Now is your time; take the others and fly!

“We hurried down the stairs just as we were and went out. We turned to the left, and walked on as fast as we could, without running, toward the Gare du Nord. We could hardly have turned the corner of the street when the director was in pursuit of us. Les Détenues, who saw us leave the house and take to the left, called out to him: To the right, citoyen! They are not forty yards ahead! He followed the direction, and this saved us. We reached the station just as the train was about to move. The guards saw us coming, and cried out to us to make haste and jump in. ‘But our tickets! We have not taken them!’ I said.

“‘Never mind, jump in! You will pay at the other end,’ and they hustled us into the nearest carriage. We had not seated ourselves when the director appeared on the platform pistol in hand, and crying out frantically to the train to stop. But it moved on, and landed us safely at Argenteuil.”

A few days after the Sœurs Marie-Joseph had cleared out from St. Lazare, the nuns of Picpus were taken there. This the superioress thought was one reason why the officials were anxious to get them out of their way; they meant to put the others there, and they did not want any inconvenient witnesses of their own proceedings.

When we had seen all that was to be seen in the vast building, the superioress took us to the private chapel of the community. It was formerly the cell of St. Vincent of Paul, that is to say, the space occupied by the sanctuary; the altar stands where his little bed used to be, and the window step is worn away by the pressure of his feet, when his increasing infirmities St. Vincent, unchanged in all except its occupants; and the great, sombre corridors echoed for twenty years to the footsteps of the sweet apostle of charity. His memory is held in great veneration throughout the prison, and the population speak of him with a sort of rough, filial affectionateness that, the nuns told us, is often very touching; they seem to look on him as a friend who ought to stand by them.

I had nearly forgotten one incident in our visit that had a peculiar beauty of its own. We were passing by the open door of what seemed an infirmary; all the beds were occupied, and there were several nuns sitting in the room, when one of them ran out and said:

“Oh! ma mère, you will not pass without coming to say bonjour to our old women. Ever since they heard you were showing the house, they have been watching for you.”

The superioress said it was late, and she really had not time just now, but the nuns begged harder, and said that the old women knew she was going into retreat that evening, so they would not see her for eight days, and the old women, seeing they were in danger of being refused, began to cry out so piteously that the mother, asking us if we would not mind walking down the ward, yielded, and we went in. These old women are all infirm and incurable, and have been sent as such from one hospital or another to St. Lazare. Their delight when the superioress came in and spoke a word to each was almost rapturous. I stood to speak to one old soul, but instead of detailing her own aches and pains after the usual manner of those dear, blessed, garrulous poor people, she burst out confidentially into ecstatic praises of notre mère—how sweet and kind she was, and how she loved them all, and what she did for them, and what an angel she was altogether, “as indeed all the good sisters were,” the good soul made haste to assure us. We found, on comparing notes with our friends, that those to whom they spoke had improved the opportunity in the same way. It seemed quite a treat to them to find an audience for their grateful praises of the Sœurs. Indeed, as far as our view of them went, the Sisters of Marie-Joseph fully justify the love they receive so plentifully. The superioress is what the French would call une maîtresse femme, a combination of energy and gentleness, with a certain frank brightness of manner that is very winning to a stranger, and must be a great help, independent of stronger agencies, in enabling her to win the confidence and disarm the rebellious spirit of the women she has to deal with. It was wonderful to watch her as she passed on from salle to salle, saying just the right little word to all of them, and bringing a smile on all the faces, old and young, good and bad. Her manner, while it was perfectly simple and familiar, never lost its dignity; but there was not the faintest shadow of that spirit which too often hinders the salutary influence of virtue over vice—keep off; for I am holier than you! With these infirm old women she was affectionate and caressing as a mother, petting them like children, and encouraging their fearless familiarity toward herself. They had been here all through ces dames, as they mockingly styled them, who had come to replace the Sœurs. But the worst of that terrible interval to them was the terror they were in of being burnt to death. They saw the flames rising on all sides from the conflagrations in the neighborhood of St. Lazare, and they were in momentary expectation of seeing the prison itself fired. The doors were opened for them to fly, but “à quoi bon, puisque nous n’avions pas de jambes pour fuir?” they observed jocosely. This was the last salle we saw. Before the superioress took leave of the incurables, she asked them to pray for the nuns during their retreat, which was to begin that evening. They promised in chorus that they would, and one said: “We will offer up all our suffering this week for the good sisters,” and all the others pledged themselves to do the same.

So ended our visit to St. Lazare. It was a sad and yet an unutterably consoling one. We hear a great deal about the atheism and immorality and wickedness of Paris—and God knows there is plenty of them—but there is much also that is bright and pure and beautiful mixed up with the bad, if only we looked for it and proclaimed it. We would find the pearls of purity, and the rubies of charity, and the emeralds of hope, and the salt of the Holy Spirit, scattered everywhere amidst the general corruption, healing and redeeming it.

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION [144]

There is a very general conviction among the workingmen themselves that, in the distribution of the joint products of capital and labor, capital gets the lion’s share. Capitalists, or they who can command capital or its substitute, credit, grow rich, become millionaires, from the profits of the labor they employ, while the laborer himself, with the most rigid economy and frugality, can barely keep soul and body together, and not always even that. Yet, if we look at the millions deposited by the laboring classes in our savings-banks, and the large sums collected from them for eleemosynary and other purposes not necessarily included in the expenses of living, this statement

It is not easy to say precisely what the special grievances of the workingmen are, at least in our country, since comparatively few of the wealthy or easy classes of to-day inherited their wealth, or had to start with any appreciable advantages, pecuniary, educational, or social, over their compeers who have remained in the proletarian class. The International Association of Workingmen do not tell us very distinctly what their special grievances are, nor can we gather them from the eloquent lecture of their mouthpiece, Mr. Wendell Phillips, the candidate of the labor unions of Massachusetts for governor of that state. The evils he complains of, if evils, grow out of what is called “modern civilization,” and seem to us to be inseparable from it. This is also clearly his opinion, and The Dublin Review shows that it is the view taken by the Internationals in England and France. Mr. Phillips says:

“Modern civilization is grand in seeming large and generous in some of its results, but, at the same time, hidden within are ulcers that confront social science and leave it aghast. The students of social science, in every meeting that gathers itself, in every debate and discussion, confess themselves at their wits’ end in dealing with the great social evils of the day. Nobody that looks into the subject but recognizes the fact that the disease is very grave and deep; the superficial observer does not know the leak in the very body of the ship, but the captain and crew are suffering the anticipation of approaching ruin. Gentlemen, I am not here with the vain dream that we shall ever abolish poverty. My creed of human nature is too bitter for that. There will always be men that drink, and as long as there are such, there will always be poor men—shiftless men. There are always half-made men—nobody knows why they were born.

“Is civilization a failure? Stretch out your gaze over all the civilized world. There are, perhaps, in Christendom two or three hundred millions of people, and one-half of them never have enough to eat. And even in this country one-half of the people have never had enough of mental food. All over the world one-half of Christendom starves either bodily or mentally. That is no exaggeration. You may go to France or England, and find a million of men that never saw meat once a year. Take your city, and go down into the very slums of existence, where human beings by the thousands live year in and year out in dwellings which no man in Fifth Avenue would trust his horses in for twelve hours. I will take the great social spectre that confronts social science the world over—prostitution, the social ulcer that eats into the nineteenth century. And everybody who studies the subject will confess that the great root from which it grows is that the poverty of one class makes it the victim of the wealth of another. Give woman her fair chance in her own fields of enterprise, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will disdain to buy diamonds and velvets with the wages of shame. Give man his fair chance in the world of labor and enterprise, and ninety-nine out of a hundred men will disdain to steal. The grog-shops of the great cities have always appointed the municipalities as their own standing, committees. And this is at once the cause and effect of the poverty of the masses. I have known men who were intemperate in Boston cured by being sent to Paris. Why? Because in the brighter life, the more generous stimulant, the great variety of interest in the European capital, he found something that called out his nobler nature, starved out his appetites. So it is with the intemperance of a nation; and to cure it, you must supplement their life with the stimulus of the soul. Why is

This plainly enough attributes the evils the workingmen seek to remedy to modern civilization, which enables the few to become rich and leaves the many poor, destitute, festering in ignorance and vice. M. Desmoulins, in his Apology for the Internationals, as quoted by The Dublin Review, says: “The Parisian Red, far from being out of the pale of human nature, is only a spontaneous product of what is pompously styled modern civilization—a civilization that, resting to this hour on war between nation and nation, town and town, farm and farm, men and men, is still in many respects sheer barbarism.” As far as we are able to collect the views of the Association, it attributes the undefined grievances of the proletarian class to no one specific cause, but to modern civilization in general. In this, if the workingmen confine their objection to material civilization—the only civilization the age boasts or recognizes—we are not disposed to quarrel with them. Yet we all remember the outcry raised in all classes of society and from all quarters against the Holy Father, because he refused to form an alliance of the church with modern civilization, and for his supposed condemnation of it in the Syllabus. The International Association of Workingmen, whose members are spread over nearly the whole world, and are numbered by millions, is a vast organized revolt against this boasted civilization of this nineteenth century. And so far it is not wholly without excuse, and even much may be said in its defence, though their proposed substitute for it may be utterly indefensible.

Modern material civilization, dating from the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, and more especially from the accession of the House of Hanover to the English throne, and the accession to power in England of what in the time of Swift and Addison was called the Urban party—money-changers, bankers, traders, merchants, and manufacturers—has been based on capital employed in trade and industry, in opposition to capital invested in land and agriculture. It is a shopkeeping and manufacturing and maritime civilization, essentially and eminently a burgher civilization, and resulting especially in the burgher class, or, as the French say, the bourgeoisie. A civilization based on material interests, and proposing the multiplication and amassing of material goods, necessarily produces the state of things which excites the opposition of Mr. Phillips and the Internationals. It creates necessarily an antagonism between the interests of capital and labor, and therefore between the employers, as representatives of capital, and the employed, or workmen. The interest of capital is to get labor at as low a rate of wages as possible; the interest of labor is to get as high a rate of wages as possible. This antagonism is inevitable.

Employers in vain pretend that the interests of capital and labor are the same. They are not so under a civilization based on Mammon, or under a civilization that seeks only the advancement of material interests, and invests capital only for the sake of material profit. In the struggle,

Universal suffrage, which was defended on the ground that it would tend to protect labor against capital, has in fact a contrary tendency, and in practice almost invariably favors capital. The whole of our legislation—which so favors capital or its substitute, credit, or which mortgages the future for the present, and makes debt supply the place of capital, covers the towns with money or business corporations, and builds up huge monopolies—has grown up under a system of universal suffrage. In an age and country where material interests predominate, what the people, capitalists or proletarians, ask of government is, laws that facilitate the acquisition of wealth; but when such laws are enacted, not more than one man in a hundred can avail himself of the facilities they afford.

The great scientific discoveries of which we boast, and which have wrought such marvellous changes in our modern industrial world, were, as to their principles, made in a less material age than the present, before the modern burgher civilization was fairly inaugurated; but their application to the mechanic arts, to production and transportation, whether by sea or land, has been made since, and chiefly within the last one hundred years. The introduction of labor-saving machinery has, to an extent not easily estimated, superseded human labor, broken up the small domestic industries, as carding, spinning, and weaving, carried on in the bosom of the family, and securing it a modest independence, and small farming, carried on chiefly by the father and his sons, and built up in their place large industries and large farming, beyond the reach of people of no means or small means but their labor, and in which human labor is employed only in the form of labor at wages. The introduction of machinery, or the working of mills or farms by machinery driven by steam or by horse-power, requires capital, or an outlay possible only to large capital or combinations of small capital. Take, for instance, the steam carder, spinner, and weaver; the mule, jenny, and power-loom; the patent mower, reaper, and horse-rake; threshing and winnowing machines—hardly any of them heard of or only beginning to be heard of in our own boyhood, at least in this country; take the railway and the locomotive—and you can easily see that modern industry, and in a measure even agriculture, fall necessarily into the hands of large capitalists, individual or corporate, and cannot be prosecuted on a small scale, at least profitably. We have corporations for condensing milk and making butter and cheese, regardless of our youthful friend the dairymaid, and for supplying us with ice. Perhaps nothing has tended so much to enlarge the inequality between

We do not make war on labor-saving machinery, which, we have heard it said, increases the power of capital six hundred million fold, though that seems to us hardly credible. We could not now do well without it. We could not well dispense with our cotton and woollen factories, and go back to the hand-cards, and spinning-wheel, and hand-loom which, in our own boyhood, were in every farmer’s house; but we cannot forget that the independence of the laborer—now a laborer at wages, and obliged to make cash payments for what he consumes—has gone with them to the advantage of the capitalist. We could not well dispense with railways, and yet there is no denying that they are monopolies, that labor cannot compete with them, and that they impose a heavy tax on labor. They also tend to convert the independent laborer into a workman at wages, and the freeman into the slave of machinery, to enrich a few railway presidents and directors, and stock-jobbers. Then, those great corporations, without souls, are not only stronger than the laborer, but stronger than the government. No great feudal lords in France or England were ever more formidable to the crown than such corporations as the Pennsylvania Central, the New York Central, the Union Pacific, with our National Bank system, are to the government, state or general. Neither state legislatures nor Congress can control them, and they have already made both simply their factor or agent.

There is a truth which cannot be denied expressed in the following paragraph from Mr. Phillips’ lecture:

“Now, look at it. You say, why do you find fault with civilization? Tonight is a cold night, and you will go home to parlors and chambers warmed with the coal of Pennsylvania. Why don’t you have it here for $3 and $4 a ton? Why don’t you have it here at an advance of $1 or $2 over what it is sold for at the mouth of the pit? Because of the gigantic corporations and vast organizations of wealth. The capitalists gather three or four millions of tons in your city—sell it when they please, at such rates as they please, and the poor man struggling for his bread is the sufferer. A rich man is careful; he won’t put his foot in any further than allows of its being pulled back. If he heard a groan coming from the people at something he did, he would withdraw his investment, for nothing is more timid than wealth. But let that man take $100,000 or so and put it in with nine others, and make a capital of $1,000,000; then he is as bold as Julius Cæsar. He will starve out 13,000 coal miners. The London Spectator says that the colossal strength of Britain has reason to dread the jointure of $456,000,000 of railroad capital. How much more should America have reason to dread such combinations, when Britain has more than ten times our wealth!”

Yet is there not some compensation to the proletarian class in the very system which tends so fearfully to increase their numbers and dependence? Grant that coal might be delivered from the mines in Pennsylvania in this city at $3 a ton; but suppose there were no railroads and no railway monopolies, could or would coal from the same mines be delivered in this city as cheap as it now is? Suppose there were no railways between this city and the great West, would wheat, flour, beef, pork, and the other necessaries of life be cheaper for the laboring class in this city than they now are? Railway companies may charge exorbitant rates of freight, and yet the laboring classes get the chief necessaries of life cheaper than they

This is the view taken by the Internationals. They war specially against the rule of the burgher class, which is now supreme in society, as formerly were the church, kings, and nobilities. In this opposition to the rule of the burgher class, supposing the means and methods of their warfare just and honorable, we confess we might sympathize with the Internationals, as we have always sympathized with the working-classes. We never have been able to get up much liking for an aristocracy based on Mammon, who, Milton tells us, was the meanest of all the angels that fell, and who, even in heaven, went about head down, and his eyes fixed on the gold of heaven’s pavement. It is well for no country when its ruling class are the moneyed or business class. Yet it would be difficult to say, as to our country at least, what class can be better trusted with the government, or what class has more virtue, more nobility of sentiment, chivalric feeling, nobler aims, or higher purpose. Nothing better from the proletarian class could be expected, and, judging from the Paris Commune, nothing so good. The workingmen have all the love of money, all the sordid passions, low views, and degrading vices that can be charged to the burgher class, and, perhaps, fewer redeeming qualities. Civilization has descended to the burgher. What would it gain by descending to the proletary? But let us listen once more to Mr. Phillips:

“I think our civilization is better than anywhere in the world. Now, gentlemen, you say to me, What do you intend to do? Every man has a different theory, and I have no panacea. My theory is only this: I know that a wrong system exists, and that the only method in these states of turning the brains of the country on one side is to bring it into conflict, and organize a party. If I should ask one of your editors to-night to let me indite an article on labor and capital, very likely he would refuse me, or if he granted it, it might be because a fanatic like me would sell a copy or two. But if you will give me 50,000 votes on one side, and the balance impartially divided between your Fentons and Conklings and Seymours, I will show you every journal in the city of New York discussing the question with me. Labor is too poor to edit a column in a New York journal, but when it comes in the shape of votes, then those same journals cannot afford to disregard it. Now, let us organize it. The ultimate view which we aim at is co-operation, where there is no labor as such, and no capital as such—where every man is interested proportionately in the results. How will you reach it? Only by grappling with the present organizations of power in the nation. It is money that rivets the chains of labor. If I could, I would abolish every moneyed corporation in the thirty states. Yet I am not certain that that would be a wise measure, because it seems probable that the business of the nineteenth century can hardly be carried on without corporations; but if it be true that facility and cheapness of production are solely to be reached by

“I think, in the first place, we ought to graduate taxes. If a man has a thousand dollars a year and pays a hundred, the man that has five thousand a year ought to pay five hundred. I would have a millionaire with forty millions of dollars taxed so highly that he would only have enough to live comfortably upon.”

That our civilization is the best in the world, it is patriotic to believe, and under several aspects it no doubt is so, or at least was so, a few years ago; but the burgher influence, which decides the action of government, is fast preventing this from continuing to be so. We were intended by nature to be a great agricultural people, and we have labored with all the force of the government and artificial contrivances to become, spite of nature, a great manufacturing and commercial people, like the people of Great Britain, as if our territory were as limited as that of the British Isles. Whatever advantages we possessed over the nations of the Old World in the beginning, we owed to the extent, cheapness, and fertility of our vast tracts of unoccupied lands, which enabled the working-man, after a few years of labor at wages, to become a land-owner, and to become the cultivator of his own Sabine farm. But the influence of the ruling classes, with its chief seats in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, has been steadily exerted since 1824 to deprive the country of these advantages, and to create as large a proletarian class as possible, so that no doubt, if, aside from the vast public works, or rather, the so-called internal improvements undertaken by private corporations, and which give for the time employment to large numbers of workmen, skilled and unskilled, we now offer any advantages to the laborer over those he has abroad—at any rate, if we do, those advantages are fast disappearing.

We are no more favorable to the system of corporations than is Mr. Phillips; and the writer of this for years opposed with whatever abilities he had their creation and multiplication. He did so till he saw opposition could avail nothing to check their growth. No opposition can avail anything now, since the abolition of slavery has, in a great measure, identified the great planting interests of the South with the burgher interests of the North, as it was intended to do. For this Mr. Phillips is himself in no small degree responsible, and as an International, or a leader in the labor movement, he is only trying to undo what he hoped to do as an abolitionist. Philanthropy is an excellent sentiment when directed by practical wisdom and knowledge; but, when blindly followed, it creates a hundredfold more evil than it can cure, even if successful in its special aims. Even Mr. Phillips doubts if the corporation system can be safely abolished. We tell him there is no power in the country that can abolish it, because it governs the general government and nearly all the state governments. Give Mr. Phillips the fifty thousand votes he asks for, and the party he wishes to organize, he would, no doubt, become a power in elections, and could command an important place in the government for himself, and places also for his friends; but, however important the place to which he might be elected or appointed, he would find himself impotent to effect anything against the system he opposes,

Mr. Phillips tells us that his main reliance is on the “education of the masses.” So do we, only we protest against calling the people who have rational souls “the masses,” as if they were piles or heaps of brute matter. But education given by the burgher civilization as educator, or suffered to be freely given by it, will tend to perpetuate that civilization, or the very system, social and industrial, which Mr. Phillips and the Internationals war against, not to displace or reform it. Let the education of all the children of the land be entrusted to a society whose principles were so admirably summed up and approved by a former governor of Massachusetts, namely, “Let the government take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor,” how much would the education given do to elevate or meliorate that society? No order of civilization or society ever does or ever can educate in reference to a higher ideal than its own. Hence the reason why the state or secular society cannot be a fit educator of children and youth, and why all education can be safely entrusted only to the spiritual society whose ideal is the God-man, perfect, and the highest conceivable.

Purely secular education proceeds on the assumption that men and nations always act as well as they know, or that all individuals and nations will act uniformly in reference to their own interests so far as they know them—an assumption disproved by every one’s daily experience, as well as by the universal experience of mankind. Mr. Phillips ought to know that men who ought to know better are often carried away by their lusts, their passions, the force of events, and social and other influences, to act in direct opposition to their better judgment. There are comparatively few of us who cannot say with the heathen poet:

Men do wrong or fail to follow the right less from ignorance than from passion and infirmity of will. Society could not subsist if founded on what the philosophers in the last century called enlightened self-interest, or what Jeremy Bentham called “utility,” or “the greatest happiness” principle. What is wanted is something stronger than interest, something stronger than passion, which, while it enlightens the intellect, gives invincible firmness to the will.

The only power that can control this system, the evils of which Mr. Phillips points out, while its social and industrial tendencies he deplores, and adjust the various conflicting interests of society on the principles of justice and equity, is and must be supernatural. The English system of checks and balances, of restraining or balancing one interest by another, is a delusion, as the failure of the experiment fully proves. It restrains the weaker interests, but strengthens the stronger, makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and hence in no country do you find larger accumulations of wealth, and side by side with them a deeper or more widespread poverty or more squalid wretchedness. There are no resources in the order of nature for a people that adopts the burgher system, and makes material interests the great aim of life, from which power can be drawn adequate to overcome the evils of the system against which the Internationals wage their relentless war. We can find no deliverance in the natural order, and must seek it, if anywhere, in the supernatural, that is, in

But religion is precisely what the Internationals reject, hate, or despise—what the great body of the workmen in our towns, cities, and manufacturing villages have ceased to believe, and even with those of the so-called proletarian class generally who do not formally reject religion, it has ceased to be a power, to have any hold on the conscience, and has become a vague tradition or a lifeless form. It is pretty much the same with the burgher class, and was so with them before it was so with the proletarian class. Modern civilization itself is based on atheism, or the purely material order. Hence the evils the Internationals seek to remedy are the natural and inevitable result of the new order of civilization, not yet two centuries old. The Internationals see it, and make war on the existing civilization for that very reason. But on what principles, and in what interest? On the principles and in the interests of that very civilization itself. Their success would simply oust the burgher and put the proletary in his place. They introduce or propose not a higher and a nobler civilization, but, so far as there is any difference, a still lower and more degrading civilization.

The revolution that has been going on in society since the close of the fourteenth century has had several phases. The first phase was the union of the burghers and the sovereigns against the Pope and the feudal nobility, and resulted in the triumph of absolute monarchy in the sixteenth century and the seventeenth. The second phase was the union of the burghers, or the tiers état, and the people or a portion of them against monarchy and the church, which issued in establishing the supremacy of the burghers. The third phase is that in the midst of which we now are, and is—monarchy and the church gone or assumed to be gone—that of the proletaries against burghers. Neither of the preceding phases of the revolution effected the good hoped for, or satisfied the revolutionary appetite, but really aggravated the social evils it was sought to remedy. The friends of the revolution said it did not go far enough, and stopped short of the mark. It has now descended to the bottom, to the lowest stratum, or to the lowest deep, and proposes to wrest the power from the burgher class and rest it in the proletarian class. It is some consolation to know that we at length have reached the last phase of the revolution, and that after its failure, as fail it will, nothing worse is to be feared. “When things are at worst, they sometimes mend.”

The principal objection to the Internationals is not that they oppose what is called modern civilization, or that they seek to remedy undeniable social evils; but that they seek to do it on false principles, by inadequate means, and unlawful and even horrible methods, and can only lose even by success.

The International has absorbed all the other labor unions, and may be said to represent the whole proletarian class in Europe and America, and its leaders are avowed atheists; they reject the entire supernatural order, disdain or contemn all forms of religion, and seek to redress the material by the material. This

From Mr. Phillips we learn that they aim at the destruction of the whole modern industrial system, and propose that the workmen shall take possession of the establishments created by capitalists, incorporated or not, and run them on their own account, and share the profits among themselves, without any indemnification to the owners. As to land, no individual is to own it or any portion of it—it is to be made common, and open, as to the usufruct, to any one who chooses to occupy it. Mr. Phillips says:

“I have another proposition. I think when a man has passed five years in the service of a corporation, though he may not have bought a dollar of its stock, he is in a certain sense a stockholder. He has put his labor and persistency there, and I think every man who has been employed in a corporation for a year or two should have a voice in its financial management. In Japan, when a man dies, his land is left to the state. Do you not think that is a wiser plan than ours? The land becomes more valuable through the labor of the whole country, and not by that of the man who eats off of it. Our great hope in the future is in the education of the masses, for they will yet be our rulers. New York stood aghast at the defalcation of millions of dollars, but will you submit to be robbed of hundreds of millions by monopolists? Fifth Avenue cannot afford to let the Five Points exist. You cannot get wealth enough to fortify you against discontented ignorance within your reach. The lesson taught by Chicago is that wealth cannot afford to neglect poverty.”

How the matter would be adjusted if two or more men should happen to insist on occupying the same house and lot we do not know. They would all have an equal right, or one would have as good a right to it as another, and, there being no authority, no law, and none of them having any moral or religious principle, they would most likely, all having the pride and obstinacy natural to the human heart, be obliged to settle the question by fighting it out, and leaving the house and lot as the prize to the victor. Might or craft would then settle the right. Society and mankind would fall back into a state of war, in which might is the only rule of right, and which Hobbes contends was their natural state, out of which they were happy to get by the surrender of all their natural rights or natural liberty to any one who would consent to be their king, and in return would maintain them in a state of peace.

The Paris Commune, endorsed by Mr. Phillips, and which was led on and approved by the Internationals, tells us not only the principles of the Association, but its method of carrying them out and reducing them to practice. We cite here a passage from The Dublin Review on the principles and spirit of the Commune:

“M. Auguste Desmoulins is one of those fanatical believers in the infallibility of the unknown, to whom the past is all superstition, the present all corruption, and the future the one reality of

“‘The Parisian workman is often obliged to visit the handsome quarters of the town, while new buildings are ever thrusting him further away beyond the old barriers into vile habitations. In this condition, which is made for him. anything helps to irritate him. How can he find content in a home that is narrow, ill-lighted, foul, nearly without air, when he compares this wretched hole, for which he pays so dear, with the sumptuous chambers that he has either built or decorated in the rich quarters? It is easy to denounce in eloquent homilies the spirit of envy that devours the lower classes. We should recognize that a true notion of justice mixes with the feeling.

“‘The desire to enjoy the fruits of his labor is especially likely to spring up in the mind of the French workman, who does not believe, any more than his master, in the reparations of a future life; who does not perceive for the right of the master any other sanction than the material fact of possession; and whom, besides, universal suffrage invests with a share of sovereignty equal to that of the capitalist. Whatever may be said by those who have been justly called mammonite writers, we can easily understand that the proletary who has just given his vote finds it hard to resign himself to social serfage at the very moment when he feels himself politically sovereign. This striking contrast between his rights as citizen and his condition of pariah in society, accompanies him everywhere, reproduces itself in every act of his life, and adds a perpetual gloom to exhausting labor and never-abating privations.’

“This passage contains the essence of M. Desmoulins’ apology for the Commune; and it supplies, we submit, matter for reflection in its every line. The statesmen and the classes in society who delight in seeing the influence of religion weakened or destroyed, never seem to realize until it is too late that they are sure to be the especial victims of their own success. The great truths of life hang together and sustain each other:

The man who scorns to love God, how shall he continue to love his neighbor? The man who has said, ‘There is no God,’ is he not on the point of also saying, ‘Lust is lawful,’ ‘Property is robbery’?”

We copy also from the same Review a letter from General Cluseret from this city to a member of the Society:

“New York, 17th February.

“My Dear Varlin: I have just received your welcome letter of the 2d. It explains the delay in replying to my application. Need I say that I accept, and will set to work at once in endeavoring to be useful to my brethren in poverty and toil? The newspaper which I told you of is not yet established. I think it better not to renew my attempts in that direction, considering the late events in France, and the numerous letters I have received from my friends, who are unanimous in recalling me to Europe.

“In all probability, I shall be there next summer, but, in the interval, I shall have arranged international relations between the different French and American groups, and selected one person or several persons (at the discretion of the French committee) of proved zeal and capability, to replace me. As you say, we shall surely, infallibly triumph if we persist in demanding success from our organization. But we must remember that the aim of our Association is to associate (solidariser) the greatest number for action. Let us, then, be liberal; let us round off our angles; let us be really brethren, not in words, but in deeds; let not such mere terms as doctrine and individuality separate those whom common suffering, which means a common

“Now, we ought to be ready, physically and morally, for that day. On that day, we, or nothing. Until then I shall probably remain quiet, but on that day, I affirm—and you know my ‘Nay’ never means ‘Yea’—Paris shall be ours, or Paris shall exist no longer. This will be the decisive moment for the accession of the people.—Yours ever, Cluseret.

“You are mistaken in believing, for a moment, that I am neglecting the socialist in favor of the political movement. No; it is only from a purely socialistic point of view I am pursuing the revolutionary work; but you must thoroughly know we can do nothing in the direction of social reform if the old political system be not annihilated. Let us not forget that at this moment the Empire exists merely in name, and that government consists in party abuse. If, under these grave circumstances, the socialist party permits itself to be lulled to sleep by the abstract theory of sociological science, we may wake up one fine morning to find ourselves under new masters, more dangerous for us than those we have at present, because they would be younger, and consequently more vigorous and more powerful.”

We have personally known General (?) Cluseret, and we know him to be a man who acts from deliberation, not impulse, who means what he says, and who can be restrained from going straight to his end by no religious principle, moral scruple, or sentiment of mercy, pity, or compassion. His disposition is as stern and inexorable as a physical law of nature. When he threatened to burn Paris rather than surrender it, he meant it, and he was the man to do it or to see that it was done if within the limits of the possible. Mr. Phillips seems also to appear, at least, to threaten incendiarism as a means of accomplishing his purpose. What means this, the closing sentence of his lecture: “The lesson taught by Chicago is that wealth cannot afford to neglect poverty”? Does this mean that the Internationals burnt Chicago? or does it simply mean that other cities may be burnt as well as Chicago, and will be, if wealth continues to neglect poverty or refuses to yield to the demands of the International Association of Workingmen? This gives the question a startling aspect. Certain it is that the Association holds itself free to introduce its socialism or communism by murder, assassination, robbery, plunder, and conflagration at the pleasure or dictation of its chiefs. Take the following letter, read and endorsed by Mr. Phillips before a New York audience:

“Before proceeding to speak of it, you will allow me to read a notice which has been placed in my hand, and in the object of which I sympathize cordially, because the great foreign movement can be commemorated by it. The French Commune has always seemed to me to deserve the cordial respect of every lover of the progress of the masses throughout the world. I have no doubt that in due time its good name will be vindicated, and its leaders lifted to the unqualified respect of the civilized world. The notice I hold in my hand is as follows:

“‘To the Workingmen of New York, friends of humanity, enemies of bloodshed, and lovers of justice: Citizens! The recent barbarous executions in France, in cold blood, six months after all struggles are over, and the ferocity with which the conquerors pursue their victims, are a disgrace and shame to humanity. We must not allow the human race to be stained by the shedding of its own blood without a protest. You, workingmen, would you let your friends

“I hope every man who loves his fellow will show himself there. There was never nobler blood shed, never more high-minded and disinterested effort made in the long history of Freedom’s struggle, than in Paris, when, in defiance of all the oligarchies of Europe, that city stood up for the individual and for liberty in the nineteenth century.”

The impudence of the writers of this letter is sublime, and only surpassed by that of the lecturer in endorsing it. Why, these fellows would persuade us that they are “enemies of bloodshed and lovers of justice,” meek as lambs, timid as sheep, and harmless as doves—they who, without a shadow of justice or excuse, made the streets of Paris run with the blood of the innocent, the noble, and the saintly. “Enemies of bloodshed”!—they whose hands are reeking with blood! Yes, to having their own blood shed, but not to the shedding of the blood of others. “Enemies of bloodshed and lovers of justice”! Good God! can hypocrisy or self-delusion go so far? Let the assassination of Generals Le Comte and Clement Thomas, the horrible murders, when it was known that the cause of the Commune was lost, of the holy and unoffending Archbishop of Paris, of Jesuit fathers, and a dozen Dominican friars and lay brothers, to say nothing of other murders hardly less horrible, reply to that false pretence. It would seem that these miscreants count for nothing the blood they shed without authority, in violation of law, religion, morality, and every principle of justice, and every sentiment of humanity; it is only when justice overtakes them, and, after trial and conviction by legitimate authority, orders them and their fellow-criminals to be shot or sends them to the guillotine in punishment for their crimes, that they have a horror of bloodshed! Then, and only then, they ring out their dastard cry against injustice and for the sympathy of that humanity they have so greatly outraged! The men who have been executed by the government at Versailles deserved their fate—men without a single virtue or noble quality except personal bravery in face of death. Deluded were they? Yes, as every great criminal, murderer, or assassin is deluded.

What most excites our indignation is to find an educated and refined American gentleman, of no mean ability and rare eloquence, and past middle age, coming forward before an American audience to express in a written lecture deep and unreserved sympathy with, and approval of, these horrors and abominations, equal to those of ‘93, and applauded by his auditors for such an outrage on common morality and decency. Yet it is no more than we might have been prepared for, since Mr. Phillips only gave a logical expression to the principles he had always defended as an abolitionist; and while there are fools enough among us who imagine that the issues of the war have endorsed them and they have been sanctioned by the God of battles. We love our country, and have been proud of our countrymen; but, if they have fallen so low as to applaud the Paris Commune and its horrid butcheries and profanations, we can only say, Alas for them!

It may have become unsafe to oppose the Internationals, since the police has taken them under its protection, and granted them their impudent demands. We are surrounded will strengthen the burgher class and corporations in towns by compelling many who are not favorable to these classes and interests to support them, as the only means left of saving society from lapsing into complete barbarism.

We shall probably return at an early day to this subject, for it is really the great question of the hour.

ON CATHOLIC LIBRARIES.

This melancholy fact is most observable in the ranks of our adult immigrant population, who, coming from countries where education was almost unattainable, money scarce, and books dear, have not generally acquired either ability or taste for reading, though it has been remarked that even among them, when an opportunity is at all presented, the desire for information is excited in a remarkable degree, and only requires a reasonable impetus to develop it still more. Still, from the fact of their usually limited means and comparatively unsettled modes of life, they are as yet unable to purchase or retain any appreciable collection of desirable publications.

The remedy for this defect in our growing Catholic society lies, in our opinion, in the formation of local libraries, suitable in variety and extent to the wants and capacity of particular localities. There are at least twenty-five hundred centres of Catholic population in America where very respectable collections of books could be purchased and placed in some safe and accessible place, say in the school-rooms or church basements, and half as many more, particularly in our Western settlements, where at least a few good books would be of great advantage to the hardy tillers of the soil, and where, even if there be no public place to deposit them, there is always some prominent settler who would willingly assume the honorary office of librarian. Experiments of both plans have been tried in many of our large city parishes, and in a few isolated instances in the country, with marked success.

The advantages of libraries conducted on this system are numerous, and ought to be apparent to every one, not the least of which would be cheapness. Let us suppose, for instance, that, in any given locality, fifty persons would each subscribe two dollars. This would create a capital of one hundred dollars, or sufficient to purchase, on an average, one hundred and fifty volumes, great and small, of readable books, from any of our large publishing-houses in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore. Thus, for two dollars, a subscriber would have, for reading or reference, the practical ownership of works at least fifty times the value of his contribution, and, by charging new members a small fee for the use of each volume, a fund might be created to purchase new books as they appeared from time to time. In this manner, and with proper attention, a library of dimension commensurate with the growing wants of the neighborhood would be brought into existence without much expense to any particular class of the community.

But the moral effect of the establishment of such small centres of intelligence would be incomparably greater. For the adults, it would at once be an attraction and a source of occupation, tending powerfully to withdraw them from those pursuits, not always edifying, in which unoccupied minds too often indulge, to will read. The young American mind, no matter of what parentage, is a hungry and an investigating mind, and must have some sort of food, do or say what we will. If it cannot have good literary food, it will have what is poisonous, and in this lies the secret of the success of the sensational story papers, and the no less deleterious tales that, in a few years, have made fortunes for their publishers. It is well known that one of the former class, published in this city, boasts of a weekly circulation of three hundred thousand copies, and another of nearly as great a number. If we go into the large workshops of the principal cities, or the factories of New England, where so many young persons are engaged, at the hour allotted for dinner we will see every second boy and girl devouring with more eagerness than their food the contents of some flashy journal or specimen of what is generally known as “yellow-covered literature,” in which vice is hidden under a thin veil of romance only to make it the more seductive. Now, the way to check this insidious and widespread evil is not by complaining of or railing at it, but by placing within easy reach, and in accessible places sound and attractive Catholic works. The impetuous mind of youth may be compared to a rapid stream, which, dammed up or checked in its career, is sure sooner or later to overflow its boundaries to the destruction of its surroundings, but which, if its course is directed by skilful and experienced hands, not only ceases to be dangerous, but becomes a source of usefulness and power. To give this direction to the expanding intellect of the rising generation, and to turn to good use what might by neglect or repression become an evil and a curse, is one of the first and plainest duties of parents, for the proper performance of which they will be held to a strict accountability. It is not enough for them to see that their offspring attend church on Sundays and holy-days, that they go to Sunday-school regularly, and say their prayers night and morning, if they allow them afterwards to ponder from hour to hour over sickly romances; nor will it serve to send their children to school to learn to spell and read, if the knowledge thus gained be turned to the enervation of their minds and the corruption of their morals. Education is not in itself an end, it is only the means to an end, and that end is the knowledge of God’s law, and the best way of conforming one’s conduct to its requirements so as to secure our eternal salvation. There is no excuse for a Catholic parent for not putting into the hands of his children entertaining and moral books, nor is there any palliation for any one professing our holy faith, and who has arrived at the years of discretion, for encouraging or reading the thousand-and-one works of fiction which we see every day exposed on news-stands and in cheap book-stores, and which are

Now, what would be the effect of this system of libraries on the general tone of public opinion? Decidedly most salutary. In addition to driving from circulation many of the demoralizing newspapers, periodicals, and books which even non-Catholics denounce as immoral, and for the suppression of some of which the aid of legislative action has been invoked, it would create and foster a pure literary taste among no inconsiderable portion of our diverse population, and, apart from its direct moral effect, would render it more valuable and more reproductive in a material point of view. Many of the most important political, social, and commercial problems of the day, on the true solution of which depends the future welfare of our republic, can only be properly comprehended by reference to the history of the past, and to the biographies of the great statesmen who succeeded or failed in founding or destroying nations and empires. And even in the discussion of minor questions affecting our interests or liberties, some acquaintance with the antecedents of our country is absolutely necessary to enable us to form proper opinions of their merits. In individual cases, one of the compensations for declining years and one of the highest claims to respect is experience; but to the reader of history, no matter what his age, the accumulated experience of at least thirty centuries is accessible, and not only controls his judgment and enlarges his knowledge, but vastly enhances his social and political status. But this experience, to be of any value, must be based on truth and undoubted facts. It must arise from the just appreciation of unbiassed statements and philosophical deductions, stripped of all that false assertion and unlimited prejudice which have characterized so many European and American writers for the last three centuries. Hence the need of Catholic books and Catholic readers—for, in this as in commercial matters, the demand regulates the supply—and the creation of new facilities for the spread of reliable information.

Take the case of the History of England by Lingard. Before the appearance of that excellent work, we venture to say that seven-eighths of the reading population in every part of the world believed more or less in History of the Reformation145] and the Life of Mary, Queen of Scots,[146] which has lately appeared, and in which the slanders and aspersions so repeatedly heaped on the memory and character of that beautiful but ill-starred sovereign are condemned, exposed, and, it is to be hoped, finally disposed of. The first of these works is the most elaborate and reliable book we have on that important epoch, when every throne in Europe was shaken to its base, and when men’s passions, let loose by the preaching of the heresiarchs of England and the Continent, threatened to destroy every vestige of temporal and spiritual authority. There is no period in the history of Christendom about which so many falsehoods and such mendacious calumnies have been invented and circulated by prejudiced writers; and it was only on the appearance of the book in question that we have had, at least in English, any comprehensive and truthful account of the origin and progress of that rebellion against God’s church and laws. This country, from its settlement to the present, the origin and growth of its institutions from their inception in the early part of the seventeenth century till their fruition in our present constitution, though full of incident and fraught with lessons of the highest political wisdom, is yet imperfectly known and but little understood. Is it not, then, worth a little sacrifice on the part of parents to place before their children, who ere long are to become the rulers of the state, a correct and impartial account of the birth of religious liberty on this continent, of the dangers, trials, and struggles our forefathers endured in order to build up and transmit to posterity the blessings of a free government? Yet such knowledge can only be obtained through books, and books, so far as the majority of Catholics are concerned, are almost unattainable, except through co-operation. Then, again, we are often taunted by such hackneyed phrases as the darkness of the middle ages, the ignorance of the monks, the corruption of the Papacy, the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, and such other fabrications of Protestant authors. Are we to allow our children to go forth in the midst of a reading and, in a religious sense at least, a hostile people, unprepared to intelligently refute such calumnies, and unable to account for the various agencies by which the Catholic Church at all times sought to eliminate civilization from barbarism, light from darkness, and Christianity from paganism at first, and from heresy and infidelity subsequently? They must have great—too great, perhaps—confidence in the faith of their children thus to submit them to so severe a test; and yet how few reliable books dealing with those subjects do we find provided for young Catholics by those whose duty it is to direct their conduct and shield them from the temptations and snares of the world! How many parents, intent on rewarding their children by presents, ever think of presenting them with good books, which would not only gratify their tastes and improve their minds, but would be, at least to them, a perpetual source of consolation?

This is the poison that is carrying off so many of our juvenile co-religionists, more dangerous to their souls than the deadly upas would be to their bodies, and against which we must provide some antidote. If one of our boys is confronted with quotations from Hume or Macaulay, he must be prepared to answer them on the undoubted authority of Lingard; if he be taunted with the poverty or ignorance of the Catholics of Ireland, he can show whence came this penury and destitution by reference to McGee’s, Cusack’s, or any of the numerous histories of that country; he ought to be prepared to oppose Archbishop Spalding to D’Aubigné, Meline to Froude, the history of the Maryland settlers (the founders of religious liberty on this continent) to the eulogiums on the intolerant Puritans, the “Irish Settlers” to the Know-Nothing organs—in fact, truth and light wherever falsehood and darkness are to be found. The truth has nothing to lose, but everything to gain, by full and free discussion. It is only error that shrinks from thorough investigation. But we must take care that our sons and daughters are well supplied with plain and useful facts regarding their faith and religion before they are subjected to the ordeal through which all young Catholics must pass who mingle freely in Protestant society, lest through their ignorance the cause they espouse should be weakened by their imperfect advocacy.

Neither ought we to hesitate in learning lessons from our adversaries when it is possible to do so. If the children of darkness are wiser than the children of light in their generation, it is no reason why we should be guilty of folly. Apart from the falsity of their teachings, we have often had occasion to admire the systematic perseverance with which the

Literature itself would also gain much by the establishment of these libraries. How often has it been remarked that, out of the large number of Catholic young men of brains and education which our colleges and academies turn out annually, there are so few writers. The explanation is that for them authorship is neither a remunerative nor an appreciated employment. The professions of law and medicine and the attractions of commerce and trade are constantly drawing into their vortices the best energies and talent of our young graduates, many of whom with proper encouragement and patronage might, as authors, render incalculable service to the cause of truth and morality. What is required to utilize this large amount of natural gifts and acquired knowledge is simply the more extensive circulation of works already published; the increase in the number of new books on subjects of general interest, in style and treatment more in accordance with modern forms than those published years ago; but, above all, the cultivation of a correct standard of literary excellence among the people, and the creation of a widespread class of readers and thinkers.

The objection to the dearness of Catholic publications would also be removed by this means. It is well known to those conversant with the publishing business that, in proportion to the increase of the circulation of a given book, the expense of its production per copy is diminished in an inverse ratio. A book of which three thousand copies are sold at two dollars each would be more remunerative to both publisher and author at even one dollar if twenty thousand copies were disposed of. The publisher, also, in his contract with the author and in view of the uncertainty of his sales, naturally adds to the cost of production and to his fair percentage of profit a certain amount for probable losses by having a portion

As to what ought to constitute the necleus of a small library, some difficulty may be experienced in diverse tastes and opinions. In view of the multiplicity of good books constantly being imported or published in this country, it is nearly impossible to make a list of such as would be most desirable and useful without leaving out others perhaps as equally deserving of attention. Of works of fiction we have enough and more than enough in the productions of the authors above named and others of a less pretentious order, but, as this sort of reading is simply a matter of choice, each one must judge for himself in the selection.

Devotional and controversial works are numerous, and a few at least, such as the writings of St. Liguori, Father Faber, Dr. Manning, and Cardinal Wiseman, the Guide for Catholic Young Women, Following of Christ, Catholic Christian Instructed, Lenten Monitor, as well as several others, should be always found in Catholic libraries. In history, as far as the English language is concerned, we are not so rich. We have, it is true, four or five histories of Ireland, possessing peculiar merits, and exhibiting more or less defects, but all full of useful information. Lingard’s England, entire or abridged, is decidedly the best of that country. Shea’s History of the Catholic Missions in the United States, McSherry’s Maryland, Bishop Bayley’s Church in New York, McGee’s Irish Letters and Catholic History, De Courcey’s and Shea’s Catholic Church in America, go far to supply the defect, at least in part. Then there are the Works of Archbishop Hughes, one of the great prelates of the church in America, and the writings of Dr. O. A. Brownson, particularly his Essays and American Republic, than whom no man of our day, it is safe to say, writes with more vigor or with a clearer understanding of his subject. The works of Bishop England are, we regret to say, too little known, and, being for some time out of print, are now almost unattainable. Darras’s Church History, the only complete history of the church yet published in our language, should, if possible, be read by every Catholic, and find a conspicuous place in all our libraries. The Lives of Deceased Prelates of the United States, by Clarke, which has just been published, is a very valuable book, containing a great deal of remote and contemporary history; and if Mr. Shea could be induced by proper encouragement to further develop the subjects he has selected for his books, as we feel certain of his ability to do so, a great deal of additional matter connected with the struggles and sufferings of the early pioneers of religion, now almost forgotten or unknown, would be placed before the public. In biography, which maybe called history in detail, our resources are abundant. We have, besides numerous Lives of the Popes, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, several of St. Patrick, St. Vincent de Paul, Curé of Ars, and some two hundred separate lives of the holy men and women who in every age of the church were conspicuous for their sanctity, wisdom, and devotion to the faith, a list of which may be chosen from the catalogue of any of our principal publishers; and last, though not least, is Montalembert’s great work, The Monks of the West, an American edition of which is just published.

So far as materials are concerned, we have a plenitude of them of every variety and in all departments of literature, and we have endeavored to show that very little money is required to purchase them. What is wanted is organization and action. For these we must depend to a great extent on the local pastors, and on the half a dozen leading laymen who are most generally to be found in every congregation. There is a homely proverb, but nevertheless true, that “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.” Let one or two influential men in each parish think seriously over the matter, call their associates together, and explain to them the advantages to be derived by themselves and their children from cheap and good reading, collect the subscriptions, put themselves in communication with any of our Catholic booksellers, and the work is done. The first and most important step thus taken, the future welfare of the library is assured. It is unnecessary to say that such a movement ought to and would receive the warmest encouragement from their spiritual superiors. Apart from the benefits arising from the reading of moral books to the cause of religion, the spirit of mutual intercourse, interchange of thought, and friendly co-operation engendered by reading the same book, and meeting at stated times for a common object, would lead insensibly to the formation of a compact and efficient organization, exceedingly useful when the interests of charity, education, or the church are to be subserved. Not only this, but, knowing how overtaxed are the attention and time of so many of our missionary priests in providing the means of building churches and schools, as well as attending to the spiritual wants of their scattered flocks, we consider that an intelligent body of young people, such as we would naturally expect to see connected with a library society, would form a valuable lay staff of workers whose pleasure it would be to aid their pastor in all his material transactions. The more intelligent Catholics become, the less trouble, in two ways, they entail on their spiritual guide. They become aware easily of his wants, or rather the wants of the church of which he is to them the representative, and need little inducement to contribute their means freely for the benefit of charity or religion, while, at the same time, they make the most efficient agents in influencing the actions of others with whom they are daily brought in contact.

Firmly believing that the spread of these societies throughout this country would have a most marked and beneficent effect, morally and mentally, on our rapidly growing Catholic population, we submit these remarks to the serious consideration of the reverend clergy, and of those laymen who have been favored with more wealth and a better education than the majority of their fellow-Catholics. We must not forget that we live in an age of great mental activity and progress, so-called. Let us keep pace with our neighbors in everything that leads to the acquisition of true knowledge, but let our progress be in the right direction, and worthy of the name we bear, and of the religion we profess.

The Life of Philip Thomas Howard, O.P., Cardinal of Norfolk, etc. By Father C. F. Raymond Palmer, O.P. London: Thomas Richardson & Son. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

It affords us sincere pleasure to be able to speak of this book in terms of unqualified praise, without in the least being subjected to the charge of flattery. The subject chosen by Father Palmer is the career of an ecclesiastic who not only filled a prominent part in the history of his times in his native country, England, but of the church throughout Europe; and whose private virtues were even more edifying than his mental capacity was remarkable. The scion of one of the noblest houses in Great Britain, and living at a time when every lure was held out to genius and rank to join the so-called Reformers, he not only remained true to the Catholic traditions of his family, but, forsaking the world altogether, he became, in spite of all opposition, an humble friar and a follower of the illustrious St. Dominic. His labors for the good of his order on the Continent as well as in England were incessant, and so successful that in a few years he was raised to the dignity of a prince of the church. Several times he was entrusted with important diplomatic missions by his sovereign, Charles II., and for many years occupied the position of grand almoner to Catharine of Braganza, the queen-consort. In addition to the biography of Cardinal Howard, we have a very full and interesting sketch of the history of the Dominican order, that glorious corporation of friar-preachers, whose labors extended to every part of the known world, and whose blood may be said to have been shed in the cause of Christ wherever the foot of man has trod. Father Palmer’s treatment of the subject is in every way worthy of so great a theme. He does not, as too many biographers are apt to do, fall in love with his hero, and lose himself in senseless rhapsody and panegyric, but lets deeds and their results speak for themselves. Neither does he assume for the order, of which he himself is a worthy member, too much credit for its long-continued and extensive propagandism of the faith; but, keeping his praise within just bounds, makes the amplest acknowledgment to other missionaries when an opportunity offers. The author’s style, also, is admirable. It is plain, bold, and exceedingly clear, and reminds us a good deal of the old days of classic English, which, we are sometimes tempted to fear, have departed for ever.

Sermons by the Fathers of the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. 12mo, pp. 331.

This, the sixth volume of sermons, twenty-two in number, delivered by the Paulist Fathers of this city, has just been published, and in point of variety, ability, and adaptability to the everyday wants of Catholic congregations, may fairly be said to be equal, at least, to any of the preceding volumes from the same source. other so harmoniously that conviction, even to a biassed mind, seems to follow as a matter of course.

But on a second and more critical perusal of this book, we are certain to discover new and equally commendable features. We feel as if we were in the presence of Catholic priests speaking to their spiritual children. There is an absence of all harshness or terrorism, and of that bitterness which too often accompanies the discussion of controversial subjects. While our errors are reproved and our sins denounced, hope and mercy are not denied us; the path of duty is plainly pointed out, but we are encouraged to tread its thorny ways, and we rise from the study of the Sermons conscious of our faults and weaknesses, without despairing, and with a renewed purpose of amendment. No one can read attentively the first and last of this series, on “Remembrance of Mercies” and “Fraternal Charity,” without feeling softened and chastened in spirit. It is not, however, the mere contents of the sermons that we most admire. It is their suggestiveness. To a reflective mind there is matter enough in them to form the groundwork of a hundred discourses, and still the subjects would not be exhausted. This feature alone will extend their good influence far beyond the limits of one book or one pulpit. As we have come to a grand truth boldly stated, or a deduction logically and lucidly drawn, we have frequently found ourselves closing the book, and, following the drift of the reverend preacher’s argument, preaching sermons to ourselves. If such be its effects on ordinary minds, how much more valuable will be the uses of this book to the younger members of the priesthood in the performance of the duties of their holy calling? And it is for them especially, we presume, it is intended.

Besides, as we are all aware, there are many persons with the best dispositions who, from family or other

Macaronic Poetry. Collected, with an Introduction, by James Appleton Morgan, A.M. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1872.

Of the many excellent specimens of the typography of the Riverside Press, the above-named work is one of the handsomest; and this merit is enhanced by the fact that the great variety of languages and characters, ancient and modern, used in its pages called for the best efforts of typographical skill and resources.

The title of the work gives but a modest idea of the wealth and diversity of its contents, which are creditable to the taste and industry of the author. We find in it not only all the most celebrated macaronic masterpieces, from the “Pugna Porcorum,” of about three hundred lines, every word of which begins with the letter P, thus:

down to Dr. Maginn’s “Second Ode to Horace,” commencing,

Then there are the literary trifles of the dipogrammatists and the pangrammatists, and curiosities in acrostics, telestics, anagrams, palindromes, sidonians, rhymed bagatelles, cento verses, chain verses, alliterative verses, and epitaphs. There are also some specimens of queer prescriptions, the whole family of which are but imitations of the celebrated recipe pasted on the door of the pharmacy in the Convent of the Capuchin Friars at Messina:

“Pro presenti corporis et æterna animæ salute.

RECIPE.

Any one may find much literary amusement in the volume, and to the Latin scholar in particular it affords material for many an hour of pleasant relaxation.

The Taking of Rome by the Italian Army, considered in its Causes and Effects. By C. M. Curci, S.J. Translated from the Italian by the Duke Della Torre. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1871.

It is a matter of congratulation that we have among us at least one Italian gentleman of high rank, character, and education, who is a thoroughly loyal and devoted adherent of the Holy See. We are greatly indebted to the Duke Della Torre for translating F. Curci’s brochure, prefixing to it a most sensible and excellent preface, and getting it published by our most eminent New York firm. The pamphlet itself is an able production of an able and celebrated writer. The only great fault in it is the discouraging tone it