Volume 21 — CHAPTER VIII. A STARTLING DISCLOSURE. (continued 3)

Thus we have three supreme kinds of place—the linear, with one dimension, length; the superficial, with two dimensions, length and breadth; the cubic or solid, with three dimensions, length, breadth, and depth. The true characteristic difference between these kinds of place is drawn from their formal constituents, viz., from their boundaries. The cubic place is a place terminated by surfaces. The superficial place is a place terminated by lines. The linear place is a place terminated by two points.

These supreme species admit of further subdivision, owing to the different geometrical figures affected by their respective boundaries. Thus the place of a body may be tetrahedric, hexahedric, spherical, etc., and the place of a surface may be triangular, polygonal, circular, etc.

Place is also divided into absolute and relative. It is called absolute when it is considered secundum se—that is, as to its entity, or as consisting of a system of correlation within a definite limit. It is called relative when it is considered in connection with some other place or places, as more or less distant from them, or as having with respect to them this or that position or situation.

The absolute place of a body, whatever our imagination may suggest to the contrary, is always the same as long as the body remains under the same dimensions, be it at rest or in movement. In fact, whenever we speak of a change of place, we mean that the place of a body acquires a new relation to the place of some other body—that is, we mean the mere change of its relativity. When the world was believed to be a sphere of continuous matter with no real space outside of it, the absolute place of a body could be considered as corresponding to one or another definite portion of that sphere, and therefore as changeable; but since the reality of infinite space independent of matter has been established, it is manifest that absolute place has no relation to the limits of the material world, but only to the infinity of space, with respect to which bodies cannot change their place any more than a point can change its ubication. Hence, when a body moves, its relative place, or, better, the relativity of its place to the places of other bodies, is changed; but its absolute place remains the same. Thus the earth, in describing its orbit, takes different positions round the sun, and, while preserving its absolute place unchanged, it undergoes a continuous change of its relativity.

Lastly, place is also divided into intrinsic and extrinsic. Omitting the old explanations of this division, we may briefly state that the intrinsic place is that which is determined by the dimensions and boundary of the body, and therefore is coextensive with it. The extrinsic place of a body is a place greater than the body which is placed in it. Thus Rome is the extrinsic place of the Vatican Palace, and the Vatican Palace is the extrinsic place of the Pope; because the Vatican Palace is in Rome, and the Pope in the Vatican Palace.

Occupation of Place.—We have now to answer a few questions about the occupation of place. The first is, whether bodies fill the space they occupy. The second is, whether the same place can be simultaneously occupied by two bodies. The third is, whether the place limits and conserves the body it contains. The fourth is, whether the same body can be miraculously in two places or more at the same time.

That bodies fill place is a very common notion, because people do not make any marked distinction between filling and occupying. But to fill and to occupy are not synonymous. To fill a place is to leave no vacuum within it; and this is evidently impossible without continuous matter. As we have proved that continuous matter does not exist, we cannot admit that any part of place, however small, can be filled. Place, however, is occupied. In fact, the material elements of which bodies are ultimately composed, by their presence in space occupy distinct points in space—that is, take possession of them, maintain themselves in them, and from them direct their action all around, by which they manifest to us their existence, ubication, and other properties. This is the meaning of occupation. Hence the formal reason of occupation is the presence of material elements in space. Therefore, the place of a body is occupied by the presence in it of discrete material points, none of which fill space—that is to say, the place is occupied, not filled. The common expression, “a place filled with matter,” may, however, be admitted in this sense, that when the place is occupied by a body, it does not naturally allow the intrusion of another body. This amounts to saying, not that the place is really filled, but that the resistance offered by the body to the intrusion of another body prevents its passage as effectually as if there were left no occupable room. So much for the first question.

The second question may be answered thus: Since space is not filled by the occupying bodies, the reason why bodies exclude one another from their respective places must be traced not to a want of room in them, but only to their mutual opposite actions. These actions God can neutralize and overcome by an action of His own; and if this be done, nothing will remain that can prevent the compenetration of two bodies and of their respective places. It is therefore possible, at least supernaturally, for two bodies to occupy the same place. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that, as the elements of the one body are not the elements of the other, so the ubications of the first set of elements are not the ubications of the second, and consequently the correlations of the first set are not identically the correlations of the second. Hence, if one body penetrates into the place of another body, their places will be intertwined, but distinct from each other.

The third question must be answered in the negative, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of all the Peripatetics. The place does not limit and conserve the body by which it is occupied; it is the body itself that limits and conserves its own place. For what is it that gives to a place its formal determination, and its specific and numeric distinction from all other places, but its extreme boundary? Now, this boundary is marked out by the very elements which constitute the limits of the body. It is, therefore, the body itself that by its own limits defines the limits of its own place, and constitutes the place formally such or such. There is the same connection between a body and its place as between movement and its duration. There is no movement without time, nor time without movement; but movement does not result from time, for it is time itself that results from movement. Hence, the duration of the movement is limited by the movement itself. In like manner, there is no body without place, and no place without a body; but the body does not result from the place, for it is the place itself that results from the presence of the body in space. Hence, the place of the body is formally determined by the body itself. Therefore, it is the body that limits and conserves its place, not the place that limits and conserves the body.

This conclusion is confirmed by the manner in which our knowledge of place is acquired. Our perception of the place of a body is caused, not by the place, but by the body, which acts upon our senses from different points of its surface, and depicts in our organs the figure of its limits. This figure, therefore, is the figure of the place only inasmuch as it is the figure of the body; or, in other terms, it is the body itself that by its limits determines the limits of its place.

From this it follows that, when a body is said to be in a place circumscriptively, we ought to interpret the phrase, not in the sense that the body is circumscribed by its place, as Aristotle and his followers believed, but in this sense, that the body circumscribes its place by its own limits. And for the same reason, those beings which do not exist circumscriptively in place (and which are said to be in place only definitively, as is the case with created spirits) are substances which do not circumscribe any place, because they have no material terms by which to mark dimensions in space.

The fourth and last question is a very difficult one. A great number of eminent authors maintain with S. Thomas that real bilocation is intrinsically impossible; others, on the contrary, hold, with Suarez and Bellarmine, that it is possible. Without pretending to decide the question, we will simply offer to our reader a few remarks on the arguments adduced against the possibility of real bilocation.

The strongest of those arguments is, in our opinion, the following. The real bilocation of a body requires the real bilocation of all its parts, and therefore is impossible unless each primitive element of the body can have two distinct, real ubications at the same time the one natural and the other supernatural. But it is impossible for a simple and primitive element to have two distinct, real ubications at the same time, for two distinct, real ubications presuppose two distinct, real terminations of the virtuality of God’s immensity, and two distinct, real terminations are intrinsically impossible without two distinct, real terms. It is therefore evident that one point of matter cannot mark out two points in space, and that real bilocation is impossible.

To evade this argument, it might be said that it is not evident, after all, that the same real term cannot correspond to two terminations. For to duplicate the ubication of an element of matter means to cause the same element, which is here present to God, to be there also present to God. Now this requires only the correspondence of the material point to two distinct virtualities of divine immensity. Is this a contradiction? The correspondence to one virtuality is certainly not the negation of the correspondence to another; hence it is not necessary to concede that there is a contradiction between the two. It may be added that the supernatural possibility of bilocation seems to be established by many facts we read in ecclesiastical history and the lives of saints, as also by the dogma of the Real Presence of Our Lord’s Body in so many different places in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Lastly, although real bilocation is open to many objections on account of its supernatural character, yet these objections can be sufficiently answered, as may be seen in Suarez, in part. 3, disp. 48, sec. 4.

These reasons may have a certain degree of probability; nevertheless, before admitting that a point of matter can mark two points in space at the same time, it is necessary to ascertain whether a single real term can terminate two virtualities of God’s immensity. This is a thing which can scarcely be conceived; for two distinct ubications result from two distinct terminations; and it is quite evident, as we have already intimated, that there cannot be two distinct terminations if there be not two distinct terms. For the virtualities of divine immensity are not distinct from one another in their entity, but only by extrinsic denomination, inasmuch as they are distinctly terminated by distinct extrinsic terms. Therefore, a single extrinsic term cannot correspond to two distinct virtualities of divine immensity; whence it follows that a single material point cannot have two distinct ubications.

As to the facts of ecclesiastical history above alluded to, it might be answered that their nature is not sufficiently known to base an argument upon them. Did any saints ever really exist in two places? For aught we know, they may have existed really in one place, and only phenomenically in another. Angels occupy no place, and have no bodies; and yet they appeared in place, and showed themselves in bodily forms, which need not have been more than phenomenal. Disembodied souls have sometimes appeared with phenomenal bodies. Why should we be bound to admit that when saints showed themselves in two places, their body was not phenomenal in one and real only in the other?

The fact of the Real Presence of Christ’s body in the Blessed Sacrament, though much insisted upon by some authors, seems to have no bearing on the present question. For, our Lord’s body in the Eucharist has no immediate connection with place, but is simply denominated by the place of the sacramental species, as S. Thomas proves; for it is there ad modum substantiæ, as the holy doctor incessantly repeats, and not ad modum corporis locati.[181] Hence, S. Thomas himself, notwithstanding the real presence of Christ’s body on our altars, denies without fear the possibility of real bilocation properly so called.

Though not all the arguments brought against real bilocation are equally conclusive, some of them are very strong, and seem unanswerable. Suarez, who tried to answer them, did not directly solve them, but only showed that they would prove too much if they were applied to the mystery of the Real Presence. The inference is true; but S. Thomas and his followers would answer that their arguments do not apply to the Eucharistic mystery.

One of those arguments is the following: If a man were simultaneously in two places, say, in Rome and in London, his quantity would be separated from itself; for it would be really distant from itself, and relatively opposed to itself. But this is impossible. For how can there be real opposition without two real terms?

Some might answer, that a man bilocated is one term substantially, but equivalent to two locally, and that it is not his substance nor his quantity that is distant from itself, but only one of his locations as compared with the other. But we do not think that this answer is satisfactory. For, although distance requires only two local terms, we do not see how there can be local terms without two distinct beings. One and the same being cannot be actually in two places without having two contrary modes: and this is impossible; for two contraries cannot coexist in the same subject, as S. Thomas observes.[182]

Another of those arguments is based on the nature of quantity. One and the same quantity cannot occupy two distinct places. For quantity is the formal cause of the occupation of place, and no formal cause can have two adequate formal effects. Hence, as one body has but one quantity, so it can occupy but one place.

This argument cannot be evaded by saying that the quantity which is the formal cause of occupation is not the quantity of the mass, but the quantity of the volume. In fact, the duplication of the volume would duplicate the place; but the volume cannot be duplicated unless each material term at the surface of the body can acquire two ubications. Now, this is impossible, as a single term cannot correspond to two extrinsic terminations of divine immensity, as already remarked. Hence, the quantity of volume cannot be duplicated in distinct places without duplicating also the mass of the body—that is, there cannot be two places without two bodies.

A third argument is as follows: If a body were bilocated, it would be circumscribed and not circumscribed. Circumscribed, as is admitted, because its dimensions would coextend with its place; not circumscribed, because it would also exist entirely outside of its place.

This argument, in our opinion, is not valid; because it is not the place that circumscribes the body, but the body that circumscribes its own place. Hence, if a body were bilocated, it would circumscribe two places, and would be within both alike. It will be said that this, too, is impossible. We incline very strongly to the same opinion, but not on the strength of the present argument.

A fourth argument is, that if a thing can be bilocated, there is no reason why it could not be trilocated and multilocated. But, if so, then one man could be so replicated as to form by himself alone two battalions fighting together; and consequently such a man might in one battalion be victorious, and in the other cut to pieces; in one place suffer intense cold, and in another excessive heat; in one pray, and in another swear. The absurdity of these conclusions shows the absurdity of the assumption from which they follow.

This argument is by no means formidable. Bilocation and multilocation are a duplication and multiplication of the place, not of the substance. Now, the principle of operation in man is his substance, whilst his place is only a condition of the existence and of the movements of his body. Accordingly, those passions of heat and cold, and such like, which depend on local movement, can be multiplied and varied with the multiplication of the places, but the actions which proceed from the intrinsic faculties of man can not be thus varied and multiplied. Hence, from the multilocation of a man, it would not follow that he, as existing in one place, could slay himself as existing in another place, nor that he could pray in one and swear in another. After all, bilocation and multilocation would, by the hypothesis, be the effect of supernatural intervention, and, as such, they would be governed by divine wisdom. Hence it is unreasonable to assume the possibility of such ludicrous contingencies as are mentioned in the argument; for God does not lend his supernatural assistance to foster what is incongruous or absurd.

To conclude. It seems to us that those among the preceding arguments which have a decided weight against the possibility of real bilocation, are all radically contained in this, that one and the same element of matter cannot have at the same time two modes of being, of which the one entails the exclusion of the other. Now, the mode of being by which an element is constituted in a point, A, excludes the mode of being by which it would be constituted in another point, B. For, since the ubication in A is distant from the ubication in B, the two ubications are not only distinct, but relatively opposed, as S. Thomas has remarked: Distinguuntur ad invicem secundum aliquam loci contrarietatem; and therefore they cannot belong both together to the same subject. On the other hand, we have also proved that a single element cannot terminate two distinct virtualities of God’s immensity, because no distinct virtualities can be conceived except with reference to distinct extrinsic terms. Hence, while the element in question has its ubication in A, it is utterly incapable of any other ubication. To admit that one and the same material point can terminate two virtualities of divine immensity, seems to us as absurd as to admit that one and the same created being is the term of two distinct creations. For this reason we think, with S. Thomas, that bilocation, properly so called, is an impossibility.

AN EPISODE.

The caption “episode” is advisedly adopted, inasmuch as we are going to transcribe only one short chapter from a large manuscript of several hundred pages containing “The Life of Sixtus V.”

However, it is to be regretted that such a life is not published. For it would reveal unto us the man, whereas Ranke and Hübner describe only the prince.

Sixtus V. fell into that mistake, which has proved disastrous to many popes, and has afforded a weapon, however silly and easily broken, yet a real weapon to the enemies of the Papacy—nepotism. The charge is exaggerated of course: in fact, what our enemies assert to have been the universal failing of all the popes, the true historian avers to have been the mistake of a few, whereas the examples of heroic detachment from kindred given by the vast majority of the Pontiffs are wonderful. S. Gregory the Great says, “better there should be a scandal than the truth were suppressed”; and surely the church needs no better defence than the truth. For the present purpose, suffice it to quote the Protestant Ranke, who, after a thorough investigation of the subject, gave it as his honest opinion that only three or four popes are really liable to the charge of nepotism. It is pleasant to be able to quote such an opinion of an eminent non-Catholic writer against scores of wilful men, who sharpen their weapons and discharge their shafts, not after honest study and investigation, but merely on the promptings of blind hatred.

Pope Sixtus V. was the second son of Piergentile Peretti of Montalto.

His eldest brother was Prospero, who married Girolama of Tullio Mignucci, and died A.D. 1560, without issue.

Camilla was his only sister. She was led to the altar by Gianbattista Mignucci, brother to Girolama. To an exquisite correctness of judgment, and great generosity of heart, she joined a quick apprehension of the importance of circumstances by which she might find herself suddenly encompassed. The Anonimo of the Capitoline Memoirs says that when Camilla was unexpectedly raised from the obscure life of a contadino’s wife to the rank of a Roman lady, she was not stunned, but felt perfectly at ease, whilst her society was coveted by the choicest circles of the nobility. Cardinal d’Ossat, in his Letters, informs us that she was greatly esteemed and dearly beloved by Louise de Lorraine, queen-dowager of the gifted but perverse Henry III. of France. The works of her munificence and public charity in her native Grottamare are many, and enduring to our day.

Father Felix Peretti had already mounted all the rounds but one of ecclesiastical preferment—the cardinal’s hat was almost within his reach. He was a bishop, and occupied some of the highest offices in the Curia Romana. He thought the time had come to satisfy a long-felt desire—the ennoblement of his family. Hence, in 1562, he called his sister to Rome, having obtained a sovereign’s rescript by which his brother was allowed to change his name, Mignucci, into that of Peretti. On the 17th day of May, 1570, Pius V. raised Mgr. Felix Peretti to the dignity of cardinal. Thenceforward he is more generally known in history as Cardinal Montalto, from the place of his nativity.

Thus, even previous to his brother-in-law’s elevation, Gianbattista Mignucci enters Rome transformed into Peretti, to join his wife and their two children Francis and Mary.

O fallaces cogitationes nostras! The friar hopes his name, made illustrious by himself, will not become extinct; but he is mistaken; if recorded on the tablets of time it will not surely be by a worldly alliance, which is doomed to a dishonored extinction. The church will inscribe the Peretti name and fame on the adamantine records of her immortality.

Verily, if we understand aright the professions of recluses, the Franciscan friar should have done away with his relations for ever; at least, so far as not to allow himself to be blinded by human affection. He should have remembered that he was under no obligation to them, that from his earliest boyhood he had been taken in hand by churchmen, and that only through scientific and moral resources acquired in a friary he had received strength to climb up so high in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The world is keen in its observations, and Peretti did not escape its strictures, seldom erring when established on principles and facts universally admitted, and moreover sanctioned by divine teaching. And has not the example been set for those who profess the perfection of evangelical counsels of how they should behave towards their kindred?

Be that as it may, Fra Felice paid dearly for his ambition.

His niece, Donna Maria Peretti, was soon married, and a dowry granted her from the revenues of her uncle of three thousand crowns a year. Mary’s children, two boys and two girls, became allied to some of the most distinguished families of Italy, and the plebeian blood of Peretti mingled with that of the simon-pure aristocracy. Out of this issue arose eminent men who did honor to cross and sword. But enough of this branch of the friar’s adoption.

About the time of Mgr. Felix Peretti’s elevation to the cardinalate, his nephew Francesco was wedded to Donna Vittoria Accoramboni of Gubbio, in Umbria, praised by the Gentiluomo, Aquitano (vol. ii., b. vi.), as “a woman of high mind, of great beauty of soul and body.” Her family still exists in Italy, and a lineal descendant occupies important posts in the household of Pius IX.. Her suitors had been many and of princely caste; among the rest Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, formerly married to the sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco Medici. Paolo, homo ruptus disruptusque, stands charged in history with the murder of this his former wife, the accomplished Isabella, daughter of Cosmo, whom he strangled on the 16th of July, 1576. But Vittoria’s father cut short all suits, and gave her in holy wedlock to Francesco Peretti, nephew of the mysterious cardinal, whose future elevation to the papal throne was held in petto by every discerning Roman.

However, Vittoria’s mother gave her consent reluctantly; for wearing the ducal coronet seemed preferable to being the prospective niece of the sovereign—uccello in tasca è meglio che due in frasca[183] the shrewd Italian lady thought. But whereas Lady Accoramboni forgot that the Orsini family owed their power to Nicholas III. (A.D. 1277-80), an Orsini by birth, who, by the lever of nepotism, had raised an already celebrated family to the highest standing of European nobility, her husband, on the other hand, said to her: “Can’t you see? Vittoria will be the head of a new, powerful family!” Still Lady Accoramboni did not see it, and the loss of the coronet rankled for ever in her breast.

Indeed, in these days when tales of fiction are the almost exclusive reading of the youth of both sexes, an accomplished writer might weave out of the following events a story of stirring interest; not sensational, indeed, but freighted with most salutary lessons.

Vittoria Accoramboni Peretti had three brothers:

Ottavio was, through the recommendation of Cardinal Peretti, nominated by the Duke of Urbino for, and by Gregory XIII. appointed to, the bishopric of Fossombrone. He adorned his see with all the virtues becoming a scholar, a gentleman, a patriot, and a true apostolic prelate.

Giulio became one of the private household of Cardinal Alessandro Sforza, by whom he was held in great favor, and employed as confidential secretary.

Marcello was outlawed for his misdeeds, and a price set on his head. But Cardinal Peretti obtained his pardon; yet leave to return to Rome was not granted to him.

“A wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish will pull down with her hands that also which is built,” saith the Wise Man. The house of Francesco and Maria Peretti was built, and it was the home of comfort and honor, enclosing within its walls the choicest gifts of the world; and of its brightest ornament, the Lady Vittoria Peretti, it might be said she was the cynosure of Roman society. The evening conversazioni drew the élite of Rome, graced as they were by the presence of the cardinal, who, with his proverbial regularity, would attend them for a definite length of time. His wise sayings, dignity of deportment, and agreeableness of manners, mingled with an independence of character that made him almost redoubtable at the Roman court, enhanced the charm of the family circle. Young prelates prized highly the privilege of being admitted amongst the visitors. The spacious halls of the Villa Negroni were adorned with paintings and statuary, and the noblest specimens of the art of painting; the gardens were reckoned the most tasteful of those of any princely family in Rome. While he was scrupulous in his attention to consistorial meetings, and the affairs of the Curia Romana over which he was appointed, Cardinal Peretti never gave his time to what he would consider frivolous etiquette. His library, his gardens, afforded him all the relaxation he needed; his life was most exemplary and devout. Happy, indeed, was the home built by such hands; but a foolish woman pulled it down!

At the depth of night, not many months after Vittoria had been wedded, a note is hurriedly carried by a chambermaid to Francesco; it had been left at the entry by a well-known friend, and the messenger had left immediately. It was written by Marcello, who at times entered the city under protection of night, or of some leaders of political factions, with which the city swarmed—barons and princes who, under the mild government of Gregory XIII., had everything their own way.

The letter summoned Francesco to repair at once to the Esquiline hill, there to meet some gentlemen on a business the nature whereof could not be entrusted to paper, and admitted of no delay. Hurriedly does the devoted man dress himself, and, his sword under his arm, forces his way through the servants who beseech him to halt, disentangles himself from his wife and mother, who, prostrated before him, cling to his knees, begging of him not to trust himself to the outlawed Marcello. In vain! Preceded by a servant with torch in hand, no sooner had he reached the brow of the Quirinal than the contents of three arquebuses were lodged in his breast; whereupon four men fell upon him, and finished him with their stilettos. “Thus,” says an old historian, “fell a youth whose only crime was to be the husband of a most beautiful woman.” Another chronicler calls Francesco Cale e di gran correttezza di costumi.

The commotion in the family when the ensanguined and ghastly corpse was carried home can easily be imagined. The lamentations of the women and the uproar of the servants awoke the cardinal, who slept in a distant apartment—his palace, the Villa Negrone, as mentioned above, and by that name known to modern tourists, extending from the Esquiline (Santa Maria Maggiore) to the Piazza de’ Termini. It is said that on hearing the dreadful news Montalto fell upon his knees, and prayed God to grant rest to the soul of his nephew, and to himself fortitude, such as became his character and dignity. His presence not only brought, but forced calm on the distracted household. On the next day the Holy Father was to hold a Consistory, and, contrary to the expectation of all, Cardinal Montalto was at his post, as usual, among the first. His colleagues offer their condolence, which he accepts with a resignation almost akin to stoicism. But when he approaches the throne to give his opinion on the matters debated, and the pope, with moist eyes and greatly moved, expresses a heartfelt sympathy in the cardinal’s affliction, pledging his word that the perpetrators shall be visited with summary and condign punishment, Montalto thanks the Pontiff for his kind sympathy, protests that he has already forgiven the murderers, and begs that all proceedings may be stayed, lest the innocent should be punished for the guilty. Having thus disposed of the matter, he proceeds with his wonted calmness to discuss that which was before the Consistory.

Referring to this impassiveness of Peretti, the pope remarked, with an ominous shake of the head, to his nephew, Cardinal San Sisto, “Indeed, Montalto is a great friar!” And those of Peretti’s own times, and subsequent historians, seem to have had an insight of his mind and motives. In the sober language of Ranke, “His character does not appear to have been so guileless as it is occasionally represented. As early as 1574 he is described as learned and prudent, but also crafty and malignant. He was doubtless gifted with remarkable self-control. When his nephew was assassinated, he was himself the person who requested the pope to discontinue the investigation. This quality, which was admired by all, very probably contributed to his election” to the papal throne.

Those among our readers who have resided among Italians, and especially in Rome, need not be told of the tremendous excitement which seized the holy city as it awoke on that dreadful morning. Cardinal Peretti of Montalto became the observed of all observers; nobles and prelates thronged the avenues to his villa to assure him of their loyalty and condolence; very few, indeed, as the world goes, honestly and sincerely; many simply from custom; almost all, however, moved by a motive of curiosity to see how the “Picenian packhorse” bore the great calamity, and, above all, what feelings he would betray towards Paolo Giordano Orsini, to whom the finger of public opinion already pointed as the murderer of Vittoria’s husband. By some manœuvre of the “gossiping committee” the day and the hour on which even Giordano would present himself at the palace became known, and the throng at the drawing-rooms was exceedingly great. When the murderer stood face to face before his victim’s best friend and only avenger, not the least twitch in the cardinal’s nerves, not a falter in the voice, nor the slightest change of color betrayed the conflict in his soul. He received Orsini’s treacherous sympathy as he had received the truest expressions of condolence. Peretti stood there, the prince, not the avenger. Even the accursed soul of Giordano was lost in wonderment; he became embarrassed and disconcerted, and he was reported to have exclaimed as he re-entered his carriage—“Montalto is a great friar; no mistake about it!” (Montalto è un gran frate; chi ne dubita!)

Vittoria had no children. Hence, after the funeral, the cardinal sent her home to her mother, bestowing upon her costly gifts, and giving her the jewels, plate, and precious articles of furniture and apparel, which had been the bridal presents of husband and friends. Ora ti credo, said Pasquino to Marforio, in allusion to Montalto’s forbearance and disinterested magnanimity.

The sequel to this tragedy is so thrilling in interest, so characteristic of the times about which we write, and must have taxed the feelings of the future pope so much, that a succinct account thereof cannot but prove interesting to our readers.

Gregory XIII. urged with energy and perseverance the necessary inquests to ferret out the murderers of Francesco Peretti. But wily old Giordano Orsini (he was on the other side of fifty) knew how to baffle the requisitions of justice, by no means a difficult task in those lawless times. He sent the waiting-maid to Bracciano, to be protected by the feudal immunities of the Orsini castle. Vittoria and her mother were sheltered in Rome in the Orsini palace. The feudal power was still great in those days, and often a franchise was secured to the premises of Roman nobles by foreign princes, to the infinite annoyance of the local sovereign, and often clogging the workings of justice. One Cesare Pallentieri, an outlawed ruffian, was then bribed to write to the governor of Rome avowing himself the plotter of Peretti’s death to revenge himself for personal injuries received at that gentleman’s hands. Nobody believed the story; and the verdict of public opinion was sanctioned when, in February, 1582, Mancino, the bearer of the fatal note, declared, under oath and without compulsion, that the whole plot had been woven by Vittoria’s mother; that the servant-maid had been made privy to it; and moreover revealed the names of two of the emissaries, it being well known in whose pay they bore arms, although he stated no employer’s name.

At this stage of the proceedings Cardinal Montalto, with persevering endeavors with the pope and the interposition of friends, stayed all prosecutions, and on December 13, 1583, obtained from the sovereign pardon for Mancino, who was, however, banished from Rome, and relegated—interned, in modern parlance—to Fermo, his native city, being forbidden to quit it under penalty of death. But it was too evident that there was a trifling with justice, and in the uncertainties between which public opinion seemed to fluctuate, wiser counsels attempted to vindicate the necessity of a just retribution. Hence, at the instance of several cardinals and of the Spanish ambassador, Gregory was prevailed upon to confine Vittoria to the castle Sant’ Angelo, and by a special decree forbade her marrying Paolo Giordano Orsini, unless by a reserved dispensation from himself or his successor, under attaintment of felony. However, after two years of imprisonment she was declared innocent of any share in or knowledge of the plot, and discharged. This happened on the very day of Gregory’s death, April 10, 1585. Still Orsini could not wed her, because of the forbidding clause in the pope’s order. But some accommodating casuist came to the rescue, and averred that the defunct pope’s brief was binding no more. Whereupon the duke hastened, by special couriers on post-horses, to notify the good Bishop of Fossombrone of his intended alliance with Vittoria, and to solicit his gracious consent. Mgr. Ottavio refused his assent decidedly, nor would he allow himself to change his refusal, although Orsini despatched messenger after messenger, anxious, as he was, to accomplish his purpose ere a new pope was elected. But the new pope was elected far sooner than the duke or any one else expected, and in defiance of the express command of the defunct pontiff, and in shameless disregard of the feelings of the new sovereign, the very morning on which Cardinal Peretti, Vittoria’s uncle, was proclaimed, she was wedded to Paolo Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Rome was bewildered at the announcement; and although no one could guess what the consequences of the rash act might be, or how the pope would show his displeasure, because Fra Felice never made any one the confidant of his thoughts, yet the general impression was that sooner or later the duke would be made to pay dearly for his daring and reckless disregard of the commonest principles of decency.

Rome was on the alert. Duke Orsini is admitted to offer his obeisance to the Pontiff Sixtus V. amid the solemn assembly of cardinals, foreign envoys, and Roman princes and senators; the expression of his liege words, his prostration at the sovereign’s throne, and his courtly homage meet with the simple response of a look from Sixtus. That look gave rise to the most clashing interpretations in the observing minds of the beholders; it was a look of benignity, weighty with authority, crushing with power, such as to subdue at once the haughty and defiant princely ruffian. From that moment Paolo Orsini never raised his head; his day was gone. Within a few days a sovereign decree, worded as only Sixtus V. knew how to pen them, in terms at which no one would dare to cavil, Orsini was forbidden to shelter outlaws. The duke solicited an audience; of what occurred at that meeting no one could ever surmise; but Orsini found no more charm in what he could heretofore call his Rome. Accordingly, within two months after the inauguration of Sixtus’ pontificate, he left the papal city. In sooth, he was an exile, voluntary, as if by courtesy. Great was the bitterness galling Vittoria’s heart, and she was pitied by all—the victim of a mother’s rash ambition, she had to flee that Rome where she could still have reigned the queen of society for her beauty, her great gifts, and close relationship to the sovereign. Donna Camilla reigned in her stead. Nor was this all. The handsome, youthful, accomplished niece of Sixtus was then the slavish, unhappy wife of a cumbrous quinquagenarian prince, covered with loathsome blotches from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head, the penalty of his dissipations; one of his legs so ulcered with cancer that it had swollen to the size of a man’s waist, and had to be kept bandaged (the chronicler says), with slices of some other animal’s meat, that the acrid humor would not eat into his own live flesh—a fretful old debauchee, overbearing, universally loathed for his lecherous habits, hated for his cruelties, and made intractable by a conscience gnawed by despair.

Poor Vittoria! On their way to Salò, near the lake of Garda in Lombardy, her husband, consumed by ulcers and tortures of soul, died suddenly whilst being bled in his arm!

Forlorn Vittoria! the first paroxysm of grief being over, raised a pistol to her head, but it was happily snatched from her in time by her brother Giulio, and she was spared a violent, unprepared, and cowardly death! Thus left alone, unprotected in her beauty and youth, she was at the mercy of Ludovico Orsini, her husband’s cousin, who despised her on account of the great disparity of their birth. Her late husband had indeed bequeathed to her one hundred thousand crowns, besides silver plate, horses, carriages, and jewelry without stint. All this Ludovico coveted, and stepped forward under pretence of protecting the rights of Flaminio Orsini, Giordano’s son by his former wife; but unable to break the will, he summoned one Liverotto Paolucci of Camerino to come to Padua—whither Vittoria had repaired immediately, and, aided by such as he might chose, to murder Vittoria and her brother! The bloody ruffian answered the summons, and entering the princess’ apartment through a window, in the depth of the night, his men fell at first upon Giulio, and into his breast discharged the contents of three muskets. The victim crawled to his sister’s room and crouched under her bed. There he was finished with seventy-three thrusts of white arms, encouraged all the time by Vittoria, anxiously repeating—“Forgive, Giulio; beg God’s mercy, and willingly accept death for his sake.”

It is recorded in the life of her sainted brother, the Bishop of Fossombrone, that, upon the death of the duke, he without delay wrote to his sister, exhorting her to amend her life, and devote herself to works of atonement and piety; for, said he, “your days will not be many.” And we have it from authenticated records of those times that she did truly repent of her worldliness, and, having placed herself under the protection of the Republic of Venice, retired to Padua, where she lived in great retirement, dividing her time between practices of devotion in the church, deeds of charity, and protracted orisons at home. She also begged of the Pope leave to repair to Rome, the asylum of the wretched, and spend the remainder of her life in a convent, for which purpose her generous uncle had signed a remittance of five hundred gold crowns on the very day he received the sad account of her death. Her brother, the bishop, had so strong a presentiment, some say a revelation from above, of the impending catastrophe, that on the 22d of December he ordered special prayers to be offered by the clergy of his diocese in her behalf.

And she did fall a victim to Ludovico’s dagger on the 22d of that month!

After Giulio had breathed his last, bathed in his own blood, Count Paganello, one of Liverotto’s band, took hold of the devoted woman by both arms, and holding her in the kneeling posture in which she had been found at her prayers, bade one of his bravoes to tear open her dress on the right side, whereupon she indignantly protested that she should be allowed to die in her dress, as it became an honest woman and the wife of Giordano Orsini! The brute plunged a stiletto into her bosom, and kept trepanning towards the left side in search of the heart. She offered no resistance, but during the horrid butchery of her form she ceased not repeating, “I pardon you, even as I beg of God to forgive me.… Jesus!… Jesus!… Mercy and forgiveness!” And with these words of forgiveness dying on her lips she fell lifeless on the floor.

Thus ended, by a cruel death, yet heroically met, one of the most remarkable women of her time—a woman renowned for her admirable beauty, talents, and misguided ambition. Having been the pet of European society, she died almost an outlaw; the niece of Pope Sixtus V., she died without a home of her own; a lamentable instance of the ignominious end awaiting those who have been endowed by a kind Providence with the noblest of gifts, but have made a wrong use of them.

THE CROSS IN THE DESERT.

Some few years ago a pilgrim sailed across the blue waters of the Mediterranean, smitten with the love of the cross, and bearing in his hand “the banner with the strange device.”

It was a lovely summer’s evening. The fierce African sun was sinking to his rest behind the hill on which the ruins of the old city of Hippo stand; and as the pilgrim, who had climbed to its summit, stood gazing around him, the glow of the western sky bathed his dusty garments in a golden light, touching the ruins with a splendor of its own, and lighting up the sea, that heaved gently down below, with the brightness of amber and gold.

This, then, was all that remained of the proud old city whose name Augustine had made famous to the end of time!

These crumbling walls were once the school where he taught, the halls where his youthful eloquence fired the hearts of the great scholars of the day; here were the baths where he lounged in his idle hours with pleasure-loving companions; here the streets where every day he came and went from Monica’s quiet home to the busy haunts of learning, of sophistry, and science; here was the place where she had wept so bitterly over him, the spot where that salutary fountain of a mother’s tears had had its source; here he had sinned; hence he had gone forth in search of truth, and, having found it, hither he had come back, transformed into a confessor and a doctor of the church; here, finally, he died, full of years, leaving behind him a name great amongst the greatest saints whom the church has raised to her altars.

And what now remained to Africa of this light which had shed such glory on her church? Where did his memory live? And the faith that he had practised—whither had it fled?

The pilgrim sat down upon a stone, and, after indulging in reflections such as these for some time, he rose and descended slowly towards the plain.

Was it a fancy born of recent musings, or did he hear a voice issuing from the massive fragment of a wall which still supported a majestic dome, once probably the thermæ of the luxurious and wealthy citizens of Hippo? Did he really see a light burning, or was it an hallucination born of the mystic hour and the suggestive surroundings? He drew closer, looked in, and beheld two white-bearded Arabs placing each a light on the highest point of the wall. Was it some idolatrous rite, a spell, or an incantation they were performing?

“What are you doing?” inquired the pilgrim.

“We are burning lights to the great Christian,” was the reply.

“Who is that? What is his name?”

“We do not know it; but we honor him because our fathers taught us to do so.”

So, then, the memory of Augustine survived in the land, though his name had perished!

The pilgrim murmured a prayer to the great Christian, as the Arabs called him, and turned away, carrying in his heart a hope that he had not known an hour ago—a hope that Augustine was still watching for the resurrection of the cross in the land of his birth, and hastening its advent by his intercession at the throne of Him whom he described as “patient because he is eternal.”

It is a fact, as striking as it is consoling, that within the last few years the faith has been making rapid conquests amidst the barbarous nations, where in the days of S. Augustine, and long after, it flourished so magnificently. Perhaps it is more surprising that this result should not have been universal after nearly half a century of the rule of a Catholic power; but the mistaken policy of the French government, and, alas! we must add, the evil example of the French themselves, instead of breaking down existing barriers, have raised new and insurmountable ones against the spread of Christianity amongst the conquered tribes. France proclaimed her intention of not alone tolerating, but protecting, Islamism throughout her African dominion. She carried this policy so far for many years that it was made punishable by French law to convert a Mussulman to the Catholic faith, whilst, on the other hand, it was perfectly lawful for any number of Catholics to turn Mussulmans. The priests who went out as missionaries were thwarted at every step by the French authorities. “Our adversaries, the men who worry us and stand in the way of our making converts, are not the Arabs or even their marabouts,” said one of these devoted men to us only a few days ago; “it is our own countrymen, Frenchmen calling themselves Catholics, whom we have chiefly to contend against.” And he went on to describe how, during the famine of 1867, when the Arabs were dying like flies all over the country, the French authorities were constantly on the alert to prevent the missionaries baptizing them, even in extremis. They actually sent detachments of spahees to the various places where the poor famine-stricken creatures congregated in greater numbers to die; and when the priest was seen approaching them, as they lay gasping in their agony, the soldiers rushed forward to stop him from administering the sacrament of regeneration. One little missionary father contrived to outwit the authorities, however, and, in spite of the lynx-eyes that were fixed on him, he managed to baptize numbers from a little bottle of water hid under his burnose.

No wonder the Arabs make small account of men who set such pitiful store by their religion. They, call the French “sons of Satan,” and the French priests and good Christians among the seculars will tell you themselves that the name is well deserved; that the employees of the government, military and civil, make the most deplorable impression on the natives, and by their lives present a practical example of all the vices which it is the boast of civilization to destroy. They are so untruthful that the French missionaries declare they surpass even the Arabs in lies. The Arab is abstemious by nature, and the law of the Koran compels him to the most rigid sobriety; the Christians give him an example of excesses in eating and drinking which excite his disgust and contempt.

There is a legend current amongst the Arabs in the French dominions that on a certain day Mahomet will arise and precipitate the sons of Satan into the sea. When a Frenchman, in answer to this prophecy, points to the strength of his government, its enormous resources, the power of steam, and the monuments he has built in Algeria, the Mussulman with grim contempt replies in his grave, sullen way: “Look at the ruins of the old Roman monuments! They were mightier than any you have raised; and yet, behold, they lie in ruins throughout the land, because Allah so willed. It is written: Allah will cast you into the sea as he did the Romans.”

All those who can speak from experience agree that there are no people so difficult to evangelize as the Mussulmans; the pure idolater is comparatively an easy conquest to the missionary, but it requires almost the miraculous intervention of divine grace to make the light of the Gospel penetrate the stolid fatalism of the Mahometan.

One of the greatest obstacles to the reception of truth in the Arab is the intuitive pride of race which arms him against the idea of receiving religious instruction from a race of men whom he despises with a scorn which is actually a part of his religion, and who in their turn look down on the children of the desert, and treat their manners and customs with contempt. In order to overcome this first obstacle towards the success of their ministry, the missionaries conceived the idea of identifying themselves, as far as possible, with the natives, adopting their dress, their manner of eating and sleeping, and in every way assimilating outwardly their daily lives to theirs.

They tried it, and the system has already worked wonders. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? If faith can move mountains, cannot love melt them? Love, the irresistible, the conqueror who subdues all hard things in this hard world—why should it fail with these men, who have human souls like our own, fashioned after the likeness of our common God? Just five years ago a handful of priests, Frenchmen, gone mad with the sweet folly of the cross, heard of how these Arabs could not be persuaded to receive the message of Christ crucified, but repulsed every effort to reach them. They were seized with a sudden desire to go and try if they could not succeed where others had failed; so they offered themselves to the Archbishop of Algiers as missionaries in his diocese. The offer was gladly accepted; but when the first presented himself to obtain faculties for saying Mass in the villages outside Algiers and in the desert, the archbishop signed the permission with the words visum pro martyrio, and, handing it to the young apostle, said: “Do you accept on these conditions?”

“Monseigneur, it is for that I have come,” was the joyous reply. And truly, amongst all the perilous missions which every day lure brave souls to court the palm of martyrdom, there is not one where the chances are more in favor of gaining it than in this mission of Sahara, where the burning sun of Africa, added to material privations that are absolutely incredible, makes the life of the most fortunate missionary a slow and daily martyrdom. His first task, in preparation for becoming a missionary, is to master the language and to acquire some knowledge of the healing art, of herbs and medicine; then he dons the dress of the Arabs, which, conforming in all things to their customs, he does not quit even at night, but sleeps in it on the ground; he builds himself a tent like theirs, and, in order to disarm suspicion, lives for some time in their midst without making the least attempt at converting them; he does not even court their acquaintance, but waits patiently for an opportunity to draw them towards him; this generally comes in the form of a sick person whom the stranger offers to help and very frequently cures, or at least alleviates, cleanliness and the action of pure water often proving the only remedy required. The patient, in his gratitude, offers some present, either in money, stuffs, or eatables, which the stranger with gentle indignation refuses. Then follows some such dialogue as this: “What! you refuse my thank-offering? Who, then, pays you?”

“God, the true God of the Christians. I have left country and family and home, and all my heart loves best, for his sake and for his service; do you think you or any man living can pay me for this?”

“What are you, then?” demands the astonished Arab.

“I am a marabout of Jesus Christ.” And the Mussulman retires in great wonder as to what sort of a religion it can be whose marabouts take neither money nor goods for their services. He tells the story to the neighbors, and by degrees all the sick and maimed of the district come trooping to the missionary’s door. He tends them with untiring charity. Nothing disgusts him; the more loathsome the ulcers, the more wretched the sufferer, the more tenderness he lavishes on them.

Soon his hut is the rendezvous of all those who have ailments or wounds for miles round; and though they entreat him, sometimes on their knees, to accept some token of thanks for his services, he remains inexorable, returning always the same answer: “I serve the God of heaven and earth; the kings of this world are too poor to pay me.”

He leads this life for fifteen months before taking his vows as a missionary. When he has bound himself to the heroic apostleship, he is in due time ordained, if not already a priest, and goes forth, in company with two other priests, to establish a mission in some given spot of Sahara or Soodan, these desolated regions being the appointed field of their labors. The little community follows exactly the same line of conduct in the beginning of its installation as above described; they keep strictly aloof until, by dint of disinterestedness and of devotion and skilful care of the sick, they have disarmed the fierce mistrust of the “true believers,” and convinced them that they are not civil functionaries or in any way connected with the government. The Arab’s horror of everybody and of everything emanating from French headquarters partakes of the intense character of his fanaticism in religious matters. By degrees the natives become passionately attached to the foreign marabouts, who have now to put limits to the gratitude which would invest them with semi-divine attributes. The great aim of the missionaries is of course to get possession of the children, so as to form a generation of future missionaries. Nothing short of this will plant the cross in Africa, and, while securing the spiritual regeneration of the country, restore to that luxuriant soil its ancient fertility. Once reconciled to civilization by Christianity, those two millions of natives, who are now in a state of chronic suppressed rebellion against their conquerors, would be disarmed and their energies turned to the cultivation of the land and the development of its rich resources by means of agricultural implements and science which the French could impart to them. Nor is it well to treat with utter contempt the notion of a successful rebellion in Algeria. At the present moment such an event would be probably impossible; but there is no reason why it should be so in years hence. The Arabs are as yet not well provided with arms and ammunition; but they are making yearly large purchases in this line at Morocco and Tunis, and the study of European military science is steadily progressing. The deep-seated hatred of the Mussulmans for the yoke of the stranger is moreover as intense as in the first days of their bondage; and if even to-morrow, unprepared as they are materially, the “holy war” were proclaimed, it would rouse the population to a man. The marabouts would get upon the minarets, and send forth the call to every son of Mahomet to arise and fight against the sons of the devil, proclaiming the talismanic promise of the Koran: “Every true believer who falls in the holy war is admitted at once into the paradise of Mahomet.” The number who would call on the prophet to fulfil the promise would no doubt be enormous, and the French would in all human probability remain masters of the desert; but a kingdom held on such tenure as this state of feeling involves is at best but a sorry conquest. If the Gospel had been, we do not even say enforced, but simply encouraged and zealously taught, by the conquerors, their position would be a very different one in Algeria now. After all, there is no diplomatist like holy church. “Our little systems have their day” and fall to pieces one after another, perishing with the ambitions and feuds and enthusiasms that gave them birth, and leave the world pretty much as they found it; but the power of the Gospel grows and endures and fructifies wherever its divine policy penetrates. No human legislation, be it ever so wise, can cope with this divine legislator; none other can take the sting out of defeat, can make the conquerors loved by the conquered, and turn the chains of captivity from iron to silk. Even on the lowest ground, in mere self-interest, governments would do well to constitute themselves the standard-bearers of the King who rules by love, and subdues the stubborn pride of men by first winning their hearts. The supremacy of this power of love is nowhere more strikingly exemplified than amidst these barbarous Arab tribes.

The story of every little dark-eyed waif sheltered at the Orphanage of S. Charles, lately established outside Algiers, would furnish a volume in itself; but an incident connected with the admission of one of them, and related to us a few days ago by a missionary just returned, is so characteristic that we are tempted to relate it. The archbishop was making a visitation in the poor villages sixty miles beyond Algiers; the priest presented to him a miserable-looking little object whose parents still lived in a neighboring desert tribe, but who had cast off the child because of its sickliness and their poverty. Could his lordship possibly get him taken in as an orphan? The thing was not easy; for every spot was full, and the fact of the parents being still alive militated against the claim of the little, forlorn creature. But the archbishop’s heart was touched. He said he would arrange it somehow; let the boy be sent on to Ben-Aknoun at once. This, however, was easier said than done; who would take charge of him on such a long journey? His grace’s carriage (a private conveyance dignified by that name) was at the door. “Put him in; I will take him,” he said, looking kindly at the small face with the great dark eyes that were staring wistfully up at him. But the priest and every one present exclaimed at the idea of this. The Arabs are proverbial for the amount of light infantry which they carry about with them in their hair and their rags; and the fact of their presence in myriads on the person of this little believer was evident to the naked eye. The archbishop, however, nothing daunted, ordered him to be placed in the carriage; then, finding no one would obey him, he caught up the little fellow in his arms, embraced him tenderly amidst the horrified protestations of the priest and others, carried him to the carriage, seated him comfortably, and then got in himself and away they drove. A large crowd had assembled to see the great marabout depart, and stood looking on the extraordinary scene in amazement. A few days later several of them came to see the priest, and ask to be instructed in the religion which works such miracles in the hearts of men, and to offer their children to be brought up Christians.

This Orphanage of S. Charles is the most precious institution which Catholic zeal has so far established in Algiers. It comprises a school for boys, and one for girls conducted by nuns. The description of the life there sounds like some beautiful old Bible legend. It is a life of constant privation, toil, and suffering, both for the fathers and for the sisters; but the results as regards the children are so abundant and consoling that the missionaries are sometimes moved to exclaim, “Verily, we have had our reward!”

The full-grown Arab is perhaps as wretched a specimen of unregenerate human nature as the world can furnish. Every vice seems natural to him, except gluttony, which he only acquires with the spurious civilization imported by his conquerors. He is relentless and vindictive; false, avaricious, cruel, and utterly devoid of any idea of morality; yet the children of these men and women are like virgin soil on which no evil seed has ever fallen. Their docility is marvellous, their capacity for gratitude indescribably touching, and their religious sense deep, lively, and affective. They accept the teaching of the missionaries and the nuns as if piety were an inherited instinct in them; and the truths of our holy faith act upon their minds with the power of seen realities.

One of the fathers told us, as an instance of this, that the children were allowed to play in the fruit garden once when the trees were in full bearing; and not a single fig, orange, or any other fruit being touched, some visitor asked the children in surprise if they never pulled any when their superiors were not looking; but they answered in evident astonishment: “Oh! no; God would see us, and he would be angry!” We quite agreed with the narrator that such a general example of obedience and self-denial from such a principle might be vainly sought for in our most carefully-taught schools in Europe and—would it be a calumny to add?—America. The children also show a spirit of sacrifice that is very striking, the girls especially. If they are ill and some nauseous medicine is presented to them, the little things seize the cup with avidity, and with a word, such as “For thee, dear Jesus!” drain it off at once. They realize so clearly that every correction imposed on them is for their good that it is nothing rare to see them go to the presiding father or sister and ask to be punished when they have committed some little misdemeanor unobserved. One little mite of six felt very sulky towards a companion, and, after a short and vain struggle to overcome herself, she went to the nun and begged to be whipped, “because she could not make the devil go away.” Their vivid Oriental imaginations paint all the terrible and beautiful truths of the faith in colors that have the living glow of visible pictures. They have the tenderest devotion to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and nothing pleases them more than to be allowed to spend their hour of recreation in prayer before the tabernacle. Their sense of gratitude for the blessing of the faith makes them long with an indescribable yearning to share it with their people. All their prayers and little sacrifices are offered up with this intention. Those among them who were old enough to remember the wretchedness they were rescued from, speak of it continually with the most touching gratitude to God and their instructors. One of their greatest pleasures is to count over the good things they have received from God. A sister overheard two of them one day summing them up as follows: “He gives us bread and the sunshine and a house; he has preserved us from dying in the night-time; he prevents the sea overflowing and drowning us; he has given us monseigneur and our mammas [the nuns]; he came on earth to teach us to be obedient; he brought us the Gospel; he has given us the Blessed Virgin to be our mamma, and then our angels, and then the Holy Father; he forgives us our sins; he has given us sacraments for our soul and body; he stays always with us in the chapel; he is keeping our place in heaven; he looks at us when we are naughty, and that makes us sorry, and then he forgives us.” And so they go on composing canticles out of their innocent hearts that must make sweet music in His ears who so loved the little ones.

The deaths of some of these little barbarians are as lovely as any we read of in the lives of the saints. One of them, who was baptized by the name of Amelia, has left a memory that will long be cherished in Ben-Aknoun. She was dying of a lingering, terrible disease; but her sufferings never once provoked a murmur. She was as gay as a little bird and as gentle as a lamb; her only longing was to see God. “And what will you do besides in heaven?” asked one of her companions. “I will walk about with the angels,” she replied, “and be on the watch to meet our mammas when they come to the beautiful gates.” In her sleep she used to pray still; many a time the nuns found her muttering her rosary with clasped hands while sleeping the sound sleep of a tired child. She fought against death as long as she could, insisting on getting up and going to the chapel, where sometimes she would lie exhausted with pain and weakness on the step of the altar, breathing her prayers softly until she dropped asleep. Her only fear was lest she should not make her First Communion before she died; but her extreme youth (she was not quite eight years old) was compensated for by her ardent piety. They gave her our Blessed Lord after giving her Extreme Unction. The expression of her face was seraphic in its joy and peace. All her little companions were kneeling round her bed, their eyes fixed in admiration on the beaming countenance of the dying child. One of them, called Anna, who was her chosen friend, an orphan from a remote desert tribe like herself, drew near to say good-by. The two children clasped each other in silence; but when they parted, the tears were streaming down Amelia’s cheeks. “Why did you make her cry, my child?” whispered the nun to Anna reproachfully. “I did not do it on purpose,” was the reply. “I only said, ‘O Amelia! you are too happy; why can’t you take me with you?’ and then we both cried.” The happy little sufferer lingered on in great pain for another day and night, constantly kissing her crucifix, thanking those around her for their kindness and patience.

Towards the evening of the second day the pains grew rapidly worse, and she entreated to be carried to the chapel, that she might look once more upon the tabernacle. The nun took her in her arms, and laid her on the step of the altar, when her sufferings instantly ceased, and she sank into a sleep which they thought was the last one. She was carried back and laid on her bed, but soon opened her eyes with a look of ecstatic joy, and cried out, gazing upwards, “See! how beautifully it shines. And the music—do you hear? Oh! it is the Gloria in Excelsis.” No one heard anything; only her ears were opened to the heavenly harmonies that were sounding through the half-open doors of Paradise. She continued listening with the same rapt expression of delight, and then, clasping her little hands together, she cried, “Alleluia! alleluia!” and fell back and spoke no more. She had passed the golden portals; the glories of heaven were visible to her now.

What wonder if the apostolic souls who reap such harvests as these count their labors light, and rejoice in the midst of their poverty and self-imposed martyrdom!

But there are homelier and less pathetic joys in the Orphanage every now and then than these blessed deaths. When the boys and girls have learnt all they need learn, and have come to the age when they must leave the fathers and the nuns, they are perfectly free to return to their native tribes; and it is a convincing argument in favor of the strength of their newly-acquired principles and affections that they almost invariably refuse to do so. The proportion of those who go back to the old life is one in every hundred. The next thing to be considered is what to do with those who refuse to go back. The plan of marrying the orphans amongst each other suggested itself as the most practical method of securing lasting results from their Christian education. The chief difficulty in the execution of this plan was the reluctance of the Arab girls to marry men of their own race; they had learned the privileges which women owe to Christianity, and they had no mind to forego their dignity and equality, and sink back into the degraded position of an Arab’s wife. “We will not marry to be beaten,” they argued. “Find us Frenchmen, and we will marry them and be good wives.” No doubt they would, but the Frenchmen unfortunately could not be induced to take this view of the case; and it required all the influence of their superiors to make the girls understand that Christianity, in raising woman from the condition of a slave to that of man’s equal, compels him to respect and cherish her.

The way in which the courtship and marriage proceed between the sons and daughters of the great marabout (as the archbishop is called) is curious in its picturesque simplicity.

A band of fifteen couples were lately married from the Orphanage of Ben-Aknoun. The fathers informed the archbishop they had fifteen excellent boys who were about to leave, and whom they wished to find wives for and settle in the nearest Christian village. The archbishop asked the superior of the girls’ school if she could supply fifteen maidens who would go and share the humble homes of their brother orphans.

The superior replied that she had precisely the number required—girls who must leave the shelter of the convent in a few months, and whom she was most anxious to see provided for. The grapes were ripe, and the vintage, which was close at hand, would furnish an opportunity for a meeting between the parties. So one morning, in the cool, sweet dawn, they set out to the vineyard, the maidens conducted by a sister, the youths by one of the priests; the latter took one side and culled the grapes, while at the other side the maidens gathered up the branches and bound them into bundles. As they went they sang hymns and canticles to lighten their labor; and when the day’s task was done, they left the vineyard in two distinct bands, as they had come, and returned to their separate convents.

“Well,” said Mgr. de la Vigerie to the presiding father next day, “have the young men chosen each his maiden, and is the choice approved?”

“Alas! monseigneur, they did not even look at each other,” replied the disconsolate matchmaker. “They never raised their eyes from their work. Sister C—— and I watched them like lynxes.”

“You have brought up the children too well, my good father,” cried the archbishop in despair. “What is to be done with them now?”

“Have a little patience, my lord, and it will come in good time,” replied the father encouragingly.

Next day the two bands of maidens and youths sallied forth again to the vineyard, and so every day for a week.

Then the father came in triumph to the archbishop to announce the successful issue of the scheme. One by one the youths had plucked up courage and peeped through the tendrils of the vine, and, thanks to some magnetic sympathy, two dark eyes had been simultaneously raised to meet theirs, and they smiled at each other. A little further on the green leaves were fluttered by a whisper asking the fair one’s name; she told it, and another whisper told her his. So the flower blossomed in the thirty young hearts, and the priest and the sister who watched the gentle growth looked on delighted.

But what wily diplomatists they are, these holy missionaries! How they know the human heart, and how cunningly they can play upon it! Not a word did they say; but, feigning complete blindness to the pretty little comedy, marshalled the laborers home as if nothing had occurred to change the still current of their young lives. A month went by, and then, when the time came for the youths to leave the Orphanage, the father inquired, with seeming innocence, if they thought of marriage by and by.

The question was evaded at first shyly; then by degrees the confession came out—they had each determined to marry one of the maidens of the vineyard. The father threw up his hands in amazement, shook his head, and expressed grave doubts as to the possibility of their obtaining such a prize. These maidens were pearls worthy to be set in fine gold; they had been reared like delicate plants in the shadow of the sanctuary; their hearts were pure as lilies, guileless as the flowers of the field; they were strong in faith and adorned with all the virtues. Were poor Arab youths worthy of such wives? But, brave with the boldness of true love, the suitors answered in one voice: “We will be worthy; we will work for them and serve them faithfully; we will love them and be fathers and mothers to them! Give us the maidens of the vineyard!”

The missionary heaved a sigh, looked mightily perplexed, but promised to speak to the archbishop and see what could be done. After several solemn interviews, in which the young men were severely catechised and warned, and made to pledge themselves to strive with all their might to make the maidens happy, to treat them reverently, and serve them humbly, the archbishop undertook to intercede for them. The fair ones, being of the race of Eve, were a trifle coy at first; but soon the truth was elicited, and each confessed that, since she needs must marry some one, Ben-Aïssa, or Hassan, or Scheriff, would be less distasteful than another. So the great affair was settled, and soon came the day of the weddings. The archbishop himself was to perform the ceremony.

The fathers and sisters were afoot before sunrise, you may be sure; for what an event was this! Fifteen Christian marriages celebrated between the children of this fallen race of idolaters! And now see! the two processions are approaching the church, the bridegrooms draped in the native white burnose, with the scarlet turban on their heads; the brides clad in spotless white, a soft white veil crowned with white flowers covering them from head to foot. Slowly, with the simple majesty inherent in their race, they advance to the altar and kneel side by side before the archbishop, who stands awaiting them, robed in his gala vestments. He looks down upon the thirty young souls whom his love has brought here to the foot of the altar—the altar of the true God; thirty souls whom he has had the unspeakable joy and happiness of rescuing from misery in this life and—may he not hope?—in the next. He must speak a few words to them. He tries; but the father’s heart is too full. The tears start to his eyes and course down those careworn cheeks; he goes from one to the other, and silently presses his hands on the head of each. The marriage rite begins; the blessing of the God of Abraham is called down upon this new seed that has sprung up in the parched land of the patriarch, once so fertile in saints; the music plays, and songs of rejoicing resound on every side as the fifteen brides issue from the church with their bridegrooms.

And now do you care to follow them to their new homes, and to see where their after-life is cast? The earthly providence which has so tenderly fostered them thus far follows them still into the wide world where they have embarked.

The archbishop’s plan from the start was to found Christian villages in the desert, and to people them with these new Christians educated by the missionaries. The cost of founding a village, including the purchase of the land, the building of twenty-five huts, furnishing the inhabitants with European implements of labor, building a little church and a house for the fathers and one for the sisters, an enclosure for the cattle, a well to supply that first element of life and comfort—pure water in abundance—amounts to forty thousand francs (or say eight thousand dollars), and this only with the utmost economy. The Society for the Propagation of the Faith—that glorious institution, to which Christendom owes a debt that can only be paid in heaven—comes nobly to the assistance of Mgr. de la Vigerie. He supplies the rest himself out of the resources of his apostolic heart, so inexhaustible in its ingenious devices of charity; he prays and begs, and sends his missionaries all over the world begging.

One of them has lately come over to Paris on that most heroic of Christian enterprises—a begging tour—and has brought with him a little black boy from Timbuctoo, who had been bought and sold seven times before falling into the hands of these new masters for the sum of three hundred francs. He is not yet ten years old—a mild-faced little fellow, who, when you ask him in French if he likes the father, answers by a grin too significant to need further comment, as he turns his ebony face up to Père B—— and wriggles a little closer to him. Père B—— told us the child belonged to a man-eating tribe, and turned up the corner of his lip to show some particular formation of the teeth peculiar to that amiable race of gourmands. He says that the same charming docility which marks the young Arabs is observable in most of the savage tribes; they are far more susceptive and easily moulded and impressed than the children of the civilized races.

The capture and purchase of these unhappy little slaves all along the coast and in the northern parts of Africa is part of the mission which brings the fathers the greatest consolation. It is of course attended with immense risk, sometimes danger even to life; but the human merchandise which they thus obtain “is worth it all and ten times more,” the Père B—— declared emphatically, as he dilated on the fervor of these poor children’s faith and the intensity of their gratitude. The great and constant want for the carrying on of the mission is—need we mention it in this XIXth century, when we can scarcely save our own souls, much less our neighbors’, without it?—money. People say money is the root of all evil; but really, when one sees what precious immortal goods it can buy, one is tempted to declare it the root of all good. The archbishop has recently sent one of his missionaries, the Père C——, to beg in America, and we are heartily glad to hear it. A French priest, speaking about begging for good works the other day, said to the writer: “I wish I could go to America and make the round of the States with my hat in my hand. They are a delightful people to beg of. Somehow they are so sympathetic to the Catholic principle embodied in begging for our Lord that they take all the sting out of it for one; but, oh! what a bitter cud it is to chew in Europe.” We hope the good father’s experience did not represent the general one on the latter point, but is well founded as to the generous spontaneity of our American fellow-Catholics towards those who have “held out the hat” to them in the name of our blessed Lord. Sweet bond of charity! how it welds the nations together, casting its silver nets and drawing all hearts into its meshes! It matters not whether the fisher come from a near country united to us by ties of blood or clanship, or from some distant clime where the very face of man is scarce that of a brother whom we recognize; he comes in the name of our common Lord, and asks us to help in the saving of souls that cost as dear to ransom as ours. He may labor sometimes all the night, and take nothing; but the dawn comes, when he meets Jesus in the persons of those generous souls who love him and have his interests at heart, and are always ready to befriend him; and then the net is cast into deep waters, and the draught is plentiful. Can we fancy a sweeter reward to stimulate our zeal in helping the divine Mendicant who holds out his hand to us for an alms than the scene which at this moment many multitudes of these faithful souls may contemplate in imagination as they have helped to create it.

A gathering of small, low houses—huts, if you like—set in smiling patches of garden round a central building whose spire, pointing like a silent finger to the skies, tells us at once its character and destination. The time is towards sundown; the bell breaks the stillness of the desert air, and with its silvery tongue calls the villagers to prayer. The entire population, old and young, leave their work and rise obedient to the summons; the children quit their play and troop on together, while the elders follow with grave steps. The priest is kneeling before the altar, where the lamp of the sanctuary, like a throb of the Sacred Heart within the tabernacle, sheds its solemn radiance in the twilight. The father begins the evening prayer; pardon is asked for the sins and forgettings of the day, thanks are offered up for its helps and mercies, blessings are invoked on the family assembled, then on the benefactors far away. One who assisted at this idyl in the desert declares that when he heard the officiating priest call down the blessing of the Most High on “all those dear benefactors whom we do not know, but who have been kind and charitable to us”; and when the voices of the Arabs answered in unison, repeating the prayer, he felt his heart bursting with joy at the thought that he was included amongst those on whom this blessing was nightly invoked.

The Litany of Our Lady is then sung, and the assistants quietly disperse and go home. The cattle are lowing in the park. The stars, one by one, are coming out in the lovely sapphire sky. Angels are flying to many of the white huts with gifts and messages. Some are speeding afar, eastward and westward, bearing graces just granted in answer to those grateful prayers; for who can tell the power of gratitude with God, or his loving inability to resist its wishes—he who was so lavish in his thanks for the smallest act of kindness, nay, of courtesy, when he lived amongst us, and who declared that even a cup of cold water should not go without its reward?

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE MISSION OF KENTUCKY.

FROM THE FRENCH.[184]

The Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, is a part of that vast extent of country known in our ancient geographies by the name of Louisiana. It is situated in the centre of the United States of North America, and is bounded on the north by the Ohio, on the west by the Mississippi, on the south by the State of Tennessee, and on the east by Virginia.

When, in 1792, it was admitted into the Union as a State, its population was about seventy thousand; but it has since then increased tenfold.

About twenty poor Catholic families from Maryland, descendants of the English colonists, came here to reside in 1785, as then good land could be procured here almost for nothing.[185]

Their number rapidly increased, and in the year 1788 Father Wheelan, an Irish Franciscan, was sent to them. As they were then at war with the natives, and as this was continued until 1795, this missionary, two of his successors, and the colonists were compelled to cross the hostile country to arrive at the mission, even on reaching which their lives were sometimes exposed to imminent dangers. Besides being at a distance from a priest, they had also to struggle against poverty, heresy, and vulgar prejudices with regard to the pretended idolatry of Catholics, etc. Finally, Father Wheelan, at the expiration of two years and a half, abandoned a post so difficult to hold, without even the satisfaction of seeing a single chapel built. It was then impossible to find another missionary to succeed him, and the faithful “were afflicted because they had no shepherd” (Zach. x. 2). Finally, Holy Orders were conferred in 1793 for the first time in this part of the world, where the Catholics had but so recently suffered under the penal laws of England. The illustrious Bishop Carroll, first bishop of Baltimore, there ordained a priest, M. Badin, from Orleans, whom he then sent to Kentucky. Besides the difficulties which his predecessor met, the inexperience of the young ecclesiastic, his slight knowledge of the English language and of the habits of the country, made his task still more difficult. One can easily conceive how painful must have been the situation of a novice thus isolated and deprived of guidance in a ministry the weight of which would have been burdensome for the angels even, say the holy fathers of the church.

It is true he started from Baltimore with another French priest who was invested with the power of vicar-general. But this priest was soon discouraged by the wandering habits of the people and their style of life. Four months had scarcely elapsed when he returned to New Orleans. M. Badin was thus in sole charge of the mission during several years, which mission, since the conclusion of peace with the savage tribes, continually increased by the influx of the Catholics who came here in large numbers from Maryland and other localities.

In addition to the fatigue of travelling, to controversy with Protestants, to his pastoral solicitude, and to the frequent scruples of conscience natural to one in a situation so critical, he had to exert himself still more to form new parishes, prepare ecclesiastical establishments at suitable distances, and finally to erect churches or chapels in the different places where the Catholic population established itself. Nevertheless, by the divine mercy he obtained from time to time profitable advice through the letters which the charity of the neighboring priest, who, though at a distance of seventy miles, found means to write him. M. Rivet, formerly professor of rhetoric in the College of Limoges, in the year 1795 came to reside as curé and vicar-general at Post Vincennes, on the Wabash, in Indiana.

But the respective needs of the two missions never permitted them to cross the desert in order to visit one another or to offer mutual encouragement and consolation in the Lord. Oh! how much anguish, how many prayers and tears, arise from such isolation! And did not our divine Saviour send his disciples in couples to preach the Gospel?—misit illos binos (S. Luc. x.)

Finally, two priests from the Diocese of Blois—MM. Fournier and Salmon—came successively, in the years 1797 and 1799, to the rescue of the pastor and his flock.

Divine Providence rendered useful to Kentucky and to several other portions of the Diocese of Baltimore the talents and virtues of a great number of ecclesiastics whom the French Revolution threw on the shores of America. In the same year, 1799, there arrived a fourth missionary—M. Thayer, the Presbyterian minister of Boston, who was converted through the miracles of blessed Labre. At first he ridiculed this humble servant of God and the miracles which were attributed to him, but afterwards he investigated them with all the prejudices of a sectarian. He brought to bear upon them his severest criticism, and finished by becoming a Catholic at Rome, a priest at Paris, and a missionary in his own country, where he had formerly propagated error. He found himself forced to write several English works of controversy, which are lucid and deservedly appreciated. His conversion, his writings, and his sermons excited either the interest or the curiosity of all classes of society, and he hoped to serve the cause of religion in multiplying himself, if one may speak thus. He travelled over the United States, Canada, and a great part of Europe, and died, beloved and revered, at Limerick, in Ireland.

The missionaries of Kentucky are obliged to ride on horseback nearly every day of the year, and to brave often alone the solitude of the forests, the darkness of night, and the inclemency of the seasons, to minister to the sick and to visit their congregations on the appointed days.[186]

Without this exactitude it would be difficult to assemble the families scattered so far apart. M. Salmon was without doubt an excellent ecclesiastic, though but a poor horseman. His zeal induced him, on the 9th of November, 1799, to visit a distant parish where he was instructing a Protestant who has since then embraced the faith.

Being already feeble and just convalescing from a severe illness, a fall from his horse carried him to the grave in less than thirty-six hours. The accident happened towards noon at a little distance from a residence. A servant who found him half-dead in the woods went to solicit aid, which was denied him by an impious and cruel farmer, simply because the unfortunate man was a priest. It was only towards night that a good Catholic of the neighborhood—Mr. Gwynn—was informed of the fact. It must nevertheless be admitted that this farmer’s revolting conduct is in nowise American, and can but be attributed to his individual hate for the true religion. Perhaps, also, he was ignorant of the extremity to which M. Salmon was reduced. This fatal event, the departure of M. Thayer for Ireland, and the equally sudden death of M. Fournier in February, 1803, left M. Badin for about seventeen months in sole charge of the mission, then consisting of about a thousand families scattered over a space of from seven to eight hundred square miles. The death of M. Rivet, which took place in February, 1803, deprived him of the comforting letters of this friend, who expired almost in the arms of the governor of the province, whose esteem and affection he enjoyed. At this unfortunate period the nearest priest was a M. Olivier from Nantes, an elderly gentleman, who resided at a distance of one hundred and thirty miles in an Illinois village called Prairie du Rocher. Moreover, he ministered to Kaskaskia, where the Jesuits had formerly instituted a novitiate; Cahokia, St. Louis, capital of Missouri, St. Genevieve, etc., on the banks of the Mississippi. M. Richard, a zealous and pious Sulpitian, resided at the same distance at Detroit, on Lake St. Clair, in Michigan.[187]

Finally, there were then but three priests in an extent of country larger than would be France and Spain if united, and which country constitutes to-day but one diocese, called Bardstown, formed in 1808 by the reigning Pope, as will be seen in the sequel.

It is true that the most distant parishes can be visited but seldom, and it is especially in these instances that the zeal of faith and the fervor of piety are most evident.

One finds a great many persons who undertake fatiguing trips in order to fulfil their Christian duties. They are seen at times to spend the night in church, in order to make sure of having access to the sacred tribunal, where the missionaries are to be found from early dawn.

They are obliged to say, and sometimes even to chant, Mass at noon, and occasionally several hours afterwards, in order that all those who are prepared for the tribunal of Penance may also receive Holy Communion. Neither the fast, nor the late hour, nor the fatigues of the morning exempt them from instructing the people; otherwise it would never be done, as the faithful are assembled but once a day. A sermon, or at least an impromptu exhortation, on controversy, morals, or the discipline of the church, is always in order. After divine service there are the dead to be buried, the children to be baptized, marriages to be performed, etc., and then the departure for another station, which being reached the next day, the same services are to be repeated. Often it so happens that there is not one day of rest during the entire week, especially when several sick persons who live far apart are to be visited.