Volume 22 — THE APOSTOLIC MISSION TO CHILI. A CHAPTER IN THE LIFE OF PIUS IX.

Before entertaining ourselves with an account of the voyage and journeys, from Genoa to Buenos Ayres and across the continent to Valparaiso, of the first pope who has ever been to America, we shall enter into a few details to show the occasion of the apostolic mission which he accompanied in an official capacity.

The great reverses of Spain at the beginning of the present century, and the consequent weakening of the bonds that united her American colonies to their mother-country, besides some other causes silently working since the emancipation of the thirteen British provinces from England, finally led to a Declaration of Independence, which was established after several years of war. But the king to whose government these New-World possessions had been subject for nearly three hundred years refused to recognize the accomplished fact or to enter into diplomatic relations with rebels against his authority.[213]

The Congress of Verona, in 1822, took some notice of these revolted countries; but the European powers did not all agree to receive them into the family of nations by a formal recognition, and it is well known that the views expressed in that assembly gave rise on the part of the President of the United States to a declaration of policy which has been called the Monroe Doctrine.[214] The Holy See, having sublimer interests to deal with, could not act as indifferently in this matter as other governments, which looked only to temporal advantage, and wrangled over old systems of public policy regardless of recent events. By the quixotic obstinacy of Spain the South American republics suffered much inconvenience, particularly in point of religion, because Rome could not provide for their spiritual wants without risking an open rupture with his Catholic Majesty—such were royal pretensions of restricting the exercise of papal rights, even in merely nominal dominions.[215]

During the latter part of Pius VII.’s pontificate the government of Chili sent one of its distinguished citizens, the Archdeacon Don José Cienfuegos, envoy to Rome, with instructions to try to establish direct ecclesiastical relations between the Holy See and Santiago, the capital of his country. He arrived there on August 22, 1822, and was well received, but only in his spiritual capacity. The pope would not recognize him as a political agent. On the 7th of September following the Holy Father addressed a brief to the Bishop of Merida de Maracaybo, in which he expressed himself solicitous for the spiritual necessities of his children in those far-distant parts of America, and intimated his ardent desire to relieve them. A little later he formed a special congregation of six cardinals, presided over by Della Genga, who became his successor as Leo XII.; and after mature deliberation on the religious affairs in the ex-viceroyalties of Spain, it was determined to send a mission to Chili, that country being chosen for the honor as having made the first advances. This measure so displeased the Spanish government that the nuncio Monsignor—afterwards Cardinal—Giustiniani was dismissed; and although he was soon after permitted to return, the wound inflicted upon him left its sting behind, for, coming very near to the number of votes requisite to election in the conclave after Pius VIII.’s death, the court of Madrid barred his fortune by the exercise of that odious privilege called the Esclusiva; the ground of his exclusion from the Papacy being supposed at Rome to have been his participation in the appointment of bishops to South America. The right (?) of veto expires with its exercise once in each conclave; and Cardinal Cappellari (Gregory XVI.), who, as we shall see, had the most to do with these episcopal nominations, was elected pope.

The choice of a vicar-apostolic for the Chilian mission fell upon Prof. Ostini (later nuncio to Brazil and a cardinal), who, after having accepted the position, saw fit suddenly to decline it for reasons best known to himself. In his stead Don Giovanni Muzi, then attached to the nunciature at Vienna, was selected, and, having been recalled to Rome, was consecrated Archbishop of Philippi in partibus infidelium,[216] with orders to proceed immediately to Santiago. The mission, of which we shall speak more particularly hereafter, embarked on October 4, 1823, and reached Rome on its return the 7th of July, 1825.

Leo XII. succeeded Pius VII. In 1824 the republic of Colombia sent Don Ignacio Texada to Rome with an application for bishops and apostolic vicars in that immense region; but the Spanish ambassador, Chevalier Vargas, a haughty diplomate, brimful of Españolismo, went to the pope and demanded his dismissal. This was refused. The envoy had come for spiritual interests, not on political grounds; and the Spaniard could not convince Leo that the rebel’s argument—by which he asked no more than that species of indirect recognition granted by the Holy See, under Innocent X. and Alexander VII., to the house of Braganza when it forced Portugal from under Spanish rule—was not a good one and founded on precedent. Nevertheless, Texada returned to Bologna, and finally withdrew altogether from the Papal States. He had some fine qualities, but lacked discretion in speech, which was a fault very injurious to his position. Harpocrates is still the great god of diplomacy the world over. This state of things was embarrassing. Spain had refused to recognize the independence of her many provinces in the New World, although she had ceased practically even to disturb them. The king, who was somewhat of a Marquis de Carabas, claimed all his old rights over them, and, among them, that of episcopal presentation. Cardinal Wiseman, who was an attentive observer of these times, remarks—very properly, we think—that even if such a power could be still called legal, “it would have been quite unreasonable to expect that the free republics would acknowledge the jurisdiction of the country which declared itself at war with them.” This was a clear case in which allegiance should follow protection. After a prudent delay, Leo thought it his duty to represent energetically to the Spanish government the inconvenience he suffered from the existing state of affairs, and the impossibility of his viewing with indifference a condition in which the faithful, long deprived of pastors, were urgently asking for bishops for the vacant sees. Yet His Holiness had taken no decisive step, but called upon his majesty either to reduce his transatlantic subjects to obedience or to leave him free to provide as best he could for the necessities of the church. In the consistory of May 21, 1827, the pope, after protesting that he could not any longer in conscience delay his duty to Spanish America, proceeded to nominate bishops for more than six dioceses in those parts. Madrid was, of course, displeased, although it was twelve years since the government had lost even the shadow of authority there, and at first refused to receive the new nuncio, Tiberi.[217] At this juncture Pedro Gomez de Labrador was sent from Spain expressly to defeat the measure; but although “acknowledged by all parties, and especially by the diplomatic body in Rome, to be one of the most able and accomplished statesmen in Europe, yet he could not carry his point” against the quiet and monk-like Cardinal Cappellari, who was deputed by the pope to meet him. In the allocution pronounced by Labbrador before the Sacred College, assembled in conclave to elect a successor to Leo, he made an allusion to the ever-recurring subject of the revolted Americans; but although done with tact, it grated on the ears of many as too persistently and, under the circumstances, unreasonably put forward.

The discussion between the courts of Rome and Madrid was not renewed during the brief pontificate of Pius VIII.; but in the encyclical letter announcing his election there is a delicate reference to the affair which, although not expressly named, will be perceived by those who are acquainted with the questions of that day. Comte de Maistre says somewhere that if a parish be left without a priest for thirty years, the people will worship—the pigs; and although the absence of a bishop from his diocese for such a length of time might not induce a similar result, yet the faithful would drop, perhaps, into a Presbyterian form of church government and be lost. The veteran statesman Cardinal Consalvi evidently thought so, as we see by the fourth point, which treats of Spanish America, in the conference that he was invited to hold with Leo XII. on the most important interests of the Holy See.[218] When, therefore, Gregory XVI.—who, as Cardinal Cappellari; had not been a stranger to the long dispute—became pope, he ended the matter promptly and for ever. In his first consistory, held in February, 1831, he filled a number of vacant sees and erected new ones where required in South America. On the 31st of August following he published the apostolic constitution “Solicitudo Ecclesiarum,” in which he explained the reasons why the Holy See, in order to be able to govern the universal church, whose interests are paramount to all local disputes, recognizes de facto governments, without intending by this to confer a new right, detract from any legitimate claim, or decide upon de jure questions. The republics of New Granada[219] (1835), Ecuador (1838), and Chili (1840) were subsequently recognized with all the solemnities of international law.

In the last-named country there were two episcopal sees during the Spanish dominion. These were Santiago and Concepcion, both subject to the Metropolitan of Lima; but Gregory rearranged the Chilian episcopate, making the first see an archbishopric, with Concepcion, La Serena, and San Carlos de Ancud (in the island of Chiloe) for suffragan sees.

At the time that the apostolic mission to South America was determined upon, there was living in Rome a young ecclesiastic as yet “to fortune and to fame unknown,” but who was destined to become the first pope who has ever been across the Atlantic, and the foremost man of the XIXth century. This was Don Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti, one of the fourteen canons of the collegiate church of Santa Maria in Via Lata. He was selected by Pius VII. to accompany Mgr. Muzi as adjunct. The secretary of the apostolic delegation was a priest named Giuseppe Sallusti, who wrote a full narrative of the expedition, in which, as Cardinal Wiseman says, “The minutest details are related with the good-humored garrulity of a new traveller, who to habits of business and practical acquaintance with graver matters unites, as is common in the South, a dash of comic humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous, and withal a charming simplicity and freshness of mind, which render the book amusing as well as instructive, in spite of its heavy quotations from that lightest of poets, Metastasio.”[220] It is in 4 vols. 8vo, with a map. Comparatively only a small portion of the work is taken up with the actual voyages and travels of the party, the rest being devoted to the preliminaries or causes of the mission, to a description of Chili, and an account of the many missionary establishments which had once flourished, as well as of those that were still maintained, there. A fifth volume was promised by the author to contain the documents, official acts, and results of the mission; but we believe that it was never published. The vicar-apostolic having received, at the earnest solicitation of a learned ecclesiastic from the Argentine Confederation, Rev. Dr. Pacheco, very ample faculties not only for the country to which he was more immediately accredited, but also for Buenos Ayres, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, and all other parts of the ex-Spanish dominions, and accompanied by the envoy Cienfuegos and Father Raymond Arce, a young Dominican belonging to Santiago, the party left Rome for Bologna, where it rested awhile to get a foretaste of the magnificent scenes in the New World from Father T. de Molina, who had long resided in Chili. The next stage in the journey was to Genoa, the port of embarkation, which was reached only on the 17th of July; but, “by a series of almost ludicrous delays,” the expedition was detained until after the death of Pius VII. and the election of his successor, Leo XII., who confirmed the mission and addressed a brief to the president[221] of the Chilian Republic, recommending its objects and the welfare of its members.

All matters being now satisfactorily arranged, the party got on board the fine French-built brig Eloysa on the 11th of October, 1823. The vessel sailed under Sardinian colors, and was manned by a crew of thirty-four men, and officered by experienced sailors, the captain, Anthony Copello, having several times navigated the South Atlantic. The weather was very rough, as usual, in the Gulf of Lyons; “and gurly grew the sea,” to the dismay and discomfiture of the terrified landsmen, “Mastai,” as Sallusti familiarly calls his companion, suffering horribly from sickness. This was but the beginning of many trials, and even some serious dangers, amidst which we can well imagine that the captain would have been glad beyond measure if any one had hinted at the very special Providence that guarded his ship, by quoting the famous words, “Quid times? Cæsarem vehis et fortunam ejus!” Soon the Eloysa approached the coast of Catalonia, down which she sailed at the rate of ten knots an hour, until struck by a furious southwest hurricane, the libeccio so much dreaded in the Mediterranean, which threatened destruction to all and everything in its course. To a landsman like Sallusti the storms encountered on this voyage would naturally appear worse than they really were, and his frequent account of “waves mountain-high” and “imminent shipwreck” would perhaps sound like “yarns” to an old tar. He delights in describing the Eloysa as

and everywhere shows himself, like a good inland abbate, dreadfully afraid of salt water. Capt. Copello would fain have put into Valencia for shelter; but it was feared that the Spanish authorities might detain his ship, or at least disembark the passengers, and it was determined rather to brave the elements than to trust themselves within gunshot of a Spanish harbor. These bold resolutions, however, did not appease the fury of the wind, and it finally came to deciding between a watery grave and a stony prison; the decision was quickly taken, and Palma, in the island of Majorca, was fetched in safety. The mission party was very inhospitably treated here; and Mgr. Muzi and Canon Mastai were ordered to come on shore at once and give an account of themselves. As soon as they had put foot on land, the two distinguished ecclesiastics were thrust into a cold and filthy Lazaretto, on plea of sanitary regulations, but really out of spite for their character and destination. Their papers were seized, and measures instantly taken to bring them to trial; and there was even talk of sending them to an African fortress where political prisoners were confined. When Sallusti heard of this Balearic treatment, he summoned all his Italian courage, and, going on shore, declared to the cocked-hatted officials that he would share the fate of his companions; but instead of admiring this prodigality of a great soul (Hor. Od. i. 12, 38), those unclassical islanders simply swore round oaths and turned him in with the rest. This was fortunate in one sense; for we would otherwise have missed a good description of the examination of the three Italians before the magistrates, who behaved rudely; the alcade, in his quality of judge, putting on more airs than a Roman proconsul.[222] Further outrages were threatened, but the intervention of the Sardinian consul and of the Bishop of Palma finally convinced those proud men of the exclusively religious mission of their victims. In view of subsequent events in Italy, it seems strange that the future pope should have been saved from further indignities, and perhaps from a dungeon, by an agent of the Piedmontese government; yet so it was. The Italians were permitted to return to the ship, but a demand was made to deliver up the two Chilians as rebellious Spanish subjects. This was promptly refused; but notwithstanding a great deal of blustering and many threats, the case was allowed to drop, and the Eloysa sailed away after several days’ detention. Gibraltar was passed on the 28th of October, and a severe storm having tossed the brig about unmercifully on her entry into the Atlantic, the peak of Teneriffe loomed up on November 4.

After leaving the Canary Islands, the Eloysa was hailed one dark night by a shot across her bows, which came from a Colombian privateer, and quickly brought her to. She was quickly boarded, and a gruff voice demanded her papers and to have the crew and passengers mustered on deck. Sallusti was in mortal dread, and, to judge from his description of the scene, he must have been quaking with fear; but Don Giovanni Mastai behaved with that calmness and dignity which even then began to be remarked in him, in whatever circumstances he found himself. After some delay, the brig was allowed to proceed; nothing being taken off but a bottle of good Malaga wine—which, however, was rather accepted than stolen by the rover of the seas.

After a time the Cape Verd Islands appeared in all their richness; and on the 27th of the month the line was crossed amidst the usual riot of sailors, and with the payment of a generous ransom by the clergy. On December 8 the Eloysa lay becalmed alongside of a slaver crowded with poor Africans on their way to Brazil. Sallusti complains about this time of bad water and short rations, and mentions with particular disgust that the fare generally consisted of potatoes and lean chickens. On the 22d a man fell overboard in a dreadful gale, and was rescued with difficulty. Christmas was celebrated as well as circumstances permitted; and a neat little oratory having been fitted up in the main cabin, midnight Mass was said by the archbishop, the second Mass by Canon Mastai, and the third by Friar Arce. On the 27th of December, S. John’s Day, and the patronal feast of the canon, the welcome cry of “Land ho!” was heard from the look-out at the mast-head about three P.M., and the crew and passengers united upon deck to return fervent thanks to Almighty God. The land sighted was a small desert island, a little north of Cape Santa Maria, off the coast of Uruguay. A fearful storm was encountered the next evening at the mouth of the La Plata. This was one of those southwestern gales, called Pamperos, which frequently blow with inconceivable fury, causing singular fluctuations in the depth of the wide mouth of the river. It raged so that the captain was obliged to cut his cable and abandon the shelter of Flores Island, which he had sought when it began, and to take to the open sea again. With better weather he returned and dropped anchor opposite Montevideo on the evening of January 1, 1824. Sallusti goes into raptures over the beautiful aspect of the city, as seen from the bay; its broad and regular streets, its stately houses built on a gentle elevation, its fine cathedral, the strains of music borne over the water—everything enchanted the travellers, weary of a three months’ voyage.

As soon as the news got abroad of a delegation from the pope, the whole city was in a joyful commotion, and a deputation, consisting of the cathedral chapter, four other secular priests, and two Dominican fathers, came to the ship to pay their respects to Mgr. Muzi, who was also invited on shore and pressed with every offer of assistance by the most honorable representatives of the laity. These kind attentions could not induce the party to land; and as soon as damages were repaired and a pilot received, sail was made for Buenos Ayres, which was sighted at two P.M. of January 5; but just while the passengers were all on deck watching the approaches to the city, they were assailed and driven below by myriads of mosquitoes. Sallusti is very vehement against these sharp little insects, and bewails the lot of those who must live among them; but he carefully avoids a comparison with the fleas of his native Italy. Although the passengers remained on board that night, crowds of people lined the shore, and, after salutes of artillery, greeted them with cries of “Long live the vicar apostolic!” “Cheers for America!” “Success to Chili!” On the following day the captain of the port and his suite came off to the brig, bringing a courteous note from the governor, offering a public reception (for which preparations had already been made) and the hospitalities of the city to the members of the mission. This was declined, for reasons that are not very clear; but although the archbishop gave his bad health as the principal excuse, we suspect that Cienfuegos impressed upon the Italians that, the mission being directed to his country, it were uncourtly to parade it before reaching its destination. By their minds such a view would be accepted as assai diplomatico. When the party did land, they put up at a hotel called “The Three Kings,” kept by a jolly Englishman, who treated them right royally—and made them pay in proportion. During their twelve days’ stay in Buenos Ayres, the archbishop and his suite received every mark of reverence from the people; yet the officials maintained a cold reserve since the refusal to accept their invitation. Even the ecclesiastical authority—such as it was—put on very bad airs; Zavaletta, a simple priest, but administrator of the diocese, having the audacity to withdraw from Mgr. Muzi permission, which had been previously granted to give confirmation. At the time of the arrival of the apostolic mission the provinces of the Rio de la Plata, which had formed part of the Spanish viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, had been united from 1816 to 1820, but were now in a state of political isolation, somewhat like that of the States of the American Union before the federal Constitution was adopted. Soon after the arrival of the mission, another General Congress was called. Still, the Italians were not impressed—as it was important that they should be to obtain proper consideration at Rome,—with the idea of a strong government holding sway over a vast and wealthy territory. On the 16th of January, at nine o’clock in the forenoon, the party began the journey across the continent. Three great covered wagons, each drawn by four horses and guided by twelve postilions, composed the train; while a courier went ahead to hunt up quarters, and a mounted orderly, with a very long sword and a fierce-looking beard, brought up the rear or pranced about the flanks of the line. The drivers kept around in no particular order, sonorously cracking their whips and uttering loud sounds which probably were not oaths to the unaccustomed ears of Sallusti. Besides the three Italians, there was Cienfuegos with four young Chilians in his company and two servants, so that the whole party was pretty numerous, and the more so when, a little further on, six gallant guachos were added as an escort. Only fifteen miles were made the first day, which brought the party to Moron, where confirmation was given. At a miserable rancho called Lujan the archbishop said his first Mass on the pampas at a rich altar improvised for him by the padre of the place, and surmounted by four massive silver candlesticks. The room was hung round with rich damask hangings. It was like a jewel in a dung-heap. The Arecife stream was crossed in boats by the travellers, but forded by the wagons and horsemen. The superb Parana River was reached at San Pedro; and thence the route lay through a rich and beautiful country to the important town of Rosario, on the high, precipitous banks of the great river. At the outskirts of this place the party was met by the parish priest; and confirmation was administered the next day to an immense number of the faithful, long deprived of this sacrament. From Rosario, which they left on the morning of the 23d, the journey was long, weary, and dangerous, on account of the roving bands of Indians which at that period scoured the plains in all directions to cut off herdsmen and small parties of travellers or traders, making a booty of their baggage, killing the men, and carrying women and children into captivity. At a little station called Orqueta the party caught sight for the first time of a wild Indian, who was lurking about the place in a very suspicious manner, but kept at a respectful distance from the guachos. When Sallusti saw this man apparently spying out the route and strength of the party, the marrow nearly froze in his bones; and he certainly had good cause for alarm. It happened that leaving Buenos Ayres a few days earlier than had been given out was lucky; for a large band of these mounted savages, armed with lances and lassos, had got wind of the arrival of great personages from Europe, carrying (it was reported) an immense amount of treasure to the Pacific coast, and had formed a plan to attack them, which was defeated only by mistaking the day of their departure, whereby their arrival at the lonely and ill-famed post of Desmochados was miscalculated. Three days after the mission party had passed, the Indians, to the number of about three hundred, swooped down upon the place, but, instead of finding the rich foreigners, they surrounded only a miserable set of twenty peons escorting a lot of goods across the plains. These were all massacred except one, who, although badly wounded and left for dead, survived to tell the story and describe the fiendish disappointment of the savages at not capturing the prey they expected. At Frayle Muerto Mgr. Muzi received, through the agency of Cienfuegos, a polite message from the clergy of Cordova;[224] but having sent his return compliments directly instead of through the channel of original communication, the Chilian thought himself slighted, and separated from the mission party, preceding it a good distance, and taking with him, besides his own attendants, the orderly in brilliant uniform, who, the Europeans had the mortification of seeing, was meant to distinguish the native, although a subordinate in clerical rank. Such is human nature, whether at courts or on a dusty plain.

After passing through several small settlements and the more important town of San Luis—being everywhere well received—the fine old city of Mendoza was reached on the 15th of February. It seemed as if the entire population had turned out to honor the distinguished arrivals. Triumphal arches were erected, troops were drawn up under arms, processions of citizens and clergy marshalled; from every house richly-colored tapestry was suspended, while the balconies were filled with ladies, who threw down flowers in the path of the apostolic vicar as he entered the town and proceeded to the house of a noble and wealthy lady, Doña Emmanuela Corbalan, in which everything had been prepared on the grandest scale of provincial magnificence, and where Cienfuegos, in all his glory and recovered temper, was waiting to receive him and Canon (Count) Mastai, who were to be lodged there during their stay; the secretary, Sallusti, being handed over to a less worshipful host. Religious and civic festivals, excursions in the environs to the vineyards, gardens, farms, and silver-mines, with other congenial occupations, detained the party very agreeably during nine days in this neat and pleasant town, the climate of which is noted for its salubrity. On the 24th they left Mendoza, and had a delightful trip on horseback over good roads and through a civilized country for seventy-five miles to the foot of the mighty Andes. They were now on the eastern range of the Cordilleras, at the Paramilla Mountains, which are about ten thousand feet high and partly covered with wood. Between these and the western range they traversed, near thirty-two degrees south latitude, a wide valley, sterile and impregnated with salt, for over forty miles, called the Uspallata. For fifteen miles the road was level, and the remainder winding up and down the hills which skirt both ranges. After crossing this valley, they struck the great range of the Andes, which is between fifty and sixty miles in width, consisting of four or five parallel masses of rock, divided from one another by deep and dangerous ravines and sombre glens. The road which leads over them is called the Cumbre (summit) Pass, and attains an elevation of twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-four feet above the level of the sea. Our travellers crossed on mules by this road, getting to the north of them, amidst piles of perpetual snow, a magnificent view of the grand volcano of Aconcagua, which is nearly twenty-four thousand feet high. The passage of the mountains was grand and impressive, but was not made without danger to the lives of some of the party, particularly on the 29th of February. From La Cumbre there is a gradual descent to the city of Santiago. On the 1st of March the travellers cast their admiring gaze upon the Pacific slope, which, from that day until they entered the capital of Chili, on the 6th of the month—passing through Villa-de-Santa-Rosa and over the magnificent plains of Chacabuco—was a continually shifting panorama of natural beauty, enhanced by villages, convents, and churches perched on the side of verdant hills or nestling in the fruitful valleys. At every halting-place their hearts were filled with a holy joy to witness the demonstrations of faith among the people, and of loyalty to their great spiritual chief on earth, represented by Mgr. Muzi. The party entered Santiago, as was said, on the 6th, and, going to the cathedral, the archbishop intoned pontifically the Te Deum, with the assistance of a future pope and of the historian of the apostolic mission. The members of the legation were lodged in a house near the Cappucinas; and although we know little of the occupations of Canon Mastai in Chili, it is certain that he made himself personally very agreeable. How could it be otherwise?

We have been told by a distinguished Chilian that Canonico Mastai was a frequent guest in Santiago at the house of his uncle, Don Francisco Ruiz Tagle, and used to go out with him quite often to his country-seat. Although the mission was received with an almost universal outburst of enthusiasm, and notwithstanding the majority of the clergy and people was well disposed, it met with considerable opposition from a fierce and fanatical party of Freemasons, which threw every obstacle in the way of close relations with Rome. Cardinal Wiseman says, in the article in the Dublin Review from which we have already quoted, that “there was jealousy and bad faith on the part of the Chilian government, and want of tact and bad management, we fear on the part of the head of the mission.” Unfortunately, the government was in a transition state between the presidency of O’Higgins and the election of his successor, Freire, and administered by a Junta. Where there were so many voices there was much confusion. Cienfuegos, however, seems to have done his duty, and he was rewarded in 1832 by the bishopric of Concepcion, which had been vacant for fourteen years. He died in 1839. With regard to the causes of the failure of the mission, we will not conceal what we have heard from an excellent senator of Chili, although we mention it reservedly—that one, at least, of the reasons was a suspicion that Muzi intended to put Italians in the sees vacant or to be erected in Chili.

From Santiago Mgr. Muzi and his party went to Valparaiso, and embarked for their return voyage on the 30th of October, 1824. The remarks of the celebrated Spaniard Balmes upon the visit of the future pope to the New World find their place here: “There is certainly in nature’s grand scenes an influence which expands and nerves the soul; and when these are united to the contemplation of different races, varied in civilization and manners, the mind acquires a largeness of sentiment most favorable to the development of the understanding and the heart, widening the sphere of thought and ennobling the affections. On this account it is pleasing, above all things, to see the youthful missionary, destined to occupy the chair of S. Peter, traverse the vast ocean; admire the magnificent rivers and superb chains of mountains in America; travel through those forests and plains where a rich and fertile soil, left to itself, displays with ostentatious luxury its inborn treasures by the abundance, variety, and beauty of its productions, animate and inanimate; run risks among savages, sleep in wretched hovels or on the open plain, and pass the night beneath that brilliant canopy which astonishes the traveller in the southern hemisphere. Providence, which destined the young Mastai-Ferretti to reign over a people and to govern the universal church, led him by the hand to visit various nations, and to contemplate the marvels of nature.”[225]

A remote but very providential consequence of the visit of Pius IX. to America, during his early career, was the establishment of the South American College at Rome, called officially in Italian the Pio-Latino Americano,[226] which educates aspirants to the priesthood from Brazil and all parts of the American continent where the Spanish language is spoken. A wealthy, intelligent, and influential Chilian priest, Don Ignacio Eyzaguirre,[227] who had been vice-president of the House of Representatives in 1848, and was an author of repute, was charged by Pius IX. in 1856 to visit the dioceses of South and Central America and Mexico, to obtain the views of the several bishops upon the necessity of founding an ecclesiastical seminary at Rome. The project was universally acceptable, and funds having been provided—the Holy Father giving liberally from his private purse—a beginning was made in 1858, when a part of the Theatine Convent of San Andrea della Valle was given up to the students, who were put under the direction of Jesuit Fathers. This location was only temporary; and the college was soon transferred to the large house of the general of the Dominicans, attached to the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and facing the piazza. However, it has been moved again, and in 1869 occupied the right wing of the novitiate at San Andrea on the Quirinal, with fifty-five inmates. As if this worthy establishment had to figure in its shifting fortune the unsettled state of so many of the Spanish American countries, it has again been disturbed; yet to suffer at the hands of Victor Emanuel and his sacrilegious band is the indication of a good cause, and will prepare to meet other, although hardly worse, enemies in the New World.

FREE WILL.

NELLIE’S DREAM ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

They had quarrelled, these two—it matters not about what trifle—till the hot, bitter words seemed to have formed an impassable barrier and a silence fell between them that the lowering brow and compressed lip told would not be easily broken. Both had loving hearts, and treasured each other above all earthly things. They had real sorrows enough to make imaginary ones glance off lightly; for the second Christmas had not yet cast its snows on their mother’s grave. The thought of each was, “Had she been here, this would not have happened”; but pride was strong, and the relenting thoughts were hidden behind a cold exterior.

It was the week before Christmas, and Laura, the eldest, was assisting to trim the village church, and in the Holy Presence the dark thought faded and tender memories seemed to reassert their olden sway; and on returning from her occupation she formed the resolution to stop this folly, and make advances towards assuming the old, happy life.

“Father Black asked after you, Nell,” she said, as she laid aside her wrappings, and turned cheerily to the fire. “He wants you to play during the rehearsal of the new Benediction to-morrow; for Prof. C—— will be away.” But she was met by a stony look and closed lips. “Come, Nell,” she said half impatiently, “don’t be so dignified; why do you love that temper of yours so dearly?”

“You said let there be silence between us, and I am content,” was the rejoinder. “I shall take care not to trouble you in future.”

Pride and love struggled for mastery in the heart of the eldest, and it was a mingling of both that brought the answer, in tones cold enough to freeze the tenderness of the words: “There will come a silence between us one day, Nell, you will be glad to break.” And she passed from the room.

“Let it come,” was the almost insolent reply; but there was a mist in the flashing black eyes that contradicted the words.

They passed the day apart from each other, and at night, although kneeling for prayer in the same little oratory, and occupying the same little white-draped chamber, the chilling silence remained. So passed the next day, and it was now Christmas Eve. The evergreens were all hung in the village church; the altar was radiant with flowers and tapers; the confessionals were thronged; but both sisters kept aloof, and both hearts were aching over the pride and anger that was strangling even religion in their souls. Alas! alas! how the angels must have mourned to see days of such especial grace passing in sin. Christmas gifts had been prepared, but neither would present them. How different other Christmas Eves had been!—the gentle mother overseeing every preparation for the next day, that was always celebrated as a feast of joy. Those busy hands were idle now, and the white snow was coldly drifting over the mound that loving hearts would fain have kept in perpetual summer. A mother’s grave! Except to those who have knelt beside that mound—that seems such a slight barrier between the aching heart and its treasure, and yet is such a hopeless, inexorable one—these words have little meaning.

They retired early, and, as Nell knelt for prayer, the hot tears rolled through her fingers as she thought of other Christmas mornings, when they had been awakened for early Mass by the “Merry Christmas! girls,” that earth would never, never hear again. But the icy bands of pride that had frozen around her heart would not melt, and sleep came again in that stony stillness.

Morning came to Nellie’s perturbed visions, and in the gray dawn “Merry Christmas” broke forth from her lips; but the memory of the past few days checked the words, and they died in whispers. But as she glanced at Laura, she saw that her eyes were open, but that their expression was fixed and rigid. She sprang up with a vague alarm, and laid her hand upon the low, broad forehead. It was icy cold. Shriek after shriek rang from her lips, but they reached not the death-dulled ear.

“I never meant it, Laura—I never meant it! Only come back that I may speak one word!” she moaned. “O my God! give her back to me for one hour, and I will submit to thy will.” But her voice only broke the silence, and the white, smiling lips on the bed seemed a mockery of the passionate anguish wailing above them. She threw herself before the little altar in her room. “Blessed Mother!” she prayed, “I promise, solemnly promise, that never, never again will I give way to the passionate temper that has been my bane, if she may only come back for one hour to grant forgiveness for the awful words I have spoken.” And for the first time since she had realized her sorrow tears fell from her eyes.

“Why, Nellie, Nellie, what ails you?” said a familiar voice. “You are crying in your sleep on this merry Christmas morning; do waken.” And, oh! the heaven that met those unclosing eyes—Laura bending over her, smiling, yet with a look of doubt in her face as if the icy barrier had not yet broken down.

“O my darling, my darling!” sobbed the excited girl, winding her arms around her sister. “Thank God it is only a dream; but never, never again will I give way to my awful temper. I have promised it, Laura, and I will keep my vow.”

And she did. For though she lived long enough for the dark hair to lie like snowy floss under the matron’s cap, never did those lips utter stinging sarcasm or close in sullen anger. And often, when her gentle voice seemed unable to stem some furious tide of passion among her grandchildren, would she tell the story of her dream on Christmas Eve.

ALLEGRI’S MISERERE.

AT the base of a cliff flowed a tiny rivulet; the rock caught the rain-drops in his broad hand, and poured them down in little streams to meet their brothers at his feet, while the brook murmured a constant song of welcome. But a stone broke from the cliff, and, falling across the rivulet, threatened to cut its tender thread of life.

“My little strength is useless,” moaned the streamlet. “Vainly I struggle to move onward; and below the pebbles are waiting for their cool bath, the budding flowers are longing for my moisture, the little fish are panting for their breath. A thousand lives depend on mine. Who will aid me? Who will pity me?”

“Wait until Allegri passes; he will pity you,” said the breeze. “Once the cruel malaria seized me, and bound messages of death upon me. ‘Pity!’ I cried. ‘Free me from this burden, from which I cannot flee.’ ‘Hear the wind moan,’ said some; but no one listened to my prayer till I met a dreamy musician with God’s own tenderness in his deep eyes. ‘Have mercy!’ I sobbed; and the gentle master plucked branches of roses, and cast them to me. I was covered with roses, pierced with roses, filled with roses; their redness entered my veins, and their fragrance filled my breath; roses fell upon my forehead with the sweetness of a benediction. The death I bore fled from me; for nothing evil can exist in the presence of heaven’s fragrance. Cry to the good Allegri, little brooklet; he will pity you.”

So the rivulet waited till the master came, then sighed for mercy. The rock was lifted, and the stream flowed forward with a cry of joy to share its happiness with pebble and flower and fish.

A little bird had become entangled in the meshes of a net. “Trust to the good Allegri,” whispered the breeze; “it is he who gave me liberty.” “Trust to the good Allegri,” rippled the brook; “it is he who gave me liberty.” So the bird waited till the master passed, then begged a share of his universal mercy. The meshes were parted, and the bird flew to the morning sky to tell its joy to the fading stars and rising sun.

“Oh! yes, we all know Allegri,” twinkled the stars. “Many a night we have seen him at the bed of sickness.”

“Many a day I have seen him in the prison,” shouted the sun with the splendor of a Gloria. “Wherever are those that doubt, that mourn, that suffer; wherever are those that cry for help and mercy—there have I found Allegri.”

The people of the earth wondered what made the sun so glorious, not knowing that he borrowed light from the utterance of a good man’s name.

A multitude of Rome’s children had gathered in S. Peter’s. The Pope was kneeling in the sanctuary; princes and merchants were kneeling together under the vast cupola, the poor were kneeling at the threshold; even a leper dared to kneel on the steps without, and was allowed the presence of his Lord. All souls were filled with longing, all hearts were striving for expression.

Then strains of music arose: O soul! cease your longing; O heart! cease your strife; now utterance is found.

Sadder grew the tones, till, like the dashing of waves, came the sigh: “Vainly I struggle to move onward. Have mercy, Father!” The lights flickered and died, a shadow passed over the worshippers, and the Tiber without stopped in its course to listen.

Sadder grew the tones, till the moan was heard: “Vainly I strive to escape these meshes. Have mercy, Father!” The shadow grew deeper, and a little bird without stopped in its flight to listen.

Still was the music sadder with the weight of the sob: “Vainly I flee from this loathsome burden. Have mercy, Father!” Vaster and darker grew the shadow, and the very breeze stopped in its course to listen.

And now the music mingled sigh and moan and sob in one vast despairing cry: “Vainly I struggle against this rock of doubt. Have mercy, Father! Vainly I strive to escape these meshes of sin. Have mercy, Father! Vainly I flee from this evil self. Have mercy, O Father! have mercy.” Darker and deeper and vaster grew the shadow, and all sin in those human hearts stopped in its triumph to listen.

All light was dead, all sound was dead. Was all hope dead? “No!” wept a thousand eyes. “No!” sobbed a thousand voices; for now high above the altar shone forth the promise of light in darkness, of help in tribulation—in sight of Pope and prince, in sight of rich and poor, and even in sight of the leper kneeling without, gleamed the starry figure of the cross.

“How was this Mass of Allegri so completely formed,” cry the three centuries that have passed since then, “that we have been able to add nothing to its perfection?”

The calm voice of nature answers: It is because his own love and mercy were universal; because he had learned that all creation needs the protecting watchfulness of the Maker; because he gave even the weakest creatures voice in his all embracing cry of Miserere.

TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY.

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1875.

The year 1875 has not been a specially remarkable one as distinct from the years immediately preceding it. Great questions, which affect humanity at large beyond the line of nationality, and which were rife three or four years ago, are undecided still. No wars, or revolutions, or discoveries, or mighty changes have occurred during the year to alter sensibly the current of human affairs. What the world at large quarrelled and wrangled over a year, two years, three, four years ago, it wrangles over still, and may for years yet to come. Much as science and culture have done to break down the barriers that separate men and bring the human family nearer together, nations, nationally considered, stand as far apart as ever they did, and the imaginary line that divides neighboring peoples finds them wide apart as the antipodes.

To begin a rapid and necessarily incomplete review at home, the past year can scarcely be regarded as either a happy or successful one, commercially speaking, in the United States. Preliminary echoes of the Centennial year of the great republic have been heard, but amid them the crash of falling banks that had no legitimate excuse for falling, and of business firms that followed in due order. This, however, is only a repetition of the two preceding years, which it is as painful as it would be useless to dwell upon here. In a word, business at large—instead of recovering, as it was hoped it would, during the past year—if anything, fell behind, and so continues. The election did not tend to enliven it. There are hopes, however, of a real revival during the coming Centennial year, or at least of a beginning on the road of improvement. There is the more reason to hope for this that large branches of our industries, such as cereals, iron, and cotton goods, are beginning to find a good foreign market.

Looked at largely, there are some things on which Americans may congratulate themselves during the year. Chief among these are their very misfortunes. Extravagance in living, foolish and vulgar display in dress and equipage, have disappeared to a satisfactory extent. Of course where wealth abounds and fortunes are rolled up easily, there will be shoddy; but then let it be marked off, and the world will not be the loser. Again, there was a good sign on the part of the people to form opinions of their own regarding the questions up before them and the respective merits and qualifications of the various candidates for election. To be sure, many, too many, persons were elected who were a disgrace to their constituencies; and while such men are set in high and responsible positions it is vain to look for reform in the thousand abuses that afflict the conduct of public affairs. Still, there was a hopeful indication of the right feeling among the people.

Perhaps the most memorable, certainly the most significant, event to Catholics in the history of this country took place during the year. The venerable Archbishop of New York was raised by the Holy Father to the dignity of the cardinalate, and thereby set in the senate of the church of which Christ is the invisible, and the Pope, the successor of Peter, the visible, head. To speak of the fitness of the Holy Father’s choice in selecting Archbishop McCloskey for this high office and proud privilege of being the first American cardinal is not for us. It is sufficient to say that not Catholics alone, but their Protestant fellow-countrymen also, all the land over, received the news and hailed the choice with acclaim. But what moves us most is the significance of the act. In the appointment of an American cardinal in the United States the wish expressed by the Council of Trent has in this instance been realized. That great council ordained, respecting the subjects of the cardinalate, that “the Most Holy Roman Pontiff shall, as far as it can be conveniently done, select (them) out of all the nations of Christendom, as he shall find persons suitable” (Sess. 24, De Ref., c. i.) Were this recommendation completely carried out, it would probably be one of the greatest movements that have taken place in the Catholic Church for the last three centuries.

Suppose, for example, that the great Catholic interests throughout the world were represented in that body by men of intelligence, of known virtue, and large experience; suppose every nationality had there its proportionate expression—a senate thus composed would be the most august assembly that ever was brought together upon earth. It would be the only world’s senate that the world has ever witnessed. This would be giving its proper expression to the note of the universality of the church. The decisions of the Holy Father on the world-interests of the church, assisted by the deliberations of such a body, would have more power to sway the opinions and actions of the world than armies of bayonets. For, whatever may be said to the contrary in favor of needle-guns and rifled cannon, the force of public opinion through such agents as electricity and types moves the world, above all when supported by the intelligence, virtue, and experience of men who have no other interests at heart than those of God and the good of mankind.

Who knows but the time has come to give this universality of the church a fuller expression? Is not divine Providence acting through modern discoveries, rendering it possible for the human race to be not only one family in blood, but even in friendship and unity of purpose? Perhaps the present persecutions of the church in Italy are only relieving her from past geographical and national limitations, to place her more completely in relations with the faithful throughout the world. Who knows but the time is near when the Holy Father will be surrounded by representatives of all nations, tribes, and peoples, from the South as well as from the North, from the East as well as from the West; by Italians, Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Englishmen, Belgians, Portuguese, Austrians, Irishmen, Americans, Canadians, South Americans, Australians, as well as by representatives of the faithful from the empire of China? Would this new departure be anything more than the realization of the wish expressed by that great and holy council held at Trent three centuries ago?

In passing from our own to other lands, we cannot do so, at the opening of the second century of our country’s life, without a glance at something larger and wider than the mere local interests of every-day life which touch us most nearly. Beyond doubt there is much to criticise, much, perhaps, to be ashamed of, much to deplore, in the conduct of our government, local and national, and in the social state generally of our people. Still, we see nothing at present existing or threatening that is beyond the remedy of the people itself. It is a fashion among our pessimists to contrast the America of to-day with the America of a hundred years ago. Well, we believe that we can stand the contrast. The country has expanded and developed, and promises so to continue beyond all precedent in the history of this world. When the experiment of a century ago is contrasted with the established fact—the nation—of a free and prosperous people of to-day, we can only bless God. And allowing the widest margin for the evils and shortcomings in our midst, when we glance across the ocean at nations armed to the teeth, looking upon one another as foes, and either rending with internal throes or threatening to be rent, pride in this country deepens, and the heart swells with gratitude that in these days God has raised up a nation where all men may possess their souls in peace.

We have some alarmists among us who look in the near future to the occurrence of scenes in this country similar to those now being transacted in Europe, where men are persecuted for conscience’ sake. We cannot share in these alarms. As we see no evils in our midst which are beyond the remedy of the people, so we see no religious or other questions that may arise which cannot be civilly adjusted. This is not a country where the raw head and bloody bones thrive. The question of religion is decided once for all in the Constitution. Catholics, of course, have a large heritage of misrepresentation to contend against, but that is rapidly diminishing. A Bismarck may strive to introduce into our free country, through a band of fanatics and weak-minded politicians, the persecuting spirit which he has attempted to introduce into England by a Gladstone, which he has succeeded in introducing into Italy by a Minghetti, and into Switzerland by a Carteret; but before they reach the hundredth part of the influence of the disgraceful Know-Nothing party, the good sense and true spirit of our countrymen will, as it did in the case of that party, brand all who have had any prominent connection with the movement with the note of infamy. The fanatical cry of “No Popery” is evidently played out at its fountain-source in old England, while the attempt to revive its echoes will meet with still less success in new England. We see no clouds on the American horizon that should cause Catholics any grave apprehension.

The end of such attempts always is that those who strike the sparks only succeed in burning their fingers. All we have to do is to walk straight along in the path we have been following of common citizenship with those around us, in order to secure for ourselves all the rights which we are ready to concede to others.

The European situation during the past year may be summed up under two headings—the struggle between church and state, and the prospects of war. To enter at any length into the question between church and state in Germany and in other countries in Europe would be going over old ground which has been covered time and again in The Catholic World. Only such features of the contest will be touched upon as may set the present situation clearly before the mind of the reader.

The official Provincial Correspondence, at the opening of the past year, said in a retrospective article on the events of 1874: “The conviction has been forced upon the German government that the German ultramontane party are a revolutionary party, directed by foreigners and relying mainly upon the assistance of foreign powers. The German government, therefore, are under the necessity of deprecating any encouragement of the ultramontane party by foreign powers. It was for this reason that the German government last year thought it incumbent on them to use plain language in addressing the French government upon the sayings and doings of some of the French bishops. France had taken the hint, and had prevented her ultramontanes setting the world on fire merely to vent their spite against Germany.… It was, perhaps, to be expected under these circumstances that, abandoning at last all hope of foreign assistance, the German ultramontanes would make their peace with the government in Prussia, and no longer object to laws they willingly obey in Baden, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Oldenburg, not to speak of Austria and other states. At all events, it was very desirable that the ultramontanes should yield before the church was thrown into worse confusion by their malicious but impotent resistance.”

Such was the pleasant prospect held out for the Catholics by the official organ at the opening of the year. The programme sketched in it has been faithfully carried out, and Germany has taken another step in the path of freedom, internal peace, and consolidation by planting its foot nearer the throat of the church. It is useless to enter into a refutation of the falsehoods contained in the extract from the official journal. They have been refuted in the German Reichstag and all the world over. It is needless, also, to call attention to the tone of the official journal, and the manner, become a fashion of late with German statesmen and writers at large, of warning foreign powers to keep a civil tongue in their heads respecting German matters, or it may be the worse for them. How far the Catholics have yielded to the kindly invitation held out to them the world has seen. We have before this remarked on the strange anxiety manifested by a government, convinced of the justice of its cause and the means it was pursuing towards its end, to stifle the expression of public opinion, not only at home, but abroad. Moreover, the very fact of its being compelled to deprecate “any encouragement of the ultramontane party by foreign powers” says as plainly as words can say it that those powers see something in the party to encourage.

Here is a sample—one out of hundreds such—of the manner in which the members of the “revolutionary party” have been treated during the year, and of the crimes, sympathy with which on the part of foreign powers is so earnestly deprecated by the German government. That extremely active agent of Prince Bismarck, the Prussian correspondent of the London Times, tells the story of the deposition of the Bishop of Paderborn by the “Ecclesiastical” Court thus: “He has been sentenced to-day (Jan. 6) to innumerable fines, chiefly for appointing clergymen without the consent of the secular authorities. [Is this a crime, reverend and right reverend gentlemen of the Protestant churches?] Never paying any of these forfeits, he has been repeatedly imprisoned and forcibly prevented from exercising his functions. [And now for the perversity of the man, the “malicious but impotent resistance.”] Notwithstanding the measures taken against him, he has continued his opposition to the state. He would not allow his clerical training-schools to be visited by government inspectors; he has declined to reappoint a chaplain he had excommunicated without the consent of the government [What criminals SS. Peter and Paul would be were they living in Germany to-day!]; and he has continually issued pastorals and made speeches to deputations breathing the most hostile sentiments against crown and parliament [sentiments not quoted]. He has received addresses covered with more than one hundred thousand signatures, and on a single day admitted twelve thousand persons to his presence, who had come to condole with him on the martyr’s fate he was undergoing.” Let it be borne in mind that this is not our description, but that of an agent of the Prussian government. Could words establish more clearly the side on which the criminality lies?

Only passing mention can be made of events which have been already anticipated and commented on. The extension of the civil registration of births, deaths, and marriages from Prussia to the whole German Empire passed in January. Perhaps no measure yet has so aroused the indignation, not only of Catholics, but of believing Protestants also. As the correspondent already quoted tersely puts the matter: “In all Germany this law does away with the services of the clergy in celebrating the three great domestic events of life.” That is to say, there is no longer need to baptize Christian children in the name of God; there is no longer need of God in the marriage service; finally, as man comes into the world, so he may go out of it, without the name or the invocation of God, without God’s blessing over his grave or the ceremonies of religion attending the last act. Like a dog he may come, like a dog he may live, like a dog he may go. And yet this is an evangelical power! Verily, but of a strange evangel. The result of it is shown already. Since the Prussian Civil Registration Law was passed, only twenty-five per cent. of all Berlin marriages have been celebrated in churches, while only thirty per cent. of the children born in the capital have been baptized by clergymen.

The passing of the Landsturm Bill converts the whole German Empire into an armed camp. “Henceforth every German sound in wind and limb must be a soldier. From the age of seventeen to forty-two, every man not belonging to the army or the reserve is to be liable to be called out in the case of an actual or even a threatened invasion,” says the London Times. “At the word of command Germany is arming en masse, and the surrounding nations—that is, the best part of the world—cannot but do as she does.” They are doing as she does, and all the European powers to-day sleep beside their arms. In face of this fact, what comfort can men take from the meeting and hobnobbing of the crowned heads of Europe here, there, and everywhere, or of their assurances of peace? Who is strong enough to keep the peace, who too weak to enkindle war? No man and no people. It is this arming and incertitude of one another that alone prevented what locally was so insignificant an affair as the outbreak within the year of the Bosnian insurrection against Turkey from lighting a universal conflagration. The eagles of the great powers gather around the Turkish carcase. England seizes beforehand on the control of the Suez Canal by way of preparing for eventualities, and the Eastern question begins at last to resolve itself into this simple form: not, How shall we uphold the empire? but, How shall we divide the spoils?

The present rulers of Germany profess to look upon their Catholic subjects as the great foes of the German Empire. The mistake is a fatal one; for in binding the church they bind the only power that can stop the dry-rot which is slowly eating into the heart, not alone of Germany, but of all nations to-day. That dry-rot is socialism, the first-born of infidelity. That socialism prevails in Germany the rulers of that empire know, and its utterances are as dreaded as an encyclical of the Pope. Here are the elements of socialism as pictured by the Cologne Gazette at the opening of the year: “In 1874, although the great bubble schemes burst in the summer of 1873, and although last year a plentiful harvest of corn and wine came to our relief, the consequences of the crisis are still felt. Numerous undertakings are depreciated, and even more lamentable than the losses of the promoters are the mischievous results of the sudden excessive rise in wages, which could not possibly last, the luxurious habits, the strikes, and all that these involve on the laboring classes and the whole industrial life of the German nation. Habits of indolence and gluttony have been established which it will be hard to eradicate,” and much more in the same strain.

This is only a straw showing which way the wind blows. Persecution of the church has not yet exhausted itself, though, beyond the actual taking of life, it is hard to see what remains to be done. The final measure has been resorted to of abrogating the articles of the Prussian constitution of 1850, which were specially drawn up to provide freedom of religion and worship in their fullest sense. Of the attitude of the German Catholics, the prelates, the clergy, and the laity, it is needless to speak. The world has witnessed it; and the very fierceness of the persecution simply serves to show forth more gloriously the divinity of the church; for no human institution could live under it. One result of the persecution has been the return of a Catholic majority to the Bavarian Parliament. We hope for the unity of the German Empire, and its true consolidation; but it is not in our hearts to support tyranny, under whatever name, least of all when it attacks all that we hold most sacred. The German policy must be totally altered before it can command the sympathy of freemen. It must be totally altered before it can command the respect and full allegiance of its subjects, so large and important a section of whom are Catholics. The Catholic majority in Bavaria is but one sign of many of opposition to the one-sided policy of which Prince Bismarck is the author and expounder. Who knows but that the threatened dissolution of an empire erected on so false and narrow a basis has not already begun in Bavaria? All the sacrifices made to establish the empire—not the least of which were made by Bavaria—the German chancellor, by his determined and senseless religious persecution, would now seem foolishly to ignore. And these Bavarians, of all the Germans, once aroused, and their religious rights infringed upon, are not the men quietly and meekly to subside under opposition.

We have dwelt more at length upon Germany because it is the centre of the strife that convulses, and threatens to convulse, the world. Other topics must consequently be hastily dismissed.

Of France there is nothing but good to report. After a series of fiery debates in the Assembly, the constitution of a conservative republic was definitively formed and agreed upon towards the end of February. The nomination of councillors of state was given to the President, who resigned the nomination of the senators. Of course France is still open to surprises, and the various parties seem as unable to coalesce as ever. But there is no question that the government of Marshal MacMahon has deserved well of the country, and, could only a true republic be established in France, it would serve as a safe counter-check to the absolutisms that threaten the east of Europe. The commerce and industries of the country have advanced even on the preceding year, though the imports of 1874 amounted to 3,748,011,000 francs, and the exports to 3,877,753,000 francs, these figures being in excess of those of any former years. The returns for the Paris savings-banks in 1874 indicate how the poorer and lower middle classes, who chiefly patronize these establishments, are recovering from the effects of the war and the Commune. The deposits amounted to 14,500,000 francs, while in 1873 they were 13,500,000 francs, and in 1872 12,629,000 francs. There is every reason to believe that the ratio of the past year will show a corresponding increase.

While the tokens of reviving prosperity are thus encouraging, those of a revival of religious feeling and coming back to the old ways and the old faith among the people at large are not less so. A noble and patriotic work is being accomplished in the rapid formation and spread of Catholic Working-men’s Clubs—a direct offset to the socialism fostered by the spirit of irreligion in other places. The part taken by Catholic laymen of standing and ability in this work, so full of happy promise, is in itself a significant feature, and one that may well be recommended to the attention of Catholic laymen all the world over. The pilgrimages to holy shrines and to Rome have continued, spite of the laugh of the infidel and the scorn of the unbeliever. The solemn consecration of the church in Montmartre to the Sacred Heart was one in which the whole world was interested. But the most encouraging measure of all was the obtaining, after a fierce battle between religion and infidelity, of permission to found free universities in France, where students who believe in God might, if they chose, apply themselves to the study of their faith, or at least carry on their studies under the divine protection and under professors who, lacking nothing in intellect, recognize a higher than themselves, whose law they have the courage to recognize and the sense and piety to obey.

Surely, France was never so worthy of the esteem and profound respect of all the world as it is to-day. What a wonderful vitality is displayed by this Latin-Celtic race! What people could so suddenly recover from what seemed so fatal a blow? What other nation would have shown so much wisdom and self-control as these Frenchmen, whom the outside world stamped as “unstable as water”? Is France to be the leader of the Latin-Celtic races, to conform itself, consistently with its past history and traditions, after a century of throes, into a political form of society fitted to its present needs, its future prosperity, and the renewal of religion? God grant that it be so!

England, true to its peace policy, still keeps aloof from the troubled current of European affairs, beyond its recent move Eastward, which has already been noticed. It steadily refused to accept the invitation of Russia to join the International Conference on the Usages of War, which in reality resembled a consultation among surgeons before beginning to operate on an interesting subject. Mr. Disraeli’s premiership has been marked by some irritating mistakes, though the securing control of the Suez Canal was undoubtedly a move in the present critical state of Eastern affairs that compensates for many a blunder—if he can only hold the control. Mr. Gladstone finally retired from the leadership of the liberal party, and was nominally succeeded by the Marquis of Hartington. The ex-leader, abandoning a position which, take him all in all, he undoubtedly adorned, went paddling in theology and got shipwrecked. The Gladstone fulminations on “Vaticanism” are now a thing of the past, and only afforded another melancholy instance of the facility with which even great men can go beyond their depth. The portentous charges against the Pope, the Curia Romana, the rusty arsenals, and the rest of the papal “properties” were received by the English people themselves with honest laughter or with passive scorn, until finally Mr. Gladstone lost his temper, and then the world became tired both of him and his “rusty tools.”

Materialism is taking deep root in the English mind. The leading organ of English opinion, itself highly respectable, but by no means religious, complained more than once during the year of the general apathy with which the public regarded the doings of the various convocations and general assemblies of the Protestant churches in England. And the success with which the onslaught by such a man as Mr. Gladstone against the Catholic Church met with at the hands of Englishmen reveals anew the fact that religious feeling has fallen to so low an ebb in England that even the most eloquent of bigots could not arouse an anti-Popery cry. And this, for England, is the last stage of religious apathy.

Is this again the immediate precursor of a reaction in favor of the true church in that land for which so many prayers have been offered up, and the blood of so many martyrs has been shed?

Ireland has been quiet, calm, and peaceable, and though, in common with England, suffering from the commercial depression which spread from this country to them, it has shown a strong tendency to advance in prosperity. For its peace the Catholic clergy, according to the testimony of the London Times, and, as we believe, the Home-Rule party, are jointly answerable. Men who believe in God and obey the laws of the church will, with honest and able representatives, seek for no heroic measures of reform, while the legislature is fairly open to complaints. The London Times says that the peaceful record of the year reads like a fairy tale. Yet the Peace Preservation Acts were renewed, for which the same journal could find no better reason than that “you cannot break off abruptly from the past,” and goes on to say: “It is possible that, if there never had been a resolution to impose upon a conquered people a church which they rejected, and to endow it with the spoils to which they remained attached; if there never had been a neglect so little creditable to our statesmanship as the conditions under which agricultural land was held in Ireland; if laws had never been passed to deprive Roman Catholics of political privileges and the right to possess property; if the attempt had never been made to rule the inhabitants of the sister-island by a hostile garrison, that state of feeling would never have been created which imposes upon the legislature of to-day the sad necessity of maintaining an exceptional coercive legislation.” The bitterest foe of England could scarcely add one iota to the force of this terrible indictment of English legislation in Ireland.

But we look with all hope to the speedy dispersing of the clouds which so long have hovered over this real “island of saints,” which has done so much in the past and promises so much in the future for the spread of faith among the peoples of the earth. More pleasing topics to touch upon are the celebration of the centennial of Daniel O’Connell, the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of the venerable Archbishop McHale, and, though last, far from least, the visit to Ireland of Cardinal McCloskey, and his reception by Cardinal Cullen and the Irish people. The scene was indeed a memorable one; the meeting on a soil consecrated with the blood of saints and martyrs—a soil every inch of which could tell a tale of a struggle of centuries for the faith—of two cardinals of the church that guards the representatives, in their own persons, of the newest and one of the oldest heritages of the church, and the one Irish by birth, the other Irish by blood. A meeting no less significant was that in England between the Cardinal of New York and Cardinal Manning, the first convert probably who ever wore the title: a man of indomitable activity, a fearless asserter of the rights of the church, and always foremost in every movement which aims at the amelioration of the condition of the working classes.

Russia continues her strides in the East, nearing Hindostan, and with Hindostan the sea, at every step. Despite occasional reverses, her march against the conflicting tribes and peoples that lie in her path can only be regarded as irresistible. Meanwhile, at home she is eaten up by sects and the socialistic spirit that pervades other nations, and which tyranny may stifle for a time, but cannot destroy. Again the mistake occurs of regarding the Catholic Church as her enemy, and dragooning her Catholic subjects with a creed which their consciences reject. Austria is engaged in the attempt to set her internal affairs in order, and to recover from the defeat at Sadowa. She finds time, notwithstanding, to attack the church, though without the persistent brutality of her German neighbor, whose offer to procure a joint interference among the nations in the election of the next pope was politely but firmly rejected by Austria. In this path Italy also walks. Rejecting the rough hempen cord with which Germany binds and strives to strangle the church, Italy, true to her national character, chooses one of silk, which shall do the work softly and noiselessly, but none the less securely. Sensim sine sensu. Thus the Law of Guarantees of 1871, which was founded on Cavour’s maxim of “a free church in a free state,” provided for the absolute freedom of the Pope in spirituals. This Germany resents, and early in the year made strong remonstrance with Italy, to see, in plain English, if some plan could not be devised by which the Pope might be muzzled and prevented from issuing encyclicals and bulls and so forth, save only such as might please the mind of present German statesmen. Italy refused to alter the law. But now in November we find Minghetti, the president of the Council, stating to his electors at Cologna-Veneta that there are defects in the law of papal guarantees. The church—says that excellent authority, M. Minghetti—is the congregation of all the faithful, including, of course, M. Minghetti himself. But the state, on whom with the jus protegendi devolves also the jus inspiciendi, is bound to see that the right of the laity and the interest of the lower clergy be not sacrificed to the abuse of papal and episcopal authority. Wherefore, M. Minghetti, urged solely by the desire of seeing that no injustice is done, pledges his electors that he will bring in a bill empowering the laity to reclaim the rights to which they are entitled in the government of the church. How far those rights extend, of course, remains to be seen.

The Holy Father is still spared to us in the full enjoyment of his health and powers of mind. Pilgrims flock to him in thousands, and the eyes of the world, friends and foes alike, look with sympathy upon him. Surely now is the real triumph of his reign, and in his weakness shines forth his true strength. No earthly motives, if ever they affected the allegiance of Catholics to him, could affect it now. Yet what does the world witness? As men regard things, a weak and powerless old man, ruling, from the palace that is his prison, the hearts of two hundred millions of people in the name and by the power of Jesus Christ, whose saintly vicar he is. The Pope, lifted above all entanglements by recent events with the political policy of so-called Catholic countries—his voice, as the head of the church, is heard and respected by all nations as perhaps it never was at any other period of time.

Spain opened with a new revolution—the re-entering of Alfonso, the son of the exiled queen, to the kingdom and the throne from which she was driven. This being said, the situation remains in much the same condition that it has done for the past two years; if anything, notwithstanding some defections and reverses, Don Carlos has gained in strength and boldness. The move that brought in Don Alfonso was a good one, but it came too late.

The customary chronic revolutions prevail in South America. The assassination of Garcia Moreno, the able and good President of Ecuador, by members of a secret society, added a unique chapter of horrors and dastardly cowardice to the records of these societies, showing that to accomplish their purpose they are ready to stab a nation. Garcia Mareno died a martyr to his faith. From a far different cause, though by the same means, died Sonzogno, the editor of the Capitale, the trial of whose assassins furnished food for thought as to the force at work in regenerated Italy. An event that might have been of great importance was the death of the youthful Emperor of China, which was followed by that of his wife. He was succeeded by a child five years old, and the government seems to have passed into the hands of the same men who held it before, so that a change for the better towards Christians is scarcely to be hoped for, while Christian residents are still exposed at any moment to a repetition of the Tien-Tsin massacre.

With the year closes the third quarter of the most eventful century, perhaps, which the world has yet known, the first century of the Christian era alone being excepted. It opened on what Lacordaire has well called “a wild and stormy morning,” and he would be a bold prophet who should predict a clear sky at the close. A writer of the day describes nations within the past year as engaged in “a wild war-dance.” The same is true of the century. Nations seem to have learned nothing, but forgotten much. In forgetting the faith that made them whole they have forgotten the secret of the elixir of national life. Hence, bitter as the struggle is, a Catholic cannot but hope much in the near future from the present trials of the church. The blows of Germany have crushed shams to the earth, and caused the truth to shine forth resplendent and beautiful. Whatever may be this faith that the nations have forgotten, that has been a mockery among men of the world, it is manifest, at least, that there is a profound reality in it, and a vitality that no power on earth can hope to destroy. This testimony of strength in weakness, of the purest devotion and loftiest sacrifices that this world can show, if it do nothing else, at least brings men to ponder and look back, and compare and inquire, and arrive at some conclusions. For the world cannot remain an indifferent spectator to a question that is wide as the world. The vagaries of belief, the churches with fronts of brass and feet of clay, the parasites and the flatterers who, professing to worship and believe in God alone, bow down in secret before the prince of this world, now slink away in shame or stand abashed before the unbeliever.

Again, considering the intensity of the activity of the age, induced in a great measure by the facilities of expressing and communicating our thoughts, of reaching the uttermost parts of the earth in a flash of time—all of which enhances the responsibility of our free will—religion, in view of these facts, will have to keep pace with this activity in order to perform the office for which God established it upon earth. That she will do so is as much a matter of certitude as her existence; for that same “Spirit which fills the whole earth” finds in her bosom his dwelling-place. The general tendency to material science, and the material interests of nations, which have so wonderfully increased within the century, tend all to obscure the supernatural. But there is nothing to be feared from the advocates of material science. There is no escaping from God in his creation. And these men, in their way, in common with the more open persecutors, are preparing for the triumph of the church, and in the providence of God are co-workers in the more complete demonstration of his divine truth.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Life of the Apostle S. John. By M. L. Baunard. Translated from the first French edition. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

The life and character of S. John are so beautiful and so closely connected with our Saviour that true believers have always craved to know more about him.

On the other hand, his testimony is so positive and his language so clear that all who blaspheme the divinity of our Lord have sought to thrust him and his gospel out of sight. The distinguished French author has a warm personal devotion to S. John, and has devoted himself with great enthusiasm to the task of collecting all the historical facts which remain to us as connected with the virgin apostle. His style is manifestly infused with his spirit, and hence the work is one rather of devotion than of cold, scientific dissertation.

“It is,” says the author in his preface, “a book of doctrine. I address it to all those who desire to instruct themselves in the truth of God. Truth has no school above that of the Gospel, and nowhere does it appear fairer or more profound than in the gospel of S. John.

“It is a book of piety. I dedicate it to Christians: to priests—the priesthood has no higher personification than S. John; to virgins—John was a virgin; to mothers—he merited to be given as a son to the Mother of God; to youth—he was the youngest of the apostles; to old men—it is the name he gives himself in his epistles. I offer it to suffering souls—he stood beside the cross; to contemplative souls—he was on Mt. Thabor; to all souls who wish to devote themselves to their brethren, and to love them in God—charity can have no purer ideal than the friend of Jesus.”

It goes to fill up a most important gap in our English hagiography, and will be greeted with much satisfaction by those desirous of having a complete series of lives of the saints.

The Ship in the Desert. By Joaquin Miller. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1875.

The ad captandum title of this work leads one to look for an Arabian romance; whereas the story has scarcely anything to do with it, and is a very slender story at that. It is difficult to say whether the book is worth reading or not; for while, no doubt, it contains passages of considerable force and beauty, we are quite sure the poet himself does not know half the time what he means. Now, this kind of thing is “played out.” Far be it from us to accuse the divine Tennyson of straining and affectation; but we do say there are peculiarities in his style which it is dangerous to imitate. Taken as a model for classic and scholarly verse, he has no equal in the English language. But the subjectivism of his “enchanted reverie” may be easily “run into the ground.” Hence he has given rise (we suspect he is full sore over it) to what may be called the “Obscurantist” school of poetry. We think this school has had its day. We hope the coming poets will happily combine the faultless diction of Tennyson with the clear, strong thought of such masters as Milton, Byron, and Longfellow.

The Three Pearls; or, Virginity and Martyrdom. By a Daughter of Charity. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

We presume this book is meant for a Christmas present. It is admirably fitted for that purpose—beautifully printed and tastefully bound. But the contents are still better worth having.

These “Three Pearls” were indeed “of great price”; three virgin-martyrs—S. Cæcilia, S. Agnes, and S. Catharine of Alexandria. No three saints, perhaps, could have been more happily chosen by the gifted author as models for the young Catholic women of the day, and particularly here in America. If it be objected that such heroines are not imitable, the answer is obvious—that the virtues which led them to become heroines are imitable by all. And, again, the “modern paganism” with which we are familiar has many features in common with that amid which they lived.

There is a prose sketch of each saint, followed by a tribute in verse. The “Editor’s Preface” is from the pen of a learned priest in the Diocese of Boston.

Medulla Theologiæ Moralis. Auctore Augustino Rohling, S. Theologiæ et Philosophiæ Doctore, Monasterii Guestfaliæ in Academia Regia quondam, nunc in Seminario Salesiano prope Milwaukee S. Theologiæ Professore. Cum permissu Superiorum. St. Ludovici: Excudebat B. Herder, 19 South Fifth Street; et B. Herder, Friburgi, Brisgoviæ. 1875.

The plan of the author in this work, as is implied in its title, has not been to write a complete treatise on moral theology, but to furnish a compendium containing the points necessary for confessors in the ordinary discharge of their duties. Desirable as such a book is, there is of course a difficulty in compiling it, arising from the variety of sound opinions on many questions, which cannot all be given without extending it beyond the limits which give it its special convenience, and which opinions, nevertheless, it is at least expedient that every priest should know. This difficulty is one, therefore, which cannot be overcome, and a manual of this kind can never entirely supply the place of a larger work. But it nevertheless has its use, and, when it is well done, cannot fail to be a welcome addition to any theological library.

And this book is extremely welcome for it is extremely well done. It is very well arranged; every point of importance is, we believe, given; it is clearly written; it is adapted to the times and to this country, and (which is a great merit) it is by no means dry. There is a little danger in it on this last account, and that is that its superior attractiveness may tend to induce neglect of larger works, and too great confidence in statements which space will not allow the author to modify, as we have said above.

One excellent feature of it is the sound and practical advice which it contains, which is almost as important as the statement of theological conclusions or of matters of law. It would be worth far more than its price on this account alone.

The History of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, France, and Northern Europe. Seventh Edition. By the Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1875.

The Evidences of Catholicity. Sixth Edition. By the Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1875.

In the present editions an article on “Rome and Geneva” has been added to The History of the Reformation, and a “Pastoral Letter on the Infallibility of the Pope” to The Evidences of Catholicity—both having been prepared by the late archbishop with a view to publication in his collective works.

The same general criticism which we passed in our December number on the revised edition of the Miscellanea will apply to these volumes. Archbishop Spalding’s works constitute a very complete armory from which to select weapons to meet the opponents of the church in this country; though the writings of European Catholics may be more to the purpose as answers to the misrepresentations urged against her in their respective localities. And there is no one writer to whom we would with greater confidence refer Protestants who are willing to learn the truth (and we would fain hope there are very many such), as his works relate to so many supposed stumbling-blocks. Whether conscious of it or not, our separated brethren are very blind followers of tradition—accepting unhesitatingly the representations of writers of the last three centuries, while faulting us for adhering to the unbroken traditions of all the Christian centuries. Hence they are accustomed, when unable to reply to our doctrinal arguments drawn from their translation of the Holy Scriptures, to fall back on their own version of the religious revolution of the XVIth century, and other historical events, the comparative condition of Catholic and Protestant countries, etc., etc., all of which are treated of at length in these volumes.

At a time when it is sought to revive the fell spirit of the defunct Know-Nothing party, it is well to refresh our memories by a re-perusal of the writings which were prompted by the previous manifestation.

The first-named work is at once a history of the Reformation and a review of the most prominent books on the same subject, including D’Aubigné’s popular romance. This treatment very much augments the interest with which we pursue historical inquiries.

Mr. Gladstone and Maryland Toleration. By Richard H. Clarke, LL.D. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

This able pamphlet will wear a familiar look to our readers, its principal contents having appeared as an article in our December number. The writer has added biographical sketches of the first and second Lords Baltimore, the Lawgivers of 1649, and of Father Andrew White, the historiographer of the expedition which founded Maryland, and who was intimately associated with the early fortunes of the colony.