Volume 22 — THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XXII., No. 130.—JANUARY, 1876. (continued 3)

And with this he thrust a large parcel into the Pfarrer’s arms. Every one laughed and helped him to open it; every one was curious to see its contents. They were, indeed, of a most substantial and useful kind: a foot-muff of scarlet cloth, lined and bordered with fur, and a pair of huge sealskin gloves.

Scarcely had the parcel been opened when a hum of measured sound was heard outside, and presently a Christmas carol was distinctly audible. Everyone knew the words, and many joined in the song before the singers became visible. Then the door opened, and a troop of children came in, dressed in warm white furs and woollen wrappings, and carrying tapers and fir-branches in their hands. They sang a second carol, quaint and rustic in its words, but skilfully set to anything but archaic music, and then, in honor of their southern guest, they began the song of the evening, a few stanzas from the “Great Hymn” to the Blessed Virgin, by the Minnesinger, Gottfried of Strasburg, the translation of which, according to Kroeger, runs thus:

“You are not so utterly unknowing of all gentle and learned pursuits as you would have had me believe,” said the Pfarrer to Frau Köhler. “It is not every child in Bavaria that could sing so well this Old-World poem, so graceful in its rhyming and so devout in its allusions. Our old XIIth-century poetry, the most national—i.e., peculiar to our country—is too much superseded by noisy modern rhymes or sentimental ballads copied from foreign models. Have you any unknown scholar among your farmers and agents, who, you told me, made up a hearty but not a learned society here?”

“Well,” said Frau Köhler, “there is the school-master, Heldmann, who is always poring over old useless books, but never can have a good dinner unless his friends send it to him, poor man! He is a bachelor, and cannot afford to have a housekeeper. And then there is one of our young gentlemen, who Köhler says is always in the clouds, and who spends all his spare time with Heldmann, while the other boys spend theirs with their pretty, rosy neighbors. By the way, Heldmann is coming to-night; but he said he could not come till late, as he had some important business which would detain him for an hour or two.”

“You forget our Rika, mother,” said Emanuel, not heeding the last part of his wife’s sentence; “she is as wise as any of them, though she says so little. She knows all the old legends and poetry, and more besides, I warrant.”

“Rika designed that missal-marker,” said the Frau Inspectorin proudly (she had found out, since it had been so admired, that her daughter’s instinct had guided her aright in the design).

But Rika, hearing her name mentioned, had slipped away among the white-wrapped children, and was laying their tapers and fir-branches away, preparatory to giving them cakes and fruit. This was quite a ceremony, and when they were ready Frau Köhler, handing the large dish of nuts to the Pfarrer, begged him to distribute them, while she took charge of the gingerbread and Rika of the apples.

It was funny to see the solemn expectancy with which the children brought out dishes, mugs, pitchers, etc., in which to receive these Christmas gifts. Some of the girls held out their aprons, as more convenient and capacious receptacles than anything else they could lay hands on. One boy brought a large birthday cup, and another a wooden milk-bowl; another a small churn, while a fourth had carried off his father’s peck-measure, and a fifth calmly handed up a corn-sack, which he evidently expected to get filled to the brim. As Frau Köhler came to one of the children, she said:

“Fritz, I saw you in the orchard last autumn stealing our apples. Now, naughty boys must not expect to get apples at Christmas if they take them at other times; so, Rika, don’t give him any. He shall have one piece of gingerbread, though.” A piteous disclaimer met this sentence; but the Pfarrer thrust a double quantity of nuts into the culprit’s basket, and passed on. Then once again Frau Köhler stopped and said; “Johann, didn’t I see you fighting with another boy in the churchyard two weeks ago, and told you that Santa Claus would forget you when he came to fill the stockings on Christmas night? I shall not give you any gingerbread.”

“Franz knows we made it up again,” whined the boy, and Franz, with a roguish look, peeped out from his place in the row and said: “Yes, we did, Frau Inspectorin”; so both got their gingerbread. At last, this distribution being over, the children, laden with their gifts, went home to their own various firesides, not without many thanks to the “stranger within the gates” and his parting reminder, as he showed them the stars:

“Look up at God’s own Christmas-tree, lighted up with thousands of tapers, children, and at the smooth, white snow spread over the fields. That is the white table-cloth which he has spread for the beautiful gifts which spring, and summer, and autumn are going to bring you, all in his own good time.”[176]

Then came another batch of visitors—the old, sick, and infirm people of the village; the spinning-women, the broom-tyers, the wooden bowl and spoon carvers, and the makers of wooden shoes; and some who could no longer work, but had been faithful and industrious in their time. They had something of the old costume on: the men wore blue yarn stockings and stout gray knee-breeches (they had left their top-boots outside; for the snow was deep and soft, and they needed them all the winter and through most of the spring); and the women had large nodding caps and black silk handkerchiefs folded across their bosoms. Each of these old people got a large loaf of plain cake and some good stout flannel; and these things, according to the local etiquette, the inspector himself delivered to them as the representative of his young master. This distribution was an old custom on the Stelhagen estate, and, though the present owner was careless enough in many things, he wished this usage to be always kept up. Even if he had not, it is not likely that as long as Köhler was inspector the old people would not have been able to rely on the customary Christmas gift. After this some bustle occurred, and two or three people went and stationed themselves outside the door. Presently the expectant company within were startled by a loud rap, and the door flew open, a parcel was flung in, and a voice cried out:

“Yule rap!”

This was a pair of slippers for the inspector. No one knew where they came from; no one had sent them. Yule raps are supposed to be magical, impersonal causes of tangible effects; so every one looked innocent and astonished, as became good Mecklenburgers under Christmas circumstances.

“Yule rap!” again, and the door opened a second time; a smoking-cap, embroidered with his initials, was evolved out of a cumbrous packet by one of the young apprentices, and scarcely had he put it on than another thundering knock sounded on the door.

“Yule rap!” was shouted again, and in flew a heavy package. It was a book, with illustrations of travel scenes in the East, and was directed to Rika.

“Yule rap!”

This time it was only a little square envelope, with a ticket referring Frau Köhler to another ticket up in the bureau drawer in her bedroom; but when one of the boys found it, that referred again to another ticket in the cellar; and when another boy brought this to light, it mysteriously referred her to her husband’s pocket. Here, at last, the hidden thing was revealed—an embroidered collar, and a pair of larger cuffs to match. Köhler had no idea what sprite had put it there, so he said.

“Yule rap!” and this time it was for the guest—a black velvet skull-cap, warm and clinging. Then came various things, all heralded by the same warning cry of “Yule rap!” and a knock at the door, generally in George’s strong voice. The two maids got the packages ready, and peeped in at the keyhole to see when it was time to vary the sensation by throwing in another present. Again, a breakfast-bell came rolling in, ringing as it bounded on, with just a few bands of soft stuff and silver paper muffling its sound. Once a large meerschaum pipe was laid gently at the threshold of the door, and one of the apprentices fetched it as carefully. Then a violin was pushed through the half-open door, and the eager face of the one for whom it was intended peeped anxiously over his neighbor’s shoulder, wondering if any one else were the happy destined one, and as much surprised as delighted when he found it was himself. That violin has since been heard in many a large and populous town, and, though its owner did not become as world-known as Paganini or Sivori, he did not love his art less faithfully and exclusively. We cannot enumerate all the gifts which Yule brought round this year; but before the evening was over, a different voice cried out the magic words, “Yule rap!” and the door being slightly opened and quickly closed again, a tiny, white, silky dog stood trembling on the carpet. Rika jumped up and ran to take it in her arms; then pulling open the door, “Herr Heldmann! Herr Heldmann!” she cried. “I know it is you!”

The schoolmaster came forward, his rough face glowing with the cold through which he had just come.

“I promised you a dog, Rika,” he said rather awkwardly, “but they would not let me have it till this very day, and I had no time to go for it but this evening. I kept it under my coat all the time; so it is quite warm. It is only two months old.”

Rika was in ecstasies. She declared this was worth all her Christmas presents, and then rewarded Herr Heldmann by telling him how well the children had done their part, and how delightfully surprised the Pfarrer had been. The two men were soon in a deep conversation on subjects dear and familiar to both, and the company gradually dissolved again into little knots and groups. Many took their leave, as their homes were distant and they did not wish to be too late; but for all an informal supper was laid in the vast kitchen, and by degrees most of the good things on the table were sensibly diminished. The host’s wife and daughter, and the Herr Pfarrer, with half a dozen others and a few children, did not leave the Christmas-tree, whose tapers were constantly attended to and replaced when necessary. Other “Christmas candles” were also lighted—tall columns of yellow wax, made on purpose for this occasion. As the household and its inmates were left to themselves, the children began asking for their accustomed treat—the stories that all children have been fond of since the world began. No land is so rich in the romance of childhood as Germany, both north and south. There everything is personified, and as an English writer lately said, wonderful histories are connected with the fir-trees in the forests, the beloved and venerated Christbaum. “Though it be yet summer, the child sees in fancy the beautiful Weihnachtsbaum, adorned with sparkling things as the Gospel, is adorned with promises and hopes; rich in gifts as the three kings were rich; pointing to heaven as the angel pointed; bright as those very heavens were bright with silver-winged messengers; crowned with gold as the Word was crowned; odorous like the frankincense: sparkling like the star; spreading forth its arms, full of peace and good-will on every side, holding out gifts and promises for all.”

Weihnacht, the blessed, the hallowed, the consecrated night, is the child-paradise of Germany. That land of beautiful family festivals has given Christmas a double significance, and merged into its memories all the graceful, shadowy legends of the dead mythology of the Fatherland. The German child is reared in the midst of fairy-tales, which are only truths translated into child-language. Besides the old standard ones, every neighborhood has its own local tales, every family its own new-born additions or inventions. Every young mother, herself but a step removed from childhood, with all her tender imaginations still stirring, and her child-days lifted into greater beauty because they are but just left behind, makes new stories for her little ones, and finds in every flower a new fairy, in every brook a new voice.

And yet the old tales still charm the little ones, and the yearly coming of King Winter brings the old, worn stories round again. So Emanuel Köhler told the fairy-tale which the children had listened to every Christmas with ever-new delight, about the journey of King Winter from his kingdom at the North Pole, and how he put on his crown with tall spikes of icicles, and wrapped himself in his wide snow-mantle, which to him is as precious and as warm as ermine.

“And now,” said the host, “there is some one here who can tell you a far more beautiful story than mine. Some One, greater than the Winter-King, comes too every year—a snow-Child, the white Christ whom our ancestors, the old Norse and Teutonic warriors, learned to see and adore, where they had only seen and worshipped the God of War and the God of Thunder before. Ask him to tell you a story.”

And the old, white-haired Pfarrer stroked the head of the child nearest to him, as the little one looked shyly up into his face, mutely endorsing Emanuel’s appeal. He told them that they must already know the story of the first Christmas night, and so he would only tell them how the news that the angels told the shepherds on the hills came long centuries after to others as pure-minded as the shepherds, and by means almost as wonderful. He repeated to them from memory the words of an English prose-poet, which he said he had loved ever since he came across them, and which made the picture he best loved to talk on at Christmas-time: “That little infant frame, white as a snow-drop on the lap of winter, light almost as a snow-flake on the chill night air, smooth as the cushioned drift of snow which the wind has lightly strewn outside the walls of Bethlehem, is at this moment holding within itself, as if it were of adamantine rock, the fires of the beatific light.… The little white lily is blooming below the greater one; an offshoot of its stem, and a faithful copy, leaf for leaf, petal for petal, white for white, powdered with the same golden dust, meeting the morning with the same fragrance, which is like no other than their own!”[177]

There was a more marvellous tale than any they had heard about talking-flowers. The Christkind was a flower, and his blessed Mother was a flower—holy lilies in the garden of God, blossoming rods like Aaron’s, fruitful roots, stately cedars, and fruit-giving palm-trees. It was a very happy thing to know and feel all this, as we do; but many millions of men know nothing of it, and centuries ago even our forefathers in these forests knew nothing of it. “But,” he continued, “there was a distant island, where men of our race lived, which did not receive the faith till long after Germany and France and Britain were Christian, and even had cathedrals and cloisters and schools in abundance. It was two hundred years after Charlemagne, who was a Frankish, and therefore a German, sovereign, founded the Palatine schools and conferred with the learned English monk, Alcuin. This distant, pagan island was Iceland. The Norsemen there were a wild, fierce, warlike people, free from any foreign government, and just the kind of heroes that their old mythology represented them as becoming in their future, disembodied life. They had their scalds, or saga-men, their bards, who were both poets and historians, who kept up their spirit by singing wild songs about their ancestors and the battles they had won. They were all pagans, and thought the forgiveness of injuries very mean. Well, one day, the eve of Yule-tide, when it was terribly cold and cheerless, an old scald sat in his rough hut, with a flickering light before him, chanting one of his wild, heathen songs, and his daughter, a beautiful girl, sat at the plank table near him, busy with some woman’s work. During an interval of his song she raised her eyes and said to him:

“‘Father, there must be something beyond all that—something greater and nobler.’

“‘Why, child,’ said the old man, with a kind of impatient wonder, ‘why should you think so? Many things different there may be, just as there are different kinds of men, and different kinds of beasts, and different kinds of plants; some for mastery and some for thraldom; some for the chase, and some for the kitchen or the plough; some for incantations and sacrifices, and some for common food. But anything nobler than our history there could not be; and as for our religion, if there were anything different, or even better, it would not suit our people, and so would be no concern of ours.’

“‘But if it were true, father, and ours not true, what then?’

“‘Why ask the question, child? What was good enough for the wise and brave Northmen who fled here that they might be free to fight and worship according to their fancy, is good enough for their descendants.’

“‘But you know yourself, father,’ persisted the maiden, ‘that those whom our poetical traditions call gods were men, heroes and patriots who taught our forefathers various arts, and guided them safely across deserts and through forests in their long, long migration—but still only men. Our chieftains of to-day might as well become gods to our great-grandchildren, if the old leaders have become so to us. Wise as they were, they could not command the frozen seas to open a way for their ships, nor make the sun rise earlier in the long winter, nor compel the cutting ice-wind to cease. If they could not do such things, they must have been very far from gods.’

“‘It is true,’ said the old man, ‘that those great chieftains were, in the dim ages we can scarcely count back to, men like us; but the gods who taught them those very arts took them up to live with them as long as their own heaven might last, and made them equal to themselves. You know even Paradise itself is to come to an end some day.’

“‘So our legends say, father; but that, too, makes it seem as if these gods were only another order of mortal beings, stronger but not better than we are, and hiding from us the true, changeless heaven far above them. For surely that which changes cannot be divine. And then our legends say that evil is to triumph when heaven and earth come to an end. True, they say there will be a renewal of all things after that, and that, no doubt, means that good will be uppermost; very likely all the things spoken of in our Eddas are only signs of other things which we could not understand.’

“The daughter continued these questionings and speculations, the scald answering them as best he could.

“He had listened with evident admiration and approval to her impassioned speech, but he was willing to test her faith in her own womanhood to the utmost. She now seemed wrapt in her own thoughts, but after a short pause said:

“‘It would not be another’s inspiration in which I should believe; it would be a message from Him who has put this belief already into my heart. Some One greater than all has spoken to my inmost heart, and I am ready to believe; but the messenger that is to put it into words and tell me what to do has not come.’

“There was a silence, and the wind and the sea roared without. The old man shaded the flickering light with his hand, and gazed at his daughter, who was sitting with her hands clasped in her lap. He thought that she herself must have received some divine illumination; for the Norsemen believed in the prophetic gifts of some of their women. His own mind, more cultivated than that of the warrior’s, saw through the symbolic character of many of the very myths he sang, and tended vaguely to belief in a higher and hidden circle of things infinite, true, and eternal. But then the northern mind was naturally simple, not prone to metaphysical distinctions, not analytical and subtle, dividing as with the sword that pierceth between soul and spirit; and the old man saw no use in raising theological problems for which he could offer no rational solution, save through the dreams of a young girl. Presently the old man rose, shaking off his meditations, and said:

“‘It is time for me to go to the Yule-night festival, and I shall have a stormy trudge of it to the castle. I must leave you alone here till to-morrow night. But, my child, I know that there is safety for the scald’s daughter wherever she may be; the very sea would not hurt her, and the wildest men would kneel before her; so farewell, and a father’s blessing be upon you.’

“His daughter rose and fetched his cloak and staff, wrapped the former around him, and fastened it over the rude musical instrument that answered the purpose of lyre and harp; but I am not very learned in such things, and cannot tell you exactly what it was. The young girl stood long on the threshold of the hut, shading the light, and looking out after her father into the darkness. The wind was sharp and icy, and blew from the frozen sea. As she held the light, she thought she heard a cry come from the direction of the sea. She lingered before closing the door, although the wind was very chill; for the cry seemed repeated, and she thought it was a human voice calling. A moment’s reflection told her it could not be so; for the whole sea was frozen for miles outward, and no boat or wreck could come so near land. She sat down again to her work, and mused on the conversation she had held with her father. He had studied their national books all his life, and she was not yet twenty. He must know best. Was she likely to be right? She had little experience of the way in which the old system worked; only her own dreams and fancies showed her any other possibility; and yet—she could not shake off the thought: she thirsted for another revelation. The far-off, unknown Godhead must have some means of communicating with men; why should he not speak to her, who so passionately and blindly longed for a message, a command, from him?

“The cry from the sea sounded again. Surely, this time there could be no mistake; the voice was human, and it had come nearer since she had left the door. She took up the light again, and went outside, shouting as loud as she could in return. She was answered, and a strange awe came upon her as she heard this cry. Was it that of a man or a spirit? The latter supposition seemed to her unsophisticated mind quite as likely as the former, but it did not frighten her, as it would most of her countrywomen. She went in again, wrapped a thick fur cloak around her, and, taking another on her arm, sallied out once more with another stronger light. It was barely possible to keep the resinous torch alight, and she looked anxiously out towards the sea, to try and catch some glimpse of a human figure. The cries came again at intervals; but she knew that in the clear air a seemingly near sound might yet be far distant. She had to walk briskly up and down the shore, in the beaten path between walls of snow, to keep herself warm, and occasionally she lifted the flaring torch and waved it as a signal. She could do no more, but she longed to see her unknown visitor, and to go out to meet him on the frozen waters. Was it some wrecked sailor, who had clambered from ice-floe to ice-floe, in the desperate hope of reaching land before he died of cold and hunger, or some unearthly messenger from an invisible world? If he were a mere man, from what coast could he have drifted. No Icelander would be out at this time and place; it was Yule-tide, and there were no wandering boats out among the ice-cliffs and floes. At last she thought she could discern a shadowy form, blacker than the surrounding darkness, but surely no human form; it was like a moving cross, one upright shape, and one laid across near the top, and both dark and compact. But the cry was repeated, though in a more assured and joyful tone, and the maiden waited with bated breath, wondering what this marvel could mean. A field of unbroken ice stretched between her and the advancing figure, which now hastened its steps, and came on like a swift-sailing bird, cleaving the darkness. She thought she could distinguish a human face above the junction of the two arms of the cross, and she held up the light, still uncertain what kind of visitant this approaching form might be. At last it flashed upon her that it was a man bearing a child. But why so rigid? Why did he not hug him close to his bosom to keep him warm, to keep him alive? Was the child dead? And a shuddering awe came upon her, as she thought of its dead white face upturned to heaven, and of the faithful man who had not forsaken it, or left it to the seals and wolves on the ice, or buried it in the chill waters beneath the ice-floes. What a cold it must have struck to the heart of the man carrying it; how his hands must be well-nigh frozen in supporting this strange burden!

“She hardly knew whether she was still imagining what might be, or witnessing real movements, when the figure came straight up to her, and, stooping, laid the child at her feet. She lowered the torch, and, as the glare fell on the little face, she saw that it was no breathing one; the man had sunk down beside it, hardly able to stir, now the supreme effort was over and his end was accomplished. She dropped the cloak she held over the little body, and caught up a handful of snow, wherewith she energetically rubbed the face and hands of the stranger, then half dragged, half supported him to the door of the hut. He had only spoken once, just as he dropped at her feet, but she did not understand him: he spoke in a foreign tongue. Once more she went out and brought in the stiffened, frozen body of the child, which she laid on a fur robe just outside the hut; for it was warm within the small, confined dwelling. It was an hour before the stranger’s eye told her that her simple, quick remedies had succeeded. He was not very tall, but immensely strong and powerful, and there was a fire in his dark gray eye that gave the clew to his strange, weird pilgrimage over the ice-floes. His hair was dark brown, with a reddish tinge, but already mixed with a few gray streaks; it had been shorn close to his head some time since, as appeared from its irregular growth at present. Beneath his cloak he wore a long black robe, with a leathern girdle round the waist. The child was very beautiful, even in death; his eyes were closed, but his black, curling hair hung round his neck, and the lips had a sweet though somewhat proud outline. The scald’s daughter set some simple food before her silent guest, and made him a sign to eat. He was evidently very hungry, but before he began he moved his lips and made the sign of the cross on his forehead, lips, and breast. She asked him in her own language what that ceremony meant, not hoping to make him understand her speech, but trusting to her inquiring looks for some explanatory sign that she might interpret as best she could to herself. To her surprise, he answered in a few, slow, labored words, not in Icelandic to be sure, but in some dialect akin to it; for she could make out the meaning. It was, in fact, the Norse dialect that was spoken in the Orkney Islands, but she did not know that. As he spoke, her guest pointed upwards, and she knew that he referred to God. A great longing came into her heart, and she asked again if his God were the same the Icelanders worshipped. He shook his head, and she eagerly questioned farther, but grew so voluble that he could not follow her, and the conversation ceased. Then the stranger rose and went out to the little corpse, which he addressed in impassioned terms in his own language, making over it the same sign that had drawn the maiden’s attention before. He then described to her—mostly in pantomime, and with a few Norse words to help him on, and a few slowly-pronounced questions on her part—how the boy and he had been in a boat that was wrecked many days’ journey from their own country, and how he had carried him and fed him for three or four days, and then seen him die in his arms. The boy was the only son of a great chief, and he was taking him to his uncle in the North of Scotland. His own country was south of Scotland, a large island like Iceland, but green and beautiful, and there was no ice there.

“The girl made him understand that she was alone for a day or two, but when her father came back he would help him. He evidently understood her better than she did him.

“The next morning, when she again set food before him, she imitated his sign of the cross, and said she wished to believe in the true God; and if his God were the true one, she would believe in him. She looked so earnest and anxious that he again began to try to explain; but the few words he could command, though they sufficed to hint at his worldly adventures, and made clear to her that he had been wrecked, were scarcely adequate to tell her of the new religion she longed to understand.

“But at noon that day another guest and traveller passed by the scald’s dwelling. He was hurrying to the same castle where the girl’s father had gone in his capacity of minstrel, but a violent snow-storm had come on that morning, and he had lost his way. He stopped a moment to refresh himself, and noticed the stranger. He was himself known as a great traveller, and the figure in the coarse black robe seemed not unfamiliar to him. He addressed the stranger in the latter’s language, guessing him at once to be an Irish monk. He said he had seen such men in the Scottish islands, where he had been storm-driven with his ship two years ago, and he had picked up a little of their speech. When the maiden discovered that in this stray guest she had found an interpreter, she pressed him, implored him, almost commanded him, to stay.

“‘I must ask him the questions my father could not solve yesterday,’ she said; ‘and my father’s friend will not refuse to speak in my name, for I believe that the unknown God has answered my prayer in sending this holy man over the sea to my very feet.’ And she told him how the stranger had come to her, out of the darkness, in the shape of a cross—the same sign he made to propitiate his God.

“‘Ask him to tell us what he believes,’ she said impetuously; and the interpreter, compelled by some instinct that he could not resist, began his office willingly.

“‘Tell him,’ she said, ‘that yesterday, before he came, I was all day thinking that the high, true, unknown God had a message for me, and a truer faith to teach me, because he had put into my heart a longing for something higher than what our books and songs have taught us. And tell him that I believe God sent him in answer to my doubts and prayers.’

“‘The traveller faithfully translated all this. The monk’s face glowed as he replied, in his own language, which he used with the grace and skill of a poet:

“‘Tell the maiden that she is right; the true God did send me, and now I know why such things happened to me; why I was wrecked with my lord’s only son, a precious freight, a sacred deposit, which the Lord of lords has now taken upon himself to account for to the earthly father, bereaved of his one hope. But God sent me here because to this pure-hearted virgin I was to explain the faith he had already put into her heart. It is not I who bring her the true faith, but God himself who has spoken to her and inclined her to believe; me he has sent to put this message into practical form. Tell her that this is the birthday of the Lord, and that a thousand years ago, almost at the same hour when I set my dead burden at her feet, a living Child, God’s own Child, lay at the feet of a pure Virgin in a little village far away in the land of the rising sun. And as this maiden’s torch which I saw over the wild, frozen sea, and followed, was an emblem of the faith that dwelt already in her heart, so, too, a marvellous star led three wise men, the scalds of the East, to where this Child lay, and the star was the emblem of their firm faith, which led them to cross rivers and deserts to reach the Child. And tell her that the way in which this wonderful birth was celebrated was by a song which held all the essence of truth in it: “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good-will.”’

“All this the interpreter told the maiden, and both marvelled at it. The stranger told them more and more of that wonderful tale, so familiar to us, but which once sounded to our warlike forefathers like the foolishness of babes and sucklings, or at most like some Eastern myth good enough for philosophers to wrangle over, but unfit for sturdy men of the forest. To the Icelandic maiden it seemed but the fulfilment of her own dreams; and as she listened to the story of the Child, grown to be a wise but obedient Boy, and then a wandering, suffering Man, her soul seemed to drink in the hidden grandeur of the relation, to pierce beyond the human stumbling-blocks which confronted the wise and learned of other lands, and go at once to the heart of the great mystery of love, personified in the Man-God. All the rest seemed to her to be the fitting garment of the central mystery, the crown of leaves growing from the fruitful trunk of this one doctrine. All day long the three sat together, the two Icelanders hanging on the words of the stranger; and so the scald found them on his return. He, too, wanted to know the news which the monk had brought; for he said he had always believed that behind their national songs and hymns lay something greater, but perhaps not expedient for Norsemen to know. He shook his head sadly when he learned the monk’s precepts of love, peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and said he feared his countrymen would not understand that, but for his part it was not uncongenial to him. As the weather was such that no vessel could put to sea before the ice broke up, he constrained the monk to stay the rest of the winter with him, and in the spring promised to go over with him to the nearest Scottish coast, and carry the body of his little charge to the uncle to whom he had been on his way when he was wrecked.

“Before the New Year began, the monk baptized the first Icelandic convert, the daughter of the scald, and gave her the name of the Mother of the Babe of Bethlehem, Mary. Many others heard of the new religion before he left, but that does not belong to my story. The new convert and her father accompanied him to Scotland, and were present at the burial of the Irish chieftain’s son at the castle of his Scottish uncle. The latter’s son married the Norse maiden, but she never ceased to lament that it had not been given to her to convert many of her own countrymen, or at least shed her blood for her new faith. All her life long she helped to send missionaries to Iceland; and when her son grew up to manhood, the palm she coveted was awarded to him, for he went to his mother’s native country, founded a monastery there, labored among the people, converted many, and taught reading and the arts of peace as well as the faith to his pupils; became abbot of the monastery, and was finally martyred on the steps of the altar by a horde of savage heathen Norsemen.

“This is the best Christmas story I know, children,” concluded the Herr Pfarrer; “and you, Rika, I can wish you no better model than the fair maiden of Iceland.”

It was nearly midnight when the old priest finished his tale, and Frau Köhler, rising, and thanking him cordially for this unwonted addition to ordinary Christmas stories, led him to a door which had been locked till now. It opened into a room decked as a chapel, with an altar at the end, which was now decorated with evergreens. A few chairs and benches were ranged before it, and on a table at the side was everything in readiness for saying Mass.

“It is long since I have heard a midnight Mass,” said the good hostess, growing suddenly grave and reverential in her manner, “and my Rika never has; and you know, Herr Pfarrer, I told you I had a greater surprise in store for you yet, after all the local customs in which you were so much interested.”

So the beautiful Midnight Mass was said in the Mecklenburg inspector’s farm-house, and a more impressive one Frau Köhler had never heard in any southern cathedral; for though there was no music and no pomp, there brooded over the little congregation a spirit of reverence and peace, which comes in full perfection only through a deep silence. The hostess and her daughter received Communion together, and the attentive household could not help thinking of the beautiful Icelandic convert when she came back from the altar, her hands folded over her breast, and her long, fair hair plaited in two plain, thick tresses.

Herr Heldmann had stayed too, and from that day he never ceased his study of theological problems and his correspondence with the Herr Pfarrer, till he became a Catholic, and was married to Rika in this same little chapel-room a year later by the same kind old priest. One of the young apprentices of Emanuel Köhler had been his secret rival; but notwithstanding that Heldmann was ungainly, shy, and twice her age, Rika decidedly thought that she had the best of the bargain.

And it was true; he had a heart of gold, and she made him a model wife.

CHRISTMAS CHIMES.

ANGLICANS, OLD CATHOLICS, AND THE CONFERENCE AT BONN.

Under the title of Anglicanism, Old Catholicism, and the Union of the Christian Episcopal Churches, an essay has recently been published by the Rev. Father Tondini,[178] Barnabite, whose intimate acquaintance with the respective languages of England, Germany, and Russia, as well as the religious history and literature of those countries, peculiarly qualifies him for dealing with the questions just now exciting so much attention in Western Europe. We shall, therefore, not only make his treatise, which merits more than ordinary notice, the basis of the present article, but shall reproduce such portions of it as are particularly suggestive at the present time, and conclude with some account of the Conference at Bonn and the considerations it suggests.

In the Introduction to his treatise the reverend author gives the reasons which called it forth, the last being the promise made on the tomb of a friend[179] to leave nothing untried which might promote the return of the Greco-Russian Church to Catholic unity; an unexpected opportunity being given for fulfilling this promise by the reference made more than once by Mr. Gladstone, in his recent publications, to the organization of the Eastern as contrasted with that of the Catholic Church. Moreover, the sympathy displayed by Mr. Gladstone for the Old Catholics and their Conference at Bonn serves to complete the argument.

There are two passages in Mr. Gladstone’s Vaticanism with which Father Tondini has more especially dealt. One is the following:

“Of these early provisions for a balance of church power, and for securing the laity against sacerdotal domination, the rigid conservatism of the Eastern Church presents us, even down to the present day, with an authentic and living record.”[180]

These valuable “provisions” are set forth at length in the second edition of a former work by Father Tondini, The Pope of Rome and the Popes of the Oriental Church.[181] In a special preface he there says: “There is much to be learned from them, especially if we take into consideration their recent date, and the ecclesiastical canons of which the Eastern Church has not been indeed a rigid conservator.”

In the quotations there given at length from the original documents, we find abundant evidence of the manner in which the ancient canons have been set aside, wherever convenient to the czar, for his own regulations.

The second passage requiring comment is the following:

“The ancient principles of popular election and control, for which room was found in the Apostolic Church under its inspired teachers, and which still subsist in the Christian East.”[182]

This, as we shall see, is disposed of in the third chapter of the present essay, into which has been collected trustworthy information as to the non-popular mode of election of bishops resorted to in the Oriental Orthodox Church.[183]

Towards the close of the Introduction the writer remarks that if the statements made by Mr. Gladstone respecting the Catholic Church were true, she could not be the true church of our Lord, and, if not, he asks, where then is the true church to be found? The Oriental Church could not solve the question, because she is in contradiction to the doctrine contained in her own liturgy,[184] and also for other reasons, to which for some years past he has been directing public attention.[185] There remain to be considered the Anglican Establishment—this being the church to which belongs the writer who accuses the Catholic Church of having changed in faith, and deprived her children of their moral and mental freedom—and the newest sect of all, namely, the so-called Old Catholics, owing to the same writer’s admiration of those who figure in its ranks.

Reason, so loudly appealed to by Mr. Gladstone, has been strictly adhered to by Father Tondini in his careful examination of the credentials of the two latter bodies, and we will give, in as concise a form as may be consistent with clearness, the result of his inquiry. He especially addresses those who admit the existence of a visible Church of Christ, and still more particularly those who, rather than reconcile themselves to the Catholic Church, say that neither the Roman Catholic Church, nor the Anglican Establishment, nor the Old-Catholic Society, but the Oriental Orthodox Church, is the true visible church of Christ.

I.

The claims of the Anglican Church are first examined, her vitality being an argument that we are in presence of an institution adhered to, at least by a large portion of her members, with conviction and devotedness, as a valuable medium between unbelief and superstition, worldliness and sanctity; and of a state church as solidly framed as human genius could devise.

“Bodies,” says Mr. Gladstone, “are usually held to be bound by the evidence of their own selected and typical witnesses.”[186] Now, the selected and typical witnesses of the Church of England are the sovereign, who is “Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church in her Dominions,” and the episcopate. If the whole clergy is consulted, the evidence becomes as undeniable as it can possibly be.

This perfect evidence is found in the Thirty-nine Articles, which are thus headed: “Articles agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy, assembled in convocation holden at London in the year 1562, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions,” etc., etc.

The Ratification is to the same effect, with the addition of the assent and consent of the queen (Elizabeth), after their final rehearsal in the General Convocation of bishops and clergy in 1571. They are, moreover, reprinted in the Book of Common Prayer, with the Declaration of King James I. affixed, and which runs as follows:

“Being by God’s ordinance, according to our just title, Defender of the Faith and supreme governor of the church in these our dominions, … we will that all curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God’s promises as they be generally set forth in the Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them; and that no man hereafter shall either print or preach to draw the article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof, and … shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.”

“Following this last admonition, and bearing in mind that the Church of England considers herself to be a branch of the universal church of Christ, we open the Book of Common Prayer, and turn to those among the Articles which treat of the universal church, that we may see how, without renouncing our Italian nationality—which to us is very dear—we could belong to the universal church of Christ. We see an article headed ‘Of the Authority of General Councils,’ and, on reading it, find to our astonishment the definition, not indeed of the infallibility of the Pope, but of the fallibility, without any exception, of the universal church of Christ! It is: Article XXI.—‘General Councils may not be called together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God), they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.’”

“Thus” (we give Father Tondini’s words) “the Church of England has defined, in two plenary national councils, that the universal church of Christ, even when assembled in a general council, may err, and ordain, as necessary to salvation, things which have neither strength nor authority; and a king, ‘Defender of the Faith,’ has declared that this is the true doctrine of the Church of England, agreeable to God’s word, and required all his loving subjects to submit to this article ‘in the plain and full meaning thereof,’ and to take it ‘in the literal and grammatical sense’!

“We can hardly trust our own eyes. Again: What does the word ‘declare’ mean in the concluding words of the article? This word may convey two senses—that of proving and of making a declaration.

“In the first case, who is to offer the proofs that ‘the thing ordained as necessary to salvation’ is taken out of Holy Scripture? This the Church of England has forgotten to tell us!… Moreover, an authority whose decrees, in order to have a binding power, must be proved to be taken out of Holy Scripture, is by that very fact subordinate to those who are called to examine the proofs.[187] The chief authorities of the church assembled in a general council are thus rendered as inferior to the faithful as the claimant is inferior to the judge who is about to pronounce sentence upon his claims. The teaching and governing body of the church is consequently no more than an assembly commissioned to frame, ‘as necessary to salvation,’ laws to be submitted to the approbation of the faithful!

“Is this serious? Is it even respectful to human intelligence?”

Again, if the word “declare” must be taken in the sense of a declaration, Father Tondini asks: “But by whom is such a declaration to be made? Assuredly not by the council itself—‘judice in causâ propriâ.’ An authority liable to err, ‘even in things pertaining unto God,’ and to ordain ‘as necessary to salvation’ things which have ‘neither strength nor authority,’ is liable also to mistake the sense of Holy Scripture. To seek such a declaration from this fallible authority would be like begging the question.

“The declaration must, then, be made by some authority external to the general council. But the ‘archbishops, bishops, and the whole clergy of England’ have omitted to inform the faithful where such an authority is to be found. Moreover, since a general council—that is, the ‘selected and typical witnesses’ of the whole Church of Christ—may err (according to Article XXI.), it necessarily follows that portions of the whole church of Christ may err also. In fact, this natural consequence is explicitly stated in Article XIX. The zeal displayed by the Church of England in asserting the fallibility, both of the whole church of Christ and of portions of that church, may be said to rival that of the most fervent advocates of the infallibility of the Pope.”

This XIXth Article modestly asserts that, “as the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.”

Whereupon “a legitimate doubt arises whether the Church of England, too, might not have erred in issuing the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. This doubt is very material. These Articles ordain several things as ‘necessary to salvation.’ Are they, or are they not, ‘taken out of Holy Scripture’? Have they, or have they not, ‘strength and authority’?”

Shortly after their promulgation, we have it upon the authority of King James I. himself that this doubt gave rise to “disputations, altercations, and questions such as may nourish faction both in the church and commonwealth,” and his majesty adds that “therefore, upon mature deliberation,” etc., he “thought fit” to make the declaration following:

“That the Articles of the Church of England … do contain the true doctrine of the Church of England, agreeable to God’s Word, which WE do therefore ratify and confirm.”

“May we” (with Father Tondini) “be allowed respectfully to ask whether King James I. was infallible?”

And if so, why should Catholics be charged with having forfeited their mental and moral freedom, etc., etc., because they admit the infallibility of the Pope, which results, by the law of development, from several passages of Holy Scripture; whereas, on the contrary, no “brain power” will ever be able to discover a single word in Holy Scripture which can, by the most vigorous process of development, bud forth into the infallibility of a King of England?

On the other hand, if King James were not infallible, by what right could he then prohibit and will in matters of faith for his subjects?

His only right was this: that the Church of England had been made a powerful instrumentum regni in the hands of her sovereigns,[188] just as the Church of Russia is in the hands of her czars.

After this, observes the writer, no inconsistency ought to astonish us.

In Article XVIII. it is declared that “the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the [Lord’s] Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner”; and again, at the end of the “Order of the Ministration of the Holy Communion,” that “the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here.” How can these declarations be made to agree with the following, which is taught in the Little Catechism?—“The body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.”

Again, in Article XI. we find: “That we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort”; whereas in the order for the visitation of the sick we read as follows:

“Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort,” etc., etc.

“But,” asks Father Tondini, “by what strange metamorphosis can the above-quoted doctrine of justification by faith only, declared to be ‘most wholesome and very full of comfort’ while we are in good health, cease to possess the power of comforting the conscience of a sick person? And how can confession, which through life is to be considered by Anglicans as ‘grown of the corrupt following of the apostles’ (see Article XXV.), become suddenly so transfigured by the approach of death as to obtain the power of relieving a conscience ‘troubled with any weighty matter’?”

Although it may not be matter of much surprise that a church which has so carefully defined her own fallibility should have one doctrine for her children in their days of health and vigor, and another for the time of their sickness and death, still it does surprise us that a man of education like Mr. Gladstone should be so unconscious of his own extraordinary inconsistency in appealing—as he does throughout his attacks against Catholics and the Catholic Church—to “mental and moral freedom,” “logic,” “consistency of mind,” “manliness of thought,” etc., etc.

Already arise from all sides echoes of the question singularly enough asked by Mr. Gladstone himself: “Is the Church of England worth preserving?”[189]

“The Church of England,” said Laud, “is Protestant.” And Mr. Gladstone, true to “the church of his birth and his country,” protests, like her, against the church which made his country a Christian nation. The Ritualists, the latest sect within her, still boast that they “help to keep people from the Church of Rome,” and reject the imputation of sympathy with her as an insupportable calumny.[190] “They will give communion in Westminster Abbey to an Unitarian, flatter Jansenists and Monophysites, remain in communion with bishops whom they themselves proclaim to be heretics; but one thing they will not do—tolerate the creed of the church to which they owe every fragment and crumb of truth that remains to them.” “Take the great Anglian divines,” writes Mr. Marshall: “Bull scorned and preached against the Catholic Church; Barrow wrote a book against it; Sandys called the Vicar of Christ ‘that triple-crowned thief and murderer’; Hooker sent for a dissenter on his death-bed; Morton, Bramhall, Andrews, and the rest avowed the opinion that the Protestant sects of the Continent were as true churches as their own. Episcopal ordination, as the late Mr. J. Keble confessed, was not made a condition for holding Anglican preferment until the latter half of the XVIIth century; and it was then adopted as a weapon against the growing power of the dissenters. Then Anglicans who had always argued as Protestants against the church began to argue as Catholics against dissent.”

At the present time, however, the English episcopate seems veering round again to the Protestant quarter, against the pseudo-Catholic innovations of a portion of the clergy. The Church Herald, which, up to the time when it ceased to exist, a few weeks ago, had been protesting for many months previously, with good reason, against the implacable opposition offered by the Anglican bishops to the so-called “Catholic revival,” gravely told its readers, while asserting once more that “no one trusts the bishops,” and that “of influence they have and can have next to none,” nevertheless that “their claims as Catholic bishops were never so firmly established.” (!) Certainly Anglican logic is peculiar. Their bishops were never more vehemently opposed to the Catholic faith; but no matter, “never were they more truly Catholic.” (!)

“I have very reluctantly,” says Dr. Lee (as reported in the John Bull), “come to a conclusion which makes me melancholy—that the passing of the Public Worship Bill has to all intents and purposes sealed the fate of the Church of England.” Its end, he thinks, is very near, because no church can last unless it be a true portion of the one family of God—not a mere human sect, taking its variable opinion from the civil government, and its practice from a parliamentary officer without the faintest shadow of spiritual authority. “The point that gravely perplexes me,” he writes, “with regard to the new law, is that our bishops, one and all, have, with their eyes open and deliberately, renounced their spiritual jurisdiction, which, for both provinces and every diocese, is placed in the hands of Lord Penzance, ex-judge of the Divorce Court.” For which reason certain Ritualist papers lament it as “strange and sad” that Dr. Lee should say of the bishops and their bill exactly the same after their victory as they themselves had said before it. These papers, after the example of some learned Anglican professors, etc., are ready enough beforehand to threaten, in the event of such and such a decision, to “reconsider their position.” The decision is made; they then discover that, after all, it is not so very serious, and compose themselves, for the third, or fourth, or fifth time, just where they were before.

It is stated that the first case under the Public Worship Regulations Act is now being brought before Lord Penzance. It is a suit against the Rev. J. C. Ridsdale, incumbent of S. Peter’s, Folkestone. According to the new law, three inhabitants made a representation to the Archbishop of Canterbury as to the manner in which the services were conducted at S. Peter’s. A copy of the representation was forwarded to Mr. Ridsdale, and, no agreement to abide by the decision of the archbishop having been made, the proceedings will be determined by the judge, from whom there is an ultimate appeal to her Majesty in council. There are, it is said, three cases pending under the new law; and fresh proceedings are about to be commenced against the clergy of S. Alban’s, Holborn. The bill bids fair to be as one-sided in its application as it avowedly was in its intention. “The Puritan triumph in the XVIIth century,” said the Bishop of London, “would not be more disastrous than a pseudo-Catholic triumph now,” and the rest of the episcopal bench are evidently of the same mind.

Nor can it be matter of much surprise that such repression should be exercised against men, many of them truly earnest and self-denying, who are the means of reviving a certain amount of Catholic doctrine as well as practice (however illegal) in their communion, when Dr. Lee is able to write as follows to an episcopal correspondent: “The Catholic faith, Archbishop Tait, in the presence of his suffragans, frankly declared that neither he nor they believed, and his grace—to give him all credit—has done his worst to get rid of it.”

Here again can we wonder at the result, even to her highest dignitaries, of the uncertain teaching of a church which, from its very beginning, was intended to be a compromise?

And, again, how can a church which is essentially a compromise be expected to sympathize with that unchanging church which is “the pillar and ground of the truth”?

II.

To return to Father Tondini’s essay. We come now to consider the newest among the sects, the so-called Old Catholics, who, after the manner of many other schismatics, appropriate the name of “Catholic” with an affix of their own, which is a proof that theirs is a base metal, unworthy of the “image and superscription of the King” or his appointed vicegerent.

Mr. Gladstone’s judgment of these people is thus expressed: “When the cup of endurance,” he says, “which had so long been filling, began, with the Council of the Vatican in 1870, to overflow, the most famous and learned living theologian of the Roman communion, Dr. von Döllinger, long the foremost champion of his church, refused compliance, and submitted, with his temper undisturbed and his freedom unimpaired, to the extreme and most painful penalty of excommunication. With him many of the most learned and respected theologians of the Roman communion in Germany underwent the same sentence. The very few who elsewhere (I do not speak of Switzerland) suffered in like manner deserve an admiration rising in proportion to their fewness.

“It seems as though Germany, from which Luther blew the mighty trumpet that even now echoes through the land, still retained her primacy in the domain of conscience, still supplied the centuria prærogativa of the great comitia of the world.”[191]

After giving this quotation, Father Tondini, in the exercise of his “mental freedom,” proceeds to examine whether Old Catholics really deserve this highly laudatory and enthusiastic passage, and in what their merit consists.

Their merit consists “in having rebelled against the church to which they previously belonged, on the ground that, in their conviction, she had changed her faith.

“Not one single bishop, not one out of the teaching body of the church, has expressed the same conviction. Old Catholics are, then, a mere handful … protesting against the Pope and the whole episcopate, preferring their own private judgment to that of the whole teaching body of the Catholic Church, and fully decided to do everything in their power to bring about the triumph of their private personal judgment. Their first act was to raise a schism in the church. They had openly and freely separated themselves from her long before the sentence of excommunication was notified to them. They then became the occasion of a severe persecution against their former fellow-Catholics; and now, whilst the persecution is raging, and Old Catholics, supported by governments and the press, have suffered neither in person nor property, nor in their individual liberty, we are called upon to bestow upon those who suffered ‘in like manner’ an admiration rising in proportion to their fewness!”[192]

But why is this? and what is the Expostulation itself but a cry of alarm to prevent British Catholics from rebelling against the queen? Why, then, is the rebellion of some private individuals to be extolled in terms like these? Or if, indeed, strong private religious convictions (taking it for granted that the Old Catholics have such) make it praiseworthy to rebel against the church, why should not strong private political convictions make it equally praiseworthy to rebel against the state? The field of similar applications is fearfully wide, and many a parental admonition to an indolent or disobedient child might be met by the young rebel in Mr. Gladstone’s words, that “with temper undisturbed, with freedom unimpaired,” he had no intention to do as he was bid.

The first official document of the Old Catholics is the “Declaration” of Dr. von Döllinger and his adherents, dated Munich, June, 1871,[193] and which bears the signatures of Dr. von Döllinger, sixteen professors or doctors, seven magistrates, three private gentlemen, two manufacturers, one “Maître royal des cérémonies,” and one “Intendant royal de musique au théâtre de cour”—thirty-one signatures in all, to which was added later that of the unhappy Loyson.

The second document is a French manifesto or appeal, “Aux fidèles de l’Ancienne Eglise Catholique,” signed “E. Michaud, Docteur en Théologie,” dated 1872, and widely circulated in France, with a request that every reader will help to make it known and gain as many additional adherents as possible.

The style of both documents is peculiar. They alike belong to those literary productions which betray an almost feverish excitement of mind. A small number of persons, till lately belonging to the Catholic Church, declare themselves “determined” to do their utmost towards bringing about “the reform of ecclesiastical affairs, so long desired and henceforth so inevitable, in the organization as well as in the life of the church.” In fact, the authors of both these documents show a faith in their own infallibility, both doctrinal and practical, at least as strong as their conviction of the fallibility of the Pope. They are peculiarly unfortunate in their choice of the fathers they quote, as well as in their appeal to the authority of S. Paul. Their style is certainly wholly unlike that of this great apostle, who, with so much earnestness and humility, begs the prayers of the faithful, while the necessity of prayer for such an undertaking as that which the Old Catholics call the “regeneration of the church” is not even once alluded to in their manifestoes.

There is another consideration which presents itself. Every practical man is careful to ascertain the competency, in any particular subject, of those who give him their advice upon it. A sick man would not consult a lawyer for his cure, nor an aggrieved man seek legal advice of his baker or shoemaker. The distinguished magistrates who signed the German Declaration must be supposed to have done so, not in consequence of a clear and detailed knowledge of the grounds of the assertions it contained, but in consequence of their confidence in Dr. von Döllinger, which led them to adopt his views. In the same way must be explained the adhesions given by the respectable manufacturers, “Maître royal des cérémonies,” and “Intendant royal de musique au théâtre de cour”; for though these pursuits need not be in themselves an obstacle to a man being well acquainted with religious matters, still they are an undeniable argument against his having made it the chief object of his studies.

“Now,” continues Father Tondini, “the charges brought in the present case against the Catholic Church are so heavy, and the mere probability of their being founded on truth of such vital importance to the whole Christian world, … that to require something more than the ordinary amount of theological science which is in general to be found in men involved in worldly affairs of the most distracting kind, is only acting in accordance with the most ordinary laws of prudence. All this will become evident if we only suppose that the ‘Declaration’ had appeared without the signatures of Dr. von Döllinger and the above-mentioned professors.” In looking over the latter we find that none of them can lay any claim to the same scientific authority and repute as that which he enjoys; and the same remark applies to all who have subsequently joined the Old Catholics.

With regard to Dr. von Döllinger himself, he has till now, if we are rightly informed, abstained from joining his fellow-subscribers to the German “Declaration” in their submission to Mgr. Reinkens, the Old-Catholic Bishop of Germany. “Thus the chief promoter of the opposition to the Vatican Council stands apart, and we should be grateful to any one who might tell us to what church he belongs and whom he recognizes as his legitimate bishop. We cannot suppose that he whom Mr. Gladstone calls ‘the most famous and learned theologian of the Roman communion’ has the pretension of forming a church in his own person.”

Father Tondini next notices the remarkable phenomenon presented by Old Catholicism during the first three years of its existence as body without a head, and calls the reader’s attention to the following passage in the French manifesto:

“If it be the will of God,” thus it runs, “that some Roman bishops have the courage to return publicly to the profession of the ancient faith, we will place them with joy at our head. And if none break publicly with heresy, our church, though essentially episcopal, will not for that reason be condemned to die; for as soon as it shall be possible to regularize its situation in this respect, we shall choose priests who will receive either in the West or in the East an episcopal consecration of unquestionable validity.”

“These,” he remarks, “are plain words. It evidently results from them that there was a time when the church, ‘unstained by any Roman innovation,’ was still looking for a bishop—in other words, for a head, which she did not possess as yet. How, in spite of this deficiency, the Old-Catholic Church could be termed essentially episcopal we are at a loss to understand. That which is essential to a thing is that without which it cannot possibly exist for a single moment; but here we are asked to believe in a miracle which at once destroys all our physical and metaphysical notions of things. A new-born warrior fighting without a head, and a being existing without one of its essential constituents—such are the wonders which accompanied the genesis of the so-called regenerated church of the Old Catholics.”

The German Declaration in like manner states the then headless condition of the Old-Catholic body. Its subscribers, and among them Prof. Reinkens, say they look forward to a time when “all Catholicity shall be placed under the direction of a primate and an episcopacy, which by means of science,” etc., etc., “and not by the decrees of the Vatican, … shall approach the crowning object assigned to Christian development—we mean that of the union of the other Christian confessions now separated from us,” etc.

Such was their language in June, 1871, when they were already nearly a year old. Their first bishop, Joseph Hubert Reinkens, was consecrated in August, 1873. These dates are very important. No power on earth will ever be able to annul them as historical facts, which prove that a body calling itself the true church of Christ has existed some time without a single bishop, although bishops are essential to the church of Christ, as Scripture, tradition, history, all antiquity agree. S. Cyprian says:

“The church is the people in union with the bishop—a flock adhering to its shepherd. The bishop is in the church and the church in the bishop. He who is not with the bishop is not in the church.”[194] And again: “He cannot be accounted a bishop who, in despite of the evangelic and apostolic tradition, has, of himself, become one (a se ipso ortus est, nemini succedens), and succeeds to none.”

Now, “to what bishop” (asks Father Tondini) “did Dr. Reinkens succeed? His first pastoral letter, dated August 11, 1873, is addressed ‘to the priests and faithful of Germany who persevere in the ancient Catholic faith.’ Who ever heard of the bishop and diocese of Germany before this letter?” Again: “That same Dr. Reinkens who in June, 1871, signed the ‘Declaration’ in which the Christian confessions outside the Roman Church were called ‘Christian confessions now separated from us,’ in August, 1873, saluted with the title of ‘Old Catholics,’ the Jansenists of Holland, and Mgr. Heykamp, the bishop by whom he was consecrated, with that of ‘bishop of the Old Catholics’!”[195]

III.

We now come to the consideration of Old Catholicism as an instrument of union between the Christian Episcopal churches. In accordance with their “Declaration,” the Old Catholics insist upon its being one of their main objects to reunite the Christian churches separated from Rome during the VIIIth and IXth centuries, and complacently boast of the marks of sympathy bestowed upon them by these churches.

From one of their manifestoes Father Tondini quotes the following important statements:

“The bishops of the Oriental Orthodox Church”—thus runs the manifesto—“and those of the Episcopal Church of England and the United States of America (!) encourage Old Catholicism with their most profound sympathy. Representatives of the Orthodox Church of Russia assist every year at its congress.… The interest displayed for it by governments is not inferior to that of the churches.… The governments of Russia and of England are disposed to recognize its rights when it shall be opportune to do so.”[196]

Upon which he points out the exceeding inexpediency, for their own sakes, of these governments or their bishops having any participation in the doings of Old Catholics; and this for the following reasons, which are worthy of careful consideration by the two governments in question, and which we give in his own words:

“In order, it would seem, to escape the stringent conclusion of S. Cyprian’s words, ‘He who does not succeed to other bishops, but is self-originated, cannot be reckoned among bishops,’ Mgr. Reinkens, in his above-quoted pastoral letter, … authoritatively declared not only that the ‘apostolic see of Rome was vacant,’ but that not one of the actually existing Roman Catholic bishops was legitimate.

“In support of this assumption the Old-Catholic bishop invokes some fathers of the church—not, indeed, what they said or did while living, but what they would say or do if they were to return to life: ‘If the great bishops of the ancient church were to return to life in the midst of us,’ says Mgr. Reinkens, ‘a Cyprian, (!) a Hilary, an Ambrose, … they would acknowledge none of the existing bishops of the Roman Catholic Church as validly elected.’[197]

“So much for the fact. As it can only be ascertained when those great bishops are restored to life, all we can do is to defer this verification until the great day of judgment.

“Now comes the general principle on which the assumed fact is founded. Let us listen again to Mgr. Reinkens: ‘They [the resuscitated bishops of the ancient church] would not acknowledge any of the existing bishops of the Roman Catholic Church as validly elected, because none of them were appointed in conformity with the immutable rule of the fathers of the church. Never! no, never! would they have received into their company, in the quality of a Catholic bishop, one who had not been chosen by the people and the clergy. This mode of election was considered by them as of divine precept, and consequently as immutable.’”

“How many bishops are there in existence at the present day,” asks Father Tondini, “either in the Anglican Church or in the Christian East, who have been chosen by the people and the clergy?”

In answer to this question we have, respecting the non-popular mode of election in the Oriental Orthodox Church, the following trustworthy information: In the Orthodox Church of the Turkish Empire the election of a patriarch is made by the members of its synod, which is composed of metropolitans, of one of their own number, and this election “is then made known to the people assembled in the atrium of the synodicon, who give, by acclamation and the cry of ἄξιος (worthy), their assent to the election.… This, however, is in fact an empty formality; the more so as the election itself is the result of previous secret understandings between the more influential members of the synod and the leading men among the people.”[198]

“The three patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem are elected by their respective synods, composed of metropolitans.

“The metropolitans and bishops of each patriarchate are elected by the respective patriarchs, together with their synods.”

Did the Patriarch of Constantinople, in agreeing, on the invitation of Dr. von Döllinger, to send representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church to the Old Catholic Church Congress at Bonn, forget that, according to Mgr. Reinkens, all bishops who have not been elected by the clergy and the people are illegitimate bishops, that their sees are all vacant, that this mode of election is of divine precept, and consequently immutable?

“We know not,” says Father Tondini, “which of the two is more to be wondered at: the boldness of the Old Catholics in inviting the patriarch to be represented at the congress, or the logical inconsistency of the patriarch in accepting the invitation.”

Next, with regard to the Orthodox Church of the Russian Empire.

No one who may have read “The Future of the Russian Church,” which recently appeared in the pages of The Catholic World,[199] will need to be told how little voice either the inferior clergy or people of Russia have in the election of their bishops. The Most Holy Governing Synod proposes to his majesty two persons (on an eparchy becoming vacant), and that one of the two selected by the czar is chosen and consecrated.[200] (See Consett, Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great.)

In the formula of the oath taken by the Russian bishops before being consecrated, they engage themselves to yield true obedience to the Holy Synod, “the legitimate authority instituted by the pious Emperor Peter the Great of immortal memory, and confirmed by command of his (or her) present imperial majesty,” and to obey all the rules and statutes made by the authority of the synod agreeably to the will of his (or her) imperial majesty, adding the following words: “Furthermore, I do testify that I have not received this province in consideration of gold or silver given by me, … but I have received it by the free will of our most serene and most puissant sovereign (by name), and by the election of the Holy Legislative Synod.[201] Moreover, at the beginning of the ceremony the bishop-consecrator thus addresses the newly-elected bishop: “Reverend Father N., the Most Serene and Most Puissant Czar N. N. hath commanded, by his own singular and proper edict, and the Holy Legislative Synod of all the Russias gives its benediction thereto, that you, holy sir, be bishop of the city of N.”; to which the future bishop is made to answer: “Since the Most Serene, etc., Czar has commanded, and the … synod … has judged me worthy to undertake this province, I give thanks therefor, and do undertake it and in nowise gainsay.”[202]

After similarly disposing (with regard to the remaining Oriental churches) of Mr. Gladstone’s extraordinary assertion that “the ancient principles of popular election and control exist in the Christian East”—an assertion of which also he makes use as a weapon against the Catholic Church[203]—Father Tondini passes on to the election of bishops in the Anglican Church. With regard to this, the following abstract from Stephen is amply sufficient to show how far “the principles of popular election” prevail in the nomination of the bishops of the Establishment:

“By statute 25 Henry VIII. c. 20 the law was altered and the right of nomination secured to the crown, it being enacted that, at every future avoidance of a bishopric, the king may send the dean and chapter his usual license to proceed to election, or congé d’elire, which is always to be accompanied with a letter missive from the king, containing the name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the dean and chapter delay their election above twelve days, the nomination shall devolve to the king, who may by letters-patent appoint such person as he pleases. This election or nomination, if it be of a bishop, must be signified by the king’s letters-patent to the archbishop of the province; if it be of an archbishop, to the other archbishop and two bishops, or to four bishops, requiring them to confirm, invest, and consecrate the person so elected; which they are bound to perform immediately, without any application to the See of Rome. After which the bishop-elect shall sue to the king for his temporalities, shall take oath to the king and to none other, and shall take restitution of his secular possessions out of the king’s hand only. And if such dean and chapter do not elect in this manner by this act appointed, or if such archbishop or bishop do refuse to confirm, invest, and consecrate such bishop-elect, they shall incur all the penalties of a præmunire—that is, the loss of all civil rights, the forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. It is to be observed, however, that the mode here described of appointing bishops applies only to such sees as are of old foundation. The five new bishoprics created by Henry VIII. … have always been donatives, and conferred by letters-patent from the crown; and the case is the same as to the bishopric of Ripon, now recently created” (Stephen’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. iii. p. 61).

In concluding his essay, Father Tondini repeats Mgr. Reinkens’ words: “If the great bishops of the ancient church were to return to life in the midst of us, … never! no, never! would they have received into their company, in the quality of a Christian bishop, one who had not been chosen by the people and the clergy; this mode of election was considered by them as of divine precept, and consequently as immutable”; and then asks: “How can the support given by the state churches and governments of England and Russia to Old Catholicism be explained? Is it for the purpose of declaring that all the episcopal sees, both of England and Russia, are vacant and awaiting the choice of the people?”

The reader, being now acquainted with much of the contents as well as with the general tenor of Father Tondini’s essay, may find some interest (possibly amusement also) in comparing the following remarks of the London Tablet (Sept. 18) with the confirmation of their accurate appreciation of the “British Philistine’s” pride in his own obtuseness so ingenuously furnished (Sept. 25) by a writer in the Church Review:

LONDON TABLET.

“We are a little afraid that the Anglican sympathizers with the Old Catholics will not be sharp enough to understand the keen logic of Father Tondini’s concise reasoning. The British Philistine rather glories in being impervious to logic or wit, and chuckles over his own obtuseness as a proof of the strength of the religion which he patronizes. It is provoking to a zealous controversialist to have to do battle with such a heavy antagonist, but we trust the good father will not cease to labor at the conversion of our illogical but worthy fellow-countrymen. We thank him for a well-timed and well-written pamphlet.”

(The Universe calls it “another fatal blow for the theology of our ex-prime minister; closely reasoned and perfectly terrible in its manner of grasping its luckless opponent.”—Universe, September 25, 1875.)

CHURCH REVIEW.

“The Rev. Cæsar Tondini, who is fond of linking Russian Orthodoxy and Anglican Catholicism in one sweeping condemnation, is by no means one of the Pope’s greatest controversialists. But this pamphlet is hardly worthy of even his reputation. Every point in it might be answered by a tu quoque. Fact might be set against fact, defect against defect, innovation against innovation, inconsistency against inconsistency, and error against error. But picking holes in our neighbor’s coat will never mend the rents in our own. So we forbear, content for the present to congratulate ourselves on the fact that, while Romanists are still utterly blind to their own nakedness, we have at least plucked a fig-leaf by the efforts already made to bring about reunion.” [Who could help thinking, “We would not give a fig for such a leaf as this”?]

IV.

We will conclude the present notice by some account of the recent Conference at Bonn, in which the Old Catholics have given abundant proof that they are no freer from variation than are any other of the Protestant sects.

Desirous of strengthening their position by alliance with other forms of schism, Dr. von Döllinger invited to a congress representatives of the schismatic Greek and Russian Church, the English and American Episcopalians, and the Old Catholics. The assembly was called the “International Conference of the Union of the Christian Churches,” and proposed as its object an agreement on the fundamental points of doctrine professed by Christendom before its divisions, with a view “to restore by a reform as broad as possible the ancient Catholic Church of the West.”[204]

In this International Conference, which began on the 12th of August and ended on the 16th, the principal Orientals, who numbered about twenty in all, were two bishops from Roumania; an archimandrite from Belgrade; two archimandrites, Anastasiades and Bryennios, from Constantinople, sent by the patriarch as being well versed in all the questions which have divided and which still divide the Greek and Latin Churches; there were also present the Archbishop of Syra and Tino, Mgr. Licourgos, well known in England, and six professors, among whom were Profs. Osinnin and Janischef, the latter being the gentleman who at the last Conference was so severe on Anglican orders. The Protestant Episcopalians were the most numerous, being about a hundred in number; but they had only one bishop among them—namely, the Bishop of Gibraltar. Those of Winchester and Lincoln, who had also given their adherence to the movement, found themselves at the last moment unable to attend. The most notable person in the Anglican group was Dr. Liddon, Canon of S. Paul’s. Dean Howson, of Chester, was also one of its members; his “views” on nearly every point of church teaching being diametrically opposed to those of Canon Liddon. The same group contained an Unitarian minister from Chesterfield (Mr. Smith), and a “Primitive Methodist” (Mr. Booth, a chemist and druggist of the same town), who on a late occasion was voted for and returned at the head of the poll as an advocate of secular education. The Americans sent only three delegates, and the “Reformed Church” one—the Rev. Th. de Félice. The Old Catholics, all of whom were Germans, numbered eighteen or twenty, with Dr. von Döllinger and Bishop Reinkens at their head, supported by Herr Langen, “Altkatholik”; Herr Lange, Protestant, and Herr Lang, the least orthodox of all. Close to this little group figured seven or eight more German Protestants. In all, the Conference was composed of about one hundred and fifty persons, of whom the Times observes that, “slender as the gathering was, it was forced to display an almost ludicrous caution in drawing up such articles of faith as would command the assent of the whole assembly”—articles “so vague that they might be made to mean anything or nothing”; and, further, that the few English divines who went to Bonn to play at a council no more represent the Church of England than Dr. von Döllinger represents the Church of Rome, but spoke in the name of nothing but themselves. It suggests to them, with scornful irony, that “charity begins at home,” and that in the present distracted state of the Church of England, “when nothing keeps the various and conflicting ‘schools’ of clergy in the same communion but the secular forces of the Establishment, there is surely there a magnificent field for the exercise of even a genius of conciliation.”

A Bavarian Protestant clergyman informed the assembly that, as there was no chance of their coming to an agreement by means of discussion about dogma, they had far better throw over dogma altogether, and trust to brotherly love to bring about union. Dr. von Döllinger, however, said that if they all shared this opinion, they had better have stayed at home. One reverend gentleman proposed to settle the difference by examining where the fathers all harmonize, and abiding by the result (a task which, as a looker-on observed, would give all the theological acuteness and learning in the world abundant work for about half a dozen centuries); whereupon Bishop Reinkens nervously tried to draw the debaters into the cloud-land of love and unity of purpose, etc., etc. But here Canon Liddon hastened to the rescue with a carefully-prepared scheme for effecting the reconciliation of the East and West, which was apparently received by the Orientals with a tranquil indifference, and was chiefly remarkable for its adroit semblance of effecting much, while it in fact does nothing. Yielding here and there a phrase of no special meaning, it declared in the next clause that it would retain its own form of the Creed until the dispute should be settled by “a truly œcumenical council.” This announcement was the signal for an outburst of disapproval, questions, and objections. “What did Canon Liddon mean by an œcumenical council?” “An assent of the whole episcopate.” This was too much for Lord Plunkett, who exclaimed that he would never have come to the Conference if he had known that it meant to confine the Christian Church within the bounds of episcopacy. What, he should like to know, was to hinder Presbyterian ministers from being admitted equally with bishops to take part in an œcumenical council?

On this the canon obligingly agreed to substitute “the whole church” for the obnoxious term; but while the assembly hesitated, some paragon of caution suggested the phrase “sufficient authority.” However, this masterpiece of conciliation—for nobody could say what it meant—was rejected for “the whole church,” this latter being equally ambiguous to those who were adopting it. On this they agreed. As the Times’ correspondent observes, “Everybody will agree with everybody else when all deliberately use words for the purpose of concealing what they mean. When men differ from each other essentially, it is childish folly to try to unite them by an unmeaning phrase.”

The great question was that of the procession of the Holy Spirit. On this M. Osinnin was the chief speaker on behalf of the Greeks, and he seems to have challenged every interpretation of the Westerns, maintaining even that procedit was not an exact rendering of ἐκπορεύεται. However, a committee was appointed, composed of the Germans, two Orientals, an Englishman, and an American; and Dr. von Döllinger announced to the Conference on its last sitting that an agreement had been arrived at on all essential points. The Greeks were to retain their version of the Nicene Creed, and the Westerns theirs; the latter were to admit that the Filioque had been improperly introduced, and that both were to agree that, whichever version they used, their meaning was that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. With regard to the last point, however, the Orientals said that although they had personally no objection to the expression, yet they must decline to give any official assent to the article until it had been submitted to their synods or other competent authorities at home.

Judging from every account we have seen (all of them Protestant) of the Bonn Conference, it is evident that its members, in order to give an appearance of mutual agreement, subscribed to propositions which may be taken in various senses. The six articles agreed to by the committee were couched in the following terms:

“We believe with S. John Damascene, 1, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the beginning, the cause, and the fountain of Deity. 2. That the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son ἐκ τοῦ υίοῦ, and that for this reason there is in the Godhead only one beginning, one cause, through which all that is in the Godhead is produced. 3. That the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, who is the image of the Father, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son, as the outbeaming power of the latter. 4. The Holy Spirit is the personal bringing forth of the Father, but belonging to the Son, yet not of the Son, since he is the Spirit of the Godhead which speaks forth the Word. 5. The Holy Spirit forms the connecting link between the Father and the Son, and is united to the Father through the Son. 6. The Holy Spirit proceeds [or, as amended by Mr. Meyrick, ‘issues’] from the Father through the Son.”

It is the supposed denial of that unity of the αρχή, or originating principle in the Most Holy Trinity, which has always been the ground of the Greek objections to the Latin form of the Creed.[205] “The double Procession[206] of the Holy Ghost has always been believed in the church, only to a certain number of minds it remained for a time obscure, and thus there are to be found in the writings of the fathers passages in which mention is made rather of the procession from the Father than of the double procession from the Father and the Son, but yet none which, although not formally indicating, exclude or contradict it.