Volume 22 — CHAPTER IX. (continued 3)

In the midst of his honors S. Vincent never forgot his humble origin, but often referred to it with the true spirit of ama nesciri et pro nihilo reputari. Not that he was inaccessible to human weakness, but he knew how to resist it. We read in his interesting Life by Abbé Maynard that the porter of the College of Bons-Enfants informed the superior one day that a poorly-clad peasant, styling himself his nephew, was at the door. S. Vincent blushed and ordered him to be taken up to his room. Then he blushed for having blushed, and, going down into the street, embraced his nephew and led him into the court, where, summoning all the professors of the college, he presented the confused youth: “Gentlemen, this is the most respectable of my family.” And he continued, during the remainder of his visit, to introduce him to visitors of every rank as if he were some great lord, in order to avenge his first movement of pride. And when, not long after, he made a retreat, he publicly humbled himself before his associates: “Brethren, pray for one who through pride wished to take his nephew secretly to his room because he was a peasant and poorly dressed.”

S. Vincent returned only once to his native place after he began his apostolic career. This was at the close of a mission among the convicts of Bordeaux. During his visit he solemnly renewed his baptismal vows in the village church where he had been baptized and made his First Communion, and on the day of his departure he went with bare feet on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Buglose, among whose ruins he had so often prayed in his childhood, but which was now rebuilt. He was accompanied, not only by his relatives, but by all the villagers, who were justly proud of their countryman. He sang a solemn Mass at the altar of Our Lady, and afterwards assembled the whole family around the table for a modest repast, at the end of which he rose to take leave of them. They all fell at his feet and implored his blessing. “Yes, I give you my blessing,” replied he, much affected, “but I bless you poor and humble, and beg our Lord to continue among you the grace of holy poverty. Never abandon the condition in which you were born. This is my earnest recommendation, which I beg you to transmit as a heritage to your children. Farewell for ever!”

His advice was religiously kept. By mutual assistance his family might have risen above its original obscurity. Some of his mother’s family were advocates at the parliament of Bordeaux, and it would have been easy to obtain offices that would have given them, at least, prominence in their own village; but they clung to their rural pursuits. The advice of their sainted relative was too precious a legacy to be renounced.

Not that S. Vincent was insensible to their condition or unambitious by nature, but he knew the value of the hidden life and the perils of worldly ambition. We have on this occasion another glimpse of his struggles with nature. Hardly had he left his relatives before he gave vent to his emotion in a flood of tears, and he almost reproached himself for leaving them in their poverty. But let us quote his own words: “The day I left home I was so filled with sorrow at separating from my poor relatives that I wept as I went along—wept almost incessantly. Then came the thought of aiding them and bettering their condition; of giving so much to this one, and so much to that. While my heart thus melted within me, I divided all I had with them. Yes, even what I had not; and I say this to my confusion, for God perhaps permitted it to make me comprehend the value of the evangelical counsel. For three months I felt this importunate longing to promote the interests of my brothers and sisters. It constantly weighed on my poor heart. During this time, when I felt a little relieved, I prayed God to deliver me from this temptation, and persevered so long in my prayer that at length he had pity on me and took away this excessive tenderness for my relations; and though they have been needy, and still are, the good God has given me the grace to commit them to his Providence, and to regard them as better off than if they were in an easier condition.”

S. Vincent was equally rigid as to his own personal necessities, as may be seen by the following words from his own lips: “When I put a morsel of bread to my mouth, I say to myself: Wretched man, hast thou earned the bread thou art going to eat—the bread that comes from the labor of the poor?”

Such is the spirit of the saints. In these days, when most people are struggling to rise in the world, many by undue means, and to an unlawful height, it is well to recall this holy example; it is good to get a glimpse into the heart of a saint, and to remember there are still many in the world and in the cloister who strive to counterbalance all this ambition and love of display by their humility and self-denial.

Immediately after S. Vincent’s canonization, in 1737, the inhabitants of Pouy, desirous of testifying their veneration for his memory, removed the house where he was born a short distance from its original place, without changing its primitive form in the least, and erected a small chapel on the site, till means could be obtained for building a church. The great Revolution put a stop to the plan. In 1821 a new effort was made, a committee appointed, and a subscription begun which soon amounted to thirty thousand francs; but at the revolution of 1830 material interests prevailed, and the funds were appropriated to the construction of roads.

The ecclesiastical authorities at length took the matter in hand, and formed the plan, not only of building a church, but surrounding it with the various charitable institutions founded by S. Vincent—a hospital for the aged, asylums for orphans and foundlings, and perhaps a ferme modèle in the Landes.

In 1850 the Bishop of Aire appealed to the Catholic world for aid. Pius IX. blessed the undertaking. On the Festival of the Transfiguration, 1851, the corner-stone was laid by the bishop, assisted by Père Etienne, the superior-general of the Lazarists. Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugénie largely contributed to the work, and in a few years the church and hospice were completed. The consecration took place April 24, 1864, in the presence of an immense multitude from all parts of the country. From three o’clock in the morning there were Masses at a dozen altars, and the hands of the priests were fatigued in administering the holy Eucharist. Among the communicants were eight hundred members of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul, from Bordeaux, who manifested their joy by enthusiastic hymns. At eight in the forenoon Père Etienne, surrounded by Lazarists and Sisters of Charity, celebrated the Holy Sacrifice at the newly-consecrated high altar, and several novices made their vows, among whom was a young African, a cousin of Abdel Kader. A châsse containing relics of S. Vincent was brought in solemn procession from the parish church of Pouy, where he had been held at the font and received the divine Guest in his heart for the first time. The road was strewn with flowers and green leaves. The weather was delightful and the heavens radiant. At the head of the procession was borne a banner, on which S. Vincent was represented as a shepherd, followed by all the orphans of the new asylum and the old men of the hospice. Then came a long line of Enfants de Marie dressed in white, carrying oriflammes, followed by the students of the colleges of Aire and Dax. Behind were fifteen hundred members of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul, and a file of sisters of various orders, including eight hundred Sisters of Charity, with a great number of Lazarists in the rear. Then came thirty relatives of S. Vincent, wearing the peasant’s costume of the district, heirs of his virtues and simplicity—Noblesse oblige. Then the Polish Lazarists with the flag of their nation, beloved by S. Vincent, and after them the clergy of the diocese and a great number from foreign parts, among whom was M. Eugène Boré, of Constantinople, now superior-general of the two orders founded by the saint. The shrine came next, surrounded by Lazarists and Sisters of Charity. Behind the canons and other dignitaries came eight bishops, four archbishops, and Cardinal Donnet of Bordeaux, followed by the civil authorities and an immense multitude of people nearly two miles in extent, with banners bearing touching devices.

This grand procession of more than thirty thousand people proceeded with the utmost order, to the sound of chants, instrumental music, and salutes from cannon from time to time, to the square in front of the new church, where, before an altar erected at the foot of S. Vincent’s oak, they were addressed by Père Etienne in an eloquent, thrilling discourse, admirable in style and glowing with imagery, suited to the fervid nature of this southern region. He spoke of S. Vincent, not only as the man of his age with a providential mission, but of a type suited to all ages.

The man who loved his brethren, reconciled enemies, brought the rich and poor into one common field imbued with a common idea of sacrifice and devotion, fed the orphan, aided the needy, and wiped away the tears of the sufferer, is the man of all times, and especially of an age marked by the fomentation of political passions.

The old oak was gay with streamers, the hollow was fitted up as an oratory, before which Cardinal Donnet said Mass in the open air, after which thousands of voices joined in the solemn Te Deum Laudamus, and the thirteen prelates terminated the grand ceremony by giving their united benediction to the kneeling crowd.

A whole flock of Sisters of Charity, with their dove-like plumage of white and gray, took the same train as ourselves the pleasant September morning we left Bayonne for the birth-place of S. Vincent of Paul. They seemed like birds of good omen. They were also going to the Berceau (cradle), as they called it, not on a mere pilgrimage, but to make their annual retreat. What for, the saints alone know; for they looked like the personification of every amiable virtue, and quite ready to spread their white wings and take flight for heaven. It was refreshing to watch their gentle, unaffected ways, wholly devoid of those demure airs of superior sanctity and repulsive austerity so exasperating to us worldly-minded people. They all made the sign of the cross as the train moved out of the station—and a good honest one it was, as if they loved the sign of the Son of Man, and delighted in wearing it on their breast. Some had come from St. Sebastian, others from St. Jean de Luz, and several from Bayonne; but they mingled like sisters of one great family of charity. Some chatted, some took out their rosaries and went to praying with the most cheerful air imaginable, as if it were a new refreshment just allowed them, instead of being the daily food of their souls; and others seemed to be studying with interest the peculiar region we were now entering. For we were now in the Landes—low, level, monotonous, and melancholy. The railway lay through vast forests of dusky-pines, varied by willows and cork-trees, with here and there, at long distances, an open tract where ripened scanty fields of corn and millet around the low cottages of the peasants. The sides of the road were purple with heather. The air was full of aromatic odors. Each pine had its broad gash cut by some merciless hand, and its life-blood was slowly trickling down its side. Passing through this sad forest, one could not help thinking of the drear, mystic wood in Dante’s Inferno, where every tree encloses a human soul with infinite capacity of suffering, and at every gash cut, every branch lopped off, utters a despairing cry:

Though the sun was hot, the pine needles seemed to shiver, the branches swayed to and fro in the air, and gave out a kind of sigh which sometimes increased into an inarticulate wail. We look up, almost expecting to see the harpies sitting

Could we stop, we might question these maimed trees and learn some fearful tragedy from the imprisoned spirits. Perhaps they recount them to each other in the wild winter nights when the peasants, listening with a kind of fear in their lone huts, start up from their beds and say it is Rey Artus—King Arthur—who is passing by with his long train of dogs, horses, and huntsmen, from an old legend of the time of the English occupation which says that King Arthur, as he was hearing Mass on Easter-day, attracted by the cries of his hounds attacking their prey, went out at the elevation of the Host. A whirlwind carried him into the clouds, where he has hunted ever since, and will, without cessation or repose, till the day of judgment, only taking a fly every seven years. The popular belief that he is passing with a great noise through space when the winds sweep across the vast moors on stormy nights probably embodies the old tradition of some powerful lord whose hounds and huntsmen ruined the crops of the poor, who, in their wrath, consigned them to endless barren hunting-fields in the spirit-land—a legend which reminds us of the Aasgaardsreja of whom Miss Bremer tells us—spirits not good enough to merit heaven, and yet not bad enough to deserve hell, and are therefore doomed to ride about till the end of the world, carrying fear and disaster in their train.

In a little over an hour we arrived at Dax, a pleasant town on the banks of the Adour, with long lines of sycamores, behind which is a hill crowned with an old château, now belonging to the Lazarists. The place is renowned for its thermal springs and mud-baths, known to the Romans before its conquest by the Cæsars. It was from Aquæ Augustæ, the capital of the ancient Tarbelli (called in the Middle Ages the ville d’Acqs, or d’Acs, whence Dax), that the name of Aquitaine is supposed to be derived. Pliny, the naturalist, speaking of the Aquenses, says: Aquitani indè nomen provinciæ. The Bay of Biscay was once known by the name of Sinus Tarbellicus, from the ancient Tarbelli. Lucan says:

S. Vincent of Saintonge was the first apostle of the region, and fell a martyr to his zeal. Dax formed part of the dowry of the daughter of Henry II. of England when she married Alfonso of Castile, but it returned to the Plantagenets in the time of Edward III. The city was an episcopal see before the revolution of 1793. François de Noailles, one of the most distinguished of its bishops, was famous as a diplomatist in the XVIth century. He was sent to England on several important missions, and finally appointed ambassador to that country in the reign of Mary Tudor. Recalled when Philip II. induced her to declare war against France, he landed at Calais, and, carefully examining the fortifications, his keen, observant eye soon discovered the weak point, to which, at his arrival in court, he at once directed the king’s attention, declaring it would not be a difficult matter to take the place. His statements made such an impression on King Henry, who had always found him as judicious as he was devoted to the interests of the crown, that he resolved to lay siege to Calais, notwithstanding the opposition of his ministers, and the Duke of Guise began the attack January 1, 1558. The place was taken in a week. It had cost the English a year’s siege two hundred and ten years before. Three weeks after its surrender Cardinal Hippolyte de Ferrara, Archbishop of Auch (the son of Lucretia Borgia, who married Alphonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara) wrote François de Noailles as follows: “No one can help acknowledging the great hand you had in the taking of Calais, as it was actually taken at the very place you pointed out.” French historians have been too forgetful of the hand the Bishop of Dax had in the taking of a place so important to the interests of the nation, which added so much to the glory of the French arms, and was so humiliating to England, whose anguish was echoed by the queen when she exclaimed that if her heart could be opened the very name of Calais would be found written therein!

This great churchman was no less successful in his embassy to Venice, where he triumphed over the haughty pretensions of Philip II., and, as Brantôme says, “won great honor and affection.” After five years in Italy he returned to Dax, where he devoted most of his revenues to relieve the misery that prevailed at that fearful time of religious war. Dax, as he said, was “the poorest see in France.” In 1571 he was appointed ambassador to Constantinople by Charles IX. Florimond de Raymond, an old writer of that day, tells us the bishop was at first troubled as to his presentation to the sultan, who only regarded the highest dignitaries as the dust of his feet, and exacted ceremonies which the ambassador considered beneath the dignity of a bishop and a representative of France. He resolved not to submit to them, and, thanks to his pleasing address, and handsome person dressed for the occasion in red cramoisie and cloth of gold, he was not subjected to them. Moreover, by his fascinating manners and agreeable conversation, he became a great favorite of the sultan, and took so judicious a course that his embassy ended by rendering France mistress of the commerce of the Mediterranean, and giving her a pre-eminence in the East which she has never lost.

It was after his return from the Levant that, in an interview with Henry III., the sagacious bishop urged the king to declare war against Spain, as the best means of delivering France from the horrors of a civil war. De Thou says the king seemed to listen favorably to the suggestion; but it was opposed by the council, and it was not till ten years later that Henry IV. declared war against that country, as Duruy states, “the better to end the civil war.”

The Bishop of Dax seems to have been poorly remunerated for his eminent services. Like Frederick the Great’s father, he said kings were always hard of hearing when there was a question of money, and complained that, notwithstanding his long services abroad, he had never received either honors or profit. Even his appointments as ambassador to Venice, amounting to more than thirty thousand livres, were still due. Many of his letters to the king and to Marie de Médicis have been preserved, which show his elevation of mind, and his broad political and religious views, which give him a right to be numbered among the great churchmen of the XVIth century.

At Dax we took a carriage to the Berceau of S. Vincent, and, after half an hour’s drive along a level road bordered with trees, we came in sight of the great dome of the church rising up amid a group of fine buildings. Driving up to the door, the first thing we observed was the benign statue of the saint standing on the gable against the clear, blue sky, with arms wide-spread, smiling on the pilgrim a very balm of peace. Before the church there is a broad green, at the right of which is the venerable old oak; at the left, the cottage of the De Pauls; and in the rear of the church, the asylums and hospice—fine establishments one is surprised to find in this remote region. We at once entered the church, which is in the style of the Renaissance. It consists of a nave without aisles, a circular apsis, and transepts which form the arms of the cross, in the centre of which rises the dome, lined with an indifferent fresco representing S. Vincent borne to heaven by the angels. Directly beneath is the high altar where are enshrined relics of the saint. Around it, at the four angles of the cross, are statues of four S. Vincents—of Xaintes, of Saragossa, of Lerins, and S. Vincent Ferrer. The whole life of S. Vincent of Paul is depicted in the stained-glass windows. And on the walls of the nave are four paintings, one representing him as a boy, praying before Our Lady of Buglose; the second, his first Mass in the chapel of Notre Dame de Grâce; in the third he is redeeming captives, and in the fourth giving alms to the poor.

We next visited the asylums, admiring the clean, airy rooms, the intelligent, happy faces of the orphans, and the graceful cordiality of the sister who was at the head of the establishment—a lady of fortune who has devoted her all to the work.

At length we came to the cottage—the door of the true hero to which our path had led. The broad, one-story house in which S. Vincent was born is now a mere skeleton within, the framework of the partitions alone remaining, so one can take in the whole at a glance. There is the kitchen, with the huge, old-fashioned chimney, around which the family used to gather—so enormous that in looking up one sees a vast extent of blue sky. Saint’s house though it was, we could not help thinking—Heaven forgive us the profane thought!—it must have been very much like the squire’s chimney in Tylney Hall, the draught of which, like the Polish game of draughts, was apt to take backwards and discharge all the smoke into his sitting-room! The second room at the left, where the saint was born, is an oratory containing an altar, the crucifix he used to pray before, some of the garments he wore, shoes broad and much-enduring as his own nature, and many other precious relics. Not only this, but every room has an altar. We counted seven, all of the simplest construction, for the convenience of the pilgrims who come here with their curés at certain seasons of the year to honor their sainted countryman who in his youth here led a simple, laborious life like themselves. We found several persons at prayer in the various compartments, all of which showed the primitive habits and limited resources of the family, though not absolute poverty. The floor was of earth, the walls and great rafters only polished with time and the kisses of the pilgrims, and above the rude stairway, a mere loft where perchance the saint slept in his boyhood. Everything in this cottage, where a great heart was cradled, was from its very simplicity extremely touching. It seemed the very place to meditate on the mysterious ways of divine Providence—mysterious as the wind that bloweth where it listeth—the very place to chant the Suscitans à terrâ inopem: et de stercore erigens pauperem; ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi sui.

S. Vincent’s oak, on the opposite side of the green, looks old enough to have witnessed the mysterious rites of the Druids. It is surrounded by a railing to protect it from the pious depredations of the pilgrim. It still spreads broad its branches covered with verdure, though the trunk is so hollowed by decay that one side is entirely gone, and in the heart, where young Vincent used to pray, stands a wooden pillar on which is a statue of the Virgin, pure and white, beneath the green bower. A crowd of artists, savants, soldiers, and princes have bent before this venerable tree. In 1823 the public authorities of the commune received the Duchess of Angoulême at its foot. The learned and pious Ozanam, one of the founders of the Society of S. Vincent of Paul, came here in his last days to offer a prayer. On the list of foreign visitors is the name of the late venerable Bishop Flaget of Kentucky, of whom it is recorded that he kissed the tree with love and veneration, and plucked, as every pilgrim does, a leaf from its branches.

There is an herb, says Pliny, found on Mt. Atlas; they who gather it see more clearly. There is something of this virtue in the oak of S. Vincent of Paul. One sees more clearly than ever at its foot the infinite moral superiority of a nature like his to the worldly ambition of the old lords of the Landes. Famous as the latter were in their day, who thinks of them now? Who cares for the lords of Castelnau, the Seigneurs of Juliac, or even for the Sires of Albret, whose ancient castle at Labrit is now razed to the ground, and, while we write, its last traces obliterated for ever? The shepherd whistles idly among the ruins of their once strong holds, the ploughman drives thoughtlessly over the place where they once held proud sway, as indifferent as the beasts themselves; but there is not a peasant in the Landes who does not cherish the memory of S. Vincent of Paul, or a noble who does not respect his name; and thousands annually visit the poor house where he was born and look with veneration at the oak where he prayed.

Charity is the great means of making the poor forget the fearful inequality of worldly riches, and its obligation reminds the wealthy they are only part of a great brotherhood. Its exercise softens the heart and averts the woe pronounced on the rich. S. John of God, wishing to found a hospital at Granada, and without a ducat in the world, walked slowly through the streets and squares with a hod on his back and two great kettles at his side, crying with a loud voice: “Who wishes to do good to himself? Ah! my brethren, for the love of God, do good to yourselves!” And alms flowed in from every side. It was these appeals in the divine name that gave him his appellation. “What is your name?” asked Don Ramirez, Bishop of Tuy. “John,” was the reply. “Henceforth you shall be called John of God,” said the bishop.

And so, that we may all become the sons of God, let us here, at the foot of S. Vincent’s oak, echo the words that in life were so often on his lips:

Caritatem, propter Deum!

LORD CASTLEHAVEN’S MEMOIRS.[6]

In the year 1638 the Earl of Castlehaven, then a young man, made the Grand Tour, as became a nobleman of his family in that age. Being at Rome, whither the duty of paying his respects to the Holy Father had carried him—for this lord was the head of one of those grand old families which had declined to forswear its faith at the behest of Henry or Elizabeth—he received a letter from King Charles I., requiring him to attend the king in his expedition against the Scots, then revolted and in arms. With that instant loyalty which was the return made by those proscribed families to an ungrateful court from the Armada down, Lord Castlehaven, two days after the messenger had placed the royal missive in his hands, took post for England. Near Turin he fell in with an army commanded by the Marquis de Leganes, Governor of Milan for the King of Spain, who was marching to besiege the Savoy capital. But the siege was soon raised, and Lord Castlehaven entered the town. There he found her Royal Highness the Duchess of Savoy in great confusion, as if she had got no rest for many nights, so much had she been occupied with the conduct of the defence; for even the wives of this warlike and rapacious family soon learned to defend their own by the strong hand, and could stretch it out to grasp still more when occasion served. But as yet the ambition of the House of Savoy stopped short of sacrilege—or stooped to it like a hawk on short flights—nor dreamed of aggrandizing itself with the spoils of the whole territory of the church. When Lord Castlehaven came to take leave of the duchess, her royal highness gave him a musket-bullet, much battered, which had come in at her window and missed her narrowly, charging him to deliver it safely to her sister, the Queen of England—as it proved, a present of ill omen; for of musket-balls, in a little time, the English sister had more than enough.

Arriving in London, Lord Castlehaven followed the king to Berwick, where he found the royal army encamped, with the Tweed before it, and the Scotch, under Gen. Leslie, lying at some distance. A pacification was soon effected, and both armies partially disbanded. After this the earl passed his time “as well as he could” at home till 1640. In that year the King of France besieged Arras, and Lord Castlehaven set out to witness the siege. Within was a stout garrison under Owen Roe O’Neal, commanding for the Prince Cardinal, Governor of the Low Countries. This was the first meeting of Castlehaven with the future victor of Benburb, with whom he was afterwards brought into closer relations in the Irish Rebellion. The French pressed Arras close, and the confederates being defeated, and the hope of the siege being raised grown desperate, the town was surrendered on honorable terms. This action over, Lord Castlehaven returned to England and sat in Parliament till the attainder of the Earl of Strafford. When that great nobleman fell, deserted by his wavering royal master, and the king’s friends were beginning to turn about—they scarce knew whither—to prepare for the storm that all men saw was coming, Lord Castlehaven went to Ireland, where he had some estate and three married sisters. While there the Rebellion of 1641 broke out. Although innocent of any complicity in the outbreak, his faith made him suspected, and he was imprisoned on a slight pretext by the lords-justices. Escaping, his first design was to get into France, and thence to England to join the king at York, and petition for a trial by his peers. But coming to Kilkenny, he found there the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics just assembled—many of them being of his acquaintance—and was persuaded by them to throw in his lot with theirs, seeing, as they truly told him, that they were all persecuted on the same score, and ruined so that they had nothing more to lose but their lives. From that time till the peace of 1646 he was engaged in the war of the Confederate Catholics, holding important commands in the field under the Supreme Council. His Memoirs is the history of this war.

After the peace of 1646, concluded with the Marquis of Ormond, the king’s lord-lieutenant, but which shortly fell through, Lord Castlehaven retired to France, and served as a volunteer under Prince Rupert at the siege of Landrecies. Then, returning to Paris, he remained in attendance on the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales (Charles II.) at St. Germain till 1648. In that year he returned to Ireland with the lord-lieutenant, the Marquis of Ormond, and served the royal cause in that kingdom against the parliamentary forces under Ireton and Cromwell. The battle of Worcester being lost, and Cromwell the undisputed master of the three kingdoms, Castlehaven again followed the clouded fortunes of Charles II. to France. There he obtained permission to join the Great Condé. In the campaigns under that prince he had the command of eight or nine regiments of Irish troops, making altogether a force of 5,000 men. Thus we find the Irish refugees already consolidated into a brigade some years before the Treaty of Limerick expatriated those soldiers whose valor is more commonly identified with that title.

Lord Castlehaven returned to England at the Restoration. In the war with Holland he served as a volunteer in some of the naval engagements. In 1667, the French having invaded Flanders, he was ordered there with 2,400 men to recruit the “Old English Regiment,” of which he was made colonel. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle ended this war. Peace reigned in the Low Countries till the breaking out, in 1673, of the long and bloody contest between the Prince of Orange and the confederate Spaniards and Imperialists on the one side, and Louis XIV. on the other. This was the age of grand campaigns, conducted upon principles of mathematical precision by the great captains formed in the school of M. Turenne, before the “little Marquis of Brandenburg”[7] and the “Corsican corporal” in turn revolutionized the art of war. Castlehaven entered the Spanish service, and shared the checkered but generally disastrous fortunes of the Duke of Villahermosa and the Prince of Orange (William III.) against Condé and Luxembourg, till the peace of Nymegen put an end to the war in 1678.

Then, after forty years’ hard service, this veteran retired from the field, and returning to England, like another Cæsar, set about writing his commentaries on the wars. Thus he spent his remaining years. First he published, but without acknowledging the authorship, his Memoirs of the Irish Wars. This first edition was suppressed. Then, in 1684, appeared the second edition, containing, besides the Memoirs, his “Appendix”—being an account of his Continental service—his “Observations” on confederate armies and the conduct of war, and a “Postscript,” which is a reply to the Earl of Anglesey. And right well has the modern reader reason to be thankful for his lordship’s literary spirit. His Memoirs is one of the most authentic and trustworthy accounts we have of that vexed passage of Irish history—the Rebellion of 1641. Its blunt frankness is its greatest charm; it has the value of an account by an actor in the scenes described; and it possesses that merit of impartiality which comes of being written by an Englishman who, connected with the Irish leaders by the ties of faith, family, and property, and sympathizing fully with their efforts to obtain redress for flagrant wrongs was yet not blind to their mistakes and indefensible actions.

Castlehaven, neglected for more than a century, has received more justice at the hands of later historians. He is frequently referred to by Lingard, and his work will be found an admirable commentary on Carte’s Life of Ormond. There is a notice of him in Horace Walpole’s Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors (vol. iii.)

“If this lord,” says Walpole, “who led a very martial life, had not taken the pains to record his own actions (which, however, he has done with great frankness and ingenuity), we should know little of his story, our historians scarce mentioning him, and even our writers of anecdotes, as Burnet, or of tales and circumstances, as Roger North, not giving any account of a court quarrel occasioned by his lordship’s Memoirs. Anthony Wood alone has preserved this event, but has not made it intelligible. … The earl had been much censured for his share in the Irish Rebellion, and wrote the Memoirs to explain his conduct rather than to excuse it; for he freely confesses his faults, and imputes them to provocations from the government of that kingdom, to whose rashness and cruelty, conjointly with the votes and resolutions of the English Parliament, he ascribes the massacre. There are no dates nor method, and less style, in these Memoirs—defects atoned for in some measure by a martial honesty. Soon after their publication the Earl of Anglesey wrote to ask a copy. Lord Castlehaven sent him one, but denying the work as his. Anglesey, who had been a commissioner in Ireland for the Parliament, published Castlehaven’s letter, with observations and reflections very abusive of the Duke of Ormond, which occasioned first a printed controversy, and this a trial before the Privy Council; the event of which was that Anglesey’s first letter was voted a scandalous libel, and himself removed from the custody of the Privy Seal; and that the Earl of Castlehaven’s Memoirs, on which he was several times examined, and which he owned, was declared a scandalous libel on the government—a censure that seems very little founded; there is not a word that can authorize that sentence from the Council of Charles II. but the imputation on the lords-justices of Charles I.; for I suppose the Privy Council did not pique themselves on vindicating the honor of the republican Parliament! Bishop Morley wrote A True Account of the Whole Proceeding between James, Duke of Ormond, and Arthur, Earl of Anglesey.”

Immediately after the Restoration, as it is well known, an act was passed, commonly called in that age “the Act of Oblivion,” by which all penalties (except certain specified ones) incurred in the late troublous and rebellious times were forgiven. So superfine would have been the net which the law of treason would have drawn around the three kingdoms, had its strict construction been enforced, that it was quite cut loose, a few only of the greatest criminals and regicides being held in its meshes. So harsh had been Cromwell’s iron rule that there were few counties of England in which the stoutest squires, and even the most loyal, might not have trembled had the king’s commission inquired too closely into the legal question of connivance at the late tyrant’s rule. And in the great cities, London especially, the tide of enthusiasm which now ran so strongly for the king could not hide the memory of those days when the same fierce crowds had clamored for the head of the “royal martyr.” Prudent it was, as well as benign, therefore, for the “merry monarch” to let time roll smoothly over past transgressions. But though the law might grant oblivion, and even punish the revival of controversies, the old rancor between individuals and even parties was not so easily appeased after the first joyful outburst. Books and pamphlets by the hundred brought charges and counter charges. But these “authors of slander and lyes,” as Castlehaven calls them, outdid themselves in their tragical stories of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Nor have imitators been wanting in this age, as rancorous and more skilful, in the production of “fictions and invectives to traduce a whole nation.” To answer those calumnies by “setting forth the truth of his story in a brief and plain method” was the design of Castlehaven’s work.

Then, as now, it was the aim of the libellers of the Irish people to make the whole nation accountable for the “massacre,” so called, of 1641, and to confound the war of the Confederate Catholics and the later loyal resistance to Cromwell in one common denunciation with the first sanguinary and criminal outbreak. Lord Castlehaven’s narrative effectually disposes of this charge. In a singularly clear and candid manner he narrates the rise and progress of the insurrection, and shows the wide difference between the aims and motives of those who planned the uprising of October 23, 1641, and of those who afterwards carried on the war under the title of the Confederate Catholics of Ireland. The former he does not hesitate to denounce as a “barbarous and inhumane” conspiracy, but the responsibility for it he fixes in the right quarter—the malevolent character of the Irish government and the atrocious spirit of the English Puritan Parliament, which, abandoning all the duties of protection, kept only one object in view—the extirpation of the native Irish.

With the successful example of the Scotch Rebellion immediately before them, it was a matter of little wonder to observant and impartial minds in that age that the Irish should have seized upon the occasion of the growing quarrel between the king and Parliament as the opportune moment for the redress of their grievances. For in the year 1640, two years after the pacification of Berwick, the Scotch Rebellion, primarily instigated by the same cause as the Irish—religious differences—broke out with greater violence than ever. The Scots’ army invaded England, defeated the king’s troops at Newburn, and took Newcastle. Then, driven to extremity by those Scotch rebels, as mercenary as they were fanatical,[8] and his strength paralyzed by the growing English sedition, Charles I. called together “that unfortunate Parliament” which, proceeding from one violence to another, first destroyed its master, and then was in turn destroyed by its own servant. Far from voting the Scotch army rebels and traitors, the Parliament at once styled them “dear brethren” and voted them £300,000 for their kindness. Mr. Gervase Holles was expelled from the House for saying in the course of debate “that the best way of paying them was by arms to expel them out of the kingdom.” The quarrel between King and Commons grew hotter, until finally it became evident that, notwithstanding Charles’ concessions, a violent rupture could not be long delayed.

No fairer opportunity could be hoped for by the Irish leaders, dissatisfied with their own condition, and spurred on by the hope of winning as good measure of success as the Scotch. The plan to surprise the Castle of Dublin and the other English garrisons was quickly matured; but failing, some of the conspirators were taken and executed, and the rest forced to retire to the woods and mountains. But the flame thus lighted soon spread over the whole kingdom, and occasioned a war which lasted without intermission for ten years.

The following reasons are declared by Castlehaven to have been afterwards offered to him by the Irish as the explanation of this insurrection:

First, that, being constantly looked upon by the English government as a conquered nation, and never treated as natural or free-born subjects, they considered themselves entitled to regain their liberty whenever they believed it to be in their power to do so.

Secondly, that in the North, where the insurrection broke out with the greatest violence, six whole counties had been escheated to the crown at one blow, on account of Tyrone’s rebellion; and although it was shown that a large portion of the population of those counties was innocent of complicity in that rising, nothing had ever been restored, but the whole bestowed by James I. upon his countrymen. To us, who live at the distance of two centuries and a half from those days of wholesale rapine, these confiscations still seem the most gigantic instance of English wrong; but who shall tell their maddening effect upon those who suffered from them in person in that age—the men flying to the mountains, the women perishing in the fields, the children crying for food they could not get?

Thirdly, the popular alarm was heightened by the reports, current during Strafford’s government in Ireland, that the counties of Roscommon, Mayo, Galway, and Cork, and parts of Tipperary, Limerick, and Wicklow, were to share the fate of the Ulster counties. It hardly needs the example of our own Revolution to prove the truth of Castlehaven’s observation upon this project: “That experience tells us where the people’s property is like to be invaded, neither religion nor loyalty is able to keep them within bounds if they find themselves in a condition to make any considerable opposition.” And this brings to his mind the story related by Livy of those resolute ambassadors of the Privernates, who, being reduced to such extremities that they were obliged to beg peace of the Roman Senate, yet, being asked what peace should the Romans expect from them, who had broken it so often, they boldly answered—which made the Senate accept their proposals—“If a good one, it shall be faithful and lasting; but if bad, it shall not hold very long. For think not,” said they, “that any people, or even any man, will continue in that condition whereof they are weary any longer than of necessity they must.”

Fourthly, it was notorious that from the moment Parliament was convened it had urged the greatest severities against the English Roman Catholics. The king was compelled to revive the penalties of the worst days of Edward and Elizabeth against them. His own consort was scarce safe from the violence of those hideous wretches who concealed the vilest crimes under the garb of Puritan godliness. Readers even of such a common and one-sided book as Forster’s Life of Sir John Eliot will be surprised to find the prominence and space the “Popish” resolutions and debates occupied in the sittings of Parliament. The popular leaders divided their time nearly equally between the persecution of the Catholics and assaults upon the prerogative. The same severities were now threatened against the Irish Catholics. “Both Houses,” says Castlehaven, “solicited, by several petitions out of Ireland, to have those of that kingdom treated with the like rigor, which, to a people so fond of their religion as the Irish, was no small inducement to make them, while there was an opportunity offered, to stand upon their guard.”

Fifthly, the precedent of the Scotch Rebellion, and its successful results—pecuniarily, politically, and religiously—encouraged the Irish so much at that time that they offered it to Owen O’Conally as their chief motive for rising in rebellion; “which,” says he (quoted by Castlehaven), “they engaged in to be rid of the tyrannical government that was over them, and to imitate Scotland, who by that course had enlarged their privileges” (O’Conally’s Exam., October 22, 1641; Borlace’s History of the Irish Rebellion, p. 21).

To the same purpose Lord Castlehaven quotes Mr. Howell in his Mercurius Hibernicus in the year 1643; “whose words, because an impartial author and a known Protestant, I will here transcribe in confirmation of what I have said and for the reader’s further satisfaction”:

“Moreover,” says Mr. Howell, “they [the Irish] entered into consideration that they had sundry grievances and grounds of complaint, both touching their estates and consciences, which they pretended to be far greater than those of the Scots. For they fell to think that if the Scot was suffered to introduce a new religion, it was reason they should not be punished in the exercise of their old, which they glory never to have altered; and for temporal matters, wherein the Scot had no grievance at all to speak of, the new plantations which had been lately afoot to be made in Connaught and other places; the concealed lands and defective titles which were daily found out; the new customs which were enforced; and the incapacity they had to any preferment or office in church or state, with other things, they considered to be grievances of a far greater nature, and that deserved redress much more than any the Scot had. To this end they sent over commissioners to attend this Parliament in England with certain propositions; but they were dismissed hence with a short and unsavory answer, which bred worse blood in the nation than was formerly gathered. And this, with that leading case of the Scot, may be said to be the first incitements that made them rise.… Lastly, that army of 8,000 men which the Earl of Strafford had raised to be transported into England for suppressing the Scot, being by the advice of our Parliament here disbanded, the country was annoyed by some of those straggling soldiers. Therefore the ambassadors from Spain having propounded to have some numbers of those disbanded soldiers for the service of their master, his majesty, by the mature advice of his Privy Council, to occur the mischiefs that might arise to his kingdom of Ireland from those loose cashiered soldiers, yielded to the ambassadors’ motion. But as they were in the height of that work (providing transports), there was a sudden stop made of those promised troops; and this was the last, though not the least, fatal cause of that horrid insurrection.

“Out of these premises it is easy for any common understanding, not transported with passion or private interest, to draw this conclusion: That they who complied with the Scot in his insurrection; they who dismissed the Irish commissioners with such a short, impolitic answer; they who took off the Earl of Strafford’s head, and afterwards delayed the despatching of the Earl of Leicester; they who hindered those disbanded troops in Ireland to go for Spain, may be justly said to have been the true causes of the late insurrection of the Irish.

“Thus,” continues Castlehaven, “concludes this learned and ingenious gentleman, who, as being then his majesty’s historiographer, was as likely as any man to know the transactions of those times, and, as an Englishman and a loyal Protestant, was beyond all exception of partiality or favor of the Papists of Ireland, and therefore could have no other reason but the love of truth and justice to give this account of the Irish Rebellion, or make the Scotch and their wicked brethren in the Parliament of England the main occasion of that horrid insurrection.”

As for the “massacre,” so called, that ensued, Lord Castlehaven speaks of it with the abhorrence it deserves. But this very term “massacre” is a misnomer plausibly affixed to the uprising by English ingenuity. In a country such as Ireland then was—in which, though nominally conquered, few English lived outside the walled towns—an intermittent state of war was chronic; and therefore there was none of that unpreparedness for attack or absence of means of defence on the part of the English settlers which, in other well-known historical cases, has rightfully given the name of “massacre” to a premeditated murderous attack upon defenceless and surprised victims. To hold the English as such will be regarded with contemptuous ridicule by every one acquainted with the system of English and Scotch colonization in Ireland in that age. The truth is, the cruelties on both sides were very bloody, “and though some,” says Lord Castlehaven, “will throw all upon the Irish, yet ’tis well known who they were that used to give orders to their parties sent into the enemies’ quarters to spare neither man, woman, nor child.” And as to the preposterous muster-rolls of Sir John Temple—from whom the subsequent scribblers borrowed all their catalogues—giving fifty thousand (!) British natives as the number killed, Lord Castlehaven’s testimony is to the effect that there was not one-tenth—or scarcely five thousand—of that number of British natives then living in Ireland outside of the cities and walled towns where no “massacre” was committed. Lord Castlehaven also shows that there were not 50,000 persons to be found even in Temple’s catalogue, although it was then a matter of common notoriety that he repeats the same people and the same circumstances twice or thrice, and mentions hundreds as then murdered who lived many years afterwards. Some of Temple’s, not the Irish, victims were alive when Castlehaven wrote.

But the true test of the character of this insurrection is to be found, not in the exaggerated calumnies of English libellers writing after the event, but in the testimony of the English settlers themselves when in a position where lies would have been of no avail. We will therefore give here, though somewhat out of the course of our narrative, an incident related by Castlehaven to that effect.

Shortly after he had been appointed General of the Horse under Preston, Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Catholics in Leinster, that general took, among other places, Birr, in King’s County. Here Castlehaven had the good fortune, as he says, to begin his command with an act of charity. For, going to see this garrison before it marched out, he came into a large room where he found many people of quality, both men and women. They no sooner saw him but, with tears in their eyes, they fell on their knees, desiring him to save their lives. “I was astonished,” says Castlehaven, “at their posture and petition, and, having made them rise, asked what the matter was? They answered that from the first day of the war there had been continued action and bloodshed between them and their Irish neighbors, and little quarter on either side; and therefore, understanding that I was an Englishman, begged I would take them into my protection.” It is enough to say that Lord Castlehaven, with some difficulty, and by personally taking command of a strong convoy, obtained for them the protection they prayed for from the exasperated and outraged population around them. But what we wish to point out is this: that here are those victims of Sir John Temple’s “massacre”—not the garrison of the fort, observe, but the English settlers driven in by the approach of Preston’s army, after terrorizing the country for months—now, with the fear of death before them, confessing on their knees that from the first day of the war they had arms in their hands, and that little quarter was given on either side!

How well the English were able to take care of themselves at this time, and what their “massacres” were like, are shown by the following extract from a letter of Colonel the Hon. Mervin Touchett to his brother, Lord Castlehaven. Col. Touchett is describing a raid made by Sir Arthur Loffens, Governor of Naas, with a party of horse and dragoons, killing such of the Irish as they met, to punish an attack upon an English party a few days before: “But the most considerable slaughter was in a great strength of furze, scattered on a hill, where the people of several villages (taking the alarm) had sheltered themselves. Now, Sir Arthur, having invested the hill, set the furze on fire on all sides, where the people, being a considerable number, were all burned or killed, men, women, and children. I saw the bodies and the furze still burning.”

We remember the horror-stricken denunciations of the English press some years ago when it was stated, without much authentication, that some of the French commanders in the Algerine campaigns had smoked some Arabs to death in caves. But it would seem from Col. Touchett’s narrative that the English troopers would have been able to give their French comrades lessons in the culinary art of war some centuries ago. A grilled Irishman is surely as savory an object for the contemplation of humanity as a smoked Arab!

But whatever the atrocities on the English side, we will not say that the cruelties committed by the Irish were not deserving of man’s reprobation and God’s anger. Only this is to be observed: that whereas the “massacres” by the Irish were confined to the rabble and Strafford’s disbanded soldiers, those committed by the English side were shared in, as the narratives of the day show, by the persons highest in position and authority. They made part of the English system of government of that day. On the other hand, the leading men of the Irish Catholic body not only endeavored to stay those murders, but sought to induce the government to bring the authors of them on both sides to punishment. But in vain! On the 17th of March, 1642, Viscount Gormanstown and Sir Robert Talbot, on behalf of the nobility and gentry of the nation, presented a remonstrance, praying “that the murders on both sides committed should be strictly examined, and the authors of them punished according to the utmost severity of the law.” Which proposal, Castlehaven shrewdly remarks, would never have been rejected by their adversaries, “but that they were conscious of being deeper in the mire than they would have the world believe.”

So far the “massacre” and first uprising.

Now, as to the inception of the war of the Confederate Catholics, and its objects, Lord Castlehaven’s narrative is equally convincing and clear.

Parliament met in the Castle of Dublin, Nov. 16, 1641. The Rebellion was laid before both Houses by the lords-justices, Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlace. Concurrent resolutions were adopted, without a dissenting voice, by the two Houses, declaring their abhorrence of the Rebellion, and pledging their lives and fortunes to suppress it. Castlehaven had a seat in the Irish House of Lords as an Irish peer, and being then in Ireland, as before related, took his seat at the meeting of Parliament. Besides Castlehaven, most of the leaders of the war that ensued were members of the Irish House of Lords. These Catholic peers were not less earnest than the rest in their unanimous intention to put down the Rebellion. Both Houses thereupon began to deliberate upon the most effectual means for its suppression. “But this way of proceeding,” says Castlehaven, “did not, it seems, square with the lords-justices’ designs, who were often heard to say that ‘the more were in rebellion, the more lands should be forfeit to them.’” Therefore, in the midst of the deliberations of Parliament on the subject, a prorogation was determined on. The lords, understanding this, sent Castlehaven and Viscount Castelloe to join a deputation from the commons to the lords-justices, praying them not to prorogue, at least till the rebels—then few in number—were reduced to obedience. But the address was slighted, and Parliament prorogued the next day, to the great surprise of both Houses and the “general dislike,” says Castlehaven, “of all honest and knowing men.”

The result was, as the lords-justices no doubt intended, that the rebels were greatly encouraged, and at once began to show themselves in quarters hitherto peaceful. The members of Parliament retired to their country-houses in much anxiety after the prorogation. Lord Castlehaven went to his seat at Maddingstown. There he received a letter, signed by the Viscounts of Gormanstown and Netterville, and by the Barons of Slane, Lowth, and Dunsany, containing an enclosure to the lords-justices which those noblemen desired him to forward to them, and, if possible, obtain an answer. This letter to the lords-justices, Castlehaven says, was very humble and submissive, asking only permission to send their petitions into England to represent their grievances to the king. The only reply of the lords-justices was a warning to Castlehaven to receive no more letters from them.

Meanwhile, parties were sent out from Dublin and the various garrisons throughout the kingdom to “kill and destroy the rebels.” But those parties took little pains to distinguish rebels from loyal subjects, provided they were only Catholics, killing promiscuously men, women, and children. Reprisals followed on the part of the rebels. The nobility and gentry were between two fires. A contribution was levied upon them by the rebels, after the manner of the Scots in the North of England in 1640. But although to pay that contribution in England passed without reproach, in Ireland it was denounced by the lords-justices as treason. The English troopers insulted and openly threatened the most distinguished Irish families as favorers of the Rebellion. “This,” says Castlehaven, “and the sight of their tenants, the harmless country people, without respect to age or sex, thus barbarously murdered, made the Catholic nobility and gentry at last resolved to stand upon their guard.” Nevertheless, before openly raising the standard of revolt against the Irish government, which refused to protect them, they made several efforts to get their petitions before Charles I. Sir John Read, a Scotchman, then going to England, undertook to forward petitions to the king; but, being arrested on suspicion at Drogheda, was taken to Dublin, and there put upon the rack by the lords-justices to endeavor to wring from him a confession of Charles I.’s complicity in the Rebellion. This Col. Mervin Touchett heard from Sir John Read himself as he was brought out of the room where he was racked. But that unfortunate monarch knew not how to choose his friends or to be faithful to them when he found them. He referred the whole conduct of Irish affairs to the English Parliament, thus increasing the discontent to the last pitch by making it plain to the whole Irish people that he abandoned the duty of protecting them, and had handed them over to the mercy of their worst enemies—the English Parliament. That Parliament at once passed a succession of wild votes and ordinances, indicating their intention of stopping short at nothing less than utter extirpation of the native race. Dec. 8, 1641, they declared they would never give consent to any toleration of the Popish religion in Ireland. In February following, when few of any estate were as yet engaged in the Rebellion, they passed an act assigning two million five hundred thousand acres of cultivated land, besides immense tracts of bogs, woods, and mountains, to English and Scotch adventurers for a small proportion of money on the grant. This money, the act stated, was to go to the reduction of the rebels; but, with a fine irony of providence upon the king’s weak compliance, every penny of it was afterwards used to raise armies by the English rebels against him. “But the greatest discontent of all,” says Castlehaven, “was about the lords-justices proroguing the Parliament—the only way the nation had to express its loyalty and prevent their being misrepresented to their sovereign, which, had it been permitted to sit for any reasonable time, would in all likelihood, without any great charge or trouble, have brought the rebels to justice.”

Thus all hopes of redress or safety being at an end—a villanous government in Dublin intent only upon confiscation, a furious Parliament in London breathing vengeance against the whole Irish race, and a king so embroiled in his English quarrels that he could do nothing to help his Irish subjects, even had he wished it—what was left those loyal, gallant, and devoted men but to draw the sword for their own safety? The Rebellion by degrees spread over the whole kingdom. “And now,” says Castlehaven, “there’s no more looking back; for all were in arms and full of indignation.” A council of the leading Catholic nobles, military officers, and gentry met at Kilkenny, and formed themselves into an association under the title of the Confederate Catholics of Ireland. Four generals were appointed for the respective provinces of the kingdom—Preston for Leinster, Barry for Munster, Owen Roe O’Neale for Ulster, and Burke for Connaught. Thus war was declared.

When the Rebellion first broke out in the North, Lord Castlehaven had immediately repaired to Dublin and offered his services to the lords-justices. They were declined with the reply that “his religion was an obstacle.” After the prorogation of Parliament, as we have seen, he retired to his house in the country. Then, coming again to Dublin to meet a charge of corresponding with the rebels which had been brought against him, he was arrested by order of the lords-justices, and, after twenty weeks of imprisonment in the sheriff’s house, was committed to the Castle. “This startled me a little,” says Castlehaven—as it well might do; for the state prisoner’s exit from the Castle in Dublin in those days was usually made in the same way as from the Tower in London, namely, by the block—“and brought into my thoughts the proceedings against the Earl of Strafford, who, confiding in his own innocence, was voted out of his life by an unprecedented bill of attainder.” Therefore, hearing nothing while in prison but rejoicings at the king’s misfortunes, who at last had been forced to take up arms by the English rebels, and knowing the lords-justices to be of the Parliament faction, and the lord-lieutenant, the Marquis of Ormond, being desperately sick of a fever, not without suspicion of poison, and his petition to be sent to England, to be tried there by his peers, being refused, he determined to make his escape, shrewdly concluding, as he says, that “innocence was a scurvy plea in an angry time.”

Arriving at Kilkenny, he joined the confederacy, as has been related.

From this time the war of the Confederate Catholics was carried on with varying success until the cessation of 1646, and then until the peace of 1648, when the Confederates united, but too late, with the Marquis of Ormond to stop the march of Cromwell.

A SWEET SINGER: ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.

THE COLPORTEURS OF BONN.

I was very stupid in my youth, and am still far from being sharp. I could not master knotty questions like other boys; so this natural deficiency had to be supplemented by some plan that would facilitate the acquisition of knowledge. The advantage to be derived from a garrulous preceptor, whose mind was stored with all sorts of learning without dogmatism or hard formularies, were fully appreciated by my parents. John O’Neil was a very old man when I was a boy, and he was just the person qualified to impart an astonishing quantity of all sorts of facts, and perhaps fancies. I hold him in affectionate remembrance though he be dead over twenty-five years, and rests near the remains of his favorite hero, O’Connell, in Glasnevin Cemetery. When he became the chief architect of my intellectual structure, I thought him the most learned man in the world. On account of my dulness, he adopted the method of sermonizing to me instead of giving me unintelligible lessons to be learned out of books. I took a great fancy to him, because I found him exceedingly interesting, and he evinced a strong liking for me because I was docile. We became inseparable companions, notwithstanding the great discrepancy in our years. His tall, erect, lank figure and lantern jaw were to me the physiological signs of profundity, firmness, and power, and his white head was the symbol of wisdom. Our tastes—well, I had no tastes save such as he chose to awaken in me, and hence there came to be very soon a great similitude in our respective inclinations. I was like a ball of wax, a sheet of paper, or any other original impressionable thing you may name, in his hands for ten years, after which very probably I began to harden, though I was not conscious of the process. However, the large fund of knowledge that he imparted to me crystallized, as it were, and became fixed in my possession as firmly as if it had been elaborately achieved by a severe mental training. After I went to college he was still my friend, and rejoiced in my subsequent successes, and followed me with a jealous eye and a sort of parental anxiety in my foreign travels, and even in death he did not forget me, for he made me the custodian of his great heaps of literary productions, all in manuscript, embracing sketches, diaries, notes of travel, learned fragments on scientific and scholastic topics, essays, tales, letters, the beginnings and the endings and the middles of books on history, politics, and polemics, pieces of pamphlets and speeches, with a miscellaneous lot of poetry in all measures. He was a great, good man, who never had what is called an aim in life, but he certainly had an aim after life; and yet no one could esteem the importance of this pilgrimage more than he did. He would frequently boast of being heterodox on that point. “You will hear,” he would remark, “people depreciating this life as a matter of little concern. Don’t allow their sophistry to have much weight with you. The prevalent opinions which are flippantly spoken thereon will not stand the test of sound Christian reasoning. That part of human existence which finds its scene and scope of exertion in this life is filled with eternal potentialities. You have heard it said that man wants but little here below. Where else does he want it? Here is where he wants everything. Then do not hesitate to ask, but be careful not to ask amiss. When the battle is over, it will be too late to make requisitions for auxiliaries. If you conquer, assistance will not be wanted; if you are defeated, assistance cannot reach you. The fight cannot be renewed; the victory or defeat will be final. This life is immense. You cannot think too much of it, cannot estimate it too highly. A minute has almost an infinite value. Man wants much here, and wants it all the time.” I thought his language at that time fantastical; now I regard it as profound. From a survey of his own aimless career, it is evident he did not reduce the good of earthly existence of which he spoke to any sort of money value. Those elements and forces of life to which he attached such deep significance and importance could not have their equivalent in currency, nor in comforts, nor in real estate, nor even in fame. My old preceptor had spent most of his youth in travelling, and the picturesque meanderings of the Rhine furnished subjects for many of his later recollections. I recall now with a melancholy regret the many pleasant evenings I enjoyed listening to his narratives of travel on that historic river, and in imagination sat with him on the Drachenfels’ crest, looking down upon scenes made memorable by the lives and struggles of countless heroes and the crowds of humanity that came and went through the course of a hundred generations—some leaving their mark, and others erasing it again; some leaving a smile behind them on the face of the country, and others a scar. He loved to talk about the beautiful city of Bonn, where he had spent some years, it being the most attractive place, he said, from Strasbourg to the sea—for learning was cheap there, and so were victuals—the only things he found indispensable to a happy life. He would glide into a monologue of dramatic glow and fervor in reciting how he procured access to the extensive library of its new university, and, crawling up a step-ladder, would perch himself on top like a Hun, who, after a sleep of a thousand years, had resurrected himself, gathered his bones from the plains of Chalons, and having procured a second-hand suit of modern clothes from a Jew in Cologne, traced with eager avidity the vicissitudes of war and empire since the days of Attila. It was there, no doubt, he discovered the materials of this curious paper, which I found among his literary remains. Whether he gathered the materials himself, or merely transcribed the work of some previous writer, I am unable to determine. Without laying any claim to critical acumen, I must confess it appears to me to be a meritorious piece, and I picked it out, because I thought it unique and brief, for submission to the more extensive experience and more impartial judgment of The Catholic World’s readers. Having entire control of these productions of my friend and preceptor, I took the liberty of substituting modern phraseology for what was antique, and of putting the sketch in such style that the most superficial reader will have no difficulty in running it over. Objection may be raised to the title on the score of fitness. I did not feel authorized to change it, believing the one chosen by the judgment of my old friend as suitable as any I could substitute.

In the year 1250 the mind of man was as restless and impatient of restraint as now, and some people in Bonn, under a quiet exterior, nursed in their bosoms latent volcanoes of passion, and indulged the waywardness of rebellious fancy to a degree that would have proved calamitous to the placid flow of life and thought could instrumentality for action have been found. There is indubitable proof that the principle of the Reformation, which three hundred years later burst through the environment of dogma and spread like a flood of lava over Europe, existed actively in Bonn in the year named, and would have arrived at mature strength if nature had not interposed an impassable barrier to the proceeding. It is hard to rebel against nature, and it is madness to expect success in such a revolt. Fourteen men, whose names have come down to us, gave body and tone, and a not very clearly defined purpose, to this untimely uprising against the inevitable in Bonn. How many others were in sympathy or in active affiliation with them is not shown. Those fourteen were bold spirits, who labored under the misfortune of having come into the world three or four centuries too soon. They were great men out of place. There is an element of rebellion in great spirits which only finds its proper antidote in the stronger and more harmonious principle of obedience. Obedience is the first condition of creatures. Those fourteen grew weary of listening to the Gospel preached every Sunday from the pulpit of S. Remigius, when they attended Mass with the thousands of their townsmen. The Scriptures, both New and Old, were given out in small doses, with an abundant mixture of explanation and homily and salutary exhortation. Their appetites craved a larger supply of Scripture, and indeed some of them were so unreasonable as to desire the reading of the whole book, from Genesis to Revelations, at one service. “Let us,” said Giestfacher, “have it all. No one is authorized to give a selection from the Bible and hold back the rest. It is our feast, and we have a right to the full enjoyment thereof.”

“Well,” said Heuck, his neighbor, to whom he addressed the remonstrance; “go to the scrivener’s and purchase a copy and send your ass to carry it home. Our friend Schwartz finished a fine one last week. It can be had for sixteen hundred dollars. When you have it safe at home, employ a reader, who will be able to mouth it all off for you in fifty hours, allowing a few intervals for refreshment, but none for sleep.” And Heuck laughed, or rather sneered, at Giestfacher as he walked away.

Giestfacher was a reformer, however, and was not to be put down in that frivolous manner. He had been a student himself with the view of entering the ministry, but, being maliciously charged with certain grave irregularities, his prospects in that direction were seriously clouded, and in a moment of grand though passionate self-assertion he threw up his expectations and abandoned the idea of entering the church, but instead took to the world. He was a reformer from his infancy, and continually quarrelled with his family about the humdrum state of things at home; was at enmity with the system of municipal government at Bonn; and held very animated controversies with the physicians of the place on the system of therapeutics then pursued, insisting strongly that all diseases arose from bad blood, and that a vivisection with warm wine would prove a remedy for everything. He lacked professional skill to attempt an experiment in the medical reforms he advocated; besides, that department would not admit of bungling with impunity. For municipal reforms he failed in power, and the reward in fame or popular applause that might follow successful operations in that limited sphere of action was not deemed equivalent to the labor. But in the field of religion there was ample room for all sorts of tentative processes without danger; and, in addition to security, notoriety might be obtained by being simply outré. He had settled upon religious reform, and his enthusiasm nullified the cautionary suggestions of his reason, and reduced mountains of difficulty to the insignificant magnitude of molehills; even Heuck could be induced to adopt his views by cogent reasoning and much persuasion. Enthusiasm is allied to madness—a splendid help, but a dangerous guide.

Giestfacher used his tongue, and in the course of a year had made twelve or fourteen proselytes. Those who cannot enjoy the monotony of life and the spells of ennui that attack the best-regulated temperaments, fly to novelty for relief. The fearful prospect of an unknown and nameless grave and an oblivious future drives many restless spirits into experiments in morals and in politics as well as in natural philosophy, in the vain hope of rescuing their names from the “gulf of nothingness” that awaits mediocrity. The new reformers, zealous men and bold, met in Giestfacher’s house on Corpus Christi in 1251, the minutes of which meeting are still extant; and from that record I learn there were present Stein the wheelwright, Lullman the baker, Schwartz the scrivener, Heuck the armorer, Giestfacher the cloth merchant, Braunn, another scrivener, Hartzwein the vintner, Blum the advocate, Werner, another scrivener, Reudlehuber, another scrivener, Andersen, a stationer, Esch the architect, Dusch the monk, discarded by his brethren for violations of discipline, and Wagner the potter. Blum was appointed to take an account of the proceedings, and Giestfacher was made president of the society.

“We are all agreed,” said Giestfacher, “that the Scriptures ought to be given to the people. From these divine writings we learn a time shall come when wars shall cease, and the Alemanni and the Frank and the Tartar may eat from the same plate and drink out of the same cup in peace and fraternity, and wear cloth caps instead of brass helmets, and plough the fields with their spears instead of letting daylight through each other therewith, and the shepherds shall tend their flocks with a crook and not with a bow to keep off the enemy. How can that time come unless the people be made acquainted with those promises? I believe we, who, like the apostles, number fourteen, are divinely commissioned to change things for the better, and initiate the great movements which will bring about the millennium. Let us rise up to the dignity of our position. Let us prove equal to the inspiration of the occasion. We are called together by heaven for a new purpose. The time is approaching when universal light will dispel the gloom, and peace succeed to all disturbance. Let us give the Scriptures to the people. They are the words of God, that carry healing on their wings. They are the dove that was sent out from the ark. They are the pillar of light in the desert. They are the sword of Joshua, the sling of David, the rod of Moses. Let us fourteen give them to the people, and start out anew, like the apostles from Jerusalem, to overturn the idols of the times and emancipate the nations. We have piled up heaps of stones in every town and monuments of brass, and still men are not changed. We see them still lying, warring, hoarding riches, and making gods of their bellies—all of which is condemned by the word of God. What will change all this? I say, let the piles of stone and the monuments of brass slide, and give the Scriptures a chance. Let us give them to the people, and the reign of brotherhood and peace will commence, wars shall cease, nation will no longer rise up against nation, rebellion will erect its horrid front no more. Men will cease hoarding riches and oppressing the poor. There will be no more robbing rings in corporate towns, and men in power will not blacken their character and imperil the safety of the state by nepotism. The whole world will become pure. No scandals will arise in the church, and there will be no blasphemy or false swearing, and Christian brethren shall not conspire for each other’s ruin.”

“We see,” remarked Heuck, “that those who have the Scriptures are no better than other people. They too are given to lying, hoarding riches, warring one against another, and making gods of their bellies. How is that?”

“Yes,” said Blum, “I know three scriveners of this town who boast of having transcribed twenty Bibles each, and they get drunk thrice a week and quarrel with their wives; and there’s Giebricht, the one-legged soldier, who can repeat the Scriptures until you sleep listening to him, says he killed nine men in battle and wounded twenty others. The Scriptures did not make him very peaceful. The loss of a leg had a more quieting effect on him than all his memorizing of the sacred books.”

“We did not get together,” said Werner, “to discuss that phase of the subject. It was well understood, and thereunto agreed a month ago, that the spread of the Scriptures was desirable; and to this end we met, that means wise and effective may be devised whereby we can supply every one with the word of God, that all may search therein for the correct and approved way of salvation.”

“So be it,” said Dusch the monk.

“Hear, hear!” said Schwartz.

“Let us agree like brethren,” said Braunn.

“We are subject to one spirit,” said Hartzwein the vintner, “and all moved by the same inspiration. Discord is unseemly. We must not dispute on the subject of drunkenness. Let us have the mature views of Brother Giestfacher, and his plans. The end is already clear if the means be of approved piety and really orthodox. In addition to the Scriptures, I would rejoice very much to see prayer more generally practised. We ought to do nothing without prayer. Let us first of all consult the Lord. What says Brother Blum?”

Blum rose and said it was a purely business meeting. He had no doubt it ought to have been opened with prayer. It was an old and salutary practice that came down from the days of the apostles, and Paul recommended it. But as they were now in the midst of business, he thought it would be as wise and as conformable with ancient Christian and saintly practice to go on with their work, and rest satisfied with mental ejaculation, as to inaugurate a formal prayer-meeting.

Esch thought differently; he held that prayer was always in season.

Reudlehuber meekly said that the Scriptures showed there was a time for everything, whence it was plain that prayer might be out of place as well as penitential tears on some occasions. It would not look well for a man to rise up in the midst of a marriage feast and, beating his breast, cry out Mea culpa.

“We have too many prayers in the church,” said Giestfacher, “and not enough of Scripture; that is the trouble with us. Brethren must rise above the weaknesses of the mere pietist. Moses was no pietist; he was a great big, leonine character. We must be broad and liberal in our views; not given to fault-finding nor complaining. Pray whenever you feel like it, and drink when you have a mind to. Noah got drunk. I’d rather be the prodigal son, and indulge in a hearty natural appetite for awhile, than be his cautious, speculating, avaricious brother, who had not soul enough most likely to treat his acquaintances to a pint of wine once in his lifetime. Great men get tipsy. Great nations are bibulous. We are not here to make war on those who drink wine and cultivate the grape, nor are we authorized in making war on weavers because Dives was damned for wearing fine linen. It is our mission to spread the Scriptures. The world wants light. He is a benefactor of mankind who puts two rays where there was only one before.”

“Let us hear your plans, Brother Giestfacher,” cried out a number of voices simultaneously.

In response, Brother Giestfacher stated that there were no plans necessary. All that was to be done was to circulate the Scriptures. Let us get one hundred thousand sheets of vellum to begin with, and set a hundred scriveners to work transcribing copies of the Bible, and then distribute these copies among the people.

The plan was plain and simple and magnificent, Braunn thought, but there were not ten thousand sheets of vellum in the town nor in the whole district, and much of that would be required for civil uses; besides, the number of sheep in the neighborhood had been so reduced by the recent war that vellum would be scarce and costly for ten years to come.

Werner lamented the irremediable condition of the world when the free circulation of the word of God depended on the number of sheep, and the number of sheep was regulated by war, and war by the ambition, jealousy, or pride of princes.

“It is painfully true,” said Heuck, “that the world stands in sad need of reform, if souls are to be rescued from their spiritual perils only by the means proposed in the magnificent sheep-skin scheme of Brother Giestfacher.” It was horrible to think that the immortal part of man was doomed to perish, to be snuffed out, as it were, in eternal darkness, because soldiers had an unholy appetite for mutton.

Braunn said the work could be started on three or four thousand hides, and ere they were used up a new supply might arrive from some unexpected quarter.

Esch said that they ought to have faith; the Hand that fed the patriarch in the desert would provide vellum if he was prayerfully besought for assistance. He would be willing to commence on one sheet, feeling convinced there would be more than enough in the end.

Blum did not take altogether so sanguine a view of things as Brother Esch. He was especially dubious about that vellum supply; not that he questioned the power of Providence at all, but it struck him that it would be just as well and as easy for the society to prayerfully ask for an ample supply of ready-made Bibles as to expect a miracle in prepared sheep-skin; and he was still further persuaded that if the books were absolutely necessary to one’s salvation, they would be miraculously given. But he did not put the movement on that ground. It is very easy for men, and particularly idiotic men, to convince themselves that God will answer all their whims and caprices by the performance of a miracle. We are going upon the theory that the work is good, just as it is good to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. We expect to find favor in heaven because we endeavor to do a work of charity according to our honest impression.

“How many persons,” inquired Heuck, “do you propose to supply with complete copies of the Scriptures?”

“Every one in the district,” replied Giestfacher.

“Brother Dusch,” continued Heuck, “how many heads of families are there in the district? Your abbot had the census taken a few month’s ago, while you were yet in grace and favor at the monastery.”

Brother Dusch said he heard there were twenty-two thousand from the Drachenfels to within six miles of Cologne, but all of them could not read.

“We will send out,” said Giestfacher enthusiastically, “an army of colporteurs, who will distribute and read at the same time.”

“I perceive,” said Blum, “that this discussion will never stop. New avenues of thought and new mountains of objection are coming to view at every advance in the debate. Let us do something first, and talk afterwards. To supply twenty-two thousand persons with expensive volumes will require considerably more than mere resolves and enthusiasm. I propose that we buy up all the vellum in the city to-day, and that we all go security for the payment. I propose also that we employ Brothers Braunn, Schwartz, Werner, and Reudlehuber to commence transcribing, and that we all go security for their pay. Unless we begin somewhere, we can never have anything done. What says Brother Giestfacher?”

Giestfacher said it did not become men of action, reformers who proposed to turn over the world and inaugurate a new era and a new life and a new law, to stop at trifles or to consider petty difficulties. The design that had been developed at that meeting contemplated a sweeping change. Instead of having a few books, here and there, at every church, cathedral, monastery, and market-place, learnedly and laboriously expounded by saints of a thousand austerities and of penitential garb, every house would be supplied, and there should be no more destitution in the land. The prophecies and the gospels and the mysteries of revelation would be on the lips of sucking babes, and the people who stood at the street-corners and at the marts of trade, the tiller of the soil, the pedler, the sailor, the old soldier, and the liberated prisoner, together with the man who sold fish and the woman who sold buttermilk, would stand up and preach the Gospel and display a mission, schoolboys would discuss the contents of that book freely, and even the inmates of lunatic asylums would expound it with luminous aptitude and startling fancy. The proposition of Brother Blum met his entire approval. He would pledge everything he had, and risk even life itself, to start the new principle, so that the world might bask in sunshine and not in shadow. It was about time that men had their intellects brightened up some. Even in the days of the apostles those pious men did not do their whole duty. They labored with much assiduity and conscientiousness, but they neglected to adopt measures looking to the spread of the Scriptures. He had no doubt but they fell a long way short of their mission, and were now enduring the pangs of a peck of purgatorial coal for their remissness. There were good men who perhaps found heaven without interesting themselves in the multiplication of copies of the Bible. They were not called to that work; but what was to be thought of those who had the call, the power, the skill, and yet neglected to spread the word. He believed SS. Gregory Nazianzen, Athanasius, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, and others of those early doctors of the church, had a fearful account to render for having neglected the Scriptures. S. Paul, too, was not free from censure. It was true he wrote a few things, but he took no thought of multiplying copies of his epistles.

“How many copies,” inquired Heuck, “do you think S. Paul ought to have written of his letters before you would consider him blameless?”

“He ought,” said Giestfacher, “to have written all the time instead of making tents. ‘How many copies’ is a professional question which I will leave the scriveners to answer. I may remark that it would evidently be unprofitable for us to enter on a minute and detailed discussion on that point here. It is our duty to supplement the shortcomings of those early workers in the field, and finish what they failed to accomplish. They were bound to give the new principle a fair start. The plan suggested was the best, simplest, and clearest, and he hoped every one of the brethren would give it a hearty and cordial support.”

The principle of communism, or the right of communities to govern themselves in certain affairs and to carry on free trade with certain other communities, had been granted the previous century, and Bonn was one of the towns that enjoyed the privilege; but the people still respected religion and did no trafficking on holydays. Giestfacher could not therefore purchase the vellum on Corpus Christi, but had to wait till next day, at which time he could not conveniently find the other members of the new Bible society, and, fearing that news of their project would get abroad and raise the price of the article he wanted, he hastened to the various places where it was kept for sale, and bought all of it up in the course of two hours, paying his own money in part and giving his bond for the balance. The parchment was delivered to the four scriveners, who gathered their families about them, and all the assistants (journeymen) that could be found in the town, and proceeded with the transcribing of the Bible. At the next meeting each scrivener reported that he had about half a book ready, that the work was going rapidly and smoothly forward, and that the scribes were enthusiastic at the prospect of brisk business and good pay. The report was deemed very encouraging. It went to show that the society could have four Bibles every two weeks, or about one hundred a year, and that in the course of two hundred and twenty years every head of a family in the district could be provided with a Bible of his own. The scriveners stated, moreover, that they had neglected their profane business, for which they could have got cash, to proceed in the sacred work, and as there were several people depending on them for means of living, a little money would be absolutely necessary with the grace of God.

Giestfacher also stated that he spent all the money he had in part payment for the parchment, and pledged his property for the balance. His business was somewhat crippled already in consequence of the outlay, and he expected to have part of the burden assumed by every one of the society.

Werner said he had fifteen transcribers working for him, and each one agreed to let one-third of the market value of his work remain in the hands of the society as a subscription to the good work, but the other two-thirds would have to be paid weekly, as they could not live without means. They were all poor, and depending solely on their skill in transcribing for a living.

The debate was long, earnest, eloquent, and more or less pious.

Blum made a motion that the bishop of the diocese and the Pope be made honorary members of the society. Giestfacher opposed this with eloquent acrimony, saying it was a movement outside of all sorts of church patronage; that it was designed to supersede churches and preaching; for when every man had the Bible he would be a church unto himself, and would not need any more teaching. He also had a resolution adopted pledging each and every member to constitute himself a colporteur of the Bible, and to read and peddle it in sun and rain; and it was finally settled that a subscription should be taken up; that each member of the society be constituted a collector, and proceed at once to every man who loved the Lord and gloried in the Gospel to get his contribution.

At the next meeting the brethren were all present except Dusch, who was reported as an absconder with the funds he had collected, and was said to be at that moment in Cologne, drunk perhaps. Four complete Bibles were presented as the result of two weeks’ hard labor and pious effort and the aggregate production of forty-five writers. The financial reports on the whole were favorable; and the scriveners were provided with sufficient means and encouragement to begin another set of four Bibles. Brother Giestfacher was partially secured in his venture for the parchment, while it was said that the article had doubled in price during the past fortnight, and very little of it could be got from Cologne, as there was a scarcity of it there also, coupled with an extraordinary demand. It was also stated that the monks at the monastery had to erase the works of Virgil in order to find material for making a copy of the homilies of S. John Chrysostom which was wanted for the Bishop of Metz. In like manner, it was decided to erase the histories of Labanius and Zozirnus, as being cheaper than procuring original parchment on which to transcribe a fine Greek copy of the whole Bible, to take the place of one destroyed by the late war. The heavy purchase that Brother Giestfacher had made created a panic in the vellum market that was already felt in the heart of Burgundy. The scriveners’ business had also experienced a revulsion. People of the world who wanted testamentary and legal documents, deeds, contracts, and the like properly engrossed, were offering fabulous sums to have the work done, as most of the professionals of that class were now engaged by the society, and had no time to do any other sort of writing. A debate sprung up as to the proper disposition to be made of the four Bibles on hand, and also as to the manner of beginning and conducting the distribution. In view of the demand for the written word, and of the scarcity of copies and the high price of parchment, it was suggested by Heuck to sell them, and divide the proceeds among the poor and the cripples left after the late war. Five hundred dollars each could be readily got for the books, he said, and it was extremely doubtful whether those who would get them as gifts from the society would resist the temptation of selling them to the first purchaser that came along. In addition to this heavy reason in favor of his line of policy, Heuck suggested the possibility of trouble arising when they should come to grapple with the huge difficulties of actual distribution; to give one of those volumes, he said, would be like giving an estate and making a man wealthy for life.