Volume 22 — CHAPTER IX. (continued 5)

On this point Mr. and Mrs. C——’s astonishment was unbounded. They had passed a fortnight at Brunnen in 1861, at a small inn with scanty accommodation, now replaced by the large and comfortable Waldstätterhof, situated in one of the most lovely spots imaginable, at the angle of the lake, one side fronting the Bay of Uri and the other looking up towards Mount Pilatus. The pension of Seelisberg existed on the heights opposite even then—only, however, as a small house, instead of the present extensive establishment, with its pretty woods and walks; but Axenstein and the second large hotel now building near it, with the splendid road leading up to them, had not been thought of. The only communication by land between Schwytz and Fluelen, in those days, was a mule-path along the hills, precipitous and dangerous in many parts. The now famed Axenstrasse was not undertaken until 1862; and is said to have been suggested by the French war in Italy. With the old Swiss dread of the French still at heart, the Federal government took alarm at that first military undertaking on the part of Napoleon III., and, seeing the evil of having no communication between these cantons in case of attack, at once took the matter seriously in hand. This great engineering achievement was opened to the public in 1868. It looked most inviting to-day, and we quickly decided to make use of it by driving along it to Fluelen, and thence to Altorf, returning in the evening by the steamer. Some were anxious to visit the Rütli; but Mr. and Mrs. C—— had been there before, and knew that it was more than an hour’s expedition by boat, so that the two excursions on the same day would be quite impossible; consequently, we chose the longer one.

It was just ten o’clock when we started; Mrs. C——, Caroline, Herr H——, and myself in one carriage, with George on the box, the others following us in a second vehicle. We had not proceeded far when Herr H—— made us halt to look at the Rütli, on the shore right opposite. We distinctly saw that it was a small meadow, formed by earth fallen from above on a ledge of rock under the precipitous heights of Seelisberg, and now enclosed by some fine chestnut and walnut trees. Truly, it was a spot fitted for the famous scene. So unapproachable is it, except by water, that even that most enterprising race—Swiss hotel-keepers—have hitherto failed to destroy it. Some years ago, however, it narrowly escaped this fate; for Herr Müller, of Seelisberg, is said to have been on the point of building a pension on the great meadow. But no sooner did this become known than a national subscription was at once raised, the government purchased it, and now it has become inalienable national property for ever.

“You may well be proud of your country, Herr H——,” exclaimed Mr. C—— from the other carriage. “I always look on that tiny spot with deep reverence as the true cradle of freedom. Look at it well, George! It witnessed that wonderful oath by which these mountaineers bound themselves ‘to be faithful to each other, just and merciful to their oppressors’—the only known example of men—and these men peasants, too—binding themselves, in the excitement of revolt, not to take revenge on their oppressors.”

“Quite sublime!” ejaculated George.

“Well, it has borne good fruit,” returned Herr H—— in gleeful tones; “for here we are still free! Except on the one occasion of the French in ’98, no foreign troops have ever invaded this part of Switzerland since those days. Yes, there are three springs at the Rütli, supposed to have jutted forth where the three heroes stood; but I do not pledge my word for that,” he answered smilingly to Caroline, “nor for the legend which says that their spirits sleep in the rocky vale under Seelisberg, ready to come forth and lead the people in moments of danger.”

“I hope their slumbers may never be disturbed,” she replied; “but I wish some one would prevent these cattle from frightening the horses,” as a large drove swept past our carriages, making our steeds nervous. Splendid animals they were, with beautiful heads, straight backs, light limbs, and of a grayish mouse color.

“All of the celebrated Schwytz breed,” said Herr H——. “This part of the country is renowned for its cattle. Each of these probably cost from five to six hundred francs. The Italians take great advantage of this new road, and come in numbers to buy them at this season, when the cattle are returning from the mountains. These are going across the St. Gothard to Lombardy. Those of Einsiedeln are still considered the best. Do you remember, Miss Caroline, that the first mention of German authority in this land was occasioned by a dispute between the shepherds of Schwytz and the abbots of Einsiedeln about their pasturage—the emperor having given a grant of land to the abbey, while the Schwytzers had never heard of his existence even, and refused to obey his majesty’s orders?”

“Ah! what historical animals: that quite reconciles me to them,” she answered, as we drove on again amongst a group that seemed very uneasy under their new masters, whose sweet language George averred had no power over them.

Who can describe the exquisite beauty of our drive?—winding in and out, sometimes through a tunnel; at others along the edge of the high precipice from which a low parapet alone separated us; at another passing through the village of Sisikon, which years ago suffered severely from a fragment of rock fallen from the Frohnalp above. Time flew rapidly, and one hour and a half had glided by, without our perceiving it, when we drew up before the beautiful little inn of “Tell’s Platte.”

“But there is no Platform here,” cried George. “We are hundreds of feet above the lake. The critics are right, Herr H——, decidedly right! I knew it from the beginning. How can you deny it?”

“Wait, my young friend! Don’t be so impatient. Just come into the inn first—I should like you to see the lovely view from it; and then we can look for the Platform.” Saying which, he led us upstairs, on through the salon to its balcony on the first floor. This is one of the smaller inns of that olden type which boast the enthusiastic attachment of regular customers, and display with pride that old institution—the “strangers’ book”—which has completely vanished from the monster hotels. It lay open on the table as we passed, and every one instinctively stopped to examine it.

“The dear old books!” exclaimed Mrs. C——. “How they used to amuse me in Switzerland! I have missed them so much this time. Their running fire of notes, their polyglot verses—a sort of album and scrap-book combined, full, too, of praise or abuse of the last hotel, as the humor might be.”

“Yes,” said Mr. C——, “I shall never forget the preface to one—an imprecation on whoever might be tempted to let his pen go beyond bounds. I learned it by rote:

“How very amusing!—a perfect gem in its way,” cried Anna. “Lord Sir John, M.P., must have been the model of large-pursed Britons in his time.” Here, however, everything seemed to be couleur de rose. The book’s only fault was its monotony of praise. Two sisters keep the hotel, and “nowhere,” said its devoted friends, “could one find better fare, better attendance, and greater happiness than at Tell’s Platform.” The testimony of a young couple confessedly on their bridal tour had no weight. We know how, at that moment, a barren rock transforms itself into a paradise for them; but three maiden ladies had passed six weeks of unalloyed enjoyment here once upon a time, and had returned often since; English clergymen and their families found no words of praise too strong; while German students and professors indulged in rhapsodical language not to be equalled out of fatherland.

Duchesses, princesses, and Lords Sir John, M.P., were alone wanting amongst the present guests. “But they come,” said Herr H——, “by the mid-day steamers, dine and rest here awhile, and return in the evenings to the larger hotels in other places.”

And standing on the balcony of the salon, facing all the grand mountains, with the green lake beneath, it truly seemed a spot made for brides and bridegrooms, for love and friendship. So absorbed were we in admiration of the enchanting view that we did not at first notice two little maidens sitting at the far end. They were pretty children, of nine and thirteen, daughters of an English family stopping here, and their countenances brightened as they heard our exclamation of delight; for Tell’s Platte was to them a paradise. Like true Britons, however, they said nothing until George and Caroline commenced disputing about the scenery. Comment then was irresistible. “No,” said the youngest, “that is the Isenthal,” pointing to a valley beneath the hills opposite; “and that the Urirothstock, with its glacier above, and the Gütschen. Those straight walls of rock below are the Teufel’s-Münster.”

“Don’t you remember where Schiller says:

That is it, and this here is the Axenberg,” said Emily, the elder girl.

“But I see no Platform here,” remarked George with mischief in his eye, as he quickly detected the young girl’s faith in the hero.

“It would be impossible to see it,” she rejoined, “as it is three hundred feet below this house.”

“But we can show you the way, if you will come,” continued the younger child, taking George’s hand, who, partly from surprise and partly amusement, allowed himself to be led like a lamb across the road and through the garden to the pathway winding down the cliff, followed by us, under guidance of the elder sister, Emily.

“Yes,” the children answered, “they had spent the last two years in France and Germany.” And certainly they spoke both languages like natives. Emily was even translating William Tell into English blank verse. “Heigho!” sighed Mr. C——, “for this precocious age.” But the lake of the Forest Cantons was dearer to them than all else. They had climbed one thousand feet up the side of the Frohnalpstock that very morning with their father; knew every peak and valley, far and near, with all their legends and histories; even the ranz des vaches and the differences between them—the shepherds’ calls to the cows and the goats. Annie, our smaller friend, entertained George with all their varieties, as she tripped daintily along, like a little fairy, with her tiny alpenstock. Very different was she from continental children, who rarely, if ever, take interest in either pastoral or literary matters. She knew the way to the platform well; for did she not go up and down it many times a day? A difficult descent it was, too—almost perpendicular—notwithstanding the well-kept pathway; but not dangerous until we reached the bottom, when each one in turn had to jump on to a jutting piece of rock, in order to get round the corner into the chapel. Most truly it stands on a small ledge, with no inch of room for aught but the small building raised over it. The water close up to the shore is said to be eight hundred feet deep, and it made one shudder to hear Herr H——’s story of an artist who a few years ago fell into the lake while sketching on the cliffs above. Poor man! forgetful of the precipice, he had thoughtlessly stepped back a few steps to look at his painting, fell over, and was never seen again. His easel and painting alone remained to give pathetic warning to other rash spirits.

The chapel, open on the side next the water, is covered with faded frescos of Tell’s history, which our little friends quaintly described; and it contains, besides, an altar and a small pulpit. Here Mass is said once a year on the Friday after the Ascension, when all the people of the neighborhood come hither, and from their boats, grouped outside, hear Mass and the sermon preached to them from the railing in front. This was the feast which my Weggis guide so much desired to see. It is unique in every particular, and Herr H—— was eloquent on the beauty and impressiveness of the scene, at which he had once been present, and which it was easy to understand amidst these magnificent surroundings. Nor is it a common gathering of peasants, but a solemn celebration, to which the authorities of Uri come in state with the standard of Uri—the renowned Uri ox—floating at the bows. As may be supposed, the sermon is always national, touching on all those points of faith, honor, and dignity which constitute true patriotism. Mr. C—— had Murray’s guide-book in his hand, and would not allow us to say another word until he read aloud Sir James Macintosh’s remarks on this portion of the lake, which there occur as follows:

“The combination of what is grandest in nature with whatever is pure and sublime in human conduct affected me in this passage (along the lake) more powerfully than any scene which I had ever seen. Perhaps neither Greece nor Rome would have had such power over me. They are dead. The present inhabitants are a new race, who regard with little or no feeling the memorials of former ages. This is, perhaps, the only place on the globe where deeds of pure virtue, ancient enough to be venerable, are consecrated by the religion of the people, and continue to command interest and reverence. No local superstition so beautiful and so moral anywhere exists. The inhabitants of Thermopylæ or Marathon know no more of these famous spots than that they are so many square feet of earth. England is too extensive a country to make Runnymede an object of national affection. In countries of industry and wealth the stream of events sweeps away these old remembrances. The solitude of the Alps is a sanctuary destined for the monuments of ancient virtue; Grütli and Tell’s chapel are as much reverenced by the Alpine peasants as Mecca by a devout Mussulman; and the deputies of the three ancient cantons met, so late as the year 1715, to renew their allegiance and their oaths of eternal union.”

“All very well,” said George, “if there really had been a Tell; but this seems to me a body without a soul. Why, this very chapel is in the Italian style, and never could have been founded by the one hundred and twenty contemporaries who are said to have known Tell and to have been present at its consecration.”

“I never heard that any one insisted on this being the original building,” said Herr H——. “It is probably an improvement on it; but it was not the fashion in those times—for people were not then incredulous—to put up tablets recording changes and renovations, as nowadays at Kaltbad and Klösterle, for instance. But speaking dispassionately, Mr. George, it seems to me quite impossible that the introduction of any legend from Denmark or elsewhere could have taken such strong hold of a people like these mountaineers without some solid foundation, especially here, where every inhabitant is known to the other, and the same families have lived on in the same spots for centuries. Why is it not just as likely that the same sort of event should have occurred in more than one place? And as to its not being mentioned in the local documents, that is not conclusive either; for we all know how careless in these respects were the men of the middle ages, above all in a rude mountain canton of this kind. Transmission by word of mouth and by religious celebrations is much more in character with those times. I go heart and hand with your own Buckle, who places so much reliance on local traditions. The main argument used against the truth of the story is, you know, that it was first related in detail by an old chronicler called Ægidius Tschudi, a couple of hundred years after the event. But I see nothing singular in that; for most probably he merely committed to writing, with all the freshness of simplicity, the story which, for the previous two hundred years, had been in the hearts and on the lips of the peasants of this region. No invention of any writer could have founded chapels or have become ingrained in the hearts of the locality itself in the manner this story has done. It was never doubted until the end of the last century, when a Prof. Freudenberger, of Bern, wrote a pamphlet entitled William Tell: a Danish Fable.”

“Yes,” broke in little Emily, latest translator of Schiller, and who had been listening attentively to our discussion, “and the people of the forest cantons were so indignant that the authorities of Uri had the pamphlet burned by the common hangman, and then they solemnly proclaimed its author an outlaw.”

“I told you, Mr. George, that you were on dangerous ground here,” said Herr H——, laughing.

“I must make him kiss this earth before he leaves,” said Mrs. C——, “as I read lately of a mother making her little son do when passing here early in this century, regarding it as a spot sacred to liberty. She little thought a sceptic like you would so soon follow.”

“Well! I am almost converted,” he answered, smiling, “but I wish Miss Emily would tell us the story of Tell’s jumping on shore here,” trying to draw out the enthusiastic little prodigy.

“Oh! don’t you remember that magnificent passage in Schiller where, after the scene of shooting at the apple, Gessler asked Tell why he put the second arrow into his quiver, and then, promising to spare his life if he revealed its object, evades his promise the instant he hears that it was destined to kill him if Tell had struck his son instead of the apple? He then ordered him to be bound and taken on board his vessel at Fluelen. The boat had no sooner left Fluelen than one of those sudden storms sprang up so common hereabouts. There was one two days ago. Annie and I tried to come down here, but it was impossible—the wind and waves were so high we could not venture, so we sat on the pathway and read out Schiller. Oh! he is a great genius. He never was in Switzerland. Yes! just fancy that; and yet he describes everything to perfection. Well! Tell was as good a pilot as a marksman, and Gessler, in his fright, again promised to take off his fetters if he would steer the vessel safely. He did, but steered them straight towards this ledge of rock, sprang out upon it, climbed up the cliff, and, rushing through the country, arrived at the Hohle-Gasse near Küssnacht before the tyrant had reached it.”

“Schiller decidedly has his merit, it must be confessed, when he can get such ardent admirers as these pretty children,” said Herr H—— when we bade farewell to our dear little friends.

“Yes,” answered the incorrigible George from the box seat, “poetry, poetry!—an excellent mode of transmitting traditions, making them indelible on young minds; but I am so far converted, Herr H——,” continued he, laughing, “that I am sorry the doubts were ever raised about the Tell history. It is in wonderful keeping with the place and people, and it will be a great pity if they give it up. ‘Se non è vero, è ben trovato,’[12] at least.”

Hence onwards to Fluelen is the finest portion of the Axenstrasse, and the opening views of the valley of the Reuss and the Bristenstock, through the arches of the galleries or tunnels, every minute increased in beauty. Several of us got out the better to enjoy them, sending the carriages on ahead. The Schwytz cattle had quite escaped our memories, when suddenly a bell sounded round a sharp angle of the road and a large drove instantly followed.

A panic seized us ladies. The cliff rose vertically on the inner side, without allowing us the possibility of a clamber, and in our fright, before the gentlemen could prevent us, we leaped over a low railing, which there served as a parapet, on to a ledge of rock, a few yards square, rising straight up from the lake hundreds of feet below. All recollection of their historical interest vanished from our minds; for, as the cattle danced along, they looked as scared and wild as ourselves, and it was not until they had passed without noticing us, and that their dark-eyed masters had spoken some soft Italian words to us, that we fully realized the extent of our imprudence. Had any one of these animals jumped up over the railing, as we afterwards heard they have sometimes done, who can say what might not have happened? Fortunately, no harm ensued beyond a flutter of nerves, which betrayed itself by Anna’s turning round to a set of handsome goats that soon followed the cattle, crying out to them in her own peculiar German: “Nix kommen! nix kommen!”

Fluelen has nothing to show beyond the picturesqueness of a village situated in such scenery and a collection of lumbering diligences and countless carriages, awaiting the hourly arrival of the steamers from Lucerne. The knell of these old diligences, however, has tolled, for the St. Gothard Railway tunnel has been commenced near Arnsty, and though it may require years to finish it, its “opening day” will surely come. Half an hour’s drive up the lovely valley brought us to Altorf, at the foot of the Grünwald, which, in accord with its name, is clothed with a virgin forest, now called the “Bann forest,” because so useful is it in protecting the town from avalanches and landslips that the Uri government never permits it to be touched. Altorf, like so many of the capitals in these forest cantons, has a small population, 2,700 inhabitants only, but it has many good houses, for it was burnt down in 1799 and rebuilt in a better manner. Tell’s story forms its chief interest, and certainly did so in our eyes. We rushed at once to the square, where one fountain is said to mark the spot where Tell took aim, and another that upon which his boy stood. Tradition says that the latter one replaced the lime-tree against which the son leant, portions of which existed until 1567. A paltry plaster statue of the hero is in the same square, but the most remarkable relic of antiquity is an old tower close by, which Herr H—— assured us is proved by documents to have been built before 1307, the date of Tell’s history. Had the young friends we left at “Tell’s Platform” accompanied us hither, Emily might have quoted Schiller to us at length. But George, having recently bought a Tauchnitz edition of Freeman’s Growth of the English Constitution, which opens with a fine description of the annual elections of this canton, he earnestly pleaded a prolongation of our drive to the spot where this takes place, three miles further inland. Accordingly, after ordering dinner to be ready on our return at a hotel which was filled with Tell pictures, and an excellent one of the festival at the Platform, we left the town and proceeded up the valley. Soon we crossed a stream, the same, Herr H—— told us, in which Tell is said to have been drowned while endeavoring to save a child who had fallen into it. He also pointed out to us Bürglen, his home, and an old tower believed to have been his house, attached to which there is now a small ivy-clad chapel. It stands at the opening of the Schächen valley, celebrated to this day for its fine race of men—likewise corresponding in this respect with the old tradition. But more modern interest attaches to this valley, for it was along its craggy sides and precipices that Suwarow’s army made its way across the Kinzig-Kulm to the Muotta. The whole of this region was the scene of fearful fighting—first between the French and the Austrians, who were assisted by the natives of Uri, in 1799, and then, a month later, between the Russians coming up from Lombardy and the French.

“That was the age of real fighting,” said Herr H——, “hand-to-hand fighting, without mitrailleuses or long ranges. But the misery it brought this quarter was not recovered from for years after. Altorf was burnt down at that time, and everything laid waste. The memory of the trouble lingers about here even yet. What wonder! Certainly, in all Europe no more difficult fighting ground could have been found. In the end, the French General Lecourbe was all but cut off, for he had destroyed every boat on the lake; in those days a most serious matter, as neither steamers nor Axenstrasse existed. When he therefore wished to pursue the Russians, who by going up this Schächen valley intended to join their own corps, supposed to be at Zürich, he too was obliged to make a bold manœuvre. And then it was that he led his army by torchlight along the dangerous mule-path on the Axenberg! Sad and dreadful times they were for these poor cantons.”

Herr H—— showed us Attinghausen, the birth-place of Walter Fürst, and the ruins of a castle near, which is the locality of a fine scene in Schiller, but the last owner of which died in 1357, and is known to have been buried in his helmet and spurs. Shortly after, about three miles from Altorf, we reached the noted field, and George, opening Freeman, read us the following passage aloud:

“Year by year, on certain spots among the dales and the mountain-sides of Switzerland, the traveller who is daring enough to wander out of beaten tracks and to make his journey at unusual seasons, may look on a sight such as no other corner of the earth can any longer set before him. He may there gaze and feel, what none can feel but those who have seen with their own eyes, what none can feel in its fulness more than once in a lifetime—the thrill of looking for the first time face to face on freedom in its purest and most ancient form. He is there in a land where the oldest institutions of our race—institutions which may be traced up to the earliest times of which history or legend gives us any glimmering—still live on in their primeval freshness. He is in a land where an immemorial freedom, a freedom only less eternal than the rocks that guard it, puts to shame the boasted antiquity of kingly dynasties, which, by its side, seem but as innovations of yesterday. There, year by year, on some bright morning of the springtide, the sovereign people, not entrusting its rights to a few of its own number, but discharging them itself in the majesty of its corporate person, meets, in the open market-place or in the green meadow at the mountain’s foot, to frame the laws to which it yields obedience as its own work, to choose the rulers whom it can afford to greet with reverence as drawing their commission from itself. Such a sight there are but few Englishmen who have seen; to be among these few I reckon among the highest privileges of my life. Let me ask you to follow me in spirit to the very home and birth-place of freedom, to the land where we need not myth and fable to add aught to the fresh and gladdening feeling with which we for the first time tread the soil and drink in the air of the immemorial democracy of Uri. It is one of the opening days of May; it is the morning of Sunday; for men there deem that the better the day the better the deed; they deem that the Creator cannot be more truly honored than in using in his fear and in his presence the highest of the gifts which he has bestowed on man. But deem not that, because the day of Christian worship is chosen for the great yearly assembly of a Christian commonwealth, the more directly sacred duties of the day are forgotten. Before we, in our luxurious island, have lifted ourselves from our beds, the men of the mountains, Catholics and Protestants alike, have already paid the morning’s worship in God’s temple. They have heard the Mass of the priest or they have listened to the sermon of the pastor, before some of us have awakened to the fact that the morn of the holy day has come. And when I saw men thronging the crowded church, or kneeling, for want of space within, on the bare ground beside the open door, when I saw them marching thence to do the highest duties of men and citizens, I could hardly forbear thinking of the saying of Holy Writ, that ‘where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’ From the market-place of Altorf, the little capital of the canton, the procession makes its way to the place of meeting at Bözlingen. First marches the little army of the canton, an army whose weapons never can be used save to drive back an invader from their land. Over their heads floats the banner, the bull’s-head of Uri, the ensign which led men to victory on the fields of Sempach and Morgarten. And before them all, on the shoulders of men clad in a garb of ages past, are borne the famous horns, the spoils of the wild bull of ancient days, the very horns whose blast struck such dread into the fearless heart of Charles of Burgundy. Then, with their lictors before them, come the magistrates of the commonwealth on horseback, the chief-magistrate, the Landamman, with his sword by his side. The people follow the chiefs whom they have chosen to the place of meeting, a circle in a green meadow, with a pine forest rising above their heads, and a mighty spur of the mountain range facing them on the other side of the valley. The multitude of freemen take their seats around the chief ruler of the commonwealth, whose term of office comes that day to an end. The assembly opens; a short space is given to prayer—silent prayer offered up by each man in the temple of God’s own rearing. Then comes the business of the day. If changes in the law are demanded, they are then laid before the vote of the assembly, in which each citizen of full age has an equal vote and an equal right of speech. The yearly magistrates have now discharged all their duties; their term of office is at an end; the trust that has been placed in their hands falls back into the hands of those by whom it was given—into the hands of the sovereign people. The chief of the commonwealth, now such no longer, leaves his seat of office, and takes his place as a simple citizen in the ranks of his fellows. It rests with the free-will of the assembly to call him back to his chair of office, or to set another there in his stead. Men who have neither looked into the history of the past, nor yet troubled themselves to learn what happens year by year in their own age, are fond of declaiming against the caprice and ingratitude of the people, and of telling us that under a democratic government neither men nor measures can remain for an hour unchanged. The witness alike of the present and of the past is an answer to baseless theories like these. The spirit which made democratic Athens year by year bestow her highest offices on the patrician Pericles and the reactionary Phocion, still lives in the democracies of Switzerland, alike in the Landesgemeinde of Uri and in the Federal Assembly at Bern. The ministers of kings, whether despotic or constitutional, may vainly envy the sure tenure of office which falls to the lot of those who are chosen to rule by the voice of the people. Alike in the whole confederation and in the single canton, re-election is the rule; the rejection of the outgoing magistrate is the rare exception. The Landamman of Uri, whom his countrymen have raised to the seat of honor, and who has done nothing to lose their confidence, need not fear that when he has gone to the place of meeting in the pomp of office, his place in the march homeward will be transferred to another against his will.”

The grand forms of the Windgälle, the Bristenstock, and the other mighty mountains, surrounded us as we stood in deep silence on this high green meadow, profoundly impressed by this eloquent tribute to a devout and liberty-loving people, all the more remarkable as coming from a Protestant writer. There was little to add to it, for Herr H——’s experience could only confirm it in every point. Dinner had to be got through rapidly on our return to Altorf, as we wished to catch the steamer leaving Fluelen at five o’clock. Like all these vessels, it touched at the landing-place beside Tell’s Platform, whence our young friends of the morning, who had been watching for our return, waved us a greeting. Thence we sat on deck, tracing Lecourbe’s mule-path march of torch-light memory along the Axenberg precipices, and finally reached the Waldstätterhof at Brunnen in time to see the sun sink behind Mont Pilatus, and leave the varied outlines clearly defined against a deep-red sky.

S. PHILIP’S HOME.[13]

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, related by Themselves. Second Series. Edited by John Morris, S. J. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Whilst our ears are deafened and our feelings shocked by the calumnies and lying vituperation heaped upon all that is most worthy of love and veneration upon earth by the Satanic societies which the Popes have smitten with repeated excommunications, it is consoling to be supplied—by limners, too, who are themselves no mean exemplars of the noble development which the Church can give to virtue when it follows her counsels—with lifelike portraits of Christian athletes in times gone by. We do not know how soon our courage, patience, and charity may be put to a similar test. Multitudes of our fellow-Catholics are already subjected to every suffering but the martyrdom of death; and this seed of the Church our enemies, more wily than the sanguinary heretics of the age of Elizabeth, seem to be unwilling to sow. But they will not long be able to restrain their passion. The word of persecution has gone forth; and so bitter is the hatred of the very name of Christ, that before very long nothing but the blood of Christians will satiate its instincts.

The persecution of the Church in England in the time of Elizabeth resembled the persecution which is now raging against it, in the political complexion given to it. But there were far stronger grounds for it then than now. The superior claims of Mary to the throne, her virtues, and her surpassing beauty, were a just subject of jealousy and uneasiness to Elizabeth, and she might very naturally suppose that her Catholic subjects were not likely to regard with any fondness the usurpation of an illegitimate daughter of her apostate and tyrannical father.

In the present persecutions there is no political pretext, but one is made under cover of which to extirpate from among mankind the religion and very name of Christ.

This volume is the second of a series which promises to supply us with a whole gallery of Christian heroes, which we of this age of worldliness, cowardice, and self-seeking will do well to study attentively. As is often the case, it is to the untiring zeal of the Society of Jesus we owe so interesting as well as edifying a work. Father Morris, formerly Secretary to Cardinal Wiseman, but who joined the Society after the death of that eminent prelate, is its author, and he appears to us to have executed his task with rare judgment. By allowing his characters to speak in great part for themselves, the biographies and relations he presents us with have a dramatic interest which is greatly increased by the quaint and nervous style of the time in which they express themselves. We feel, too, that it is the very innermost soul and mind of the individual that is being revealed to us; and certainly in most of them the revelation is so beautiful that we should possibly have ascribed something of this to the partiality of a panegyrist, or to his descriptive skill, if the picture had been sketched by the pen of any other biographer than themselves. It is, indeed, the mean opinion they evidently have of themselves, and the naïve and modest manner in which they relate incidents evoking heroic virtue, their absolute unconsciousness of aught more than the most ordinary qualities, which fascinate us. It bears an impress of genuineness impossible to any description by the most impartial of historians. They express a beauty which could no more be communicated in any other way than can the odor of the flower or the music of the streams be conveyed by any touch, how ever magic, of the painter.

The present volume of the series contains the “Life of Father William Weston, S.J.,” and “The Fall of Anthony Tyrrell,” by Father Persons; for “our wish is,” says Father Morris, “to learn not only what was done by the strong and brave, but also by the weak and cowardly.”

We are much struck in this history with the resemblance between those times and the present in the unsparing calumny of which the purest and the holiest men were made the victims.

For confirmation of these remarks, we refer the reader to the book itself. But we cannot refrain from quoting, in spite of its length, the following incident related by Father Weston. It is a remarkable example of the salutary effect of the Sacrament of Penance:

“For there lay in a certain heretical house a Catholic who, with the consent of his keeper, had come to London for the completion of some urgent business. He had been committed to a prison in the country, a good way out of London. He was seized, however, and overpowered by a long sickness which brought him near to death. The woman who nursed him, being a Catholic, had diligently searched the whole city through to find a priest, but in vain. She then sent word to me of the peril of that person, and entreated me, if it could be contrived, to come to his assistance, as he was almost giving up the ghost. I went to him when the little piece of gold obtained for me the liberty to do so. I explained that I was a priest, for I was dressed like a layman, and that I had come to hear his confession. ‘If that is the reason why you have come, it is in vain,’ he said; ‘the time for it is passed away.’ I said to him: ‘What! are you not a Catholic? If you are, you know what you have to do. This hour, which seems to be your last, has been given you that by making a good and sincere confession you may, while there is time, wash away the stains of your past life, whatever they are.’ He answered: ‘I tell you that you have come too late: that time has gone by. The judgment is decided; the sentence has been pronounced; I am condemned, and given up to the enemy. I cannot hope for pardon.’ ‘That is false,’ I answered, ‘and it is a most fearful error to imagine that a man still in life can assert that he is already deprived of God’s goodness and abandoned by his grace, in such a way that even when he desires and implores mercy it should be denied him. Since your faith teaches you that God is infinitely merciful, you are to believe with all certitude that there is no bond so straitly fastened but the grace of God can unloose it, no obstacle but grace has power to surmount it.’ ‘But do you not see,’ he asked me, ‘how full of evil spirits this place is where we are? There is no corner or crevice in the walls where there are not more than a thousand of the most dark and frightful demons, who, with their fierce faces, horrid looks, and atrocious words threaten perpetually that they are just going to carry me into the abyss of misery. Why, even my very body and entrails are filled with these hateful guests, who are lacerating my body and torturing my soul with such dreadful cruelty and anguish that it seems as if I were not so much on the point merely of going there, as that I am already devoted and made over to the flames and agonies of hell. Wherefore, it is clear that God has abandoned me for ever, and has cast me away from all hope of pardon.’

“When I had listened in trembling to all these things, and to much more of a similar kind, and saw at the same time that death was coming fast upon him, and that he would not admit of any advice or persuasion, I began to think within myself, in silence and anxiety, what would be the wisest course to choose. There entered into my mind, through the inspiration, doubtless, of God, the following most useful plan and method of dealing with him: ‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘if you are going to be lost, I do not require a confession from you; nevertheless, recollect yourself just for a moment, and, with a quiet mind, answer me, in a few words, either yes or no to the questions that I put to you; I ask for nothing else, and put upon you no other burden.’ Then I began to question him, and to follow the order of the Commandments. First, whether he had denied his faith. ‘See,’ I said, ‘do not worry yourself; say just those simple words, yes or no.’ As soon as he had finished either affirming or denying anything, I proceeded through four or five Commandments—whether he had killed any one, stolen anything, etc. When he had answered with tolerable calmness, I said to him, ‘What are the devils doing now? What do you feel or suffer from them?’ He replied: ‘They are quieter with me; they do not seem to be so furious as they were before.’ ‘Lift up your soul to God,’ I said, ‘and let us go on to the rest.’ In the same fashion and order I continued to question him about other things. Then I enquired again, saying, ‘How is it now?’ He replied; ‘Within I am not tormented. The devils stand at a distance; they throw stones; they make dreadful faces at me, and threaten me horribly. I do not think that I shall escape.’ Going forward as before, I allured and encouraged the man by degrees, till every moment he became more reasonable, and at last made an entire confession of all his sins, after which I gave him absolution, and asked him what he was suffering from his cruel and harassing enemies. ‘Nothing,’ he said; ‘they have all vanished. There is not a trace of them, thanks be to God.’ Then I went away, after strengthening him by a few words, and encouraging him beforehand against temptations which might return. I promised, at the same time, that I would be with him on the morrow, and meant to bring the most Sacred Body of Christ with me, and warned him to prepare himself diligently for the receiving of so excellent a banquet. The whole following night he passed without molestation from the enemy, and on the next day he received with great tranquillity of mind the most Holy Sacrament, after which, at an interval of a few hours without disturbance, he breathed forth his soul, and quietly gave it up to God. Before he died, I asked the man what cause had driven him into such desperation of mind. He answered me thus: ‘I was detained in prison many years for the Catholic faith. Nevertheless, I did not cease to sin, and to conceal my sins from my confessor, being persuaded by the devil that pardon must be sought for from God, rather by penances and severity of life, than by confession. Hence I either neglected my confessions altogether, or else made insincere ones; and so I fell into that melancholy of mind and that state of tribulation which has been my punishment.’”

Light leading unto Light: A Series of Sonnets and Poems. By John Charles Earle, B.A. London: Burns & Oates. 1875.

Mr. Earle has undoubtedly a facility in writing sonnets; and a good sonnet has been well called “a whole poem in itself.” It is also, we think, peculiarly suitable for didactic poetry. The present sonnets are in advance, we consider, of those we first saw from Mr. Earle’s pen. But we still observe faults, both of diction and of verse, which he should have learnt to avoid. His model seems to be Wordsworth—the greatest sonneteer in our language; but, like him, he has too much of the prosaic and the artificial.

We wish we could bestow unqualified praise upon the ideas throughout these sonnets. And were there nothing for criticism but what may be called poetic subtleties—such as the German notion of an “ether body,” developed during life, and hatched at death, for our intermediate state of being—we should have no quarrel with Mr. Earle. But when we meet two sonnets (XLVIII. and XLIX.) headed “Matter Non-Existent,” and “Matter Non-Substantial,” we have a philosophical error serious in its consequences, and are not surprised to find the two following sonnets teach Pantheism. In Sonnet XLVIII. the author’s excellent intention is to refute materialism:

Sonnet L. is headed, “As the Soul in the Body, so is God in the Universe.” Surely, this is the old “Anima Mundi” theory! Then, in Sonnet LI., the poet says of nature, and addressing God:

Now, of course, Mr. Earle is unconscious that this is rank Pantheism. He has a way of explaining it to himself which makes it sound perfectly orthodox. But we do call such a blunder inexcusable in a Catholic writer of Mr. Earle’s pretensions. The title of his volume, “Light leading unto Light,” has little to do with the contents, as far as we can see; and, certainly, there are passages which would more fitly be headed “Darkness leading unto Darkness.”

We are sorry to have had to make these strictures. The great bulk of the sonnets, together with the remaining poems, are very pleasant reading, and cannot fail to do good.

First Annual Report of the Rev. Theodore Noethen, First Catholic Chaplain of the Albany Penitentiary, to the Inspectors. April 6, 1875. Albany: J. Munsell. 1875.

Thirteen Sermons preached in the Albany County Penitentiary. By the Rev. Theodore Noethen. Published under the auspices of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul. Albany: Van Benthuysen Printing House. 1875.

We are glad to see Father Noethen’s familiar hand thus charitably and characteristically engaged. These are the first documents of the kind we have observed under the improving state of things in this country, in which the priest of the Church is seen occupied in one of his most important duties—reclaiming the erring; and in doing this the means which he employs will doubtless be found more efficacious than any the state has at its command. Did the state fully appreciate its highest interest as well as duty, it would afford the Church every facility, not only in reclaiming such of her children as have fallen into the temptations by which they are surrounded, but also in the use of those preventive measures involved in parish schools, which would save multitudes from penitentiaries and houses of correction. Our over-zealous Protestant friends throw every obstacle in the way of the adequate moral and religious training of the class most exposed to the temptations arising from poverty and lack of employment, and then blame the Church for the result. We heartily welcome these signs of a better time coming.

An Exposition of the Epistles of S. Paul and of the Catholic Epistles; consisting of an Introduction to each Epistle, an Analysis of each Chapter, a Paraphrase of the Sacred Text, and a Commentary, embracing Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Dogmatical, interspersed with Moral Reflections. By the Rt. Rev. John MacEvilly, D.D., Bishop of Galway. Third edition, enlarged. Dublin: W. B. Kelly. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

After quoting this full, descriptive title-page, it will suffice to say that the notes which form the commentary have in the present edition been considerably enlarged. The work was originally published under the approbation of the Holy Father, the late Cardinals Barnabo and Wiseman, and the present venerable Archbishop of Tuam.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From Scribner, Armstrong & Co., New York: Personal Reminiscences. By O’Keefe, Kelly, and Taylor. Edited by R. H. Stoddard (Bric-à-Brac Series, No. VIII)

From the Author: An Address on Woman’s Work in the Church before the Presbytery of New Albany. By Geo. C. Heckman, D.D. Paper, 8vo, pp. 28.

From Wm. Dennis, G.W.S.: Journal of Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Session of the Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia. Paper, 8vo, pp. 73.

From the Author: The Battle of Life: An Address. By D. S. Troy, Montgomery, Alabama. Paper, 8vo, pp. 14.

From Ginn Brothers, Boston: Latin Composition: An Elementary Guide to Writing in Latin. Part I.—Constructions. By J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough. 12mo, pp. vi., 117.