Chapter XVI · . (continued 2)

This is the inspiration of true poetry. Nothing at all approaching it can be found throughout the poetry of Tennyson.

In contrast to the soul led by divine love, the poet depicts her sisters devoured by envy and hatred, until, deceiving themselves the while with the dream that they too were objects of delight to divine love, the one having reached “the bare cliff’s rugged brow,” her end of life,

and the other

Can anything be grander than this imaged suicide of the evil human soul? And the glowing description of Psyche content to forget her father and her father’s house, and finding the fondest delight in sequestering herself alone with her divine Lover, whom she never sees, only whose voice she hears, is the most exquisite piece of poetic imagining to be met with anywhere. But the poem deserves a criticism to itself.

We have here to pause. We had hoped to apply similar canons of criticism to others of our modern poets. We had selected Buchanan, Adelaide Procter, Matthew Arnold, Aubrey de Vere, and especially his father, whose mantle has descended on him. Sir Aubrey de Vere is the only one of the modern poets who has written a poem belonging to the highest order of poetry—Mary Tudor, a historical drama—which, although at a long distance from the dramas of “the poet of the world,” is the nearest to them that has been written since his day.

ON THE FIRST OCCASION OF THE FORTY HOURS’ DEVOTION IN THE NEW CATHEDRAL OF BOSTON.

“No word shall be impossible with God.”

March, 1876.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

VII.

This is very singular!” cried Sir Roger Lassels, master of the earl’s household, as they passed the edge of the wood. “I had made a bet with myself that we would follow the road on the bank of the river. At all events, the expedition will not be a very long one, since they have given me no order for provisions. It is true, however, that our poor young lord’s head is not as sound as it might be. Ah! well, in the time of the late duke things were not managed in this fashion. When they were going into the country, the duke would send for me eight days in advance. ‘Lassels,’ he would say—‘my dear Lassels,’ slapping me on the shoulder, ‘above all take great care that we shall want for nothing. Prepare everything in advance; because in matters of cooking, you know, I hate nothing so much as the uncertainty of the ‘fortune of the pot.’ He was right, very right, was the duke. The duchess used always to say on seeing our wagons passing by: ‘With Roger Lassels they carry everything with them.’”

In the meantime the first rays of the sun were not slow in dissipating the heavy mists of morning; the air became pure and exhilarating, and the northern pines, which grew in great profusion in that portion of the forest, imparted to the atmosphere a sweet, pungent odor. Myriads of dewdrops, more brilliant than diamonds, were suspended from the points of the leaves,

“Oh! what a beautiful shot,” cried a voice from the crowd, on seeing a large grouse, its wings dripping with the dew, flying slowly above their heads.

“Take it, then!” cried another.

“For what purpose?” exclaimed Northumberland.

Sir Walsh, hearing the voice of Lord Percy, took advantage of that moment to urge his horse beside him, and declare the pain it caused him to see his friend so deeply depressed.

“What could you expect?” replied Percy. “All is ended with me. I have renounced everything. I am detached from everything earthly. A single moment has dissipated all the illusions of my short and miserable life—illusions in which so many others remain for ever enveloped. I believed that henceforth a word would be sufficient to answer my every thought; to suffer alone, while awaiting death, which is only the beginning of life. Might I not thus believe myself to be almost shielded by evils, since I was determined to endure them all? One evil only I had not foreseen—that of being made the cause of suffering to others; of becoming, in the hands of an unjust and barbarous ruler, an instrument destined to destroy my friends! Ah! it is this that makes me rebel, that bows me to the earth and surpasses everything that I have yet been made to suffer. I go at this moment to arrest the Archbishop of York—to conduct him, doubtless, on the road to execution; and the day will come when those who loved him will exclaim, while they point the finger of scorn at my abode: ‘There lives the man who arrested the great Wolsey, the venerable friend who had reared and educated him in his own house!’”

“The great Wolsey!” replied Walsh, astonished.

“Yes, great,” said Northumberland. “When he will be no more, then will they forget his faults and appreciate his great qualities. He has known how to keep the lion chained, so that you have only seen him lap; but you will know him better if he ever gets the chance to use his teeth.”

“Who is this lion?” asked Walsh.

“I cannot name his name,” replied Northumberland angrily; “he is one whose claws tear the heart and destroy the innocent; one who is—But never mind!” And he abruptly ceased speaking.

After riding for some time through the forest, they at last emerged into a vast plain, in the midst of which appeared several villages; and very soon they found themselves near a church, whose ringing chimes announced the beginning of the divine Office.

At that moment the Earl of Northumberland turned to Sir Walsh. “If agreeable to you,” he said, “we will stop and hear Mass. We shall, at any rate, arrive soon enough at Cawood. You will have an opportunity, if you are curious, of visiting the monuments Sir William Harrington has had erected to the memory of his parents in this chapel, founded by him in order that prayers may every day be offered for the repose of their souls.”[77]

“I ask nothing better,” replied Sir Walsh.

They all entered the chapel, where Mass had already begun. A great number of the inhabitants of the surrounding country were assembled, and Lord Percy found himself close beside a woman, still very young, but whose features seemed to have been entirely changed by misery and suffering. Two small children knelt beside her and held to her coarse, black woollen gown.

“Mother, I am very hungry yet!” said the eldest in a voice as sweet as that of a young dove. “Brother has eaten up all the bread.” And he laid his head against her shoulder.

The young woman looked at the child, and her eyes filled with tears.

“My dear child,” she replied in a low, choking voice, “I have nothing more to give you; this evening, may be, I shall find something to buy bread with. If your father were living, we would be very happy; but, my son, a poor widow is cast off by all the world, even though she is too feeble to work for bread for her children.”

Tears streamed from her eyes as she pressed the starving child close to her bosom.

Northumberland listened to the woman’s mournful complaint, observing especially that she did not murmur; she only wept. The expression of her pale and suffering face, as well as the feeling she had expressed of entire abandonment, filled his soul with pity.

“Such as these,” he said to himself—“such as these indeed have a right to complain of life and its miseries. I have ignored them. Shut up in my castle, I have even forgotten the orphan. Of no possible service to my kind, the earth supports me like an arid, sterile plant. Cruel selfishness! Is it, then, essential for all to smile around me before I can think of those who are crushed by poverty and misfortune? My tears, my sighs, my regrets, have all been in vain, have vanished into thin air; there remains for me nothing but duty to my neighbor, and that I have not done!”

Greatly agitated, he remained for an instant motionless, then, leaning over toward the woman, he requested her to leave the chapel for a moment.

Surprised that any one should think of speaking to her, she raised her eyes, all streaming with tears, to his face, while astonishment was painted on her emaciated features.

She arose, however, and followed him out, and they stopped a short distance from the chapel.

“You weep!” said Northumberland compassionately. “You are a widow, it seems. Are you not able to support your children?”

“Alas! sir,” replied the young woman without hesitation, “my

“Poor woman!” said Northumberland, putting some pieces of gold in her hand, “hereafter have no fears; I will take care of you and your young children.”

“My God!” cried the woman, falling on her knees—“bread, bread for my children! Are you an angel sent from heaven to save us? O sir! who will thank you for me? Ah! it shall be my poor children and your own! May they love and bless you as I do this moment.”

“Alas!” replied Lord Percy, “I have no children; I shall never have any! But you, poor mother, can at least rejoice in the happiness of possessing children to love and cherish you.”

In spite of the painful recollections awakened in his soul, when Percy returned to the chapel his heart was overflowing with a secret and sweet consolation; he felt that henceforth he would find brothers and friends in these unfortunates, whose father he would replace by taking upon himself their support.

When the Mass was ended, they all remounted their horses to continue their journey. They had scarcely started when they were joined by a troop of horsemen as numerous as it was brilliant, being composed of a great number of the most distinguished gentlemen in the province, who were proceeding to York to assist at the installation of their archbishop. At their head rode old Robert Ughtred, chief of one of the oldest Yorkshire families, whose valor and merit had been admired by all his contemporaries. Six of his sons accompanied him. At his side rode Clifton, Lord d’Humanby, his friend and relative; Thomas Wentworth, of Nettlestead; Sir Arthur Ingram de Temple, Lord of Newsam; Walter Vavassour; John de Hothum, Lord of Cramwick and of Bierly; William Aytoun, Swillington; Meynill, Lord of Semer and Duerteton, together with a crowd of others. They recognized with astonishment the Earl of Northumberland, and eagerly approached to salute him.

This meeting, but little agreeable at first, became still less so when informed of the object of their journey. Percy, however, deemed it inexpedient to let this opportunity pass of creating for himself a sort of justification for the future. On being told, therefore, that they would spend two days at the little village of Cawood before going to salute the archbishop, he assured them he would be most happy to do the same and not separate from their company; but he was forced to go where he had been ordered, and that it was a mission on which he proceeded with the greatest reluctance and sorrow.

The travellers, astonished at his singular explanation, looked inquiringly at each other; but as they regarded the Earl of Northumberland with great deference because of his rank, his well-known worth, and the affection they cherished for the memory of his father, they held their peace, and continued their journey until within a very short distance of Cawood.

* * * * *

Notwithstanding the resolution taken by Cardinal Wolsey that the éclat, he could not prevent the entire nobility of the province from assembling to do him honor and to express on this solemn occasion their affection and joy. The little village of Cawood and the castles around it were crowded with visitors. The archbishop’s courtyard was constantly filled with carts laden with game, fruits, and all kinds of provisions, sent to him from every direction to assist in doing honor to the entertainment it was customary to give on these occasions.

Wolsey felt touched to the heart by these testimonials of friendship and esteem, in which there was no reason to suspect that self-interest mingled its destructive poison. Nevertheless, he felt more than ever depressed, and his spirit was overshadowed by dark and terrible presentiments, in spite of all his efforts to dispel them.

It was the hour for the repast taken by our fathers at noon, and Wolsey found himself seated opposite the salt-cellar which divided the table, and served also to designate the rank of the guests. In those remote times a common expression prevailed: “It takes place above or below the salt.”

The chaplains were seated around him, quietly discussing the foundation of the cathedral of York. Some of them stated that the Venerable Bede alleged in his writings that it was Edwin the Saxon, King of Northumberland, who, having embraced the Christian faith in the year 627, was the first to build a wooden church, which he afterwards rebuilt of stone. But the others contended, the monument having been pillaged and devastated by the Danes, then burned by the Normans, together with a portion of the city, the title of founder could only be accorded to Archbishop Roger, who commenced the erection of the superb edifice in 1171, and to his successors, John of Romagna and William of Melton, who had the honor of completing it after forty years’ labor. They insisted that it would assuredly be just to include among them Robert Percy, Lord of Bolton, who had all the wood cut employed in the construction, and Robert Vavassour, who had furnished the stone.

The archbishop for a long while had finished eating. He had listened patiently to their lengthy discussions. When he saw at last they had nearly concluded, he arose to say grace; but at the moment they were standing with bowed heads awaiting the act of thanksgiving, the black velvet robe of Dr. Augustine, his physician, became entangled in the foot of the large silver cross that was carried before the archbishop. This cross was standing in one corner, resting against the tapestry, and the robe made it fall with its entire weight on the head of Dr. Bonner, who sat on the opposite side of the table. He uttered a piercing cry.

They all rushed toward him.

“What is the matter with him?” demanded the archbishop, who had seen nothing of the accident.

“The cross,” explained Cavendish, his master of the horse—“the cross, which was leaning against the wall, has fallen in Dr. Bonner’s face.”

“In his face! Is he bleeding?” cried Wolsey.

“Yes,” replied several of those who surrounded the wounded man, “but it is nothing serious; the skin only is broken.”

“Ah!” said Wolsey, and he stood motionless; his head sank on

“Woe is me!” he at length exclaimed, “woe is me!” And the tears coursed down his cheeks. He quickly wiped them away and retired immediately to his bedroom, where no one dared follow him without being summoned.

The attendants of the cardinal, however, were extremely apprehensive, having remarked the sudden change in his manner and the extreme pallor which had overspread his countenance. Dr. Bonner especially earnestly insisted that Cavendish should go to him at once.

He finally resolved to do so. On entering the apartment he found the archbishop on his knees, and remarked that the floor of his chamber was wet with tears.

Wolsey made a sign for him to retire; but the faithful servitor stood near the door and hesitated to obey him. The cardinal then called him to assist him in rising to his feet, feeling, he said, extremely feeble.

“Alas! my dear lord,” said Cavendish, “what is it that so deeply grieves you? and why will you withdraw from your trusty servitors, if it is in their power to assist you?”

“I thank you, Cavendish,” replied the cardinal, inclining his head, “but listen to me. My poor friend, I am going to die very soon—I have a presentiment of it; and God, in his mercy, often sends us these warnings, in order that we may not be surprised by death. The cross of York has fallen: it represents myself.”

“Why think you so?” asked Cavendish earnestly. “This cross fell because it was struck; nothing could have been more natural than such an accident.”

“No! no!” exclaimed Wolsey, “it was not at all natural, but it is only too true. York is overthrown! Augustine is my accuser; he makes my own blood flow in making Bonner bleed, the master of my faculties and spiritual jurisdiction. My destiny is accomplished. My doom is sealed. Cavendish, if you doubt it, you will soon be convinced. My shadow, the sound of my name alone, is sufficient to alarm them; already I am no more, and yet this remnant of life makes them tremble, even in the midst of their triumphs. It is necessary for their peace that my last breath be extinguished; they have resolved and they will accomplish it!”

“No! no!” cried Cavendish, deeply moved. “The king loves you; he will defend you! All love you,” he continued warmly. “See with what eagerness they hasten hither to give you the most earnest assurances of their devotion.”

“That is true,” replied Wolsey, who was becoming more calm, and was greatly relieved by the presence of Cavendish. “It is the only feeling of joy I have experienced in a long time; but I am grieved not to have received any token of remembrance from the young Earl of Northumberland. His intellect, goodness, and his many amiable qualities have always made me regard him with the greatest esteem and affection. They say he loves solitude, and I am well assured that he receives no visitors; but I very much fear he cherishes bitter recollections of the court and Anne Boleyn. However, he should not take it ill that I have helped to prevent him from marrying such a woman!”

Whilst Wolsey was speaking a great noise was heard in the courtyard. Cavendish, at the cardinal’s request, immediately went out to ascertain the cause.

Overjoyed at hearing the name, Cavendish at once returned to inform the archbishop.

“Here is Lord Percy himself, who also comes to congratulate your grace!” he exclaimed the instant he came in sight of Wolsey.

“The dear child!” cried the cardinal, his heart overflowing with a gush of tenderness. “Cavendish, you are not mistaken. Eh? Ah! I shall never forget him! Let us go and receive him, Cavendish.”

He advanced with a tottering step, and more rapidly than he was able, toward the staircase which Northumberland had just ascended. On seeing the archbishop approaching to meet him Lord Percy felt his heart suddenly throb with a sensation of inexpressible wretchedness.

“He comes to meet me!” he exclaimed.

He found him so much changed, so old and worn, that without his vestments he would scarcely have recognized him.

“He also has found the cup of life embittered!” said Northumberland. “Sorrow carves deep furrows on the brow, and with her haggard finger impresses every feature.”

He turned anxiously to look for Walsh, but found he was no longer near him. In the meantime Wolsey advanced rapidly toward him, and, taking him in his arms, pressed him closely to his heart.

“You are most welcome, my dear lord! How happy I am to see you!” he exclaimed. “But why have I not been informed of your coming? I should, at least, have been prepared to give you a better reception; for you must know that what formerly required but a moment to effect I am now scarcely able to execute at all. But you will, I hope, appreciate my good intentions; and if I am ever so happy as to be re-established in my fortune, I shall then be able to express more worthily the joy I feel at receiving you in my house.”

“I thank your lordship,” answered Northumberland.

But he was unable to utter another word. However, he embraced Wolsey, though with great excitement of manner, his hands trembling visibly in those of the archbishop.

“Let us go,” continued Wolsey glancing at the followers of Lord Percy. “I am glad to see you have remembered the advice I gave you in your youth, to love and take care of all your father’s old domestics; that is why, I suppose, you have brought so many of them with you.”

“Yes, I prefer them,” replied Northumberland. And Wolsey went and took them each by the hand, praising their fidelity and recommending them to love their young master as he himself had always done.

The more Wolsey exerted himself to assure Northumberland of the gratification he experienced at his coming, the less strength Percy felt to thank him. However, the cardinal begged to be allowed to accompany him to his bed-chamber, where they might be alone, except Cavendish, who remained near the door, as his duty required him.

For a moment they sat in silence. Wolsey regarded Lord Percy with astonishment on observing the latter change color and become every instant more and more embarrassed. At length, arousing himself

Wolsey sat so completely stupefied that he was incapable of uttering a word; they gazed at each other in mournful silence.

“Who has induced you to do this?” the cardinal at length exclaimed, “and by what authority do you it?”

“My lord,” replied Northumberland coldly, “I have a commission that authorizes me; or that compels me, rather,” he continued in a low voice.

“Where is this commission? Let me see it?”

“No, my lord, I cannot.”

“Then,” cried Wolsey, “I will not submit to your authority.”

As he said this, Sir Walsh pushed Dr. Augustine, whom he had arrested, rudely into the apartment. “Go in there, traitor,” he cried; but perceiving the cardinal, he fell on his knees before him, and, removing his cap, bowed almost to the floor.

Wolsey turned pale on seeing Walsh; he at once recognized him as being an officer of the king’s palace, and knew he would not be there without an express order.

“Sir,” he exclaimed, “rise, I implore you! My Lord of Northumberland comes to arrest me! If he has a commission, and you are with him for that purpose, you will be pleased to let me see it.”

“My lord,” answered Walsh, “if it please your grace, it is true that I have one; but we cannot permit you to see it. They have added to the paper on which it is written some instructions that we are bound not to make known.”

“Then,” cried Wolsey, melting into tears, “all is over with me! They deprive me even of the means of defending myself, and my cruel enemies behold all their schemes accomplished. It is well, sir,” continued the archbishop, turning his back on the Earl of Northumberland; “I consent to surrender myself to you, but not to my Lord of Northumberland, who comes here only to enjoy my discomfiture. As to you, I know you; your name is Walsh, and you are one of the officers of the king, my master. Therefore I do not demand your commission; his will is sufficient. I am perfectly aware that the greatest peer in the realm is liable to be arrested by the lowest subject, if such be his majesty’s good pleasure. This is why I shall obey you without delay. Begin, then, to put your orders into execution. If I had known them, I would have assisted you myself; but, at least, I submit.”

Saying this, the archbishop seated himself in silence; but the tears continued to flow rapidly down his cheeks.

Meanwhile, Lord Percy felt so deeply wounded by the suspicion manifested by the archbishop, and his believing him to be actuated by a principle of low revenge and cruelty in coming to arrest him, that he was about to withdraw without offering him a solitary word of consolation, as he had intended; but a sudden feeling of compassion induced him to return and take a seat by his side.

Wolsey was deeply moved by this.

“My lord,” he exclaimed, “I swear before God I am innocent of all the crimes my enemies impute to me, beyond doubt, for the purpose of securing my death!

“Friendship,” replied Northumberland, “is but a vain word, a beautiful sound that dissolves in the air, a shifting sand requiring the one who reposes on it always to remain on his guard, to beware; for one-half of the world is too frivolous and the other half too selfish for any confidence ever to be placed in them.”

“Therefore you yourself feel no compassion for me?” said Wolsey, looking at him.

“You are unjust!” replied Lord Percy. “God is my judge how deeply I have suffered in being forced before you in my present capacity. But tell me, how am I to arrest the destroying tempest or turn aside the falling thunderbolt? Have they not crushed me also?”

* * * * *

After two long days had passed, during which the archbishop was entirely deprived of all communication with those around him, Northumberland came to inform him that everything was arranged for the journey and it was time to depart.

“Alas! where are you going to take me?” cried Wolsey, to whom this departure seemed the first step toward condemnation and death.

In that fatal moment he felt an attachment for every stone and every spot connected with the abode which, until this time, he had regarded as the most gloomy place of exile.

“Not to be able to die in peace!” he mournfully exclaimed. “Where are you going to take me, Lord Percy?”

“I cannot accompany you,” sadly replied Northumberland, who had endeavored during the preceding days to make him regard his condition with less terror; “but I know that Sir Walsh has orders to deliver you at Sheffield Park, and place you in the hands of my father-in-law, the Earl of Shrewsbury; and you need suffer no anxiety, nor doubt but that he will gladly exert himself to have you well treated as far as depends on him. To-night you will sleep at Pomfret.”

“At the castle?” demanded Wolsey.

“No, no,” replied Lord Percy: “at the abbey. I am certain of it. I swear it! I have myself sent the order for you to be received there. O my father!” continued Percy, who felt more and more deeply grieved, “I must now leave you.”

“My dear son,” said the archbishop, “may the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel and of Jacob, for ever bless you! We shall meet no more but in him.”

As the archbishop extended his hands and laid them on the head of Percy, and while he bent affectionately over him, Walsh entered, followed by a number of armed men; and the sound of smothered sighs and stifled cries was heard.

“What is that?” exclaimed Wolsey in alarm.

“Nothing, my lord,” answered Walsh in an imperious tone. “As you could only take four of your men with you, I feared the others would make too much disturbance at your departure; consequently, I had them shut up in the chapel.”

“Sir,” cried Wolsey indignantly, “I will not leave this place until I have seen and bade farewell to all my servants. You cannot have been authorized to treat me with such a degree of cruelty. My Lord Northumberland, since you have seized for the king’s benefit the little money I possessed, and have left me nothing to give them, at least permit me to thank them for their services and mingle my tears with theirs.”

“We thought it would be painful for you to witness their grief,” replied Northumberland, “and wished to spare you the infliction. But they shall be summoned.”

As soon as the door of the chapel was opened they gathered in a crowd around Wolsey, kissing his hands and his vestments.

“My children,” he said to them, “weep not; we shall meet again very soon, I hope. My Lord Northumberland, I recommend them to you! You will take care of them—I feel assured of it.”

He then hastened to depart, feeling his courage ready to desert him. At every step he took his anguish redoubled; and when he reached the great courtyard, he turned his eyes for a moment toward the high, black walls of the castle he was leaving, then glanced at the mule assigned him to ride. Cavendish followed with his almoner and two of his valets. But a new grief awaited Wolsey, already overwhelmed with sorrow. Scarcely had they opened the outer gate of the castle, when they perceived without a crowd of gentlemen of the province, whom Walsh had summoned, in the king’s name, to come and secure the arrest of the archbishop; because the whole country was in a state of commotion, and more than three thousand men had gathered along the route, in the plain, and as far as the moats of the castle, around which they assembled as soon as they were informed of his arrest. They were powerless to oppose his departure, but followed him for several miles, shouting incessantly: “God save his grace, and perish his enemies who have forced him from us!” They regarded the noblemen who surrounded him with wrathful scowls, without reflecting that, while feeling it necessary to obey the king, the lords were as deeply disaffected as themselves, and in their turn accused the Earl of Northumberland of having seconded Walsh in this enterprise.

During the journey they unceasingly manifested the greatest regard for the archbishop, and only left him after seeing him committed into the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury, whose castle was situated near the confines of Yorkshire, a short distance from the town of Doncaster.

TO BE CONTINUED.

SENNUCCIO MIO, BENCHE DOGLIOSO E SOLO.

FROM PETRARCH.

SCANDERBEG.

The Turks, from their first appearance upon European soil, have been a danger to the peace and civilization of Christendom. When their fierce hordes crossed the Bosporus, bearing aloft the standard of the crescent, it was a boast among them that the sign was but a temporary emblem of their power, and that when she had waxed to the fulness of her orb—donec Lunæ totus impleatur orbis, as was insolently said to an ambassador of the West—her silvery sheen would change to the golden glory of the sun, and blaze from an eastern sky over prostrate and Mohammedan Europe.

With one foot upon Constantinople and the other on Rome,[78] the colossus of Islam would have projected an awful shadow over the Christian world. Efforts tremendous and long sustained were made to lift itself up; but this it could never do, and it has fallen and is broken, but in its fall covers fair provinces and crushes a multitude of unfortunate Christians. If the Turks have ceased to be a stirring menace to the nations, we must ascribe the curbing of their power to divine Providence, which brought forward at critical times a number of men mighty by the sword or St. John Capistran, Cardinal Julian Cesarini, Scanderbeg, St. Pius V., Don John of Austria, Mark Anthony Colonna, Sobieski, and others—who fought their advance towards the Adriatic and along the Danube. As this great Ottoman inundation rose higher and higher, until it seemed as though the work of the church for a thousand years would be swept away in fewer days, God spoke: “I set my bounds around it, and made it bars and doors; and I said: Hitherto thou shalt come, and shalt go no further: and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves.” (Job xxxviii.)

In the fifteenth century several independent princelings, called despots by the Greeks, were in possession of the rich and populous district of Albania, which stretches along the coast of the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas, and corresponds geographically to the Epirus of the ancients. One of the noblest of these chiefs was John Castriot, who came of an ancient family in Lower Macedonia. His wife, Woïzava, presented him with nine children, and among them that George, born in 1404, who was destined to become the defender of his persecuted race, the Christian Gideon, as he was hailed by Pope Paul II., and the hero of his native country against the Turks. Several omens are reported to have accompanied his birth and signified his future greatness. Without denying that these may have been something more than mere accidents or freaks of the imagination, we only certify that as the child grew up he developed a strength of character and an aptitude for arms which his after-successes amply justified and the inherent nobility of his parents had prepared.

Sultan Mohammed I. had invaded Albania in 1413, and obliged John Castriot to deliver up his four young sons to him as hostages. He immediately, and against the solemn promise made to their father, caused them to be circumcised and educated in the Mussulman religion. George, our hero, was the youngest. He was endowed with a prodigious memory, and soon learned to speak the Greek, Turkish, Arab, Illyrian, and Italian languages. A handsome person, unusual bodily strength, and vigorous mental qualities won for him the warm affection of the next sovereign, Amurath II., who changed George’s name to Scanderbeg—i.e., Beg or Lord Alexander—and at the early age of eighteen gave him the rank of sangiac and command of five thousand horsemen on the confines of Anatolia. His personal prowess and military skill in Asia Minor brought him into considerable notice, and he was given a command in the European provinces of the empire.

The favorable moment to declare himself had not arrived but his plans were maturing. At last, after a great battle lost by the Turks at Morava on the 10th of November, 1443, he concerted with his nephew Hamza and a few trusty friends of Christian origin, forced, like himself, to serve the foreign tyrant, and by a skilful ruse and very sudden irruption at the head of six hundred Albanians, who hastened to join him as soon as his defection was known, he obtained possession of Croia, the capital of his paternal dominions. The Turkish garrison, not so much by his orders as from an uncontrollable impulse of outraged feelings in the populace, was put to the sword. Scanderbeg was just twenty-nine years old. He publicly renounced Mohammedanism and renewed his profession of the Catholic faith. The chiefs of Albania were then invited to meet him. When they came together at Croia, they called him their deliverer, unanimously proclaimed him Prince of Epirus, and soon collected an army of about twelve thousand men. While the troops were being raised, the civil service and revenues of the state were reorganized. Besides a large immediate contribution from his own countrymen, he obtained two hundred thousand ducats from his neighbors, the Venetians, and had a large source of income in the salt-mines near Durazzo.

Petralba was next taken, and this success brought new accessions of men and means to prosecute the war. Within a month after the first blow had been struck every fortress except one was captured, and every Turk either killed, a prisoner, or in flight. Sfetigrad could not be surprised, and, leaving a force of three thousand men to watch it and cut off supplies, Scanderbeg retired with the rest of the army to Croia for the winter, and occupied himself in making an alliance with the republic of Venice, which held several towns along the coast of Dalmatia, and in preparing for the inevitable struggle the sultan would make to recover the country. Amurath did not dissemble his anger at the revolt of one whom he had treated, he said, with so much kindness and taught the use of the arms he was now turning against him. Being engaged at the time against the Hungarians, he put off revenge until the spring, thinking that he could at any moment easily subdue the undisciplined bands of Albania; but when a truce was concluded ninety miles from Croia and opening into the very heart of Albania. The upper end was very contracted, and here Scanderbeg drew up his main body of troops, to the number of ten thousand, which were posted in three divisions en échelon. As soon as the enemy was well engaged in the valley three thousand horsemen, who had been watching their slow advance, came down at its lower end, which had been left quite unguarded, while fifteen hundred irregular infantry lay in ambush on either side amidst the woody acclivities. As soon as the Turks came up to the Albanians they halted, tried to deploy, but could not, repeatedly charged and swept up in heavy columns against the small but solid masses who evenly filled the gap and made it impossible to flank them. The Turks after a while began to waver and fall into still greater disorder. Ali Pasha had blundered.

The Albanians now took the offensive. The signal-clarions sounded, and, while the Turks were attacked in front, the cavalry from the lower end of the valley charged them in the rear, and the infantry that lay in ambush came rushing down on both sides with terrific cries and sword in hand to complete their discomfiture. It was now a slaughter; and although the battle lasted only four hours altogether, over twenty thousand infidels were killed or wounded. Few prisoners—not more than two thousand—were taken. The rest of the enemy, under cover of darkness and from sheer exhaustion on the part of the victors, escaped through the now open passage at the lower end of the valley.

When Scanderbeg had entered Croia in triumph, he announced IV. and several Christian princes; and while some of the twenty-five captured battle-flags were distributed among the confederate chiefs, others were suspended in the principal church of the capital.

Amurath was so alarmed by this defeat—not, perhaps, so much from what he had to fear on the side of the immediate victors, but from the encouraging effects it might have in leaguing the Christian princes against him—that he wrote a letter from Adrianople, offering Scanderbeg peace on certain conditions. But when these were discussed in the council at Croia, they were declared unjust and humiliating, and Scanderbeg was advised to reject every sort of condition and insist on the complete independence of Albania. The answer to this letter announced his intention of holding out to the last extremity, and began with these valiant words: “From our camp near Croia, August 12, 1445. George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, soldier of Jesus Christ and Prince of the Epirotes, to Othman, Prince of the Turks, greeting.” A second army under Fizour, and a third and larger one under Mustapha, were successively defeated, but not without considerable loss in men and damage to the country. During the inroads of these fierce barbarians into Albania they perpetrated the most horrible massacres without regard to age or sex, and heaped the most brutal outrages upon the inhabitants. The handsomest girls were seized for the seraglios of the sultan and his wealthy minions, the prettiest boys were kept to minister to their unnatural lusts, while youths of a maturer age or less attractive appearance were circumcised, educated in the Mohammedan religion, and drafted into the Janizaries. Others who were not butchered on the smoking ruins of their homes were driven in chains to the slave markets, while many were made eunuchs and set to guard the harems of their masters in Asia Minor.

Mustapha Pasha, although he had been defeated, was entrusted with another army, but with a similar result, and even worse; for he himself was taken prisoner. Twenty-five thousand golden ducats were paid for his ransom. Scanderbeg now made a razzia on a large scale into Macedonia and returned laden with an immense booty of every description. His fame was so solidly established by these victories that the republic of Venice sent a magnificent embassy to compliment him and convey to him the news of his appointment as governor-general of all the Italian possessions along the Adriatic and in the interior, where the important cities of Scutari and Alessio were situated. His name was enrolled in the Golden Book at the head of the list of Venetian nobles.

The revolt of the Janizaries having obliged Amurath to leave his luxurious retreat at Magnesia and once more resume the management of public affairs, he determined to conduct in person the war against Scanderbeg. He soon appeared at the head of a formidable army before Sfetigrad, which surrendered after a gallant resistance. During the siege the Turks lost in one of the assaults six thousand men. Satisfied, apparently, with this single victory, the slothful sultan retired into Macedonia after leaving a strong garrison in the captured fortress. Scanderbeg hovered on his flanks and rear, making many prisoners and taking a large amount of stores and war material; then, after seeing him well V., which were brought to him by two Franciscans, one of whom was a bishop. The winter of 1449-50 had been passed by him in the saddle inspecting every fortress, going into every part of his dominions to encourage the people and hasten the levy of troops. The coming tempest was naturally expected to assail the capital; and to make its neighborhood a howling wilderness, the whole country around Croia was ravaged by his order, for a distance of from fifteen to eighteen miles, so completely that not a house or a bridge was left standing, and not a road passable; every growing and living thing was either destroyed or removed. The enemy could find no shelter there.

On April 15, 1450, the sultan appeared before the city with an army of one hundred and sixty thousand fighting men and a host of camp-followers. Uranocontes commanded inside and repelled numerous assaults, while Scanderbeg, with a force of five thousand picked cavalry, hovered about the outskirts of the enemy, inflicting considerable loss in men and stores, but above all annoying the long line of communications by which the army drew its daily supplies. Amurath finally tired of the siege, and, being convinced that the mountains and valleys of Epirus were not worth his time, his trouble, or his money while richer conquests awaited him, charged a certain Yousouf to leave the camp and seek Scanderbeg, to try and induce him to accept the single condition of an annual tribute of only ten thousand ducats. After a two days’ search he was found, but instantly rejected even this almost nominal condition attached to the independence of his country. Knowing that he could not take Croia by assault or maintain his army any longer in such a country, the sultan slowly retreated and died soon afterwards at Adrianople, on February 5, 1451. He was succeeded by his son, Mohammed II., who renewed his father’s offer, but with no better result.

The news of Amurath’s ill-success before Croia made a great noise in Italy, and even beyond. The kings of Hungary and Aragon, and Philip, Duke of Burgundy, sent complimentary missions to the Albanian hero, and presents of money and provisions. King Alphonsus of Aragon, who was also King of Sicily and Naples, sent him four hundred thousand bushels of grain. Among other rich presents that he received from this magnificent monarch was a helmet or casque of the finest Spanish steel, lined on the inside with Cordovan leather and soft silk, and covered on the outside with the purest gold artistically chased and embossed by an Italian jeweller and studded with Excalibur, the blade of which was of perfect Damascus workmanship, and the handle a blaze of Oriental gems set with exquisite skill by a Persian lapidary. This weapon was a present from Amurath on giving him his first command. With it he killed at least two thousand Turks in his war of independence, and it was looked upon by his enemies with a species of superstitious awe. During one of the informal truces between the Turks and Christians Sultan Mohammed begged to see the blade of which he had heard so much. It was sent to him and tried by the best swordsmen of his army, but not one of them could perform the feats that its owner had been seen to do with it; and when it was returned, the sultan told him this and asked the reason. “I sent your highness the sword,” said Scanderbeg, “but not the limb that wields it!” When he went into battle, it was always with his right arm bare and his shoulder perfectly free. He was so tall and strong that a few years later, when he went over to Italy to assist King Ferdinand, and had occasion to meet the commander of the enemy’s troops—the famous condottiére Count Piccinino, whose stature, it is true, was small, but still that of a grown person—he took him by the belt with one hand, and, slowly raising him up, impressed a courtly kiss upon the forehead and as gently set him down again. He looked so brave and handsome that even his foes applauded.

In May, 1451, Scanderbeg married the Princess Donica, daughter of Arrianites Thopia, one of the most influential lords of Albania, and connected on his mother’s side with the imperial family of the Comneni. He received at this time from King Alphonsus five hundred arquebusiers, the same number of expert crossbow-men, and a few pieces of artillery with their cannoniers. We have only space to mention the events of the next years: how successive armies of Turks were defeated; how Scanderbeg himself was repulsed with a loss of five thousand men in an attack on Belgrade; and how, during a lull in the war, he was invited over to Italy by Pope Pius II. to the assistance of King Ferdinand, son of his old friend Alphonsus, who was hard pressed by his rival, John of Anjou. (Raynald. Annales Eccl. ad an. 1460, num. lx.) He contributed greatly to the victory won at Troja on Aug. 18, 1462, and for his services was created Duke of San Pietro, in the kingdom of Naples. He remained in Italy a little over a year. Recalled to Albania by the appearance of the Turks, he repulsed Sultan Mohammed from Croia; but his own losses and the new plans of the enemy, which consisted in sending only small armies under experienced generals—one of whom, Balaban Badera, was an Albanian renegade—with orders to avoid battle if possible, but to remain in the country at all hazards, made him feel that his cause was failing, and that, unless relieved from the west, he must sooner or later succumb. In this emergency he went to Rome II. showed how fruitless it would have been for them to do so. Paul, indeed, wrote to all the Christian princes, but he got nothing but fair words in return. The great schism had lamentably diminished the prestige of the Papacy, and a multitude of heretics more or less openly preluded that Reformation which would soon divide Christendom itself into hostile camps. The pope gave him three thousand golden florins and conferred upon him the insignia of the cap and sword which is annually blessed by the pontiff on the vigil of Christmas for presentation to the prince who has deserved best of the church. Scanderbeg lodged while in Rome in a house which, although rebuilt in 1843, still retains over the door his portrait in fresco and the laudatory inscription set up soon after his death. The street and an adjoining little piazza under the Quirinal gardens have long perpetuated his name as the Via di Scanderbeg. He left Rome in disappointment and sorrow.

On his way back to Albania he was allowed to recruit in the Venetian territories a force of thirteen thousand men, which he commanded in person. His former little army in the field was captained by his faithful friend Tanusios, and after planning together the two generals attacked the Turks around Croia on two different points, while a vigorous sortie was made by the besieged, during which Balaban, the Turkish commander, was killed. His death and the suddenness and vigor of the triple attack threw the enemy into confusion, and they were completely routed. We pass over other battles and victories, by which Scanderbeg’s resources were finally exhausted. The end had come. During the winter of 1466-7 he was making a tour of inspection, and while in the city of Alessio, or Lissa, as it is sometimes called, where the ambassador of Venice and the confederate chiefs of Albania had convened to meet him and combine for one last and desperate effort, he was seized by a fever which proved fatal. After addressing a solemn and pathetic discourse to his principal officers, he embraced them one by one, and gave orders to his only son John to cross over to his Neapolitan fiefs with his mother, and there wait until some favorable occasion might present itself to return and put himself at the head of his countrymen as his father had done. He died during the night of January 17, 1467, after having received the Viaticum and Extreme Unction, and was buried in the cathedral church of Alessio. His death caused a profound sensation throughout Europe. Mohammed exulted over the loss of one whom he called the sword and buckler of the Christians, and immediately poured his troops into Albania; but it was not until the year 1478, when Croia surrendered on conditions which were afterwards basely violated, that the war ended. Since that time the infamous Turks have lorded it over the land made glorious in legendary lore by the son of Achilles, in history by King Pyrrhus, and in modern times by

When Alessio was captured the infidels dug up the remains of the great warrior and divided his bones among the soldiers, to be worn in rich reliquaries as amulets of courage. His countrymen still sing of him as their national hero, and the Turks frighten naughty children with his terrible name.

After Scanderbeg’s death many Albanians emigrated to Italy, either in the suite of his son or independently. The most remarkable colony was in Calabria, where as late as 1780 their descendants, numbering about one hundred thousand, retained the dress, manners, and language of their ancestors. Another colony, not so numerous, is scattered about the Abruzzi. The last lineal descendant of the hero was the Marquis of Sant’Angelo, who was killed at the battle of Pavia by the hand (as Paulus Jovius says) of Francis I.

Most of the Albanians remained Christians until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the majority conformed, outwardly at least, to the Mohammedan religion. The popes have tried hard to keep alive the Catholic faith among the population, and, under the circumstances, with considerable success. Pope Clement XI., of the (now) princely family of Albani which emigrated from Albania in the sixteenth century, and settled at Urbino, established a purse of four thousand scudi in 1708 for the support of three students from that country in the Propaganda College. The Catholics there do not now number more than ninety thousand. There are two archbishoprics, Antivari united with Scutari, and Durazzo, and three bishoprics, Alessio, Pulati, and Sappa. These sees are usually filled by Franciscans, who, with a few Propagandists (with one of whom, now bishop of Alessio, we have the honor of being acquainted), are the only missionaries in the country. We conclude our article with a bibliographical notice of the subject, because, as Dr. Johnson used to say, a great part of knowledge consists in knowing where knowledge is to be found.

The original source of information upon which all subsequent writers, whether with or without acknowledgment, have drawn is a work by Marino Barlezio, a priest of Scutari, who, besides being a native of the country about which he wrote, was an almost constant companion of Scanderbeg and an eye-witness of most of the events which he relates. He was a scholar and penned very excellent Latin, which greatly adds to the charm of his narrative. We give the full title: De Vita et Moribus ac Rebus præcipuè adversus Turcas gestis Georgii Castrioti clarissimi Epirotarum Principis, qui propter celeberrima facinora Scanderbegus, hoc est Alexander Magnus, cognominatus fuit. Libri xiii. It is not certain where this curious book was first published. Some say at Rome as early as 1506, but this is extremely doubtful; others at Frankfort in 1537 (in folio). A German translation by Pinicianus was published in 1561 in 4to, with woodcuts; and a French one, the language of which is quaint and racy, by Jacques de Lavardin, in 1597. Independent biographies have been written in Latin by an anonymous author at Rome in 1537 or earlier, in folio; in Italian by T. M. Monardo, Venice, 1591, and almost immediately translated into 12mo), a Jesuit, who took upon himself to refute the calumny of Machiavelli and Helvetius, that Christian principles and practices can never develop the qualities of a perfect soldier, a hero. Other French biographies are those of Chevilly (Paris, 1732, 2 vols. 12mo), and Camille Paganel (ibid. 1855, 1 vol. 8vo), which is the best we have read. In English there is one by Clement C. Moore, an American (New York, 1850), and another by Robert Bigsby, an Englishman (London, 1866); while we have also, from the graceful pen of Benjamin Disraeli, The Rise of Iskander, a tale founded on Scanderbeg’s revolt against the Turks (London, 1833). A Summarium or epitome of his life is preserved among the MSS. of the Royal Library at Turin; and the Grand Ducal one at Weimar treasures among its rarities a MS. parchment called The Book of Scanderbeg, composed of three hundred and twenty-five leaves, each of which is beautifully illustrated with figures in india-ink representing scenes from civil and military life in the fifteenth century. It was a present to the Albanian hero from Ferdinand of Aragon. Two Latin poems have been published about him, one by a German named Kökert at Lubec, 1643, and the other by a French Jesuit, Jean de Bussières, at Lyons, 1662, in eight books; finally, one in Italian, called La Scanderbeide, by a lady named Margherita Sarrocchi, without date or place of publication; but it sometimes turns up in book-sales at Rome.

Scanderbeg’s large gilt cuirass, damaskeened with designs of Eastern pattern, is found in the Belvedere collection at Vienna. It is supposed to have been one of his trophies captured in Anatolia.

THE CHURCH AND LIBERTY.

Men are governed more by their sympathies than by reason. Weak arguments are strong enough when supported by prejudice which is able to withstand even the most conclusive proofs. We do not pretend to say that this is wholly wrong. Our feelings are in general sincerer than our thoughts; spring more truly from our real selves; are less the product of artificial culture and more of those common principles of our nature which make the whole world akin. But since in rational beings the feelings cannot be purely instinctive, it follows that they are more or less modifiable by the action of the intellect, which in turn is also subject to their influence. Prejudice, therefore, may be either intellectual or moral, or the one and the other; the most obstinate, however, is that which is enrooted in feeling and springs from sympathies and antipathies; and this is usually the character of religious prejudice. The tendency to make religion national, which is a remarkable feature in the history of mankind, together with the fact that states have always been founded and peoples welded into unity by a common faith, has as a rule thrown upon the side of religion the whole force of national prejudice, which, though it does not touch the deep fountains of immortal life and of the infinite, revealed by faith, is yet an immense power, more than any other aggressive and defiant. As the Catholic Church is non-national, it is not surprising that she should often be brought into conflict with the spirit of nationalism.

St. Peter as a foreign potentate; nor was it easy, in the state of things which then existed, to draw the line between his spiritual and his temporal authority. He came more and more to be considered an Italian sovereign who had usurped undue power, and thus in Germany and England Italians grew to be both hated and despised; and this more, probably, than kings and parliaments helped on the cause of Protestantism.

The Catholic faith was made to appear, not as the religion of Christ, but as popery, a foreign idolatrous superstition, which had by artful means insinuated itself amongst the various nations of German blood; and to throw off the yoke of Italian despotism was held to be both political and religious disenthralment. The specific doctrines of Luther and the other heresiarchs had merely an incidental influence. In England, where the separation from the church was more complete than elsewhere, there was the least doctrinal departure from Catholic teaching; which is of itself proof how little any desire for a so-called purer faith had to do with the movement. The appeal to the Scriptures was popular because it was an appeal from the pope. That the Reformation was not an intellectual revolt, at least primarily, there is abundant evidence in the indisputable fact that the most enlightened and learned people of that age—the Italians—remained firm in their attachment to the old faith; and even in Germany, which was comparatively rude and barbarous, the cultivators of the new classical learning, which had been revived in Italy, were for the most part repelled by the coarseness and ignorance of the preachers of Protestantism, who in England found no favor with men like More and Wolsey, scholars, both of them, and patrons of letters.

As Protestantism did not spring from intellectual convictions, but from passion and prejudice—national antagonisms, which had been intensified by ages of conflict and strife, and which became the potent allies of the ambition and rapacity of kings and princes—it is but natural that Protestants, continuing the traditions of their fathers, should still be influenced in their opinions of the Catholic Church more by their antipathies than by reason, and that these antipathies should invariably run with the current of national [80] we turn to the subject of the relative influence of the church and of Protestantism upon civil liberty. Discussions of this kind, though not new, are nevertheless full of actual interest. The subject of social liberty profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age, and bids fair to become of still more vital moment in the future. The adversaries of the Catholic Church never feel so secure as when they attack her in the name of freedom. She is supposed to be the fatal foe of all liberty, intellectual, religious, and social.

For the present we shall put aside the controversies concerning liberty of thought and discussion, and confine ourselves to the examination of the relation of the church to social freedom. And it will be necessary, in order to institute a comparison between her action and that of Protestantism, to go back to the first ages to study her early efforts in behalf of human rights.

Those great battles for human liberty were fought, not by Christianity, but by the Christian Church. The religion of Christ was from the beginning corporate and organized; and it was through its organization that it exerted its influence upon individuals and upon society. To understand, therefore, the true relation of the church to liberty, we must study her history in the past as well as in the present. In fact, it is only in the light of the past that the present can be understood. The clear perception of her spirit and action during the centuries which preceded the advent of Protestantism will enable us to see how far and in what respect the politico-religious revolution of the sixteenth century was favorable to social freedom.

Human society, like the heavenly bodies, is guided by two forces, the natural tendencies of which are antagonistic, but whose combined action, when properly harmonized, produces order. Authority and

Though authority and liberty, as applied to human society, are relative terms, they presuppose the absolute, and therefore have as their only rational basis the existence of a personal God; and hence the social order is, in its very constitutive elements, religious. In view of this fact it is not surprising that the state, which is the symbol of secular society, should be drawn to usurp the functions of the church, the symbol of the spiritual order. As a result of this tendency, pre-christian history shows us a universal subordination of religion to the temporal government, or, what is practically the same, the identification of the two powers; since, where both are united, that which regards man’s present, visible, and urgent wants will always preponderate.

The direct consequence of this was the destruction of liberty; indirectly it also undermined authority. The state was absolute, and under the most favorable circumstances, as in the Græco-Roman civilization, recognized the rights of the citizen, but not those of man; and even the citizen had rights only in so far as the state saw fit to grant them. The logical development of the absorption of all power by the state may be seen in imperial Rome, in which the ruler was at once emperor, supreme pontiff, and God.

When the Christian, though willing to obey Cæsar in temporal matters, reserved to himself a whole world upon which he would permit no human authority to trespass, he asserted, together with the supremacy of his spiritual nature, the principle to which modern nations owe their liberties. It would indeed be difficult to exaggerate the influence of this assertion of the sovereign rights of the individual conscience. It contains the principles of all rights and the essential elements of progress and civilization; it is the necessary preamble to every declaration of human liberties; the logical justification of all resistance to tyranny, and of every reaction against brute force and consecrated wrong. It is the impregnable stronghold of freedom, without which the sentiment of personal independence which the barbarians brought with them into European life would have been powerless to found free institutions. That sentiment was as strong in the North American Indians; in the Tartar and Turkish hordes which swept down from the table-lands of Asia upon fairer and more fertile regions; and yet with them it only subserved the cause of despotism. It is, indeed, inherent in human nature. To be self-conscious is to wish to be free and to take delight in the possession of liberty. This feeling finds a sanctuary in the heart of every boy who

They lacked, moreover, that of which the barbarians were also deprived—the knowledge of the worth and dignity of human nature. Man, as man, was not honored; to have any rights did not come of our common nature, but of the accident of citizenship. Slavery was consecrated as being not only just but necessary; and the slave was outside the pale of the law. Woman was degraded and infant life was not held sacred. In nothing is the contrast between modern and ancient civilizations more striking than in their manner of regarding human life. With us the life of the unborn child is under the protection of conscience, of public opinion, and of the law equally with that of the highest and noblest. Its value to the state, to society, to the world, is not considered; we think of it only as a creature of God, endowed by him with rights which men may not violate. But this doctrine is unknown to paganism. In Rome the father was free either to bring up his child or to murder it; even the laws of Romulus grant him this privilege, with the nominal restriction of obtaining the consent of the nearest of kin; but under the empire his right to kill his newly-born infant was fully recognized. The abandonment of children by their parents was a universal custom, and one of which the Emperor Augustus approved in the case of the infant of his niece Julia. If child-murder was not a crime, abortion, of course, was no offence at all, and was universally practised, especially among the rich. The contempt in which human life was held is seen also in the public games—in which hundreds of men were made to butcher one another merely for the amusement of the spectators—as well as in the power of life and death of the master over his slave.

It has been maintained quite recently that those who gave their approval and lent the countenance of their presence to these inhumanities were not therefore cruel; that, on the contrary, many of them were kind-hearted and benevolent; but this, if we grant it, makes our argument all the stronger, since it proves that the system was more vicious than the men. A social state which does not respect life is incompatible with liberty. It would be vain to seek for the origin of our free institutions in any supposed peculiarities of our barbarous ancestors. Nothing short of a radical revolution of thought as to what man is could have made civil liberty possible. It was necessary to re-endow the individual with absolute and inviolable rights in the presence of the state. Man had to be taught that he is more than the state; that to be man is godlike, to be a citizen is human; but this he could not learn so long as he remained helplessly under the absolute power of the state; nor could he, with the conviction that the state is the highest and that he exists for it, make any effort to break the bonds of his servitude. Before this could be possible he had to be received into a society distinct from, and independent of, the state; he had to be made fully conscious that he is a

This is what the Christian religion did: it created a personal self-consciousness which made heroes of the commonest natures. The Roman died for his country; the Christian died for God and for his own soul’s sake. He was not led to brave death by the majesty of the city, of the empire, or by the memory of the victories which had borne his country’s arms in triumph through the world, but by his own individual faith and duty as a man with a personal and immortal destiny. When the Christian appealed from emperors and senates and armies, from the power and force of the whole world, to God, it was the single human soul asserting itself as something above and beyond this visible universe. Never before had the eternal and the infinite come so near to man; never before had he so felt his own immortal strength. He was lifted up into the heaven of heavens, stood face to face with the everlasting verities of God, became a dweller in the world that is, and the garments of space and time fell from his new-born soul. He was free; strong in the liberty with which Christ had clothed him, he defied all tyrannies. “As we have not placed our hope,” said Justin to the Emperor Antoninus, “on things which are seen, we fear not those who take away our lives; death being, moreover, unavoidable.” The pagan Roman knew, indeed, how to die; but his death, though full of grandeur and dignity, was sombre and hopeless; he died as the victim of fate. To the Christian death came as the messenger of life; he died as one who is certain of eternity, as one whose soul is free and belongs to himself and God. This sense of a personal destiny which is eternal, of infinite responsibility, gave to the individual a strength and independence of character for which we will seek in vain among the religions of paganism. It is a feeling wholly distinct from the barbarian’s dislike of restraint. The love of wild and adventurous life neither fits men for the enjoyment of liberty nor predisposes them to grant it to others.

The more we study the history of Christian nations, the more profound is our conviction that without their religion they could never have won their liberties, which even now without this divine support could not be maintained. It is to our religion that we are indebted for the creation of popular free speech. Before Christ gave the divine commission to the apostles, philosophers had discoursed to their chosen disciples, and orators had declaimed to citizens, on the interests of the state; but no one had spoken to the people as moral beings with duties and responsibilities which lift them into the world of the infinite and eternal. There were priesthoods, but they were mute before the people, intent upon hiding from them all knowledge of their mysteries. Religious eloquence did not exist; it first received a voice on the shores of the Lake of Genesareth and on the hills of Judea, in the preaching of Jesus, who remains for ever its highest exponent, speaking as one who had authority with godlike liberty on whatever most nearly touches the dearest interests of men; speaking chiefly to the people, bringing back to their minds the long-forgotten truths which Currit verbum, said St. Paul, and again from his prison-cell: “But the word of God is not fettered.” On innumerable lips it is born ever anew; and always and everywhere it is a protest against the brutality of power, an appeal in the name of God, our Father in heaven, in behalf of the poor, the oppressed, the disinherited of humanity. Men may still be tyrants, may still crush the weak and sacrifice truth and justice to their lustful appetites; but the voice of God, threatening, commanding, rebuking, shall be silent nevermore.

Festus will tremble before Paul; at the bidding of Ambrose Theodosius will repent; and before Hildebrand the brutal Henry will bow his head. At the sound of this voice all Europe shall rouse itself, shall rush, impelled by some divine instinct, into the heart of Asia, to strike the mighty power which threatened to blight the budding hope of the world. If we would understand the relations of the church to liberty, we must consider the influence of this free speech, which, without asking the permission of king or people, impelled by a divine necessity, made itself heard of the whole earth. Over the door of his Academy Plato had inscribed: “None but geometers enter here”; over the portals of the church was written the word of Christ: “Come to me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden.” “All you,” exclaimed St. Augustine, “who labor, who dig the earth, who fish in the sea, who carry burdens, or slowly and painfully construct the barks in which your brothers will dare the waves—all enter here, and I will explain to you not only the γνῶθι σεαυτόν of Socrates, but the most hidden of mysteries—the Trinity.” This new eloquence was as large as the human race; it was for all, and first of all for the poor and the oppressed. It was not artistic, in the technical meaning; it did not captivate the senses; it was not polished. There was no showy marshalling of words and phrases, no sweet and varied modulation of voice, no graceful and commanding gesture. Around the altar were gathered the slave, the beggar, the halt, and the blind—the oppressed and suffering race of men. If with them were found the rich and high-born, they were there as brothers—their wealth and noble birth entered not into the church of Christ. Here there was neither freeman nor slave—all were one. Thus in every Christian assembly was typed the humanity which was to be when all men would be brothers and free. To voice of the apostle, preaching Christ and him crucified; telling of the divine love that had bowed the heavens and brought down to men God’s own Son to suffer, to labor, to die for them. He was poor, he was meek and humble, he fasted, he prayed; he comforted the sorrowful, gave hope to the despairing; he offered up his life for men. Such as he was those who believe in him must be. To serve the lusts of the flesh, to be heartless, to be cruel, to be unjust, is to have no part with him. The greed of gold and of pleasure had reduced the masses of men to slavery and beggary; those who would follow God’s Son in the perfect way were to sell what they had, to give to the poor. The whole race of men was fallen, sunk in sin; the disciples of Christ were bidden to separate themselves from a world which had denied God, that, having received faith, hope, and love through union with him, they might bring to the dying peoples a new life.

The Christian religion turned the mind’s eye from the contemplation of beauty of form to the inner life of the soul; from thoughts of power and success to principles of right and justice. All the forces of society had been brought together to develop in its highest potency the passion of patriotism, which, bending to its purpose all the powers of individual life, had created mighty states, embellished them with art, crowned them with victory, made them eternal in literature that cannot die; but on the altar of all this glory man had been sacrificed. Patriotism had failed, hopelessly failed, to satisfy the unutterable longings of an immortal race. It was based upon false principles and perverted instincts. Man’s end is not more fulfilled in

In contradiction of this unjust and narrow spirit, the Christian preacher declared that man’s first duty is to God, as his first aim should be to seek God’s kingdom by purifying and developing his own moral nature. He declared that man is more than the state, as God is more than the world; inspiring in another form those views of the paramount worth of the individual soul without which there could be no successful reaction against the slavery and degradation of paganism. “The world,” said Tertullian, “is the common country and republic of all men.”

These principles gradually worked their way, through “the foolishness of preaching,” into the minds and hearts of the masses and became the leaven of a new society. Let us examine their action more specially. In the church the brotherhood of the race was from the earliest day not only taught but recognized as a fact. “There is neither Jew nor Greek,” said St. Paul, “neither bond nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” This doctrine is stated in various places in the New Testament with such emphasis as to leave no doubt of its true meaning. It is equally certain, however, that the apostles did not proclaim the emancipation of the slaves. “Let those who are servants under the yoke,” said the same apostle who declared that in Christ there was neither bond nor free, “count their masters worthy of all honor, lest the name of the Lord and his doctrines be blasphemed.”

It was not the spirit of the Christian faith to encourage visionary schemes or to awaken wild dreams of liberty; but rather to subdue and chasten the heart, to make men content to bear worthily the ills of life by giving to suffering a meaning and a blessing.

The misery of the pagan slave was extreme, but it was also hopeless. He believed himself the victim of relentless fate, from whose power death was the only deliverance, and he therefore rushed wildly into all excess, giving little thought to whether he should live to see the morrow. Suffering for him was without meaning—a remediless evil, a blind punishment inflicted by remorseless destiny. For this reason also his wretchedness excited no pity. Even as late as the time of St. Ambrose the pagans were accustomed to say: “We care not to give to people whom the gods must have cursed, since they have left them in sorrow and want.”

But with the preaching of Christ, and him crucified, came the divine doctrine of expiatory suffering—of

Thus, without attempting to destroy slavery by schemes that must have been premature, the Christian religion changed its nature by diffusing correct notions concerning the mutual rights and duties implied in the relations of master and slave. The slave as a brother in Christ is separated by a whole world from the slave who is a tool or chattel. Who can read St. Paul’s Epistle to Philemon, written in behalf of the fugitive slave Onesimus, without perceiving the radical revolution which Christianity was destined to make in regard to slavery? “I beseech thee for my son, Onesimus: … receive him as my own heart; no longer as a slave, but as a most dear brother. If he hath wronged thee in anything, or is in thy debt, put it to my account.”

This is after all but the application of the teaching of Christ: I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was sick, I was a captive, and ye fed me, ye gave me to drink, ye visited me; for inasmuch as ye have done this for the least of my brethren, ye have done it for me. In every suffering and wronged human being there is the Christ to be honored, to be loved, to be served. Whosoever refuses to take part in this ministry places himself outside the kingdom of God.

Slavery, from the Christian point of view, is but one of the thousand ills entailed upon the human race by the transgression of Adam; it is enrooted, not in nature, but in sin; and as Christ died to destroy sin, his religion must tend to diminish and gradually abolish its moral results. The freedom of all men in Christ which the great apostle so boldly proclaims must in time find its counterpart in the equality of all men before the law. Indeed, the admission of the slave into the Christian brotherhood logically implied the abolition of slavery. It so raised the individual by giving him the knowledge of his true dignity, and so softened the master’s treatment, that the moral elevation of the whole class was the inevitable result. In this way the church made the slave worthy to be free, and from this to liberty there is but a step. “We teach the slaves,” said Origen, “how they may beget in themselves a noble spirit, and so become free”; and it need not surprise us, therefore, when Lactantius testifies that among Christians already in his day the difference between master and slave was but formal; in spirit both were brothers and fellow-servants of Christ. Nor is it remarkable that as evidence of this moral regeneration we should find the slaves among the early martyrs. There is an example of the sentiments which Christians entertained for their slaves in the self-reproaches of St. Paulinus in his letter to Sulpicius Severus: “He has served me,” he wrote; “he has been my slave. Woe to me, who have suffered that he who has never been a

Pagan masters, such as Hermes and Chromatius, on the occasion of their baptism gave freedom to their slaves; and holy women, like St. Melania, induced their husbands to follow this example. “Every day,” wrote Salvian in the fifth century, “slaves receive the right of citizenship and are permitted to carry with them whatever they have saved in the house of their master.” And we know, upon the authority of St. Gregory of Nyssa, that these manumissions frequently took place at Easter and other solemn festivals of the church. After the conversion of Constantine the influence of the church induced the civil authority to relax the severity of its legal enactments concerning slaves. Their manumission, especially from religious motives, was facilitated and the cruelty of masters was restrained. The successors of Constantine, particularly Justinian, continued to act in the same generous spirit, until finally, in the sixth century, all the harsher pagan laws were abolished, and men who had been slaves were even admitted to holy orders. This wonderful change in the policy of the Roman state had been wrought by the pressure of Christian influences. The voices of the great preachers, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, never wearied in pleading the cause of the slave; the councils of the church placed them under the protection of the ecclesiastical law; the bishops and priests defended them against the cruelty of their masters; and when once they were free, the church clothed their liberty with an inviolable sanctity. In other ways, too, religious influences were at work to destroy slavery. The universal custom of the ancient pagan nations, which deprived captives of war of their freedom, was an unfailing source of supply to the slave markets. Though the church was unable at once to erase from the battle-flags of the ancient world the Væ victis, she found means to alleviate the lot of the captive.

We have quoted the words of St. Clement to show that in his day already Christians not unfrequently took upon themselves voluntary servitude in order to redeem their brethren. The property of the church was considered best employed when used for the redemption of captives. For this purpose the bishops were permitted to sell even the sacred vessels of the altar. “Since our Redeemer, the Creator of all things,” wrote Pope St. Gregory, “has vouchsafed in his goodness to become man, in order to restore to us our first liberty by breaking, through his divine grace, the bonds of servitude by which we were held captive, it is a holy deed to give to men, by enfranchisement, their native freedom; for in the beginning nature made them all free, and they have been subjected to the yoke of slavery only by the law of nations.”

A.D. 595) decreed that slaves who wished to enter the monastic life should receive their liberty; and so great was the number of those who availed themselves of this privilege that the masters on all sides loudly complained of it as an intolerable abuse. The church of the middle ages went still further in the warfare for human liberty. Slavery existed among the Germanic races which overran the Roman Empire and took possession of its territory; and with them, too, the slave was the property of the master, who had the right to exchange, to sell, or even to put him to death.

The struggle which had been but begun amidst the corruptions of ancient Rome with an effete and dying race was renewed with the wild and rugged children of the forest. In this great battle for the rights of man the monks came forward as the leaders. In many convents it was forbidden to have slaves, and when the wealthy took the monastic habit they were required to emancipate their slaves.

A council held in England in 816 ordained that at the death of a bishop all his English slaves should be given their freedom; and at the Council of Armagh, in 1172, all English slaves in Ireland were emancipated. The Council of Coblentz, held in 922, declares that he who sells a Christian into slavery is guilty of murder.

Numerous decrees of ecclesiastical synods condemned the slave-trade, and with such efficacy that by the end of the tenth century slaves were no longer sold in the kingdom of the Franks.

In the British Islands this abuse was not eradicated till towards the close of the twelfth century. In Bohemia it was abolished in the tenth, and in Sweden in the thirteenth century. The church continued to buy slaves in order to give them their liberty. The right of asylum was given to those who fled from the cruelty of their masters. The historical records of manumission in the middle ages, as preserved in testamentary acts, almost universally assign religious motives for the emancipation of slaves.

The efforts of the church in the first centuries of Christianity, and later too, in behalf of the weak and the oppressed—woman, the child, and the slave—are intimately connected with the progress of civil liberty. It is impossible for us, who are the children of two thousand years of Christian influences, to realize the full significance of her enthusiastic devotion to the people, poor, suffering, and degraded, in an age in which no other voice than hers pleaded for them. In order to do this we should be able to place ourselves in the midst of the old pagan world, so as to contemplate the abject condition to which the masses of men had been reduced—a state so pitiable that possibly nothing short of the appearance of God himself, in poverty and sorrow, could have inspired the courage even to hope for better things.

The history of heathenism, in the past as in the present, is marked by contempt for man, by the degradation of the multitude. In this respect the civilization of Greece and Rome was not different from that of India and China in our own day. If in Christian nations, after long struggles and terrible conflicts, a better state of social existence has been brought about, we owe it to Christ working in and through his church. To render liberty possible an intellectual and moral revolution

Liberty is of the soul; it is from this sanctuary that it passes into the laws and customs of society. Men who are slaves in heart cannot be made free by legislative enactments. The church of Christ taught men how to be worthy to be free by showing them liberty’s great law—self-denial; by restoring to the soul the sovereignty of which it had been deprived since the gates of Paradise were barred; by clothing human nature with inviolable sacredness and inalienable rights; by proclaiming that man, for being simply man, is worthy of all love and respect.

When Christ came, the slave, without honor and without hope, was everywhere. The master was like his slave. Surrounded by human herds, to whom vice in its most degrading forms had become a necessity, he breathed in an atmosphere of corruption against whose deadly poison he was powerless to contend. His life was a fever alternating between lust and blood. The debauched are always cruel, and as men sank deeper into the slough of sensual indulgence the cry for carnage grew fiercer. Nothing but the hacking and mangling of human bodies could rouse the senses, deadened by the gratification of brutish passions. Here and there a stray voice protested, but only in the sad tones of despair. Hope had fled; the world was prostrate; in the mephitic air of sensuous indulgence the soul was stifled; the poor were starving and the rich were glutted; a thousand slaves could hardly feed the stomach of Dives; and Jesus Christ took Lazarus in his arms, and in a voice from heaven called upon all who believed in God and in man to follow him in the service of outraged humanity; and his voice was re-echoed through the earth and through the ages. At its sound the despairing took heart, the dead lived, the poor heard the new gospel of glad tidings, and the slave, crushed and ignored by human society, found citizenship and liberty in the kingdom of God.

EASTER IN ST. PETER’S, ROME, 1875.

The glorious sun of Easter morning, 1875, arose in splendor, gilding the domes and turrets of the Eternal City with burnished gold, picturing to the mind the gates of Paradise this day opened by the Sun of Righteousness. The Roman people were early astir, though no cannon sounded from Mount St. Angelo to usher in the great festival, nor papal banner flung its folds to the breeze from that old citadel this bright spring day to speak to Christians of him whom our Lord appointed to watch over his sheep.

After early Masses at the church of Sant Andrea delle Fratte, so much beloved and sought after by English and American Catholics in Rome as the place where Ratisbon the Jew received the great gift of faith, we took our way to the Basilica of St. Peter. Multitudes filled the streets, men and women in holiday attire, but not with the old-time life and exhilaration of a great festa. Loss does not sit lightly on the Roman; and everywhere there seemed to be something wanting to make this day what it should have been; no grand processions, no public solemn High Mass celebrated with august ceremonies by his Holiness, no precious benedictions from his paternal hand. A veil hung over the face of our Easter joys; for the Bride of Christ sat in sackcloth.

When we entered on the pavement of St. Peter’s, far-off sounds of joyous music came from the canon’s chapel, scarcely reaching the hallowed arches without; but a wail of sadness, a chord of grief, ran through it all, for wicked men had made it impossible that our Holy Father should present himself at the altar where he alone officiates, lest his presence should excite tumult and bloodshed among his dear children. High Mass was being celebrated in the canon’s chapel, which contains one of the forty or more altars of St. Peter’s, and is shut off from the aisle by a glass partition. Crowds had pressed in among the dignitaries of the church, and far out into the nave hundreds were uniting themselves to the Holy Sacrifice there offered.

There is perhaps no place on earth where a person can be so entirely alone among a multitude as at St. Peter’s. Each one seems bent upon the particular purpose that brought him there. The church on this day contained twelve thousand people at least (we heard the number rated much higher), but no noise was heard save the constant footfall on the marble pavement and the faint echo of the voices from the choir, while of room there was no lack. Low Masses were being celebrated at many of the altars, around which gathered groups of attentive worshippers; and when the tinkling of the small bell hung at the door of the sacristy gave notice of another Mass, from every quarter persons were seen moving rapidly forward following the priest to the altar where he was to celebrate.

Many there were in that privileged place on that holy day who had come from motives of curiosity, to see what it was all like—gazers who looked upon Catholics with cool contempt as but a step removed from the heathen to whom they send missionaries; the industrious

Long lines of students from the various colleges in Rome passed and repassed, each in their distinctive color, pausing a moment on bended knee to speak to our dear Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, then going onward toward the hundred lamps that burn continually before the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, and passing quietly out again to visit some other temple. There were schools of boys and schools of girls in picturesque costumes, charity children and children of princes, all kneeling together before their common Lord, all seeking their share in his Easter benedictions. Streams of people flowed in from the Campagna, often rough, ragged, unkempt—the women in their harlequin holiday clothes, the men in goat-skin breeches and brilliant vests. These, like the others, had come home; for St. Peter’s is a home for all, and the poorest beggar feels that he has a right within those consecrated walls. Soldiers and officers in the varied uniform of the Italian army walked about listlessly, sometimes haughtily, only a few bending their knee as they recognized the divine Presence. We pitied them greatly; to be an earnest Catholic in Victor Emanuel’s army must be a great trial to one’s faith.