Volume 25 — SIX SUNNY MONTHS. BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC. CHAPTER XIII. “OUR LADY OF SNOW.”

“To-morrow comes the flower of the festivals,” the Signora said on the morning of the 4th of August. “It is our beautiful basilica’s birthday, and the loveliest of birthdays, too—just a sweet little poem.”

“Let us give ourselves up to it entirely,” Isabel proposed, “and see if we cannot imagine ourselves back in the middle of the fourth century. I really do not like to look at all these things as an outsider.”

“We must, then, shut the world out for two days,” the Signora replied. “I would like it, if you are agreed. I have found, indeed, that it is impossible to enter into the spirit of these beautiful beliefs of the old time while one is having much social intercourse with people about, even goodish people. It reminds me of seed scattered on good but shallow ground, which the fowls come and pick up. You think, you meditate, you pray, you begin to find yourself impressed; glimmers of light steal in, and your soul is on the point of being enriched; when in comes some friend, who means no harm, who has, perhaps, a faith like a dry branch with one green leaf at the end, and immediately all is discord. If you utter what is in your mind, it is like pearls before swine; if you listen in silence, and with sufficient attention to enable you to answer intelligently, it is more than likely that the religious impression you have received will be much weakened, if not entirely effaced. One understands, in such a case, the profound wisdom of the philosophy of silence, which even the pagans knew, and recollects the admonition of our Lord: “Let your speech be yea, yea; no, no.”

“Still, I should think,” Bianca observed dreamily, “that one might be so settled in that way of feeling and thinking as to influence others, instead of being influenced by them.”

“Very true, you dear little visionary!” replied the Signora, pinching the pretty ear so near her, from which hung a pink coral fuchsia. “If one were a great saint, and never touched earthly things except with conspicuous recollection; or a great egotist, constantly impressing on everybody that one is a very exceptional being and cannot possibly be approached in the ordinary manner; or some one, like a clergyman or a nun, who by their very profession impress those who approach them with the consciousness of different and loftier interests. But we common mortals are overrun by the many. You have seen the breakwater of a bridge, have you not, built of stone, and thrusting a sharp point up the stream to part the waters, that they may not rush against the broad side of the piers and sweep them away? Well, for one person to keep a firm stand against the influence of many, it is necessary to put forward, and keep 355forward, a very hard angle of the character. However, I will not preach any more about it, my dear friends. I will simply say that till the day after to-morrow we are in retreat. We will go up now to the church, and refresh our minds in relation to the legend, and look at some of the treasures there, if you like. Then we can read the whole over here at our leisure. I have a kind friend there—my patron with St. Nicholas—who has a superb illustrated description of the church, which he has offered me any time I may wish for it. I will ask for it to-day. By this means we shall be ready to assist intelligently to-morrow at the festa of Our Lady of Snow. And, by the way, what a charmingly fresh thought for the season is that of snow! I call for the yeas and nays.”

An unanimous yea was the reply, and they prepared themselves immediately to go to the church.

They had, of course, seen already all its more evident beauties; but such a temple can be studied for years without exhausting its attractions, and there were several of its more celebrated gems which they had quite passed over. After having heard Mass, then, they went first into the Sistine Chapel to see the Tamar. This beautiful figure is painted in one of the pendentives of the cupola—a space shaped like an inverted pear. She sits with her twin boys standing on the seat at either side of her, their lovely heads filling the rounded-out space. The most exquisite charm of the figure is the transparent veil which floats about the head and shoulders, and through which her face, with its large, drooping eyelids, is perfectly visible.

From there they visited the grand loggia to look once more at the mosaic story of the miraculous snow. This grand mosaic, made in the fourteenth century by the order of two Colonna cardinals, was once on the open façade of the church; but Benedict XIV., in the eighteenth century, building the new façade, enclosed them in the grand loggia from which the popes gave benediction, and of which they form the lower side. In the centre of the upper half of the picture the Saviour sits enthroned, the right hand giving benediction, the left holding a book open at the words, “I am the light of the world.” At either hand above an angel swings a censer, at either side below an angel adores. Four figures—the Blessed Virgin and saints—stand at right and left, the symbols of the four evangelists over their heads. The lower half, separated by the large, round window that lights the eastern end of the church, has, on the left, two pictures—one the sleeping Pope Liberius, the other the sleeping Giovanni—over both of whom hovers the same vision of the Madonna directing them to build her a church where the snow shall fall the next day. On the right side is Giovanni telling his dream to the pope in one picture, and beside it the pope, in grand procession, coming to the hill-top where, from above, the Saviour and Virgin send down the snow. So quaint, so full of faith, so exquisite in meaning, this visible story is one of the most eloquent sermons ever preached.

Opposite the mosaic picture, and seen through the graceful arches of the portico, was that living picture of St. John Lateran looking down the long street, the blue mountains melting far away, the nearer palm-tree, and the piazza with its beautiful column and statue.

356“I have a little special treat for you this morning,” the Signora said as they went down into the church again. “It has no special connection with the Madonna delle Neve, but it will not disturb your visions of her. Here, however,” pointing to an altar near the sacristy door, “is the story again, and here is buried that Giovanni Patrizio who was found buried under, or in front of, the grand altar.”

It was the chapel of Santa Maria delle Neve, with a painting over the altar where the Virgin appears to Giovanni and his wife, and points them to a snow-capped hill.

Then they went into the sacristy, where one of the canons joined them, and had some precious vestments brought out for them to see; among them a cope of stuff such as one does not find any more, thick, rich, and dim, and threaded with gold, with the short fringe of mingled crimson and gold so thick as to round up almost like a cord—the cope given and worn by St. Pius V. Almost more precious, if one could choose, was the chasuble given and worn by St. Charles Borromeo—long, and with a slight, graceful point in the back. It had been proposed, the sacristan told them, to have this made a model for chasubles now on account of its graceful form, but no change had yet been made.

“This is worn on the festa of San Carlo, though it is crimson,” he added, “because it was his. Sometimes strangers exclaim, when they see it, that San Carlo was not a martyr.”

They touched reverently the sacred relics, and kissed the fastenings that those saintly hands had touched; then, with a more human admiration, examined a marvellous flounce of lace given the church three hundred years ago by the Prince Colonna of that time—a web of such fineness that the spiders might have woven the thread, and of such beauty of design that only an artist could have imagined it.

Before leaving the church they paused in front of the closed cancella of the Borghese Chapel to look at the bas-relief over the altar, wherein Our Lady of Snow again repeats her story. All was still in the church. Choir and High Mass were over, and only here and there lingered some custode, or assistant, putting the finishing touches to the preparations for the festa which would begin with first Vespers that afternoon. The pavements shone newly polished, the candlesticks were like gold, the gilt bronze angels that hold the great painted candles stood on the marble rail of the confession, the draperies were all up. In the chapel itself the benches of the choir were prepared, the altar glittering with its most precious ornaments, the two great hanging lamps at either side swinging faintly, as if impatient for the music to begin. All was peaceful; and a tender shade and coolness in the air veiled the glittering richness of the place.

“I cannot tell you how mysterious that picture seems to me,” Bianca whispered, pointing to the square veiled case bordered with jewels, and supported by gilt angels in the middle space over the altar. “The two veils that are to be removed in order to see it, and then the depth at which it is set, and the mere dark outline that is all one can see inside the golden border—it all impresses me with a sense of mystery and awfulness. I wonder what the face really looks like, and if any one has seen it.”

“Why, you have seen my engraving of it, my dear,” the Signora 357said; “and I presume that is a faithful copy, taken when the features were more distinguishable. That has a noble, serious look which impresses me. And no wonder you look with awe at this. If it were not painted by St. Luke even, it is embalmed by memories not less sacred. Twelve hundred years ago St. Gregory the Great carried this very picture in procession through the city, in a time of terrible pestilence, and set it on the altar of St. Peter’s. It was on the open façade of this church till Paul V. built this chapel to contain it. Ampère says that angels have been heard chanting litanies about it. It is held by all here in the most tender veneration. I have never heard any one describe it, and do not know who has seen it near. I have heard somewhere that only the chapter of the basilica and the Borghese family have the privilege of going up to it. Madonna mia, what a privilege it would be!” she sighed, looking up at the closed jasper gates.

They stayed a little longer, then started to go home; but as they were going out a boy came to tell the Signora that Monsignore M—— begged to speak with her. The others went on, but she turned back, well content; for a call from Monsignore M—— always meant something pleasant. This prelate was no less distinguished for position than for his virtues; and, finding the Signora a stranger and somewhat lonely when she first came to Rome, he had done her many kindnesses—was, in fact, her Santa Claus.

“Do you guess what little devotion I want you to make on the eve of our festa?” he asked, meeting her with the confident smile of one who knows he is going to confer a great pleasure.

“I know it is something delightful, Monsignore mio,” she replied, “but I cannot say just what.”

“Well, I want you to visit the antique Madonna,” he said.

She looked at him, uncomprehending.

He pointed to the veiled shrine in the Borghese Chapel, near which they stood. “Don Francesco will be here in a moment with a candle,” he said. “I prepared all, because I knew you would want to go. I could not invite a party, you know; but you belong to the church and have a special devotion to our Madonna.”

The Signora could not reply. Such a swift fulfilment of her wish moved her too deeply for words. She kissed the hand of her kind friend, and looked across the church to the tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament with the almost spoken thought: “I am going to see your Mother.” To visit that sacred shrine was to her as near to seeing the Mother of God face to face as one could come on earth, without a miracle.

Presently appeared the custodian, bearing a lighted candle and a bunch of keys; he opened a small door beside the chapel. They ascended a narrow, winding stair, without any light except the one they carried, and passed a long, arched corridor where the walls almost touched their elbows at either side, and the vault just cleared their heads above. This corridor was between the side wall of the chapel and the wall of the adjoining sacristy. Another door opened, and they entered a cross corridor leading to one of the balconies of the chapel—one of those beautiful gilded balconies the Signora had so 358many times wished to get into. She stepped into this now, and looked down through the chapel, out into the church, and across to the Sistine Chapel, the columns, pictures, and gilded arches of the basilica set like a picture in the great arched entrance of the Borghese.

Going on then, Don Francesco opened a strong, locked door, that showed another door immediately within, closing the same wall. These led into another of those narrow white corridors running between the walls of the chapel behind the altar. Turning then into a third short corridor leading toward the chapel, they faced still another door, over which were painted the arms and tiara of Pope Paul V., who built the chapel.

This door unlocked, they found themselves in a little chamber directly behind the grand altar, with the miraculous picture, set in a box cased in metal, right before them. It stands a little back from the screens that cover it in the chapel, and there is space enough at either side for a person to slip in in front and see the picture face to face. Two iron hooks that barred the passage were taken down, and the Signora went in and found herself in front of this most venerable image.

The picture is painted on panel, and, though dim, is still distinct on so near a view, the rich, soft colors coming out as one gazes—a long, oval face full of serious majesty, with large eyes, and a mantle dropping over the forehead. But this mantle is now almost hid; for the head of the Mother, and of the Babe that looks up into her face, and the outline of their shoulders, are closely filled in with gold and gems. But for this nothing but a dark square would be distinguishable from the chapel. The outline is so clearly made, however, as to give a perfect idea, when looked at from below, of a crowned woman with a crowned child in her arms.

If, in the presence of the picture, one can think of jewels, these are worth looking at. They are the gems of a cardinal and of a pope—stones of immense value set in pure gold. Besides rubies and amethysts, in the centre of the Virgin’s crown is a large emerald surrounded by diamonds, and from the jewelled chain at her neck hangs a cross made entirely of large sapphires.

The Signora took the candle in her hand and held it before those faces, and the clergymen with her knelt, one at either side of her.

After a little while they rose, the Signora kissed the floor before the picture, and the case that held it, and they turned away. On leaving she observed that this little chamber behind the altar was quite covered with frescoes. Then came the low corridors again, and the narrow stairs; one more peep from the gilded balcony, and at length she stepped out into the church again, bewildered and enchanted.

“I will tell them nothing about it,” was her conclusion as she went home. “They might feel hurt at being left out. It shall be a little secret of my own.”

They went to first Vespers and to the High Mass next morning, but the finest part was the Vespers of the day, to which they went early, and were so fortunate as to have chairs in the chapel near the altar. The chapter came in in procession from the basilica, singing as they came, and the place was soon crowded.

Nothing was wanting to make the scene perfect; the magnificent 359chapel, the beautiful dress of the canons, who all wore purple silk soutanes, with rich lace on those picturesque little cotte of theirs, and the music—each was in harmony with all the rest. Then, as the music went up, down through the cupola, glowing with the colors of Cavaliere d’Arpino, and faintly veiling the frescoes of Guido Reni, came the soft and loitering snow of blossoms, flowery flake by flake. They were lost one instant against the white band of Carrara marble—cornice, capitals, figures, and flowers—under the arches, then green of verd-antique, and red of jasper, or the colored mantle of one of Guido’s saints threw them into relief again. Little by little the mosaic of the pavement grew dim under that exquisite snow-fall, which seemed, as it came down, to toss on the music in mid-air.

The light up in the cupola grew red with sunset, and the chapel below began to show softest shades and pale gold lights from the candles, and the pageant slowly dissolved like a bouquet that parts into flowers, each flower showing more beautiful separated than when massed together.

Going out into the basilica, where it seemed almost evening, so strongly contrasted were the lights and shades, the Signora silently pointed out to her friends the long, red-gold bar of sunshine that came in at a window of the tribune and lay the whole length of the nave, looking so solid one felt like stepping over or stooping to go under it, as if it were an obstacle. It was her very idea of the bars of the tabernacle which the Jews bore with them.

“If only the church should be lifted and borne to Paradise now, when it is all bathed in flowers and full of incense and music!”

They lingered yet, unwilling to go. Monsignore M—— came out of the sacristy and brought them all some of the blessed blossom-snow. People were gathering it up from the floor of the chapel, and, it having fallen also in the tribune, little boys were slyly vaulting over the railings, snatching it up unseen by the custodi, and scampering out again. The lights went out, the cancelle were closed, and finally our friends were forced to go home.

They stood a moment outside the church door before descending the steps, the two girls expressing their delight with feminine enthusiasm. Mr. Vane had but one word: “There is a certain Protestant hymn that used to make me feel, when I was a boy, very loath to go to heaven,” he said. “But, remembering it now by the light of this festa, I think heaven couldn’t be better described than as a place——

“'Where congregations ne’er break up,

And Sabbaths have no end.’”

A few days later they made their little visit to Genzano, stopping one day in Albano on the way. It was the feast of the Holy Saviour, in which again an antique and venerated picture had a prominent part. They reached the town just in time to see the procession go from the Duomo bearing the picture up to the little church of Santissimo Salvatore on the hill.

“What are those military bands playing for?” Mr. Vane asked, as they sat in the loggia of their apartment, after having rested a half-hour.

“They are playing for the Lord,” said the Signora.

He stared a little, but, finding her perfectly serious, said after a moment: “Well, I don’t know why 360they shouldn’t; only I am not used, you know, to hearing fifes and drums on any but military and civil occasions.”

“This is a military occasion,” the Signora replied gravely. “It celebrates Him who is the God of battles and the Lord of hosts. It is a civil occasion, too, in honor of the King of kings, the Lawgiver of the universe, the Prince of peace.”

“You are right!” he said emphatically; “and I need not ask now why they are firing cannon.”

They went out just at sunset and took their places on the steps of the little church to which the procession was to come, catching glimpses of it in the distance as it appeared in some turn of the ascending way.

The slope of the street just in front of them had been swept, and two men were sprinkling it in a very primitive fashion. One trundled along a cart with a little barrel of water on it, and the other dipped in a small wooden bucket and scattered the water from side to side. He did it very dexterously, however, showing practice. Nearer the steps the street was paved with a mosaic of flowers, and all the houses by which the procession was to pass were decorated in some way, with flowers, pictures, and lamps to light later, some already lighted and showing faintly through the gloaming. All the windows and little balconies and elevated door-steps near the church were filled with women and children, every face turned toward the winding street up which a cross was glittering and a sound of music coming. A banner came in sight after the cross, and then a crucifix with its canopy, and then banner after banner, and crucifix after crucifix, showing in air over the wall that wound with the street. At one turn were visible the tops of the tallest heads; then, a little farther on, the whole heads of men, and the flowing locks of the boys of the choirs; and, lastly, they came into full sight near by, the inferior persons marching in lines at each side of the street, leaving hollow spaces where there was no banner or crucifix to be carried, the clergy walking in the centre. As the picture of the Holy Redeemer came along, borne on the shoulders of four men, all the crowd about sank on their knees. The picture was carried up the steps and placed on a table set there to receive it, and there were prayers and hymns before dropping the curtain over it and taking it into the church.

The sun went down and one large star burned in the west. It was easy to imagine an angel hand and wings above, and golden chains dropping down to a lamp of which that star was the flame. All the lamps, many-colored as the rainbow, were lighted in the windows, throwing their light, as the twilight deepened, in a strong splash, here and there, on a leaning face intent and praying, on a mantle of vines, on a bit of carving, a rough stone balcony, or a stair climbing up into the dark. One little arched window, with a vine over it, held a single beautiful face of a young woman, and a single lamp that shone on her black hair and eyes and perfect features, motionless there in prayer, till she looked like a cameo cut in pink carnelian.

The prayers ended, and some one drew the curtain before the lovely face of the picture. As he did so a chorus of exclamations burst from the kneeling crowd, and several women burst into tears.

361“What do they say?” Mr. Vane asked in surprise. “What is the matter?”

“They say, 'Grazie, Santissimo Salvatore!'—Thanks, most holy Saviour,” she replied.

He smiled faintly and repeated after them, “Grazie, Santissimo Salvatore!” and it seemed that his eyes glistened in the candle-light.

“I am glad it touches you,” the Signora said as they went to their lodgings. “Some, even Catholics, think it superstitious; but it is no more so than it is a superstition for us to kiss and weep over the pictures of our friends.”

The next morning they went up to early Mass in the pretty Capuchin church, at the head of its long avenue of overarching trees, loitering slowly home again when the Mass was over.

“Now,” said the Signora suddenly, spying a man with a large basket—“now I will show you what figs are. You have not known before.”

She beckoned the man and asked how many he would sell for a soldo. He replied, “Twelve.”

“You may give me eight dozen,” she said. “Each of you dear people are to have two dozen and to carry them yourselves. Out with your handkerchiefs! That is the fashion. Don’t be scrupulous.”

“They don’t look as if I should wish to eat two dozen,” Bianca remarked doubtfully. “They look to me like little bits of green apples.”

“Please to defer your judgment,” remarked her friend; “and what you do not wish to eat I will take.”

When they had reached home and were seated at the breakfast-table, the Signora took one of the little figs, with some ceremony and much anticipated triumph, and, lacking a fruit-knife, peeled its green skin off with the handle of a tea-spoon. All their eyes were watching the process; and when it was ended, and she pushed out the little teaspoonful of delicious fruit for Mr. Vane to have the first, the others were convinced by only seeing. It was a rich, deep red, of the consistency of solid old preserved strawberries, but with the fig flavor.

After breakfast was over they went out to visit the gardens of the Cesarini palace, for which they had a permit. These are laid out and kept by a Swiss gardener, and are a wilderness of flowers and trees and fountains on the level and down the hill-side. After wandering about the upper part for a while they descended a slowly-winding path, bordered by hydrangeas in full flower, that stood shoulder-high and dropped their great balls of amethyst bloom toward the earth, and came out into a little terrace where the trees and shrubs left an open front. A long bench at the back, and a richly-carved antique capital of a column near the wild-vine parapet, gave them seats, and before them was the whole verdant amphitheatre, with Lake Nemi at the bottom, and the town of Nemi half up the opposite bank, like a little white flower painted half way up the inside of a green cup. And down from the flower, like its white stem, dropped a white stream, cascade after cascade, to the lake, its motion petrified in the distance.

Tall white cloud-shapes marched round the hill-tops and looked over—shining shapes that seemed to hold Olympian deities within their folds, “impenetrable to every ray but that of fancy.” The amphitheatre sloped steeply in a green cone rich with orchards and vineyards, and pressed 362in a waving line around the water. Opposite the little terrace in which they sat, as in a box at the opera, the shore made a green heart in the water, and from behind one curve of it a boat, tiny in the distance as a black swan, slipped out and moved across the view. The lake lay like an emerald half-fused, its shaded greens touched in places with a soft purple bloom or a silvery lustre, and catching now and then a melting image of some cloud-cap higher than the rest. There was a sound of mellow thunder from some direction—Jupiter Tonans driving through those driving clouds.

They sat there silently drinking in the beauty of the scene, speaking only a word or two now and then, waiting till it should be noon and they should hear the Angelus from Nemi. When it came, a dream of a sound, touching with the outermost wave of its song the party of strangers across the lake, they stood up and said the prayers together. Then, bidding adieu to Nemi and its lake and the beautiful garden, they went slowly away.

That afternoon they went back to Albano, and the next evening returned to Rome. They had only one other excursion to make—that to Monte Cassino. Certain affairs were calling Mr. Vane to America, either for a longer or shorter stay, to go with only his daughters, or to have a nearer companion yet, and the end of their visit was approaching. It would soon be September, and in October they must start. Besides, it was found that, subject to her father’s approval, Bianca had promised to marry early in the spring, and some preparations must be made for the wedding.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

363

TO POPE PIUS IX. A JUBILEE OFFERING, JUNE 3, 1877.

I.

To-day the scattered peoples of the earth—

Haply the monarchs may not all forget—

Pay unto thee, great Pope, their willing debt

Of love sincere—blest debt of heavenly birth!

We kneel afar, a people of to-day,

Whose life but doubles in its hundred years

Thy long episcopate of many tears;

But none the less we love, nor ceaseless pray

That He who leadeth Joseph like a sheep

May bless thee with fair length of glorious days,

May give thee yet triumphant voice to raise

When men, with happy tears, shall vigil keep

Of that great feast when Christian Rome no more

In chains shall stand a world’s awed gaze before.

II.

Eudoxia’s church—where Michael Angelo

Hath Moses wrought in terrible array—

With faith’s most loving rites keeps holiday

In holy thought of those long years ago

When, 'neath its roof, the throng devout drew near

To see thee made a shepherd of the sheep,

Thy crook receive, that thou shouldst bravely keep,

Thy flock e’er leading by the waters clear.

“St. Peter of the Chains”—prophetic name!

Beneath this title was thy charge begun;

As Peter’s self thy hands his chains have won,

With these, his years. When shall God’s angel claim

Thy liberty, the prison gates fling wide?

Christ in his vicar no more crucified!

III.

O happy senses of the Virgin Blessed

Standing the cross of Calvary beneath—

So winning martyrdom without its death—

Queen of all martyrs evermore confessed!

364O happy Pontiff! wear’st thou not to-day

Beneath the triple crown one wrought of thorn?

So crowned for love thou hast unfailing borne

To thy pure spouse the faithless would betray?

Art thou not martyr, too, by that deep woe

Thou sharest with our Queen Immaculate?

About thee rise the cries of blinded hate,

Thou seest afresh the wounds of Jesus flow;

His cross thy palm, his words sublime thine too—

“Father, forgive; they know not what they do.”

IV.

As said Lacordaire, of the rosary,

That love must ever its own speech repeat

That, ever murmured, groweth e’er more sweet,

So, seeking long some gift to bring to thee

On this high day that keeps thy years of gold—

Some thought that shall heart’s dearest service prove—

Find I but one e’er-echoing word of love

That doth all else I seek most fair enfold.

Too great thy deeds for my poor verse to tell

That need the Tuscan’s speech of Paradise;

Even to think them, tears are in my eyes

And sorrow stifles the Te Deum’s swell—

Tears for so dear a feast seem gift unkind,

But love in every falling bead is shrined.

V.

As, when our Lord doth rest in solemn state

On altar for his worship set apart,

And from the fulness of each faithful heart

The fairest flowers to him are consecrate—

Pure lilies, that with fragrant breath pour forth

The speechless worship human love must give;

Red roses, in whose flush love seems to live—

As, 'mid this wealth, some gift of little worth,

Some penance-hued, frail-blooming violet,

Is brought by humble soul with love as great

As lies within the lilies’ lordlier state—

Each cancelling so little of love’s debt—

So I, my father, 'mid thy lilies place

My rue, thy blessing shall make herb-of-grace.

365

THE PRESENT STATE OF JUDAISM IN AMERICA.

Judaism, in its purity, is not a false religion. It was revealed and established by God, and nothing which comes from him can be untrue. Judaism, as it now exists here and in Europe and Asia, is, on the one hand, overladen and almost smothered by the inventions and additions of men, until the original deposit of the truth is with difficulty discerned; on the other hand, it is refined and explained away until it has become little better than a system of worldly morals. To-day, in Europe, Jews, and the descendants of Jews who have lost their ancestral faith without becoming Christians, are powerful in the cabinets of kings, in parliaments, in the money exchanges, and in the world of journalism. In America, while they have as yet, perhaps with a single exception, taken no leading part in the political affairs of the country, they have become a power in finance, and are beginning in a quiet way to influence, and to some extent to control, journalism. The ability of the race is unquestionable, and their virtues, as a race, are many. They are prudent and thrifty; they are charitable to each other, and their charities are not always confined to their own people; they are seldom guilty of crime, although when a Jew does become a criminal his offences are apt to leave little to be desired in the matter of completeness, audacity, and cruelty; they are excellent parents, and the domestic virtues among them are cultivated to a high degree; their women are for the most part chaste; their men are seldom cruel creditors, even when their defaulting debtors are Gentiles. They have their faults and objectionable peculiarities; among certain classes of them these imperfections are especially noticeable; but, as we shall show, the rising generation of Jews in America will probably become tolerably well Americanized, and will, to some extent at least, cease to be an unpleasantly peculiar people.

To Catholics the study of the changes which have taken place and are now occurring among the Jews should be invested with peculiar interest. We cannot forget that the Holy Scriptures of the Jews are a portion of our Holy Scriptures; that Our Blessed Lady was a Jewess, and that our Divine Lord willed to be born a Jew according to the flesh; that he made himself subject to the ceremonies and rites of the Jewish law, which was then the divine law, and consequently his own law; that the first drops of his precious blood were shed in the Jewish rite of circumcision; that his chosen apostles, and among them the first pope, were all Jews; that the Catholic Church at its first organization was wholly composed of Jews; and that the first Christian martyr was a Jew.

When Jesus Christ had finished his work on earth and had ascended into heaven, the Jewish law was fulfilled but not destroyed; it remained in full force and effect, 366subject only to such modifications as God himself, speaking through the infallible mouth of the church which he had established, should ordain in matters of ritual, sacrifice, and outward observances. The code of laws given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, and engraved by the divine hand upon tables of stone, is as binding to-day upon all of us as it was binding upon the Jews on the day when Moses came down from the mount bearing the sacred tablets in his hands. The devout Jew who to-day, with reverently covered head and contrite heart, stands in his synagogue and listens to the reading of the law, hears the same words that Jesus of Nazareth read when, as was his custom, “he went into the synagogue and stood up for to read.” True, hearing, he does not hear the full meaning of the divine words; seeing, he does not see how they have been fulfilled; his understanding has not been opened to know that the Messias for whom he still yearns was the Jesus whom his ancestors crucified on Calvary, and that, on the altar of the church which, perhaps, stands next door to his synagogue, this same Jesus, risen, glorified, and descended again from heaven, stands ready to receive and bless him.

But the Jew, ignorant of this and still clinging fast to the faith of his fathers, has an infinite advantage over all the other non-Catholics in the world. His religion, as we have said, was revealed by God, and therefore is not false in its essence, however much it may be overlaid and hidden by the innumerable superstitions and additions with which successive generations of rabbis and doctors have encumbered it. It is not a revolt against the Catholic faith nor a contradiction of it; for not only did it exist before the Catholic Church was established, but it was revealed by God, and he cannot contradict himself. The Jew errs only because he cannot or will not see that the Catholic Church is the lineal heir and rightful possessor of the church of which Adam was the first, and Caiphas the last, high-priest; and as for his sin in this hardness of heart and blindness of eye, God will judge him. Outside of this, and outside of the human additions which have been made to his creed, he believes what God spake unto Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, and his religion is entitled to respect because it is of divine origin. But the origin of all the other non-Catholic religions in the world is human or diabolical. They are revolts against the authority and teaching of the church which Jesus Christ established in the world; to the earthly and visible head of which he gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven; to the words of which he enjoined all men to render obedience; on which he has bestowed the inestimable grace of perfect unity; and which the Holy Spirit keeps ever in the truth. The Jew can say with truth, “God founded my church”; but the Protestant can only say, “Martin Luther, or King Henry VIII., or Queen Elizabeth, or John Knox, or John Wesley, or Alexander Campbell, or Jo Smith, or the devil founded my church.”

Judaism, however, although divine in its origin, ceased to possess the divine sanction from the moment when our Lord had completed his work on earth and ascended into heaven, and the Holy Ghost descended to preside over the organization of the church from 367which he has never since departed. The Jewish religion, thus deprived for ever of the divine sanction, was at once deprived of its divine authority and became a merely human organization, subject, like all other human things, to corruption, change, decay, and disintegration. These processes have been going on within it for eighteen hundred years, and they have now reached a most advanced stage.

Prior to the crucifixion and ascension of our Lord the essential unity in faith of the Jewish people had been preserved. The lawyers, the doctors, and the Pharisees had added much to the law of Moses in the way of laying heavy burdens on the people; they took tithes of annise and cummin; they made broad the edges of their phylacteries, and they were famous for making long extempore prayers, in which latter respect they resembled too closely some of our esteemed Protestant brethren. But the essential and divinely-given articles of the Jewish faith remained unimpaired, and in these essentials the unity of the people was complete. The process of change and disintegration commenced immediately after the establishment of the Christian Church and what may be called the formal transfer to her of the guiding and enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit. But for many centuries this process was slow and its progress excited little or no attention. The Jews, until a very recent period in their history, were a persecuted people; and persecution tends to make men cling closer to that which is the cause of the persecution. There were times in the history of the Jews when their only city of refuge was Rome; when the popes, alone of all the sovereigns of the earth, stretched forth over them a protecting arm and permitted them to dwell in peace and security. Within the last century, or less, all this has been changed: nowhere in all Europe now, save in Bulgaria and one or two other provinces, are the Jews persecuted; they have obtained equal political and social rights; they are cabinet ministers, premiers, members of parliament, eminent journalists, and autocratic bankers. With this prosperity have come the marked evidences of that disintegration in matters of faith to which allusion has been made. And here in America, where the Jews have been always free, these changes have now become more signal and wide-spread than in any other country.

To show how this has come about, it will be necessary, in the first place, to explain briefly the nature of the additions which have been made by the Jewish doctors to the divine law; the effect of these human edicts and precepts upon the minds of those Jews who retain their faith; and their contrary effect, upon other minds, in promoting and disseminating the spirit of infidelity which is now so widely prevalent among the Hebrews. The strictly “orthodox” Jew to-day is more burdened than were ever any of his ancestors by practically endless rules, observances, rites, and ceremonies, while his “reformed” or “ultra-reformed” brother has not only shaken himself free from all, or nearly all, of these human inventions, but has emancipated himself also from the letter and spirit of the law of Moses and from the bonds of the faith.

The books of the Jewish law as 368they now exist are the Old Testament, as we call it; the “Mishna,” or Second Law; and the “Gemara,” or supplement to the “Mishna.” These two latter books, taken together, form the “Talmud.” But the “Mishna” is the explanation of the Old Testament; the “Gemara” is the explanation of the “Mishna”; and there remains behind or above all these the mystical and mysterious “Cabala,” which contains within itself the sum and essence of all human wisdom, and of such portions of divine wisdom as men are permitted to know. The “Cabala,” properly speaking, is not a book, and has never been wholly committed to writing. The “Cabala”—and the meaning of the word is the “tradition”—is a divine, sublime, secret, and infinite science, treating of the creation of the universe, of the esoteric meaning and significance of the Mosaic laws, and of the secrets of God. No trace of its origin is to be found. Moses, David, Solomon, and the prophets are said to have been masters of it. It was taught to successive generations, but with the utmost secrecy and only to a select few, who were deemed worthy to receive this priceless knowledge. Those portions of it which are written are brief, obscure, and full of abbreviations and initials, to be understood only by the initiated. They resemble the manuals of Freemasonry—pregnant with meaning to the members of the craft, but unintelligible to all who have not the key of the cipher. He who is a perfect master of the “Cabala” is so wise and potent that he not only can work wonders, but may exercise almost creative powers. Nay, even an imperfect and surreptitiously-obtained knowledge of its mysteries enables one to perform miracles. He who can place certain letters in a certain way, and pronounce them in a certain manner, may suspend the operation of the laws of nature and command the angels of God to do his will. The Cabalists, however, claim that seldom, if ever, has their divine science been used by unworthy men or prostituted to selfish purposes. The penalty for such a sin is eternal death; it is written in one of their books that “he who abuses the crown perisheth,” and this is understood to refer to those who possess themselves of this knowledge and then use it for selfish purposes. The true Cabalists study their science not for gain, but for the sake of obtaining profound knowledge. They apply their rules to the letters and words of the Mosaic law, and ascertain thereby its hidden significance, drawing from every word or sentence an esoteric meaning, often full of sublime intelligence, and as often pregnant only with absurdity.

Emanuel Swedenborg seems to have been an unfledged Cabalist; it is probable that he became in some manner acquainted with a few of the outward formulas of the Cabala, and that he based on these his wearisome treatises upon the secret meaning of the Scriptures. Certain it is that nothing which Swedenborg imagined is not to be found in the Cabala. Fortunately, a knowledge of the Cabala is not necessary for salvation; on the contrary, knowledge of it is a special perfection which every one is not able to attain, and for the want of which no one is to be blamed.

The “Mishna” contains the oral 369or traditional laws transmitted from Moses, through a line of which the personality of every member is known, to the Rabbi Jochanan, who lived at Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of the second Temple. It was compiled by Rabbi Jehuda Hanasi in the latter half of the second century. The “Gemara,” or supplement to the “Mishna,” is a wonderful book, containing thirty-six treatises upon history, biography, astronomy, medicine, and ethics, interspersed with legends, aphorisms, parables, sermons, and rules of practical wisdom. The oral or traditional laws in the “Mishna” are claimed to be of divine authority; and the passages in both these books which seem to be absurd in the letter have a secret meaning understood best, if not exclusively, by the Cabalists. The morality taught in these writings is not to be despised. For example, it is laid down that men should not use flattery or deceit in business affairs; they should not be boisterous in their mirth nor permit themselves to sink into abject melancholy, but should be reasonably and gratefully cheerful; they should be neither greedy of gain, nor slothful in business, nor over-righteous in fasting and penance; all that they do they should do for the glory of God; they should love every Israelite as themselves, and they should be kind and charitable to the stranger; they must abstain from inward and silent hate, and if aggrieved by a neighbor they should make it known to him, affectionately asking him to redress the wrong; they should be especially solicitous to comfort, aid, and protect the widow and the orphan, not merely if these be poor, but because they have suffered and their hearts are laden with grief. There are three mortal sins—idolatry, fornication, and bloodshed; but calumny is equal to all three. Every one who professes the true faith must believe that there is a Being whose existence is inherent, absolute, and unconditional within himself; who has no cause or origin, and like whom there is no other; who is the first producer of all things; in whom all creatures find the support of their existence, while he derives no support from them; and that “this Being is by men called God—blessed be he!” There are six fundamental principles of the faith—the creation of all things by God out of nothing; the pre-eminence of Moses as a prophet and lawgiver—a pre-eminence so great that there never has been and never can be another equal to him; the unalterableness of the law which he gave; the dogma that the proper observance of any one of the commandments of the law will lead to perfection; the resurrection of the dead; and the coming of the Messias. But upon this excellent foundation has been built up that structure of ceremony, ritual, observance, and false and narrow philosophy which has become unbearable to so many of the Jews in this country and in Europe, and from the yoke of which too many have escaped by throwing aside all faith, while others have contented themselves with taking refuge in the half-way houses of “reform.”

It is difficult to estimate with accuracy the number of Jews in the United States. But the census of 1870 affords us some valuable data upon which a calculation may be based. In 1850 there were 36 Jewish synagogues in the United States, with sittings for 18,371 persons, 370and having a value of $418,600. In 1860 there were 77 synagogues, with sittings for 34,412 persons and a value of $1,135,300. In 1870 no less than 189 Jewish “organizations” were reported; there were 152 synagogues, seating 73,265 persons and valued at $5,155,234. Now in the city of New York there are 26 synagogues, and the Jewish population of the metropolis is not less than 75,000. This would give an average of some three thousand souls to each synagogue; and if we took this average as a basis of calculation, we should have a Jewish population in the whole of the United States amounting to 456,000 souls. But we have reason to believe that this is much less than the actual number. We have received from two high authorities estimates of the Jewish population in the republic; both are avowedly only estimates, but they have been made with care. One of them places the number of Jews in the United States at “one in thirty of the whole population,” which would give a total of 1,600,000 souls; the other reports the number to be “almost exactly 1,000,000 souls.”

According to the census of 1870, there were no Jewish synagogues or other Hebrew organizations in Arizona, Dakota, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington Territory, or Wyoming. But, in point of fact, there are many Jews in all, or nearly all, these States and Territories. The following table will show the number of Jewish organizations in the United States, the number of their synagogues, with their sittings and their value, according to the census of 1870:

Organizations. Synagogues. Sittings. Value.

Alabama 2 2 1,650 $30,000

Arkansas 1 1 300 6,500

California 7 7 3,600 314,600

Colorado 1 — — —

Connecticut 5 3 1,850 105,000

Dist. of Columbia 2 1 800 18,000

Georgia 6 5 1,400 52,700

Illinois 10 9 3,950 271,500

Indiana 5 4 1,900 113,000

Iowa 5 1 150 1,900

Kansas 2 1 300 1,500

Kentucky 3 3 1,500 134,000

Louisiana 5 5 2,200 75,000

Maine 23 23 7,315 36,400

Maryland 5 4 2,750 650,000

Massachusetts 5 2 1,500 33,000

Michigan 5 3 1,300 51,000

Missouri 4 4 2,100 217,100

New Jersey 1 1 300 8,000

New York 47 33 21,400 1,831,950

North Carolina 1 1 200 500

Ohio 7 7 4,000 360,584

Pennsylvania 15 14 7,750 681,000

Rhode Island 1 — — —

South Carolina 3 3 900 91,200

Tennessee 4 4 1,100 21,000

Texas 1 1 400 6,000

Vermont 8 7 1,890 35,300

West Virginia 1 — — —

Wisconsin 4 3 750 8,500

Totals 189 152 73,265 $5,155,234

A careful examination of this table discloses some remarkable contrasts which are not without their significance. While the synagogues in North Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin, and some other States are small and cheap structures, costing only from $500 to $2,800 or $3,000 each, those in Georgia have cost, or are valued at, an average of $10,500; in Alabama and Maine, $15,000; in Illinois, $30,000; in Connecticut, $35,000; in California, $45,000; in Pennsylvania, $49,000; in Ohio, $51,500; in Missouri, $54,000; in New York, $60,000; and in Maryland, $162,000. These instances exemplify to some extent the comparative wealth and religious zeal of the children of Israel in the different States named, and many of our readers, we suppose, will learn with surprise that there are far more Jews in Maine than in all the other New England States put together; and that the 371Jews of Maryland are apparently very much more wealthy and zealous than their co-religionists in any other part of the republic. But we must now trace the history of the settlement and progress of the Jews in this country, and set forth the outer as well as inner causes which have tended to work changes in them: to Americanize them to a great extent; to remove or soften the prejudices formerly cherished against them; and to weaken, modify, or destroy, in a degree which cannot yet be accurately determined, their own religious faith.

Jewish emigration to this country began at a very early period in its history, but only within the last thirty years has this emigration assumed perceptible dimensions. The Jews who came to the United States prior to 1848 were for the most part members of a low class; they were chiefly of Polish, Russian, Portuguese, or Spanish birth; they were either poor or pretended to be poor; they were peddlers, dealers in old clothes, pawnbrokers, money-changers in a small way, and petty merchants. From all social intercourse with the rest of the community they were cut off; they did not seek that which probably would have been denied them had they asked for it; the traditional prejudice against the Jews which exists so generally among the Gentiles was not diminished by the appearance, the actions, and the general reputation of these children of Israel. They were supposed to be exclusively devoted to trade and to money-making, and to be quite devoid of any scruples as to the means by which they might get the better of the person to whom they sold or of whom they bought. A Hebrew writer of some note many years ago remarked that the Jews, as a race of people, were more widely and generally known and less generally appreciated than any other class upon the earth; that the peculiarities which have marked them as objects of dislike were by no means original in their character, but were the fruits of centuries of oppression and degradation; and that they needed only a few years of existence in a free country, where equal rights would be accorded to them, and where they might in peace and security manifest the virtues which were in them, in order to win for themselves not only the toleration but the active esteem and respect of their fellow-citizens. The truth of this remark has been amply substantiated by what has occurred in England, France, Germany, and other portions of Europe; while in this country the Jews have succeeded in Americanizing themselves to a very great extent, and in obliterating in a marked degree the peculiarities which formerly served to point them out as a wholly separate and foreign people. That this process has been accompanied by the partial loss of their religious faith is unquestionably true, but it is not clear whether they have become Americanized because they have to this extent lost their faith, or whether they have lost their faith because they have become Americanized.

The Jews in America at the present moment are divided into five classes—the “Radical Orthodox,” the “Orthodox,” the “Conservative Reformed,” the “Reformed,” and the “Radical Reformed.” There is a wide gulf between the first and the last of these classes; but the shades of difference between a Radical Orthodox Jew and an Orthodox Jew, or between a Conservative Reformed Jew and a Reformed Jew, are somewhat difficult 372to define. The Radical Orthodox Jews are few in number, and are said by their co-religionists to be daily growing less. They are chiefly of Polish, Austrian, or Hungarian birth; they for the most part are in humble and obscure walks of life; they form no associations with Gentiles; they accept as the rule of their life the Mosaic law interpreted by the “Talmud” and the “Cabala”; they do not welcome Gentiles, or even Jews of later views, to their synagogues. We believe there is but one synagogue in New York belonging to this school of Jews, and in which one may witness Jewish worship as it was performed a thousand years ago. The children of the Radical Orthodox Jews—especially the male children—do not adhere closely to the faith and ritual of their fathers; and some of the fathers themselves, as they become rich in this world’s goods, manifest a disposition to affiliate themselves with one or other of the less rigorous sects. Some of them are content to join the ranks of the Orthodox Jews, who hold most firmly to all matters of dogma, and to all the essential rules of life laid down by the law of Moses, but who at the same time dispense themselves from the strict observance of a certain number of the more onerous observances and regulations enjoined by the rabbinical writers.

The line of demarcation between the Orthodox Jews and the Conservative Reformed Jews is vague and undetermined; but the Reformed Jews are very much advanced. They hold themselves bound no longer to obey the ceremonial and dietary laws laid down by Moses and his successors, and their faith in the predictions of the prophets has almost wholly faded away. The higher class of the Hebrew community for the most part belong to the Reformed sect; but these congregations are also largely composed of the well-to-do middle-class Jews. Nearly all of the Jews of American birth are found in the ranks of this sect or in the one of which we have yet to speak; and very many of the German and English Jews resident here are also members of the Reformed synagogues. They openly avow their desire and ambition to become thoroughly Americanized, and to cease in all respects to be regarded as an alien and foreign people. They still retain their belief in God, but this belief is in too many cases vague and ill-defined. The expectation of the coming of the Messias in any literal sense has, with rare exceptions, ceased to be entertained among them. They will not confess that the prophecies of his coming were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and their philosophy has led them to the conclusion that these prophecies do not now remain to be fulfilled, save in a metaphorical sense. The Messias is indeed to come—but not as an individual. Humanity as a race, elevated, happy, prosperous, blessed with long life, health, and earthly comfort, is the Messias; the prophets saw him and were glad, but it was reserved for the children of this generation to discover what was the hidden and real meaning of their predictions concerning him.

A learned Jewish scholar has thus expressed this phase of Jewish thought: “The majority of intelligent Israelites have long since abandoned the wish of building up an independent national existence of their own. The achievement of higher conditions of human life they are disposed to regard as the 373fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, and the furthering of this end, in intimate union with their fellow-men, as the highest dictate of their religion.” These are weighty words; and there is abundant reason to believe that they truthfully represent the dominant tone of thought among the American Jews. The latest sect among them—the Radical Reformed Jews—go to the root of the matter and have the full courage of their opinions. They have the goodness to admit that there is, or may be, a God, but they deny that he has ever revealed himself to man save by the law of nature, and that God is himself nature. In other words, these Jews have become Pantheists. Benedict de Spinoza was excommunicated and denounced by the forefathers of those who now revere and extol him. The most eloquent and gifted, if not the most learned, of the Jewish rabbis in America has become the leader of this sect, and has left the magnificent synagogue which was built for him, only to draw after him into new paths a large proportion of his former congregation. They are extremely wise in their own conceit; they prate of the necessity of doubting all things; they deride the rites and practices of external religion; they say they worship God, but inasmuch as God, as they insist, is only nature, and nature is part of themselves, in worshipping God they worship themselves. We are told that many of those Jews who still maintain their connection with the Conservative Reformed or Reformed congregations are by conviction in full sympathy with the Radical Reformers. The laity are far in advance of the rabbis of each sect. The rabbis are for the most part men of foreign birth and foreign education; there are, we believe, not a dozen rabbis of American birth in the whole Union. The almost universal tendency of thought and practice among the younger Jews is in the direction of that phase of infidelity of which we have spoken; and the elder members of the race take little care to counteract in any effectual manner this apostasy. The education of Jewish children in this country is left pretty much to take care of itself. There are few, if any, Jewish schools, and none at all of a high character. The Jewish children for the most part attend the public schools, where they either are taught no religion at all or listen to such vague and disjointed utterances concerning the truths of Christianity as the caprice or the prejudices of the teacher may lead him to pronounce. In some instances the children of well-to-do Hebrews among us are sent to receive their education in Unitarian academies; in others the sons of wealthy American Jews are educated in the German universities, from whence they return full-blown infidels. Intermarriages between Jews and nominal Christians are not rare; and the children of these unions are, as a rule, educated in the religion of the mother—if she happens to possess any.

We have said that the Jewish laity is in advance of the rabbis in the matter of what is called “reform,” but which is too generally nothing but destruction. The position of the rabbis is a peculiar one. They are not priests, for they no longer offer sacrifice. They are not even the sons of priests; the hereditary character of their office has long since been lost; they are rabbis, or, in other phrase, teachers, not by hereditary descent 374nor by divine selection or consecration, but merely by their own choice and the good-will of their neighbors or friends. The last high-priest of the Jewish Church who had any divine sanction for the title which he bore was Caiphas, and his office was taken away from him, in the sight of God and in truth, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost descended to dwell until the end of time with the Christian Church. Since that day there have been no priests of God upon the earth, save the priests of the Catholic Church; and consequently since that day there have been no true Jewish priests. The altars of the Jews have crumbled away; their sacrifices have ceased; the sons of the tribes of Aaron and Levi have abandoned even the pretence of belonging to a priestly order. In the place of the priests have come the rabbis, who are mere ministers or teachers. They are to the Jews what the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and other Protestant ministers are to the respective Protestant sects. They are a little less than some of the Protestant ministers claim to be; for some of these do set up in an uncertain way a vague and altogether fallacious pretence to the possession of “orders” and to having been empowered to perform priestly functions. The rabbis make no such pretence, and their position, such as it is, is confessedly invested with only purely human sanction. They are teachers, but do not claim that they have a divine authority to teach. They are subject to the will and caprice of the congregation to which they are attached; they are like school-teachers, whose tenure of office depends upon the pleasure of the school commissioners. Some of them have sought to put themselves at the head of the reform movement, and have succeeded, but only on the condition that they should keep pace with the advance of the laity. The younger German rabbis have been most prominent in this respect. They have effected an organization among themselves, as well here as in Germany, and have managed to act together with something approaching to unanimity. Destitute, however, of any rule of faith and practice higher than their own will and whim, and having no central or supreme authority to which they can appeal, they lack the essential bond of unity, and some of them are constantly wandering off in one direction or the other. They began their work of reform by modernizing the ritual of the synagogue, and eliminating from it, little by little, those portions of it which, directly or indirectly, assert the dogmas that are inconveniently opposed to the new ideas whereof they are enamored. Among the regular prayers of the synagogue, for instance, were supplications for the bringing back of the chosen people to the land of their fathers, the restoration of the throne of David, and the coming of the Messias. The new philosophy, as we have shown, teaches that the Messias is not to come in any literal sense; that inasmuch as modern progress is best subserved by democratic or republican institutions, the establishment of a monarchy of any kind is not to be desired or prayed for; and that the return of the Jews as a nation to Palestine is not to be wished, even if it were feasible.

It became advisable, therefore, to reconcile theory with practice, and to cease pretending to pray for that which was either impossible or undesirable. If it were absurd to believe 375any longer that the Messias was to come as a personal king and redeemer, to lead back his people to the Promised Land, and to elevate them as the rulers and princes of the earth, then it was something worse than absurd to continue the repetition of the prayers imploring the hastening of his coming. If the Books of the Law and of the Prophets are not the veritable word of God; if they contain merely ingenious and beautiful myths, symbolical poetry, and a code of moral and dietary rules which, in some respects at least, are no longer either necessary or advisable to be obeyed, it is dishonest to pretend to regard these writings with devout reverence, and to insist upon any one governing himself by them. By this course of reasoning the German rabbis, often pushed further than they cared to go by the laity who were behind them, sapped the foundations of faith among the common people of the Jews, and prepared them for the downward path which so many of them are now treading.

Having thus reviewed the present state of Judaism in America, we may ask ourselves what is likely to be the future of what was once the church of God, but has now fallen to the level of a mere sect. It is clear that the Jews, here as in the Old World, and more rapidly here than in the Old World, are losing the faith of their fathers. Judaism, divine in its origin, but no longer invested with the divine sanction nor inspired or guided by the Holy Ghost, is undergoing the same process of disintegration and decay which the Protestant sects are suffering. Judaism, now wholly human, like Protestantism, is leading its adherents to infidelity. Every day, as Protestants see this, the devout and pious among them turn to the one church which Jesus Christ established in the world, and in her bosom find refuge, peace, and salvation. The number of conversions from Protestantism to the holy Roman Catholic Church, here and in Great Britain, is continually on the increase. But nothing is more rare than the conversion of a Jew. They are rapidly parting with their own faith, but very seldom do they embrace any form of Christianity in its stead. In a few years the great majority of Jews in the United States will probably have ceased to be Jews, save only in name. But how many of them will become Catholics? All roads lead to Rome; but very few Jews have made that journey. A Jew who becomes a Catholic is a most excellent Catholic; he seems to desire, by the fervor of his faith and the burning zeal of his charity, to make some reparation for the sins of his people. Jews should be the best Catholics in the world; and God has told us, through the mouths of Jewish prophets, that the time will come when they will be all that they should be. The word of God is sure and cannot fail. He has told us that the day is coming when the Jews shall ask him, “What are those wounds in the midst of thy hands?” and when he shall reply, “With these was I wounded in the house of them that I love.” In that day he “will pour out upon the house of David the spirit of grace and the spirit of prayers; and they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and shall grieve over him as the manner is to grieve for the death of the first-born.” In that glorious day God has promised that he will 376destroy the names of idols out of the earth, so that they shall be remembered no more; and that he will take away the false prophets and the unclean spirit out of the earth. He will bring back the captivity of Juda and the captivity of Jerusalem, and “will build them as from the beginning”; he will cleanse them from all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against him and despised him; and he will so crown them with blessings that all the world shall be amazed thereby. “It shall be to me a name, and a joy, and a praise, and a gladness before all the nations of the earth that shall hear of all the good things which I will do to them.” “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform the good word that I have spoken to the house of Israel and to the house of Juda.” When the Jews become Catholic Christians, Jerusalem shall “be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name,” and the Jews shall become “a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of God.” Then they shall no more be called forsaken, and their land shall be no more called desolate; “but thou shalt be called 'my pleasure in her,’ and thy land inhabited.” Then shall the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass be celebrated by Jewish hands in the Holy City where Jesus Christ first offered up the ever-living Sacrifice, and then shall the Jews eat the heavenly Bread and drink the sacred Blood which have so long been given to us Gentiles and rejected by them. “The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by the arm of his strength: Surely I will no longer give thy corn to be meat for thy enemies, and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine for which thou hast labored; for they that gather it shall eat it, and they that have brought it together shall drink it in my holy courts.” Wonderful are these words; full are they of a meaning at once mystical and clear. The Jews, in God’s own time, will become Catholic Christians, and, united with the whole body of the faithful on earth, they shall eat the divine Bread which is the life of the world. The abandonment of their traditional faith will continue to lead them more and more to the abandonment of all their distinctive national peculiarities and practices, and they will become merged in the great body of the children of men. Then such of them as God may choose will have given to them the grace of faith, and as individuals, and not as a nation, will they become Catholic Christians. We know that in the vision of St. John the Apostle he saw one hundred and forty-four thousand of the children of Israel, of every tribe twelve thousand, who had come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. We are certain, then, that before the end of the world at least this number of Jews will have been converted. It may be that the number represents only those who belonged to the church while it was yet mainly composed of Jews. If so, let us hope that those of the once chosen people who yet remain may be found, or at least many of them, in that great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, which St. John also saw, standing before the throne and in the sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice “Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb.”

377

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER. FROM THE FRENCH. CONCLUSION.

July 30.

This morning I was in a sort of mortal sadness. I opened the “Book of those who suffer” at these words: “You have willed, O my God! to separate me from her to whom I have so often said that I should wish to die the same day as she. This desire has not been granted, and thou hast condemned me to survive.

“She is at rest; and never have I more fully realized than in this my exceeding grief the meaning of that beautiful Christian word, quies—rest.”

I said this with all my heart, and I have comprehended.... O Kate! I loved you too much for this world. Bless me from on high, and visit me with Picciola. It seems to me that the divine Goodness must permit that.

August 2.

“The present war is the natural and necessary consequence of the great apostasy of the sixteenth century and the principles of the Revolution!” O my God! if this might be a holy war! But I fear; for France is so guilty! Prayers are being offered in all the dioceses; the emperor has put himself at the head of the army. May God save us! We needed a St. Louis, if we were to deserve victory. Do you remember, Kate, how much we admired these words of Bossuet? “War is often a salutary bath, in which nations bathe and are regenerated.” Oh! how you must pray, all our kind friends in heaven.

August 4.

Amélie has bidden us adieu; she is a charming creature. Her mother will not accompany her. She fears her own weakness; and she is a veritable Spartan.

On the 2d of August took place a first engagement at Saarbrück; our troops were victorious. May this success augur well! They say that there is a terrible effervescence in minds. Our Bretonnes are praying that their sons may soon return.

Arrival of our Parisians! Alix and Margaret have all the grace of the twins; my godson is magnificent. I like to feel that we are together in these troubled times. How I pity mothers!

August 7.

Terror, anguish, defeat—these are the synonyms of this date. Two days ago we were beaten at Wissembourg; yesterday at Forbach. We are waiting for news. Our reverses are a chastisement; the French government is withdrawing its troops from Rome. Is it, then, to secure success that France abandons the Pope? Oh! it is not France which acts thus; she is too profoundly Catholic for that; but she will be none the less certain to undergo the penalty for this cowardice. Kate, pray for 378France! The Prussians are upon our soil, and civil war is also feared.

August 13.

Horrible details are received of the battle of Reichshoffen. Marshal MacMahon behaved with admirable heroism. He would not quit the field of battle after witnessing this odious butchery—40,000 against 150,000! Lord, O Lord! have pity. There must have been some treason there. The cuirassiers and chasseurs of MacMahon sacrificed themselves to facilitate the retreat. The newspapers make one weep. Kate, what is said in heaven?

My Guy is charmingly beautiful; and when he is twenty years old an enemy’s cannon-ball will have the right to carry him off!

August 21.

Dear Kate, I bless God for having placed you in the peace of eternity before these murderous struggles, in which your heart would so often have been wounded! Ah! it seems to me that it is a great favor to be taken from this earth before the calamities which are impending.

A subscription has been set on foot, in order that all France shall offer a sword of honor to MacMahon. Marshal Lebœuf, General-in-Chief, is replaced by Marshal Bazaine; the army is falling back on Chalons. There were brilliant affairs on the 14th, 15th, and 16th. But what agitation in the country! The republicans consider the moment favorably for their triumph, and René declares that the Prussians of France are still more to be dreaded than the Prussians of Germany. Montaigne said: “There are triumphant defeats which equal the finest victories.” Our troops are sublime. Fresh levies are being made, companies of francs-tireurs are organized; will France be saved? Catholic La Vendée is rising en masse.

August 24.

The Prussians are at Saint-Dizier. It is said that in the partial engagements the losses are considerable on both sides. The enemy is bombarding Strasbourg. Read heart-rending details. Povera Francia! They say that two sons of Count Bismarck are dead; it is the justice of God passing by! Oh! when we think of so many families who are suffering from the disasters of invasion, who see their homes invaded and their days in peril, how ardent are our prayers!

That which I dreaded is come upon us. René and his brothers are going! O my God! guard them from danger. I love France too well to hinder René from defending her. The fear of afflicting me held him back. God aid us and have at the English! as our Breton ancestors used to say. The English of to-day are the Prussians.

They leave us, five brothers, all valiant and strong, courageous as lions. Ah! if they should not return. I believe in presentiments, and something tells me that all hope of happiness is at an end for me. “Give all to God,” a saintly priest wrote to me. Fiat! Take all, my God, but leave me thy love!

Do you remember, Kate, my mother’s stories of the heroism of our grandfather? Do you remember that Georgina whose name I received, who said to her brother, “Go and fight without thinking of me. God and his angels will guard me; think of your country!”

Could I be less courageous than she? Pray for me, holy soul in heaven! What shall I do without him?

379August 26.

Levies are being raised en masse. Men will not be wanting, but soldiers cannot be made at a moment’s notice, especially in our days. It is said that Bazaine is blockaded in Metz with 70,000 men, and that he has before him 200,000 Prussians. MacMahon is going to his relief with an equal number of heroes. The French have burnt the camp at Chalons. What will be the issue of this frightful struggle? The ministry which has caused all our misfortunes has resigned; a clear understanding is most important, and time passes away in useless discussions. General Trochu, a Breton, is Governor of Paris.

To-day we shall be left alone....

August 29.

It is over. René has taken with him all my heart, and I feel a strange sense of suffering. My mother has been sublime. O these adieux, these last embraces! Who would have said that we should come to this?

Protect them, ye holy angels! Bring them back to us soon with the return of peace! There are wounded everywhere; my mother has asked for ten, to whom we shall attend ourselves. It is terrible to see these mutilations. O war! how I hate it.

The army of Prince Frederick Charles is marching upon Paris; there are no official tidings of our soldiers. Phalsbourg, Toul, Metz, Strasbourg are all undergoing the horrors of bombardment. Where shall we go? Prayer alone will save us. There is much patriotic eagerness in the populations; the loan of 750,000,000 has been covered with astonishing rapidity. What will become of the capital? What chastisement will visit it for having erected a statue to Voltaire?

A visit—the Comtesse de G—— and her two daughters, friends of Lucy. What a difference between the two sisters! The younger calm, gentle, and placid, like a beautiful lake, seraphic and tender; the elder ardent and enthusiastic to exaggeration, impassioned for the cause of good, peace, and right, but like a volcano.

Kate, tell me that you pray for us, and that God will have pity upon his people!

August 31.

A letter from René! Alas! his presence was so sweet to me. Gertrude and I do not quit the chapel, except for the wounded. Mary and Ellen, Marguerite and Alix, multiply their prayers. Arthur has made his mother give him a Zouave’s uniform; thus equipped, he drills the children at the school. You should hear him say how he wants to join his father and fight with him. Our savage enemies commit revolting atrocities. How truly are they the sons of the Teutons!

Berthe’s family is in Switzerland.

September 4.

Lord, save us; we perish!

The public journals speak in an ambiguous manner of triumphs with respect to which a terrible silence had been observed in official quarters; a great battle was imminent.... The day is come, and its events are brought to light. Povera Francia! The emperor and 40,000 French prisoners, MacMahon grievously wounded, and a capitulation—it is horrible! My God! hast thou abandoned France? The public consternation cannot be described. It was said yesterday that, owing to a crypt whose existence 380was generally unknown, the women and children had been able to quit Strasbourg, so valiantly defended by General Uhrich. The enemy aims his murderous projectiles especially at the cathedral—that unequalled marvel in stone. Horrible! horrible! It seems as if hell had vomited innumerable legions of monsters upon France. There were 550,000 in this last three days’ battle. How will all this end? “Arise, O Lord! and deliver thy people, for the time to show mercy is come!”^[52]

September 6.

The republic is proclaimed. Paris is in a state of delirium. Did not Joseph de Maistre say: “The French Revolution has been satanic; if the counter-revolution is not divine, it will be a nullity”? Read the Univers yesterday—so Christian, so right-thinking. Louis Veuillot calls Prussia the Sin of Europe. Will the republic save us? The enemy is at Soissons. We see now the result of twenty years of despotism.... “MacMahon is dead!” said a workman on the boulevards with a journal in his hand. At these words arose a general cry: “Honor to MacMahon!” This report is contradicted, and Mme. la Maréchale set out yesterday to join her husband. O this wound! What Frenchman would not give his life to heal it? No army left! Bazaine is still blockaded in Metz, bombarded by the Prussians. MacMahon had done wonders, but was unable to effect his junction with Bazaine. He was thrown back by the enemy upon Sedan, and a bridge not having been destroyed, notwithstanding his orders, he was surrounded by a network of the enemy; grievously wounded, he placed the command in the hands of General Wimpffen, who capitulated. MacMahon would never have done this—never! Without a miracle, France is lost. It seems as if one were suffering a bad dream in reading that, owing to our woods, the enemy slaughter us without mercy, whilst our blows fall on emptiness, and that on the fatal day which annihilated our army our artillery was for a quarter of an hour playing upon a regiment of French cuirassiers.... The Angelus is ringing. O Angelic Salutation! with what anguish Christian hearts yesterday repeated you, on this beginning of a new era of which no one can tell the form or the duration.

September 7.

A line from Adrien to reassure us all. Alas! who does not tremble at this hour? Kate, protect us! Some members of the Left have, themselves alone, made the republic and seized the reins of government. Can the enemies of God regenerate a people? “The Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Napoleon I. (Louis Veuillot, the valiant heart, tells us) used to say that the general who dared speak of capitulation ought to be shot; what, then, would be the deserts of him who surrenders? Poor France, humiliated, vanquished, deprived of her noblest children!

September 8.

On this festival of your nativity, O Our Lady of Victories! succor us. No courier from Paris, which must be invested. The Garde Nationale is being organized; the scheme is to oppose the whole of France to these Vandals of the nineteenth century—barbarous hordes who seem to be impelled by some irresistible force into the heart of 381our unhappy country. How French I feel myself in these days of sorrow! Dear Kate, is it true, as we believe, that all our saints of France, headed by St. Remi, Charlemagne, St. Louis, and Joan of Arc, are prostrate at the feet of the Eternal to obtain the pardon which would save us?

September 11.

In the frightful catastrophe of Sedan our soldiers were in want of munitions and had not eaten for four days.

I send daily a long bulletin of news to my devoted Margaret. Has not Marcella also something to fear? Poor Italy! Poor France! We can but have either a shameful peace or a pitiless war.... Laon is threatened with the fate of Strasbourg. Alas! these poor cities, besieged and heroic. “Country of my brethren and of my friends, may the words of God for thee be words of peace: 'May peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy towers!’ O my God! save thy servants who put their trust in thee!”^[53]

Every man under arms, every woman at prayer! This decree makes me bless the republic. And René—where is he?

September 13.

Laon must have ceased to exist; the commander has had the citadel blown up. They say that Garibaldi, the insulter of Pius IX. and the king of vagabonds and bandits, is coming to succor France; is not this the depth of humiliation? “How long, O Lord! wilt thou delay to succor us? O God! be thou our judge, and defend our cause against this pitiless nation; deliver us from these men, who are full of injustice and deceit!”

The enemy is six leagues from Paris. M. Thiers has set out for Vienna, St. Petersburg, and London. The United States have offered their mediation. We are assured that the foreign powers desire peace, but what proofs do they give? Russia is preparing formidable armaments, doubtless finding the present moment opportune for taking possession of Constantinople. The excommunicated king is adding to his crimes in annexing to his own the last remaining States of the church.

We are told that the republican world boasts greatly of the circular of Jules Favre and the letter of Victor Hugo.

I do not know from whence there comes to us a copy of a revelation announcing that from the 20th to the 29th all will be over, and that France will be delivered by a stranger. O feast of St. Michael the Archangel! be to us a day of salvation. But, Lord, does France deserve it? Ah! she is no longer the eldest daughter of the church, since she consents to the odious spoliation of Italy, and since every sort of hatred is let loose against religion. Do they not say that at Lyons the Visitandines have been driven from their convent? We deserve every misfortune and disgrace. Louis Veuillot, calm in the midst of so many storms, gave yesterday a beautiful article, in which he predicted the near approach of the triumph of the church; and today, the splendid history of Judas Machabeus. Save us, O Lord! we who are thy people. “God gives to his church the flotsam of every wreck, as he gives her, sooner or later, the laurel of every triumph.”

It is said that Paris will be destroyed. “Unless the Lord keep 382the city, he that keepeth it watcheth in vain!”^[54] Hope! hope! Prayer will save us!

I knew yesterday that Réne was alive. O Kate! pray for us.

September 17.

O surprise! O joy!—if I dared to say so.... Margaret here! Kind, dear, and perfect friend! she could not remain away from us during these troubles. Lord William and Emmanuel have come with her. What an exquisite proof of affection! How we have wept together! O dear Kate, dear flower transplanted to heaven! your native soil, how much we have spoken of you. How René will be touched at hearing of this arrival! My mother and sisters give a festive welcome to my belle Anglaise, who is English only in name, being as Catholic, as Irish, and as French as we are.

Communications are interrupted, or are on the point of being so. The line of Orleans is cut. The Paris Journal is here, however, with frightful accounts of the barbarity of the Prussians. Save us, my God; have pity on those who are fighting pro aris et focis!

Margaret has brought me a bit of the soil of Ireland, and some flowers gathered from our mother’s grave.

September 19.

What is happening to-day, twenty-four years after the Apparition of La Salette? We are melting away in prayers. My mother has obtained from the bishop the most liberal permissions for benedictions. Our good curé is dying ... of old age and grief. The love of their country is a robust plant among the Bretons.

Dear Kate, we speak of you with Margaret. I told her that I continue to write to you; she was touched at hearing it. How kind it is of her to have quitted her home to share our anguish and our dangers! The province will be invaded—that is certain. No news of René; but who does not feel courageous at this time? Ah! assuredly, in face of the extent of our disasters, selfish anxieties disappear, and the soul grows, in her prodigious faculty of suffering, to compassionate all the present miseries, all the crushing misfortunes, all the deaths. How long, O Lord! will thy hand be heavy upon us? O mysterious depths of the designs of God! O militant church! O venerated Pontiff, the purest glory of our age! O Rome, invaded like France! I have just read an admirable pastoral letter of Mgr. Freppel, the illustrious successor of Mgr. Angebault in the see of Angers. He sees a reason for hope in this community of sorrows between the mother and the eldest daughter. O Pontiff!—is not this title become a bitter derision? The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, and we are surely not far distant from her signal triumph; but how many tears, it may be, and how many martyrdoms, before that hour! Italy, France, Ireland—the three countries of my heart, lands that are mingled in one in my enthusiasm and love, daughters of God, and the privileged ones of his heart—you cannot perish; God will fight for you, and we shall bless him for ever!

Kate, beloved sister, tell me that you hear me, that your soul touches mine. Be René’s guardian angel!

September 21.

Our life is strange. Beneath all it has a wonderful serenity, a confidence 383in God which defies everything; on the surface it is a sort of fever, passing from the wildest hope to the most complete discouragement. Gertrude has appointed us her aides-de-camp—Margaret and myself. There is much to do around us. Our Bretonnes have need to be consoled, and there are sick and dying. The good abbé multiplies himself with admirable self-forgetfulness; our pastor is dying, happy to be called away at the present crisis.

I have a letter from René—a kind, long, sweet letter, from which I cannot take away my eyes. He only speaks to me vaguely of the war, so as not to increase my alarm. Every ring of the bell makes us start; the gallop of a horse makes us run to the windows. My mother never quits her psalter and rosary; Mistress Annah faithfully keeps her company when we are not there; Mary and Ellen, with the other dear young ones in the house, are our sunshine. The courageous Margaret talks politics with Lucy, the abbé, and the doctor, organizes plans of defence, creates fortresses, and finally expels the enemy. Lord William was just now reading to us in the Paris Journal of the 18th details of deep interest relating to the affair of Sedan—“the Waterloo of the Second Empire, and the greatest disaster of modern times.”

September 25.

Jules Favre has made an appeal to William and Bismarck. France is very low. The result has been the affirmation of the exorbitant demands of the conquerors. The struggle is to be pushed to extremities. Regiments are to be formed of National Guards. Here none are left but old men. No official news. It is said that the enemy has been repulsed at Versailles, that Nantes is burnt, that headquarters are at Meaux; they said yesterday at Rheims: “O Clovis! why are you not there with your Franks?” The Prussians are burning Rouen. When, then, will the terrible work of these executioners of Heaven be ended? William wants Alsace and Lorraine, Metz, Strasbourg, Toul, Verdun, and Mont Valérien. Ah! we also, we shall say with the Bishop of Orleans that which was said by Louisa of Prussia—a magnanimous soul, to whom the life of her four sons was less dear than the honor of her country; a believing and valiant woman, who beheld so violent and devastating a storm pass over her kingdom that Prussia was on the point of being erased from the map of nations: “I believe in God; I do not believe in force. Justice alone is stable. God prunes the spoiled tree. We shall see better times, if only each day find us better and more prepared.” The son has not inherited the sentiments of the mother. It is said that it was Prince Albert who commanded the burning of Bazeilles; this fearful barbarity would suffice for his reprobation in the memory of men. “The Hebrew people saw Deborah and Judith arise in the day of its affliction; Gaul, St. Geneviève; and France of the middle ages, Joan of Arc.”^[55] Who shall save modern France? Whose arm shall God raise up to avenge her? “But now thou hast cast us off, and put us to shame: and thou, O God! wilt not go out with our armies.... Arise, O Lord! Why sleepest thou?”^[56]