Volume 25 / Part 3 — ALBA’S DREAM. BY THE AUTHOR OF “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” ETC. PART III. (continued 4)

From these instances, then, it is evident that the church has always been the friend of human nature, asserting for it the possession of faculties denied it, protecting it from error, and guiding it in the search of truth. She is, therefore, worthy of the gratitude of mankind for what she has done in the cause of education, as well as of the confidence of men as an instructor of youth in the future.

We come now to a more directly practical part of our assumed task, and shall consider it our duty to speak plainly, and perhaps in a way to be censured by some; but we do it in what seems to us the interest of our people and country. The Rev. Father. T. Burke, O.S.D., while in this country some years ago, addressing a society of young men, told them that Americans could not expect to take their position among the civilized nations of the world unless they studied, and studied not superficially but well. For our part, we thank him for this word. It is time to put out of our heads that we are the most cultivated, civilized, well-informed people of the world. We are not. Alongside the generality of the educated men of Europe the generality of the educated men of America do not appear to advantage. Who and what is to blame for this?

In the first place, we blame parents. They ought to know better; they have had experience of the world. They are the natural guardians of their offspring, and should provide by their experience a remedy for the inexperience of youth. Yet they, and especially Catholic parents, are those who put the greatest obstacles in the way of those engaged in teaching. They want their boys hurried through school; they can’t see the use of Latin, much less of Greek. As for philosophy, a man can make a fortune without philosophy; as if a fortune were the only thing worth living for! If that were the case, your California stage-driver who has struck a “bonanza” is the type of what a man should be intellectually. Heaven save the mark! We have had such men say to us: “I assure you, sir, it is a very great misfortune my education was neglected; I have wealth and don’t know how to enjoy it.” There are numbers of unhappy wealthy Americans 823travelling in Europe whose children are looking forward to brilliant futures, but who themselves rush from one place to another, tortured by the necessity of having to come in contact with educated people and learn daily their own inferiority. We have met such people, and, out of sheer pity for their unhappy lot, have done what was in our power to make them forget for a while their troubles.

The fact is, no greater boon can a wealthy parent bestow upon his child than a thorough, careful education, and every effort should be made to secure such education. And one of the first steps to be taken is that parents second the efforts of zealous educators in our Catholic institutions. These institutions have their defects, but those defects can hardly be remedied without the co-operation of parents. What that co-operation should be will be seen further on.

There are defects in our institutions of education. This is our next point. These defects are in the manner of teaching and in what is taught.

We acknowledge that there have been great improvements in the manner of teaching since we were boys; but with all this the want of uniformity, scarcely attainable in this country, will always leave the door open to defects in teaching. As a rule, the mind of a boy is too much taxed with speculative matter, and his memory comparatively neglected. The memory is one of the first faculties to show itself active, and it is also capable of wonderful development. In the earlier education of the child the exercise of the memory should predominate; as little strain as possible should be put on the mind yet tender. As the education progresses the exercise of the memory should be kept up; choice extracts from the best poets and writers should alternate with the useful storing in the mind of facts and definitions. The preliminary education should consist in the learning of languages, which are means of acquiring further knowledge by intercourse and reading, not by any means the sum total of education. We wish our Catholic parents would understand this; for when a boy succeeds in knowing a little French and German they seem to think everything done. These languages are only the keys to the treasures locked up in the writings of other nations. They are principally to be acquired by memory; and, in fact, this is the way the most successful and generally used method—that of Ollendorf—adopts. There is no reason why the boy should not be put at a very early age to learning foreign languages. There is, too, one great advantage in this: that his work at such languages will be lighter and less absorbing when he comes to be engaged in scientific study. Again, care should be taken not to put into the hands of a child books of an abstruse or relatively difficult character; for excessive caution against straining the mind of such a scholar can scarcely be taken. A great deal of harm is sometimes done from the too high standard exacted by school-boards of the various categories of boys. We have never ceased to praise the judicious interference of our father, who, finding us with an analytical arithmetic put into our hands at seven years of age, took it away and placed it on the highest shelf of his closet.

When a boy is well under weigh in the languages—we do not speak of religious education, which we take 824for granted—he may very properly be introduced to the study of experimental science and the more difficult problems of analytical arithmetic and mathematics. But these branches should not be arranged in such a way as to compete, as it were, with that much-neglected study, so lightly thought of—mental philosophy. If one visits our different Catholic institutions of learning, and examines their system, still more looks into the practical working of it, he will find that the year of philosophy, much talked of, is employed in a most perfunctory manner. We would not be understood as attributing any culpa theologica to the instructors. We consider this state of things owing first to parents, and consequently to their children, and in part to the want of appreciation of the need of such philosophical training on the part of the teachers; though also, sometimes, to want of competency in the teachers themselves, whose previous education has been on the old plan. We conceive that too great attention and zeal cannot be expended in the correction of these defects. Corrected they can be, and they must be, if we wish to take and keep our proper standing. We cannot have a university for the present, and therefore it is all important that the one essential thing a university can give—a higher mental training—should be given to our young Catholic men. They must receive this in our colleges; they will not have it elsewhere. Of the need of it there can be no question. The great number of able, educated Europeans who, from political causes, have had to leave their native country and come to us, and the large number of Americans who nowadays study in European universities, all of whom, in conversation and through the press, retail to us the wildest phases of infidel, metaphysical, and social doctrine, is a sufficient argument to decide the matter, should any one hesitate. The church, to be sure, is our infallible guide, but there are many questions she does not treat, or, if she has treated them, her decisions can be understood only by careful study and explanation in the language of philosophy. So far from discouraging the study of philosophy, of metaphysics, and of ethics—possibly the more important of the two—she encourages us to make a good use of this handmaid of theology. It is therefore a duty incumbent on those in whose hands is placed the education of our young men to pay more attention than ever to this kind of instruction. We know of efforts in some instances that have been made in this direction, but which have failed. We are afraid they were not very numerous. In some instances a tincture of metaphysics was deemed enough; ethics were wholly neglected. How this could be has always been a puzzle to us. But it should not be any longer. A careful course of metaphysics that would embrace particularly the refutation of pantheism and materialism, besides establishing thoroughly the existence of God and the spirituality and immortality of the soul; and an equally careful course of ethics that would refute the utilitarians and socialists of the day, while making clear the claims of authority, the nature of law, the origin of right in the eternal fitness of things as seen in the divine Mind, and such kindred questions, should be the object of the most earnest solicitude of the superiors of our Catholic colleges. The young students should be 825made to apply their knowledge thus received either by short compositions in addition to the repetition of the lessons taught; or, far better still, by academic exercises in which one student defends in the school-room before his teacher and fellow-students a thesis or proposition already explained, while one or two others object against it all they can think of or learn, and this, too, in strict syllogistic form. Exercises such as these would be of the greatest advantage in training the mind to the ready use of logic, and to refuting the arguments possible to be urged against sound doctrine. Nothing better than this would tend to take away the reproach so often, and perhaps in some cases most unjustly, made against our educational institutions, of incompetency for thorough education. Did it depend on us to have the recasting of the system of education, we should be inclined to add on a year of further study as a requisite for graduation, and during the last two years of a young man’s course we would employ him entirely in the study of metaphysics and ethics, including the principles of political economy, of the philosophy of history—in which the great questions of history, as far as possible, might be reviewed—and in the further polish of his literary English training. The philosophy of history is most important, for it is a powerful teacher. History is not to be studied as a bare narrative of facts; the facts have a language of their own which needs an interpreter. The polish of literary education is of great necessity, as it is the one thing those educated in the non-Catholic colleges may be said to excel us in. We do not dwell much on scientific education, because that is really of secondary importance, and it is impossible to give boys more than an elementary training in this branch, which may serve as a ground-work for further pursuit of it, if one is destined to turn his attention in that direction. To enable the superiors of our colleges to carry out such a plan would depend upon the parents of young students having the fortitude to oblige their sons to remain the requisite time and make a diligent use of their opportunities. Herein lies their co-operation in the great work of the future education of the young Catholic men of America; and our word for it, if they follow this counsel, they will never have cause to repent. They will give us, too, far abler champions of truth than our young men have shown themselves to be in the past.

826

THE DANCING PROCESSION OF ECHTERNACH. FROM THE REVUE GENERALE.

In the year of our Lord 690 a vessel from the island of Britain left upon the coast of Catwyk, in Holland, twelve young Anglo-Saxons who had abandoned their newly-converted country to carry the blessing of the Gospel to their brethren of the Continent. Chief among these young men, several of whom were of noble birth, was Willibrord, predestined from his mother’s womb to be a glory to the church and famous in the estimation of men. The young strangers separated, to work, each in his own way, in the vineyard of the Father. Willibrord began that very day the long and heroic apostolate of fifty years which ceased only with the pulsations of his heart. If we except his two journeys to Rome, where the great servant of the Papacy twice received the blessing and encouragement of the Sovereign Pontiff, he did not relax for a single day his labors in the vast region which stretches from the mouths of the Elbe and the Rhine to the banks of the Moselle. At his voice nations sitting in darkness rose up to behold the light, idols crumbled before the amazed eyes of their worshippers, churches arose from the soil and gathered about their altars multitudes of Christians, lay society organized itself little by little after the model of spiritual society.^[165]

Tradition and history show us by turns the great Anglo-Saxon apostle in Friesland as the master of St. Boniface; in Denmark, preceding by more than a century the famous St. Anscarius; in the island of Helgoland, destroying the idol of Fosite and braving King Radbod’s wrath; in the Isle of Walcheren, where he nearly fell a victim to his heroism and apostolic zeal; in Campine as the friend of St. Lambert, another untiring athlete of Christ; and, finally, in Luxembourg, where even more than elsewhere his name is glorified and revered. For half a century he stood with Lambert and Boniface in the breach, the father of civilization in Western Germany and one of the most signal benefactors of mankind.

The common people, though they forget great poets and great generals, preserve the memory of saints. Seventeen churches in Belgium and fifty-eight in Holland are under his patronage, without counting those in the valleys of the Moselle and the Rhine, where his fame is equally wide-spread. Sixty-three leagues apart, a small section of St. Willibrord’s vast itinerary, two villages to-day preserve in their own names the undying memory of his works: Wilwerwiltz on the sterile moors of the German Ardennes, and Kleemskerk on the low, fertile plains of maritime Flanders.^[166] Drawn, as it were, from nothingness by this great man, these two localities, 827were other witnesses wanting, would tell to later ages the glory of their sublime founder. Answering one to the other across the whole extent of Belgium, they testify to his vast labors and his devotion to the Roman Church, which we unworthily defend to-day against the barbarism conquered by him twelve centuries ago.

I.

During his apostolic missions through the forests of Luxembourg Willibrord remarked one of the most charming and romantic spots in that fine country. It was at a turn of the Sûre, which even to-day flows on beneath the shade of savage rocks and deep forests. The valley, widening at this place, must at that time have presented a most imposing aspect, while it offered every facility for a settlement of human habitations. Indeed, the dwellings were even then of ancient date. The place bore a name recalling incontestably its first Celtic occupants: Epternacum. There, too, the Romans had left traces of their passage. A short league from Echternach archæologists may still read beneath the great shadowy oaks and thick brushwood that half hide it the following inscription engraved on the base of a monument:

DEÆ DIANÆ

Q. POSTVMIVS

POTENS. V. S.

The upper part of the monument is gone, but enough remains to show that it represented two persons—no doubt the goddess and her worshipper, with a hunting-dog crouched at Diana’s feet. He who overthrew the false gods of Helgoland and Walcheren must have crushed in holy ire this monument of the paganism he had just destroyed.^[167] At all events, the image of Diana, once proudly throned above the valley at the edge of the wood, now hides, degraded and mutilated, in the dank gloom of brambles and brushwood—an eloquent emblem of St. Willibrord’s work in this country. Echternach, where even then two little Christian oratories stood on the site of the two churches of to-day, attracted the great man’s attention and heart. He built there a Benedictine monastery, which was favored from its foundation by the bounty of two royal families, the Merovingians and Carlovingians. Around this focus of Christian life habitations gathered, and, as always happened, the monastery expanded and became a town. Such was the origin of the commune of Echternach, one of the most flourishing in that happy country of Luxembourg which knows neither great cities nor great miseries.

The monastery of Echternach was always dearer to its founder than his other foundations. There he loved to pass his rare hours of repose. There, on the 6th of November, 739, at the age of eighty-one years, he reached the term of his mortal career. His remains were laid in the basilica of the abbey among his monks and his people. Even in the tomb he continued to be the father of that country and to exercise over men the sovereign authority which his virtues and labors had won. Death has no hold upon the saints; when we lower their bodies into the grave we rear their images upon our altars. St. Willibrord, more than any other patron of the country, is one whose 828sepulchre may be called glorious. Few tombs have inspired a veneration so extraordinary, attracted the faithful in such crowds, excited acts of faith so intense. No sooner was he laid in his grave than multitudes came to invoke the apostle of Luxembourg, and frequent miracles bore witness to his powerful protection. A century had not elapsed when this wonderful devotion was spoken of by the greatest writer of his time—Alcuin, the biographer of our saint.^[168] His festival was celebrated by an immense concourse, who filled the air with his praise. “See, brethren,” says St. Alcuin. “Behold the glory of serving God. Our holy patron, for love of Christ, left his native country and led the life of a pilgrim. He trampled under foot the riches of this world; he loved, he clung to poverty. And you know the glory he acquired among men. But preferable far is that which he possesses for all eternity among the angels.”^[169] And the illustrious friend of Charlemagne, speaking to his contemporaries of facts of which he had been an eye-witness, told of the iron fetters on the wrists and ankles of devout pilgrims which burst asunder when they came to do penance for their sins at the venerated tomb.^[170]

Two centuries afterward the voice of Theofrid, St. Willibrord’s successor and later biographer, echoes the powerful voice of Alcuin and tells of the ceaseless devotion which brings crowds to Echternach every year. He, too, bears witness to the saint’s miracles—so numerous, he says, that a yoke of oxen could not drag the chariot that would hold the votive offerings of wax and metal. And among these wonders, as in Alcuin’s day, were to be seen broken chains and instruments of torture worn by slaves, which were shattered into splinters.^[171] No miracle is oftener recorded of our saints than this one. I confess I never read the record in the quaint and simple narrative of our ancient hagiographers without emotion. Wherever they went the breakers of idols were also breakers of fetters; that word which called men to the knowledge of the true God called them also to the enjoyment of true liberty. Christus nos liberavit. Therefore the church has been honored by the opposition of all the tyrants who have wished to subjugate nations. They have felt that liberty could be easily destroyed, if they could destroy her who is the fertile mother and the fearless guardian of freedom. But nothing can avail against the church nor against the liberty which is her offspring, which her voice called into life, which she has bathed in the blood of her idol-breakers.

It was St. Willibrord’s destiny to see crowned heads bow among the crowds that pressed around his altars, and the imperial purple of Germany trailing in the dust before his coarse robes of haircloth. In the imposing procession of generations marching towards the saint’s tomb it is difficult to distinguish the royal forms mingling with the crowd of pilgrims, so petty seem to him who gazes from the altar the earthly grandeur which sets them apart from other Christians.

Many a time in earlier days the Carlovingians had come to pray 829and humble themselves in the sanctuary at Echternach. They came with hands filled with gifts, and, by one of those strange vicissitudes which the finger of Providence points out, it was one of their number who, blind, outcast, and bereft, came later to eat the bread of St. Willibrord and seek refuge in the shades of his monastery. History hardly mentions the wretched Carloman, rebel son of Charles the Bald, whose eyes were put out by his father’s orders, and who received in charity from his uncle Louis the Abbey of Echternach ad subsidium vitæ.^[172] The families who succeeded the Carlovingians in Germany never forgot the saint or the duty of paying him homage. In the year 1000 the list of imperial pilgrimages was opened by Otto III., the young and brilliant prince who planned so many great expeditions, and whom death had already marked with his mysterious seal. Lothaire of Saxony, and Conrad of Hohenstaufen, came in their turn to pray before the saint’s relics, the one in 1131, the other in 1145. Then, in 1512, Maximilian joined in the procession, and in memory of his visit gave to the town the bell which bears his name and still rings on feast days. Thus, except the sacrilegious house of Franconia, all the dynasties of the German Empire seem to have been represented at Echternach, and to have paid court to this prince of peace, greater and more respected than they.

Echternach was always the capital of St. Willibrord’s peaceful realm. There was his tomb; there rose convent and basilica, perpetual heralds of his great deeds. The convent was a city in itself, and the basilica is a most precious relic of eleventh-century architecture—a veritable pearl which alone would make the reputation of a town. I will not be drawn into further details, for fear of leaving my subject.^[173] It suffices to remember that this wonderful monument, a victim of revolutionary vandalism, had been sold as national property, and was falling into decay, when the piety and patriotism of the people of Echternach snatched it from certain destruction. They formed, under the name of Willibrordus Verein, a society whose aim was to recover the basilica and restore it to worship. This society, founded in 1862 by a few citizens in a little town of four thousand souls, now numbers its members by hundreds. It has already devoted more than one hundred thousand francs to the basilica, and will soon crown its work by bringing back the shrine of the saint, now preserved in the parish church. All reverence to the intelligent Christian people who guard their honor so faithfully and understand so well the interests of their own glory! Inspired by the three-fold love of religion, country, and art, the Willibrordus Verein is one of the finest institutions that I know. It does honor to the whole of Luxembourg, and will leave a lasting memory. Of how many associations of our day can as much be said?

The entire town of Echternach has retained that stamp of antiquity so eagerly sought by artists, and so much despised by our petty, material generation. Surrounded by the fantastic hills that form the valley, whose strange summits look like crumbling castles; still enclosed by 830three-quarters of its ancient fortifications, with here and there a ruined tower, it strikes the beholder with a surprise which only increases as he penetrates to the interior of the town. Passing through crooked and narrow streets, where each house has an architecture of its own which is often very impressive, he reaches the public square, where stands the antique town-hall, known by the more ancient name of Dingsthal, an interesting building which rests on Gothic arcades. The parish church is equally worthy of attention for its old Romanic architecture and its beautiful position upon the summit of an eminence overlooking the town.

What especially tends to give to Echternach its peculiar character is the habits of its population, so in harmony with the tranquil, cheerful country and its mediæval monuments. Here more than elsewhere Catholic faith has impregnated the life of the people. All their actions reflect its powerful simplicity, its generous hardihood, its customs of ten or fifteen centuries back. The poetry of the past, that exquisite influence of ancient times which we inhale with delight, is here an incense ever ascending from this happy valley. In this respect nothing can equal the dancing procession of Echternach, which takes place always on Whit-Tuesday, in honor of St. Willibrord, and attracts those who come especially to invoke his aid for nervous diseases. This procession has taken place for more than five hundred years. It can be traced back to the fourteenth century, and may be perhaps of even earlier origin. The dance has been explained in various ways: sometimes as expressing the joy of a Christian people coming to venerate the relics of their patron saint; sometimes as a symbolical representation of nervous attacks, epilepsy, and other maladies of the kind, from which the country was delivered by St. Willibrord’s intercession in the fourteenth century.

It is this ceremony, whose original and picturesque character is quite unique in the Christian world, which I am about to describe to the reader.

II.

When Whit-Sunday comes an amazing animation rouses the little town from its habitual tranquillity, and the excitement only increases on the Monday. Hotels and private houses are thronged with guests; many travellers, unable to get lodgings, camp out in the neighboring villages or go back to die Kirch, to return by railway the next day. The streets are thronged with dusty tourists: gentlemen of leisure regarding everything with a patronizing smile, peasants in rustic garb, rich strangers arriving in spruce equipages, and respectable jaunting-cars with three rows of seats, conveying the opulent farmers of the neighborhood. Booths are planted everywhere, blocking up the streets and setting their backs against every available corner. Mountebanks and charlatans, who come to levy their tithe on public piety, stun with their piercing outcries the busy folk running about to look for lodgings. Religion preludes the imposing solemnities of the following morning. The faithful flock to religious offices and sermons. All day long they are at prayer before the sarcophagus where lies the body of the saint. There you will see the most fervent; and by their attitudes, the expression of their faces, and the ardor of their gaze, it is plain that they have 831some great favor to implore and hope not to go away unsatisfied. Prostrate before the altar, these rude laborers from the Eyfel and the Ardennes, with their great horny hands and tanned faces, opening their whole hearts to God and absorbed in prayer, are beautiful to look upon. They seem to symbolize the destiny of mankind, born to labor, to suffer, and to pray. It is pleasant to ponder and pray in the stillness of that little Romanic church, beside the greatest man of the country.

It was an humble church with vaulted roof,

The church we entered in,

Where for eight hundred years the sons of men

Had wept and prayed ’gainst sin.

There, on the hill sacred for so many ages, under the shade of the lindens that screen the courtyard of this modest edifice, in the presence of the wide and peaceful landscape, the heart feels at ease, the mind is in repose. It is like a haven of rest or like some enchanted country. The hideous, infernal tumult of the church’s enemies dies away in this Catholic oasis. Man and nature are in harmony; the serenity that reigns in this lovely country sinks into the most stormy heart. Here Dante would have found the peace he sought under the vaulted roof of the monastery at Monte Corvo.

Evening fell; the chants for Benediction rang through the church as I entered. Thousands of voices, accompanied by the grave and solemn tones of the organ, were singing the beautiful litany of St. Willibrord, which is like the national air of Echternach, and has a peculiar sweetness in a language that admits of saying thou to God and to the saints:

St. Willibrord, shining star of our country,

St. Willibrord, ornament of the Roman Church,

St. Willibrord, breaker of idols, Pray for us.

I cannot describe the effect of this chant, rising on so many voices in accents of plaintive supplication, penetrating the heart with its expression of love and trust. These people love St. Willibrord and treat him with a sweet familiarity. “Who and what was he that men should come every year to kneel before his relics and pay him honors so exceptional? What had he more than others, and by what was he distinguished? By beauty, genius, science, riches?” Such was the idea of the sermon which followed Benediction, and was heard by that whole multitude in breathless attention, some standing, others kneeling on the flags—for all the chairs had been taken away. The sacred orator developed his theme with remarkable skill, and, after proving that St. Willibrord had shone by none of these gifts, he concluded that he had reached this exceptional glory on earth and in heaven because he had understood and applied better than others the divine command, “Love God above all things, and thy neighbor as thyself.”

O grandeur of Christianity! O eternity of the church! A thousand years ago Alcuin said the same in his panegyric; the modern preacher’s noble words were like the lingering echo of the same Christian voice sounding through ages—of that voice which ever repeats itself, and yet is always fresh, for it is the voice of truth. Thus, at the two extremities of this decade of centuries, the friend of Charlemagne and the young priest of Luxembourg were the two ends of a chain whose every link is an extinct generation, and which brings down to our own day the unchangeable, immortal tradition. One thousand years hence other 832pilgrims will come to contemplate these great lessons of time and pray before the sacred tomb, treading beneath their feet the ruins of our civilization and modern society.

After Benediction I went to walk on the heights above the town. The night was clear and the moon hung calmly serene in the heavens. Every time I pass through Echternach I climb these hills; the place is full of calm and refreshment, and I always feel happy there. Looking down upon the town, with its spires and ancient roofs mirrored in the peaceful river, I listened to the last sounds dying away in the streets; for the town went to rest as early that night as on any other. Heaven and earth seemed so quiet, so infinitely peaceful! If at that hour propitious to dreams you would evoke in spirit the memory of the past, it would rise like a gigantic phantom. One glance cast into the domains of fancy would show the wild valley heaped with Druidic stones, crowned with altars and Roman monuments, and traversed by the swift, silvery flood of the Sûre, which seems to pierce like a dart the mysterious depths of the ancient Ardennes. On the summit of the height appears a wonderful man, who breaks the Gallic and Roman idols, and with their fragments builds Christian oratories; he levels the forest and cultivates the valley; builds dwellings around the church, calls men, and they come at his bidding; and this new Orpheus, with no lyre but his voice, leads in his train Barbarism, conquered, charmed, converted.

The next day I breakfasted between five and six o’clock in one of the many pretty pleasure-gardens of the town. The evening before had been very warm; the day dawned under the same auspices, but perfectly clear. The people of Echternach declare that it cannot rain on the day of their procession, or, at least, that the rain must stop before they enter the church. On all sides resounded clear and full the voices of pilgrims coming in procession from villages near by and chanting the litany of St. Willibrord. These aerial tones, coming to us in the freshness of dawn through blossoming trees, opened the day very pleasantly. I went out. Through every street there poured a stream of country people, preceded by crosses and banners. Whole parishes came with their pastors; they had left home at daybreak and walked several leagues, with prayers and chants rousing the wondering birds, unused to hear human voices praise the Creator in advance of them. The nearest villages came in procession; others, who could not send a solemn train, furnished a large number of pilgrims, who marched in isolated groups. Without counting the pilgrims of the Luxembourg, Belgium, France, and Russia are represented every year. The number of devout Christians whom each anniversary brings to the sacred tomb varies from 12,000 to 15,000, leaving out those who come without having made a vow, some from religious feeling, others from mere curiosity. About 20,000 strangers in all crowd into the narrow precincts of the little town every Whitsuntide. For whole hours you see the flood of humanity ascend and descend the steps of the parish church; for all the pilgrims on their arrival go first to kneel at the saint’s shrine. About eight o’clock the multitudes pass over to the other bank of the Sûre, where the procession is to begin. 833The Sûre forms the boundary between the territory of Luxembourg and Prussia. Just there the procession falls into line of march. At the foot of the hills, beside a little stone cross, they erect a temporary pulpit, from which a priest addresses the people before the ceremony begins. Thousands had collected to await the coming of the clergy. Some walked about, others sat along the edge of the road or leaned against the parapet of the bridge. The crowd, scattered in picturesque confusion and disorder, buzzed like a hive of bees. The throng increased; along every road came hosts of pilgrims ploughing their way. From afar came vague, indistinct sounds of singing, and along the valley, through the narrow road traced between the Sûre and the hills, there advanced a long column. Banners floated in the sunshine and gleamed through the trees; the procession undulated and unrolled its length as it followed the windings of the river. The voices, as they drew nearer, became distinct, and soon the head of the procession appeared. They were pilgrims from Prüm, in the Eyfel, more than twelve leagues from Echternach, coming to make their annual devotions to St. Willibrord. These good people had set out on Sunday evening; they had walked part of that night and of the next day, praying and chanting. On Monday evening they had disbanded, scattering about through fields and in barns a few leagues from Echternach, and had resumed their march early in the morning. Tanned, heated, dusty, clad in coarse raiment, they came on in good order, forming an almost interminable train. It seemed as if the whole village had come. Their accoutrements were rustic, fantastic even; the men carried crosswise over their backs an umbrella fastened by a string which passed over their breasts, crossing the strap of a large leathern valise hanging on the other side. The women had baskets on their arms. These valises and baskets held the provisions for that journey of four or five days. It is remarkable that this pilgrimage of the people of Prüm is voluntary and a popular movement; the clergy take no part in its organization, and seldom join it, the parishioners making it their own affair. On this occasion, indeed, a priest was with them, but the order of march and the devotions were directed by a certain number of men placed at intervals in the procession. They carried, as the insignia of office, a red staff surmounted by a little copper cross. The priest, who closed the procession, walked between two young men clad in quaint and antique garb, with hats turned up and trimmed with flowers. One carried the cross, the other a large votive candle adorned with emblems, the annual gift of their village to the patron of Echternach. The procession advanced in perfect order. Indifferent to curious looks, turning their eyes neither to the right nor to the left towards the human hedge that lined their path, they passed on, saying their rosary aloud and repeating after each Ave this familiar salutation, full of simplicity and grace: “St. Willibrord, we are coming to thy tomb!” I loved to see and hear them. Their fervor in prayer and contempt of fatigue, their rustic dress and primitive manners, their indifference to all but their one object, made these peasants a people set apart, and their pilgrimage a type of the pilgrimage of human life as it ought to be made. I watched the pious train until it entirely 834disappeared on the other side of the bridge; for, before returning to the Prussian bank to take part in the sacred dance, the people of Prüm were going to kiss the shrine and pray before the relics of the saint.

At last, about nine o’clock, a numerous band of clergy appeared, and the ceremony opened with the accustomed sermon. Fancy the scene: the lovely morning and beautiful country, the vast host of listeners intent on the words of the priest. For a frame there were the high hills on one side, on the other the silvery course of the Sûre, and below the spires of the town.

Not less wonderful was it to hear on Prussian ground a Catholic voice calling upon thousands of the faithful to pray for the Holy Father and the persecuted church. And while the priest was speaking there came from all the heights belated pilgrims hastening to the ceremony. They were seen afar off, coming down the steep paths bordered with flowering hedges; and the bells rang out full peals, and the word of God was scattered among the multitude with the song of birds.

When the sermon was ended, the clergy, in white surplices, formed in line of march and opened the procession. Behind them came the musicians, and afterwards the immense throng of those who were to join in the dance. At first there was much crowding. Leaning against the parapet of the bridge, I had to ply my elbows lustily to prevent the multitude from suffocating me, and farther on, when the train began to defile through the narrow street which leads to the Sûre, the pressure was quite frightful. There were not ushers enough to preserve order. A few firemen and policemen had to be everywhere at once, and were swallowed up in the billows of the confused crowd. The cause of the disorder was the impatience of some people, who, instead of waiting until the street should be cleared for the beginning of the dance, went forward to post themselves higher up in the procession. This choked the way in some places, and there was terrible pushing. Women screamed; several were nearly suffocated. I saw some men, who, as they awaited their turn with philosophic patience, set their backs against walls and rowed with their arms against the human flood to save themselves from wreck. A hospitality, as unexpected as it was welcome, rescued me from the tumult to become a peaceful spectator in a neighboring house instead of an actor in the scene. “It is sweet,” says Lucretius, “when the sea is swollen and tossed by rough winds, to look from the shore upon the distress of others, not finding pleasure in their troubles, but in our own exemption from them.” I felt, in selfish enjoyment, the spirit of these lines, gazing at my ease from an upper window upon the undulation of several thousand heads floating apparently upon a liquid expanse. Actually, a needle thrown from above would not have reached the ground.

Order was soon restored. The police got angry and used their fists unsparingly to force back into their places the intruders, who continued to leave the ranks and insinuate themselves in among the front rows of the procession. All this went on while the head of the cortége disappeared at the turn of the street, dancing to the traditional air played by the musicians. It was a quaint tune, rather quick in measure and old-fashioned. It was hard to say whether it expressed joyful excitement 835or the emotions of grief; for music, with its wonderful suppleness, may sometimes speak to us of our joys and sorrows, according to the mood in which we listen. And now this melody, centuries old, set in motion a dancing multitude. The sight was strange, striking, indescribable. To an unaccustomed spectator the first moment is of stupefied amazement. His fancy enters a new world; the movement of all these heads bending and rocking in a rhythmic measure produces a fantastic effect that no words can convey. I do not know whether I can tell exactly what I saw, or if my sketch will give even a faint idea of a scene which defies analysis and description.

Think of a stream of twelve thousand persons in a street where only eight can walk abreast; fancy all these people, in rows of four, six, or eight, advancing, held together by handkerchiefs or staves to keep order in the ranks and measure in the dance; fancy them, I say, executing a dance which consists of three steps forward and two back, and which moves the whole multitude from end to end with one unceasing action of ebb and flow. The interminable train stretched over about fifteen hundred metres from the bridge of the Sûre to the parish church. It took not less than four hours to accomplish that quarter of a league by dancing, and under the direct rays of the sun, without a moment’s rest. It is easy to imagine that order and regularity were sometimes disturbed, but what was lost in symmetry was gained in picturesque originality of detail. There were almost as many different styles of dancing as there were various groups, everybody managing his own affairs. The groups just behind the musicians succeeded best, being kept in step by the music; and in general the people of Echternach danced more harmoniously and correctly than the others. As the bands were few and stationed quite far apart, the pilgrims who could not hear them hopped about in utter confusion, while the rest had a certain harmony of movement. These eccentricities of choreographic movement were worth seeing; here they glided with light step, elegantly and smoothly; there they jumped about with heavy tread and immense exertion. Watching carefully those who seemed to have best preserved the tradition, I thought that the most pure and “classic” rhythm consisted in five steps of a dance, quite slow and without turning, three forward and two back, made by gliding rather than bounding. The whole character was grave, solemn, and suited to a religious dance. A band from Echternach opened the march and played the tune for the first pilgrims. The others danced to the strains of a few isolated instruments. Each cortége had its own musicians, and, as each parish danced separately, they had their local players. It is needless to say that variety reigned among the instruments—drums, violins, flutes, clarionets, and hautboys—all hard at work and producing combinations hardly grateful to musical ears. But the good fellows did not pretend to be artists. They worked for conscience’ sake; they piped and they blew, they beat and they scraped, with all the accumulated force of lungs, fists, and bows. St. Willibrord is not fastidious; he takes the will for the deed, and if there be here and there some cockney scandalized by this cacophony, so much the worse for him. Ill though they play the 836melody, it is a good work to make the attempt, and the worthy pilgrims accommodate themselves to circumstances. Formerly no fiddler was allowed to play in village fairs, if he had not paid for the privilege at the procession of Echternach that same year. This custom, with many others, is obsolete, but many musicians remain faithful to tradition.

This year, while the procession was crossing the town, there came marching through a cross-street a brilliant band of music preceded by a banner; it was a philharmonic society from Remich on the Moselle, and was received with acclamation. It joined the procession, and its fine execution came as a welcome reinforcement to the poor musicians, who were nearly exhausted.

I could not take my eyes off the wonderful scene, sometimes taking in the whole picture at a glance, sometimes pausing to examine details in all their picturesque variety. Most attractive of all was the sight of the children of Echternach, dancing at the head of the procession just behind the village band; they put such life into the affair, and felt it such a festive occasion. It was refreshing to watch the rosy-cheeked, laughing rogues, usually in their shirt-sleeves, bounding merrily “for St. Willibrord.” Then came the grown folk of Echternach, then the various parishes, each, as I said, forming a distinct group with its own musicians. The sexes were separated. Formerly the pilgrims from Prüm and Waxweiler, who came from the most distant points, had the right of opening the procession, while the inhabitants of Echternach, through courtesy, took the last place. Now there is no fixed order; the parishes take their places at hap-hazard, and many people leave the ranks to join the front rows at the risk of throwing the whole procession into confusion. I saw the good people of Prüm, with their monumental green and blue umbrellas capable of sheltering whole households. Now they were unstrung from their proprietors’ backs, and, bound two and two, served as a balustrade to be grasped by three or four persons to keep them even in the ranks and regulate their step. Here and there, amid the rhythmic movement of these thousands of heads, I descried some unhappy being afflicted with St. Vitus’ dance, shown by wild, spasmodic springs, violent excitement, and the pitiful rocking of all the limbs. They were usually women, young girls stricken with this terrible disorder. I noticed one in particular whom every one looked at with earnest sympathy. She leaped in a wild, feverish way, supported under the arms by her mother, whom I knew by the look of anxiety and sadness imprinted on her face. The kind people of the town stood ready at their doors with refreshing beverages for these poor creatures; but they hardly stopped to drink before continuing their dance under the whip of the sun, as the great Alighieri says, whose words came to my mind more than once at sight of these miseries. So drawn along by this weird dance, the pilgrims appeared and vanished, as wave follows wave, and the monotonous melody carried on ten thousand people to the sound of its fantastic cadences. Add one or two thousand pilgrims who, not joining in the dance, followed the procession, saying their beads or reciting the litany, and you have in all twelve thousand Christians of both sexes 837and of every age and rank, who, through four whole hours, formed St. Willibrord’s triumphal procession and visited his sacred tomb.^[174]

All the energy of the vigorous Luxembourg sinews is required to bring to a successful close this long and fatiguing pilgrimage, whose difficulties increase as they near their end; for I forgot to say that the procession danced up the sixty-two steps which lead to the parish church. Not every one can go to Corinth, says the proverb. The same is true of Echternach, though in a different sense, thank God! But it would be a mistake to think that the famous ceremony demands anything excessive or superhuman. The calm, grave character of the dance, and the numerous pauses which are made necessary by the blocking of the way, suffice to husband the pilgrim’s strength. Their vow, though hard and laborious, is not impossible or dangerous. The proof of this is that many children in the procession dance the whole length of the way twice over. No sooner do they reach the church at the head of the procession than they scamper back to join the rear and begin the exercise over again. Pilgrims who, on arriving at Echternach, do not feel equal to executing their vow, and yet wish to contribute to the brilliancy of the festival, give a few sous to one of these children, and the indefatigable little fellows acquit themselves of their task with imperturbable seriousness and charming grace. But prodigious people are again the people of Pürm. They arrive at the town, to use a familiar expression, with twelve leagues in their heels; and at once they set to work and dance four long hours. Then, when their devotions are ended, they take barely time to eat their modest fare out doors or at an inn table, and go home singing and praying to the high table-lands and extinct volcanoes of their wild country.

One should be in the church when the procession pours in by traditional custom through the left aisle, to pass round the altar in the choir and go out through the right aisle. The dance does not cease an instant as they pass through the sanctuary; the orchestra goes on playing the quaint, archaic melody, the dancers make the old Romano-vaulted roof ring with the clang of their measured steps. The pilgrims do not think their vow fulfilled until, after making the tour of the church, they find themselves in the courtyard before an old wooden cross, where they break ranks. Nothing can be more fantastic than this irruption of dancing and music in the house of God. The spectacle in the church is beyond description; you feel as if you were dreaming, and your spirit floated in the domain of the impossible. What do the people mean? Have they come to pillage and destroy? Is this tumultuous throng the prey of a sudden delirium, of a dancing mania? Or, if it be worship, does it not revive the solemn orgies of ancient Greece, where certain deities of Oriental origin were honored by the leaps, the cries, and the races of their idolaters? No; to the first instant of amazement there 838succeeds a more correct and complete judgment. Beneath the external agitation, beneath the noise and movement, you see the religious calm which fills these souls, and the solemnity pervading the expression of their inner feelings. It is this contrast which gives to the singular ceremony its character of deep originality. No doubt we have lost the sense of mysterious symbolism in the sacred dance; we no longer see its true motive or significance; we only know or divine that the devout thought which first inspired it animates it at the present day.

Among various ideas suggested by this astonishing experience, there was one that I could not get rid of, and which returned to me on the festival and its eve again and again. While multitudes knelt before the altar, kissed the shrine, touched it with objects of devotion, and filled the church with their prayers, you would have said that the great man must be there, present among the faithful, speaking to them and listening to them. What glory equals that of the saints? What other son of Adam enjoys such honors? Those whom the Catholic Church has crowned with eternal palms do not reign only in heaven; the human glory which they despised is given to them abundantly, and these little ones, who passed through life obscure and despised, see themselves suddenly surrounded with an amazing glory with which Cæsar, Homer, Archimedes, and Plato do not shine. The world rings with their name, and the least and most ignorant of human beings know, love, and revere them. They are not only illustrious, they receive solemn veneration, they share in a certain way the honors of God himself. Their names are uttered with bended knee, nations flock to their tombs, and they are gloriously enthroned in Christian hearts. Beside such a destiny is it worth while to try to immortalize one’s name and to flutter, as the poet says, upon the lips of men? What is the greatest name on earth, unless it be encircled with the aureole of sanctity? Ignored by the crowd, uttered coldly by most of those who know it, respected by a few, but invoked by no one with clasped hands and heart uplifted to him who bore it. The name of the least saint prostrates in the dust all human generations through the long succession of ages, and resounds like a word of life on all lips. The church alone is the dispenser of glory, and even among secular names the noblest and most lasting are those of Catholic associations.

III.

The reader asks, no doubt, what is the final impression produced by the spectacle of the dancing procession, and how we should estimate this strange ceremony? I will try to answer the double question clearly. In the first place, one must see the procession with one’s own eyes to judge it fairly. The public must beware of newspaper reports, which are numerous and usually wholly incorrect, not to use a more uncivil term. There is no name which certain papers have not applied to the subject; for correspondents of a farcical turn amuse themselves every year at the expense of a credulous public. We may say, en passant, that no class of beings can be more contemptible than reporters hunting for a sensation—travelling bagmen of the press who are allured by scandal as the vulture is by a carcase. It is easy to fancy what 839the ceremony at Echternach must have become under their pen. The very name of dancing procession makes them scent a topic, and, devoid of all religious feeling, they describe first and judge afterwards a spectacle they are incapable of understanding. Their descriptions are so unfaithful that you doubt whether the good people ever saw the procession, or whether they did not write the account before going to the ceremony. They give caricatures of a mass of humanity entangled in frightful confusion and bounding with all their strength to the sound of a gigantic hubbub. The ranks get mingled; the dancers crush each other and spring about, regardless of the toes of their neighbors, who scream for mercy. With rubicund faces streaming with perspiration, and with eyes starting from the sockets, these wretched fanatics would die rather than pause. On all sides numbers give up in despair and drop breathless among their barbarous companions. Sometimes they are drawn out of the crowd by compassionate persons and restored to life, but no one in the procession stops for anything, and the pitiless Catholic bamboula goes on and on, sowing devastation at every step. I spare the reader further details and give only the canvas of an embroidery more or less varied according to the imaginative powers of the correspondent. In short, despite the diversity of some details easy to add, this fancy sketch has appeared in nearly all the anti-religious papers in Belgium, and will end in being stereotyped. It is needless to say that it is false throughout. Among ten thousand persons who were dancing I did not see one give out. Also, contrary to another assertion, the number of epileptics and other invalids in the procession is very small. I saw in all five or six persons evidently afflicted with nervous diseases.

After reading this high-toned description, flavored with a few Voltairean jests of the old type, it is natural to pronounce the procession of Echternach an absurdity. The sarcasms of free-thinkers annually assail the venerable ceremony, but without injuring it. In fact, it is irreverent enough in this nineteenth century to increase in importance. Eye-witnesses of the strange spectacle always retain an impressive memory of it. I confess to having been rather prejudiced against the grotesque scenes I expected to see. At the end of a quarter of an hour I was convinced of the powerful religious character of this great public act, and I remarked that all the spectators shared my feeling. Any one must have a singularly empty mind and heart not to be struck by the grandeur of the scene. Those who always take a petty view of things, because they can take no other, may laugh at the discordant music and the clumsy dancing of some of the pilgrims. For myself, when I see the same belief, centuries old, translated by thousands of men into bold, spontaneous action, I cannot restrain my admiration. Before the intrepidity with which these men, trampling under foot all human respect, honor with consecrated rites their patron saint, I feel moved and impressed. Where is there such faith left in Israel? “When I hear the old tune,” said one of the most honorable bourgeois of Echternach to me, “and when I see the first pilgrims arrive, I feel something circulate between my flesh and skin that makes me fairly shiver.” A 840young student of the town said to me very prettily: “I do not care much for the dancing of the grown people, but the sight of the dancing children carries me back to my own happy childhood, and my eyes fill with tears.”

These feelings are unanimous. You see once in a while in the crowd a travelling clerk on his vacation hazarding a timid and colorless sarcasm which a generous public passes over unnoticed. Beyond dispute, the sight of the procession exercises a moral and religious influence. Like incredulity, faith is contagious; timid spirits feel strengthened in this region where the breath of Catholic life circulates so freely; sick hearts come out renewed from the spectacle of thousands of Christians revealing the true remedy for human woe. The people of Luxembourg, essentially serious and meditative, understand the aim of the ceremony; its quaintness does not prevent them from seeing it as it really is—a great and solemn affirmation of faith, at once an act of penance and a prayer, to be preserved in the original form out of respect to their ancestors and veneration for the saint. Whatever the origin of this ancient custom,^[175] it deserves to be preserved not only because it fosters and develops religion in the people, but because it revives before our eyes, in the most picturesque way, the manners of our fathers, whose least traces historians and archæologists are jealous to discover. A Luxembourg writer says well on this subject: “We preserve with scrupulous fidelity old monuments and objects of antique art. Why not do our best to preserve in its original type this remarkable procession, this monument graven in the living hearts of our brethren?”^[176]

The intelligent town of Echternach perfectly understands that it is incumbent upon its honor to respond to this wish. It has neglected nothing in the cause, and at various times has had to surmount great obstacles. The administrative prohibitions of Joseph II., the brutalities of the French Revolution, the petty opposition of the Dutch government, have not discouraged them; they have held faithfully to their patriotic tradition, and have no cause to repent it, for they find in this devotion a source of great prosperity. Their unalterable attachment is the more remarkable because even the clergy have often been opposed to the procession. In 1777 the Prince Elector of Treves, Clement Wenceslaus—under the reign of the Febronians, I should add—actually forbade the dance, and thus furnished excuse to Joseph II. to forbid it also a little later. To-day quite a number of the clergy look unfavorably on these extraordinary demonstrations of faith. They think religion is compromised by associating it with practices which, without being bad in themselves, may provoke the mockery of the incredulous and alienate them farther from the church. This opinion, based, of course, on a sincere devotion to religious interests, appears to me an unconscious and useless concession to the petty spirit of the age, which is never satisfied with half-measures. Anti-religious fanaticism will not be 841appeased by our throwing to it as a sop a small portion of Catholic treasure. What it wants is the entire suppression of religion. To yield any point whatever will only serve to whet its appetite and augment its pretensions.

Far from sharing these fears, I think that in these days of struggle it is important to oppose the faith as a whole to unbelief as a whole, and not yield an inch of ground, unless we wish to lose all. From the earliest days of Christianity there have been people who took scandal at faith which goes beyond what is strictly necessary; among Christ’s apostles there were those who blamed Magdalen for anointing the feet of her Master with precious ointment. It is instructive to remember that it was Judas who showed himself most shocked by what he called useless expense. We may be sure that, as a general rule, the enemies of the church detest all her practices and would like to see them every one abolished. Give them the dance of Echternach to-day; to-morrow they will demand the suppression of the procession itself, and soon after they will wish to close the church where the saint’s relics are venerated. We know something of this in Belgium. Because we submitted to the proscription of jubilee processions last year, we have had to resign ourselves this year (1876) to seeing God in the Eucharist confined to the temple; and we shall see worse things still, if we do not guard against them in time. It would, therefore, be mere folly to sacrifice to interested claimants a venerable custom, dear to whole populations and full of poetry and originality. “But why dance?” you ask. “Cannot faith be shown in some other way?” Of course it can. Do not let us kneel down to pray, or stand uncovered before holy images, or make the sign of the cross, or do a hundred other things equally useless, strictly speaking. Yet who would propose to give them up? There is in the heart of man a powerful, mysterious tendency to express the inner feelings of the soul by symbolical actions. Thence come these many ceremonies which have no sense in themselves, and all owe their worth to a hidden significance. The dance of Echternach has no other origin; it is the symbolical representation of the sentiments of joyful confidence which the people feel in the holy patron of their town. In every age joy has been expressed by dancing, and among those who blame the custom of Echternach may there not be some one who has danced for joy at hearing good news? Many examples could be cited since David danced before the Ark of the Alliance down to our own days, so readily do these impetuous emotions of the soul translate themselves into movements of the body.

Still, the church, while introducing into her ceremonies a rich and varied symbolism, has never admitted dancing; and this prudent reserve is to be admired because dancing, harmless in itself, is one of those dangerous things which can, according to time and place, produce deplorable abuses. With the same wise moderation she has not absolutely forbidden it; and where the practice has been introduced naturally, and has become a part of popular devotion, she has tolerated it, as at Echternach, and even encouraged it because she saw in it clearly a religious element. Nothing is more wonderful in the church than this perfect wisdom, 842this superior good sense, with which she regulates great social and political questions and decides the petty details of individual life. Her attitude towards this ancient ceremony is as clear and correct as possible; she mildly favors it in spite of its strange forms, and refuses to blame these unless they become an occasion of scandal. From the moment that the dance should lose its traditional character of austere and respectable devotion, and become a pretext of pleasure and disorder, it would be at once condemned by the church and would fall into discredit. Thank God! that day is not near, and the procession of Echternach will still outlive many a kingdom and empire.

As a matter of course, it will be discussed as long as it lasts, and will always have adversaries and partisans. Prose and poetry will for ever dispute over human society, and will seek to model it after two opposite fashions. We live to-day in a prosaic age. Prose triumphed with the French Revolution and has passed through western Europe with a hammer, destroying, together with works of art, all the flower of Catholic institutions and habits. They will revive, but slowly, and this generation will not see their complete restoration. Now, despoiled of all which lent a charm to existence, society languishes in a desert of monotony. Rhythm, so to speak, has disappeared from our lives with that glorious succession of festivals, customs, memories, and hopes which surrounded us from the cradle to the grave. All that was Catholic poetry; it enlivened the existence of the poor laborer, and made of a peasant, attached to the soil and toiling for his master, a happier man, more contented with himself, than workmen in the cities who get a good salary and enjoy their independence. There is in the human soul a sublime aspiration after beauty and poetry which nothing can destroy, and its wings grow strong as they meet with resistance. Does not the tedium which has devoured the last generation betray a sense of want and an aspiration after Catholic life with its artistic magnificence and poetic influences? Humanity is tending in that direction, and has already met the enemy who would bar the way. Thence comes the loud and terrible struggle which tears the whole earth, and of which we may, without presumption, hope to see the close.

The procession of Echternach, like the mysteries of Oberammergau in Upper Bavaria, is a precious relic of the old popular poetry of Catholicity translated into the habits of life. That is its true and complete meaning. It is neither more nor less; it is not an act of worship nor a vulgar profanation. It stands on that boundary line where the church condescends to popular feeling and makes the hard road through life easier by her help. It is the natural fruit of popular devotion which sprang from a religious feeling and has been preserved with respectful piety. It could not be imitated or transplanted; like generous wine, it would lose the flavor of the soil if it were cultivated on strange land. It is only possible there where all is harmonious with it. One must have a studied hostility towards religious things to fail to see its æsthetic character, even without recognizing the sincerity and the venerable tone of the old custom. Some people fall into ecstasies over Grecian theories and the beautiful religious dances sculptured on the 843metopes of the Parthenon. Others devote their lives to the study of the chorus in ancient tragedies and its evolutions on the stage. I do not say that the dance of Echternach, as such, is comparable to these choreographic works of art, but why refuse to a Christian practice in use among our fathers the benevolent attention lavished on pagan society? Has it not a double claim to study in the fact that we received it from our Catholic ancestors? For five centuries, at least, it has lived and flourished among the populations of the Ardennes and its surroundings. Every year it draws from their homes thousands of these sedentary peasants; it furrows with the steps of pilgrims the long, white, desert roads of Luxembourg; it draws together in fraternal relations men far removed from each other, by the same prayers and the same emotions; it lifts towards heaven in unalloyed joy their faces bowed pitilessly earthward all the rest of the year. It teaches them to know beyond their own fireside and parish the great Christian family of which they are members, and leaves in their memory for all the rest of the summer and through the long winter evenings ineffaceable impressions of peaceful happiness. That is poetry, it seems to me, and of the best kind; more is the pity for those who cannot feel it. As the name of pèlerinard is not one that frightens or mortifies me, I will assert that the ancient procession of Echternach inspired me with unlimited admiration, that it edified, moved, and consoled me, and appeared to me a most charming episode in the great, mournful epic of human life.

THE PAN-PRESBYTERIANS.

After two years of careful preparation the great Pan-Presbyterian Council has assembled; has eaten seven luncheons in public and at the public expense, and a corresponding number of breakfasts, dinners, and suppers in private and at private cost; and has dispersed; its members talked much—but these were their only deeds. The labor of the Pan-Presbyterian mountain brought forth not even a mouse. Its promise was large; its performance was ludicrously small—so small that the leading journals of England appear to have been almost unaware of the existence of the Pan-Presbyterians, while the principal organ of opinion in the Scotch city where the council was held—“close to the grave of John Knox, the founder of Presbyterianism”—gave to the record of its proceedings not so much space as it often devotes to the report of a local synod, and dismissed it at its close with good-humored but contemptuous ridicule. Here, however, the ingenuous reader may inquire, “Who are the Pan-Presbyterians, and for what purpose were they in council?” The question would be a natural one, and he who propounds it need not blush for his ignorance. The people of Scotland may be presumed to know all that is worth knowing about Presbyterianism in all its forms; but it appears that in certain rural districts of that very Presbyterian land 844the impression prevailed that Pan-Presbyterian was the title of a new sect indigenous to America, and recently smuggled into Scotland like the Colorado beetle; while in the more learned circles of Edinburgh this bucolic delusion was derided by erudite philologists, who explained that “Pan-Presbyterianism is a learned form of stating that Presbyterianism is Everything, and that a Pan-Presbyterian is a person who holds that comprehensive yet exclusive doctrine.” In point of fact, however, the Pan-Presbyterians were simply three hundred and twenty-five gentlemen, most of them with the handle of reverend to their names, who claimed to be the delegated representatives of the various Presbyterian sects throughout the world. From time to time some of the almost innumerable Protestant sects show that they are ashamed of their sectarianism. Those of them who recognize at all the fact that Jesus Christ established one church in the world are uneasy when they remember that they are members only of a sect which has a human origin. This feeling, if rightly nurtured and obeyed, would lead those who entertain it into the fold of the church; but prejudice, pride, ignorance, and self-interest too often stand in the way, and lead to attempts to satisfy the natural Christian yearning for unity by projects for the amalgamation of a few of the sects into one body. Thus we have had a Pan-Anglican Congress, a Bonn Conference, and an Evangelical Alliance; and now this Pan-Presbyterian Council. Presbyterianism has a history of about three hundred and twenty-five years, and in this period it has succeeded in dividing and subdividing itself, until even its own doctors do not know with exactness how many different kinds of Presbyterians there may be, or in what manner the points of doctrine which separate them should be formulated. It was suggested at the council that accurate information upon this subject was desirable, and the task of obtaining it was entrusted to a committee, who hope they may be able to report in three years’ time. The project for the Pan-Presbyterian Council was originated by an eminent American Presbyterian minister—President McCosh, of Princeton (New Jersey) College; and it took definite shape at a meeting held in London in 1875, when “the alliance of the reformed churches throughout the world holding to the Presbyterian system” was organized. Before the council could be summoned, however, careful precautions had to be taken in order to prevent the assemblage, which was to meet for the promotion of unity, from breaking up in a row and resulting in the establishment of one or more new schisms. A charm of novelty was thus imparted to the undertaking; every one felt that a Presbyterian synod which could hold its sessions without a free fight would indeed be a new spectacle. The harmony of the council was to be assured beforehand by forbidding it to exercise any authority whatsoever. It was especially prohibited from attempting to “interfere with the existing creed or constitution of any church in the alliance, or with its internal order or external relations.” Thus the door was opened for the admission of the representatives of sects who are almost as wide apart from each other in what they believe and teach as they are from the church. So long as they called themselves Presbyterians, or “held to the Presbyterian system of church 845government,” it was enough. There is a Presbyterian sect in Holland whose pastors, at least, teach that the Bible is not an inspired book, and who deny the divinity of Christ; there is a Presbyterian sect in France which avows the boldest rationalism; there are Presbyterian sects in the United States who rejoice with exceeding great joy in the belief that there are millions of infants not a span long frying in hell; and there are others who have recoiled so far from Calvinism that they have fallen into Universalism. In Scotland itself bitter strife prevails between the various Presbyterian sects on such questions as the connection of the state with the church, the binding force of the “Standards,” and the extent and nature of the Atonement; and there is a large party which is declaring that if a certain reverend professor, who has written to prove that parts of the Bible are forgeries, myths, or fables, is disciplined for that expression of opinion, they will revolt and help him to set up a sect of his own. But the Pan-Presbyterians resolved to concern themselves with none of these things. Everything unpleasant was to be avoided; unity was to be talked about, but no attempt to effect it by defining truth or denouncing error was to be made. Even with these restrictions the promoters of the council realized the danger of their experiment, and at the last moment they diminished its perils by enacting that no one should speak twice on the same subject, and that the discourses should be limited from twenty to ten minutes each. The latter provision, which was stringently enforced, more than once saved the council from painful scenes. We had occasion, when writing in these pages six months ago,^[177] to show that in the Presbyterian body in Scotland theoretical infidelity had made such headway and had obtained so firm a foothold that to deny the inspiration of the Bible, and to cast doubt upon the authenticity of the miraculous events recorded in its pages, was regarded by a powerful section as an evidence of profound scholarship and of a fearless love for truth, rather than as a proof that the advocates of these opinions had ceased to be worthy of the name and position of Christian teachers. In a word, the condition of the Presbyterian sects throughout the world was such that a general council of its leading men was highly desirable, provided that there remained in the sects anything worth saving, and they possessed in themselves the power of saving it. For ourselves, we believe that the mutilated fragments of Christian truth still retained by the majority of the Presbyterian laity and by a considerable number of the Presbyterian ministers are well worth saving; but we fear that the Presbyterians themselves will not, or cannot, save them. If these Pan-Presbyterians were truly representative men, then, we should say, it is all up with Presbyterianism. The spirit which conceived the council and which governed its proceedings was the spirit of cowardice, of temporary expediency, of prophesying smooth things, and, if we must speak with entire plainness, the spirit of utter and base unfaithfulness to God’s revealed truth, even to that version of his revealed truth which the Presbyterians profess with their lips, and which they have formulated in their own creeds, confessions, and catechisms. In the face 846of the fact that on the Continent of Europe their co-religionists are rapidly becoming Unitarians, rationalists, and infidels; that in Scotland German rationalistic philosophy has won its way into their theological schools and poisoned the very fountains of their ecclesiastical learning, so that it has now become notorious that a large share of their ministers either do not believe what they preach or else preach that which is in irreconcilable antagonism to the “Standards”; and that in America the Presbyterian bodies are drifting into Socinianism on one hand, and back into the hardest and most repulsive form of Calvinism on the other—in view of all these undeniable facts, or rather with assumed and predetermined blindness to them, the chosen representatives of the Presbyterian sects assemble, spend seven days in talking with each other, and separate without uttering a word or performing an act in affirmation or defence or vindication of absolute and divine truth. No! That was not in the programme; it was only on condition that nothing of the kind should be attempted that the council was got together at all; it was only because this promise was observed that the council managed to do its talking and to disperse in peace. At one of its meetings a curious scene occurred. A woman—an earnest Presbyterian of the old sort, a spiritual descendant of Jennie Geddes—had made her way into the council, and had listened to the debate for some time in silence; but her emotions at last overcame her, and, rising to her feet, she politely informed the chairman that she hoped God’s lightning would come down and strike the assembly for its unfaithfulness. This irate lady was indiscreet; but she only expressed, we suppose, the feelings of many an honest Presbyterian. The council, however, was wise in its generation, and it must be confessed that it acted upon strictly Protestant principles. The essence of Protestantism is a revolt against supreme authority; it is the affirmation of the idea that one man’s opinion is as good as another’s, and perhaps better. An attempt to provide means for an organic unity of the sects represented would have ended in a free fight; the affirmation of positive truths condemnatory of the heresies which honey-*comb the sects was impossible so long as the bargain by which these heresies were to be ignored was carried out.

The official programme of the work of the council was thus conceived:

“To consider questions of general interest to Presbyterians; to strengthen and protect weak and persecuted churches; to explain and extend the Presbyterian system; and to discuss subjects of church work—evangelization, training of ministers, use of the press, colportage, suppression of intemperance, observance of the Sabbath, systematic beneficence, and the suppression of Romanism and infidelity.”

We must here record, with a grateful heart, that “Romanism” came off very lightly. We are not certain that for this crowning mercy we are not indebted to those wily fellows, the Jesuits. For it was observed that, whenever one of the speakers began to adduce evidence that the Pope was Antichrist, the chairman suddenly discovered “that time was up”; and it was likewise remarked that more than one soul-stirring revelation of the diabolical seductions of the Scarlet Woman was cut short by the announcement 847that “the luncheon hour had arrived, and that Bailie McTavish would preside”—an intimation which never failed to empty the hall. Now, there are Jesuits in Scotland—no less than a score of them—and that they are quite equal to the task of devising means like these for their protection cannot be doubted by any enlightened Protestant mind. As for the twin sister of Romanism—infidelity—that escaped almost scot free. The learned and pious delegates fought shy of the subject; it was felt to be a dangerous one.

The council began its sessions in the Free Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, on the 4th of July. It was found to consist of 325 members, of whom 238 were regularly-appointed delegates, and 87 were honorary, or associate, delegates. Thirty-one of the delegates were from the Continent of Europe; Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland sent 92 delegates; the colonies 30; and the United States 85. The American delegates had brought with them 32 “associates”; and it was, perhaps, in order to guard against bulldozing on the part of the Americans that the Scotch delegates appointed on the spur of the moment 48 “associates” to sit with their delegates and thus maintain a proper balance of power. The precaution was not unnecessary; even after it had been adopted the Americans did far more than their share of the talking. The established church of Scotland, in appointing its delegates to the council, had instructed them to take a high and mighty attitude, and to refrain from doing or saying anything which would imply that they had been sent there to treat on terms of equality with the representatives of the other sects. The American delegation was respectable for its ability, and the ultra-orthodox element was dominant in it. The two hostile camps into which the handful of French Presbyterians are divided were both represented; and so were the two Presbyterian sects of Holland. There were enough Presbyterians in Belgium to send one delegate, and no more. The German Presbyterians declined to be officially represented, and the three German members of the council came as volunteers. Bohemia and Hungary had their delegates; Switzerland sent some gentlemen who were rather sat upon; the modern inheritors of the old Waldensian heretics were the constituents of a delegate who had little to say; and the remainder of the thirty-one European delegates were representatives of “the missionary churches” in Italy, Spain, and Greece. As nearly as could be ascertained, there are about fifty different Presbyterian sects, and it was estimated that more than half of these were represented in the council. But the delegates were not endowed with any power to act, or even to speak officially, in the name of their respective constituents. Those of the sects in Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary which have a connection with the state had either refused to be represented at all or had permitted their members to attend only as individuals. This complete absence of everything like legislative or judicial power in the council is a sufficient apology for its failure to promulgate new decrees or to define any dogma. But had the Pan-Presbyterians been of one mind and heart, they might at least have lifted up their united testimony, in some shape or other, in defence of those cardinal 848truths of Christianity which are now assailed, all the world over, by men in their own ranks. This they did not venture to do, for the reason that, had they tried to do it, their congress would have ended in a row.

The opening sermon of the council was preached by Professor Flint, who took for his text the prayer of our Lord for the unity of his church, and whose discourse was an argument to the effect that when the Founder of the church prayed that his followers “all may be one,” he intended that they should be all divided. “A universal church,” says Professor Flint, “was as grandiose and diseased a dream as was a universal empire”; and he warned the council against striving after organic unity even among the fifty separate Presbyterian sects. The adoption of the rules of order, which provided that the meetings “should be opened shortly with prayer,” caused a member to complain that it was very awkward to use the word “shortly” in connection with prayer; but the chairman replied that while it was awkward it was very necessary, else they would have nothing but praying. The first subject of discussion was “Harmony of Reformed Confessions,” which were divided into three classes—ante-Calvinistic, Calvinistic, and post-Calvinistic. These originally were not intended to be formulas, but only apologies—“vindications of the Protestant faith against Romish misrepresentation and slander.” For a while these confessions maintained their supremacy, but now “they have lost their authority in almost every country except England, Scotland, and the United States”; and each church interprets the Scriptures to suit itself, even upon such grave questions as “reprobation and infant salvation.” Should the council@ leave this matter in its present indefinite state, or should it undertake to formulate a new confession to which all Presbyterians should subscribe? A Swiss delegate ventured the startling suggestion that if such a confession were formulated “the Divinity of Christ should be the central stand-point in it”; and another delegate produced the draught of a new dogmatic constitution, in thirty-one articles, which had been obligingly formulated by Professor Kraft, of Bonn, who had patched it up from the various confessions and had sent it to the council with his compliments. Principal Brown, of Aberdeen, remarked that it would be extremely desirable that this or some other similar constitution should be adopted, or something else done, chiefly “in order to silence—no, it would not do that—but to put to shame the calumny of the Church of Rome, which said that the Reformed churches were divided into as many distinct and conflicting religions as there were sects of them. The more intelligent Romanists knew this was false” (then we cannot be classed among the more intelligent Romanists), “but it suited them all the same to say it and repeat it, because it had a certain pithy and plausible sound. And Presbyterians were there to testify that it was false, and that in all that was substantial and vital in Christianity the Reformed churches were practically one.” After this bold declaration it would have been naturally in order to take the step necessary to prove it. But canny Professor Brown hastened to add that, on second thoughts, he was of the opinion that the council had better leave the matter alone and 849not attempt any unity save that of “sympathy.” Professor Candlish lamented that “there was not now that lively sense of the unity and harmony of the Reformed confessions that there once was.” In fact, no one knew exactly what changes the various churches had made in the “Standards,” and he thought it would be interesting, at least, to collect information on that point, so as to ascertain how many different Presbyterian beliefs there were. Dr. Lang, of Glasgow, warned the council that it was treading on dangerous ground. “There were deeper issues involved than merely touching the surface of their confessions: there was the whole question as to the authority and place of the Bible, and behind that the whole question of the supernatural.” The widest differences of opinion existed on these questions—every one knew that—but as long as possible let them be kept in the background. By covering them up, and avoiding “a restless and continual nig-nagging at the matter,” a sufficient degree of harmony could be maintained, at least for the present. A lay delegate, a lawyer, said that if the council once ventured to deal “with the very complicated, delicate, and difficult question of creeds,” there might be found many who would propose to solve the difficulty by dispensing with all creeds. Dr. Begg at this point boiled over, and read the council a severe lecture, expressing the disgust with which he had listened to some of the statements which had been made and apparently accepted.

“Every age had its own theology!—(laughter and applause)—he did not in the least believe that. Theology had been the same since the days of Eden. The idea of having a new theology at every stage was a blunder. (Laughter.) They heard of discoveries being made; but these discoveries were only resurrections of old errors. (Laughter.) He found a revolt against the divine authority and the divine Word—and the rebels were the discoverers of these new theologies.”

The discussion was now growing warm, but as it was announced that “the hour for luncheon had arrived, and that Mr. Stevenson, M.P., would preside,” the threatened fight was averted, and the subject was disposed of at a subsequent meeting by the passage of the following resolution:

“That this council appoint a committee with instructions to prepare a report to be laid before the next General Council, showing, in point of fact—1. What are the existing creeds and confessions of the churches composing this alliance, and what have been their previous creeds and confessions, with any modifications thereupon, and the dates and occasions of the same from the Reformation to the present day. 2. What are the existing formulas of subscription, if any, and what have been the previous formulas of subscription used in those churches in connection with their creeds and confessions. 3. How far has individual adherence to those creeds by subscription or otherwise been required from the ministers, elders, or other office-bearers respectively, and also from the private members of the same. And the council authorize the committee to correspond with members of the several churches throughout the world who may be able to give information; and they enjoin the committee, in submitting their report, not to accompany it either with any comparative estimate of those creeds or with any critical remarks upon their respective value, expediency, or efficiency.”

There was an unhappy and heated controversy concerning the appointment of some of the members of this committee, but this excitement was unnecessary. The information can all be obtained by the purchase of a few books and 850pamphlets; and as the committee is forbidden to accompany its report with “any critical remarks,” the presence upon it of a few rationalists or Universalists can do no mischief.

The remainder of the time of the council—and it sat thrice a day for a week—was occupied with talk. Nothing was done that was worthy of the name of action. Extracts from scores of religious essays were read; hundreds of little religious or semi-religious speeches were made; and that was all. We do not know what the Presbyterians here and elsewhere expected; but if they expected anything practical they have been sadly disappointed. Some of the little speeches were comic—as, for example, that of “the Rev. Mr. Robinson, of Louisville, U. S.,” who seems to have pursued antiquarian researches with startling results, since he has ascertained that Presbyterianism began with Abraham; that Moses was a member of the presbytery of Egypt; and that Elisha and Ezechiel were the moderators of the Presbyterian synods of Samaria and Jerusalem. Presbyterianism was the true form of government in the Jewish Church, and it was the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Judea that passed sentence of death on Jesus of Nazareth. Nay, according to this sprightly Kentucky divine, heaven itself will be a Presbyterian community, governed by a presbytery of four-and-twenty members. To listen to such excellent fooling as this; to read the essay laboriously prepared at home in Peoria or Dundee, and carefully rehearsed to admiring wife and wondering bairns for months before starting; to discuss, even in ten-minute speeches, such thrilling and novel themes as the uses of elders, the sinfulness of Sabbath-breaking, the advantages of assemblies, the wickedness of the Pope, and the unquestionable mental, moral, and religious superiority of Presbyterians in general, and Pan-Presbyterians especially, over all the rest of mankind—all this, no doubt, was pleasant enough to the participants; but it was scarcely the entertainment to which the outside world had been invited. True, there was voted, at the close of the council, and after an unusually hearty luncheon at which the brethren tarried long, “an address to the queen,” accompanied by what an Edinburgh journal irreverently describes as “unanimous votes of thanks to the Deity, Mr. A. T. Niven, C.A., and the lord provost.” Probably her majesty will never read the address, as it is a long one and does not call for a reply. But if she should peruse it, she will scarcely thank its authors for suggesting that she, too, is a Pan-Presbyterian, or that she changes her religion every time she crosses the Tweed. It appears something like an impertinence in the Pan-Presbyterians to write thus to the queen:

“We venture to indicate the deep interest which we take in the circumstance that, while residing in Scotland, your majesty joins in the Presbyterian worship and communion.”

The queen goes to a Presbyterian church when in Scotland because Presbyterianism is the religion of the state in Scotland, of which she is the head; and she goes to an Episcopalian church when in England because episcopacy is the religion of the state in England. If she were in India, and Mohammedanism were the state religion there, she would probably go to a mosque with the same good grace that she displays when sitting under the 851parish minister near Balmoral. The council also appointed a committee to see whether money could be raised for the publication of a mass of old treatises and essays upon Presbyterianism which no private publisher has ever thought of reprinting; and another committee to “consider” what could be reported to the next council—which, by the way, is to be held at Philadelphia in 1880, if the world and Pan-Presbyterianism be then in existence. That portion of the programme which promised “the suppression of infidelity” was not carried out; a day was spent in talking about the best methods of getting the better of Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Bradlaugh, and the like, but the matter ended with the acceptance of the remark of Prof. Cairns, that disputation with such people is rather worse than useless, since they are well skilled in argument, and that the only thing to be done with them is to pray for them. As Americans we record with justifiable pride the encomiums bestowed upon the American delegates by the great Dr. Phin, and the still greater Dr. Begg. “Sound Christian doctrine,” said the first, “in this land has received a most powerful impulse from the addresses of the American brethren”; and Dr. Begg “rejoiced because of the firm tone which had characterized the addresses of the American speakers, as we require in Scotland an ecclesiastical tonic to brace us up to a firm maintenance of our own Scriptural principles.” The firm tone was not backed up by firm action, nor by any action at all; but, all the same, Dr. Begg is of the opinion that if the orthodox Presbyterians in Scotland could talk as their American brethren do, there would soon be an end to the croaking of “the frogs of infidelity that are coming into our churches like the frogs that went into Pharao’s bed-chamber.” But it may prevent some disappointment in the future to our American Presbyterian friends if we convey to them the warning uttered by the Edinburgh Scotsman at the end of the council—a journal whose opinion on the affair is all the more valuable from the fact that its editor is a Presbyterian clergyman of renown who has abandoned the pulpit for the press: