Volume 26 — VOL. XXVI., No. 155.—FEBRUARY, 1878. (continued 3)

But he did well; the poorer his neighbors became, the more light-hearted did he grow and the richer, and all because the fox which prowleth about in the dark was not cunninger than Uncle Pete.

His wife was dead, but he had a daughter named Martha, who kept house for him, and whom he tenderly loved and strove to bring up in his own principles—namely, to be 1258all things to all men. “For these are critical times,” he would say, “and who can tell, child, which side will win?”

Martha was just twenty years of age, and, if not what we might call a handsome girl, had something very attractive about her. She was tall and graceful and abounding in spirits. She knew everybody for miles around, and everybody knew her; and if the more knowing ones shook their heads and looked a little doubtful when they spoke of Van Alstyne, all agreed that Martha was a fine young woman.

The only member of the household besides herself and parent was a diminutive negro boy christened “Popgun.” And at the moment our tale begins Popgun is perched on the topmost limb of a wild-cherry tree hard by, Martha is in the kitchen making doughnuts, while the publican is standing in the middle of the road gazing up at the sign-board which hangs immediately above the entrance—and, considering that he painted it himself, ’tis not a bad work of art. Here we see King George with a crown on his head; at the royal feet crouches a lion, and around the two figures, in big red letters, are the words, “God save the King!”

He was still contemplating the features of his sovereign when a shrill voice cried down from the sky, “Be ready, sir.” In an instant Uncle Pete’s face lost its tranquil expression, and putting his hand to his ear, so as to catch well Popgun’s 1259next warning note, he listened attentively.

In another minute came the voice again: “‘Lisha Williams, sir, on Dolly Dumplings.”

“Ho! Then I must be brisk, for the mare travels fast,” muttered Van Alstyne, hastening toward a ladder which lay a few yards off in readiness for these occasions. In less time than it takes to relate the sign-board was turned round, and, lo! in place of King George and the lion behold now George Washington, holding in his hand a flag whereon are thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, and circling the picture are the words, “God save our Liberties.”

“Child, here’s ‘Lisha coming,” shouted Uncle Pete, thrusting his head into the doorway.

“Elisha! Indeed!” exclaimed Martha, letting drop the cake she was rolling in her hands. “Oh! how glad I am. Haven’t seen the dear boy for an age.” Then away she flew to make ready for her lover, or rather for one of her lovers. And now, while the girl is putting on another gown, let us speak a few words about the horseman who is approaching.

Elisha Williams was a young man of five-and-twenty, with sandy hair and blue eyes, and whose father owned a farm half a mile east of the inn. He and Martha had been friends from childhood, and when at length the time came for him to think of matrimony there was no lass whom he desired more for his wife than Martha.

She was a girl after his own heart: not demure and timid and silent as a tombstone, but brave and full of fun; he had even known her to pursue and kill a rattlesnake; and she was as fond of a horse as he was himself.

1260When news came of the fight at Lexington Elisha openly took the patriot side, bought Dolly Dumplings of Martha’s father (a mare so given to kicking and jumping fences that, although of unstained pedigree, Uncle Pete was fain to part with her), and now he is one of the most daring troopers in the Continental army, and is known far and wide as The Flying Scout.

But Elisha was not the only one who courted Martha. He had a rival named Harry Valentine, son of Doctor Valentine, the most notorious Tory in East Chester; and this caused Elisha not a little anxiety. For, although Martha always received him very cordially when he paid her one of his flying visits, and seemed pleased to hear of his exploits, she never would listen when he said anything harsh of the Tories.

Elisha’s heart was beating quite as fast as her own when presently he reined in his foaming steed before the tavern door. Martha was standing on the threshold, looking, in his eyes, never so bewitching. Between her fingers she held a lump of sugar for Dolly Dumplings—she seemed to care only for Dolly; her long, luxuriant brown hair, which flowed loose down her shoulders, had a spray of wild honeysuckle twined through it—you might have fancied she had been wandering through the woods, and that the flowers had got tangled there by accident. Her cheeks were slightly tinged by the sun; but what of it? They were plump, healthy cheeks, adorned by two pretty dimples; and Elisha, who loved cherries, felt his mouth water when he looked on Martha’s lips.

“How is my Martha?” he exclaimed, sliding nimbly off the saddle.

1261“Your Martha, indeed!” answered the girl, tossing her head; then with a smile, as he caught both her hands: “Well, I’m alive and well, and—”

“Not at all pleased to see me, eh?” interrupted Elisha.

“Delighted to see you,” she added, a sweet pink blush spreading itself with the quickness of light over her face.

“Really? Truly? ‘Pon your honor?” cried Elisha, squeezing her hands tighter.

“Come inside and let’s have a talk,” said Martha, trying to free herself from his grasp. But she only half tried; and when presently they were seated side by side he was still holding fast to her right wrist.

“What delicious flowers!” observed Martha, looking down at a nosegay which the youth had stuck in his belt. “Wild-flowers give no such perfume.”

“These are for you,” said her lover, presenting them to her. “They came from Van Cortlandt’s garden. I spent last night at the Manor. Van Cortlandt is a patriot, and is not ashamed to offer a farmer’s son hospitality.”

“How delicious!” said Martha, bringing the nosegay to her nose. “Colonel Delancey’s hot-house plants cannot surpass them.”

“Delancey! The Tory! The Cowboy chief! What do you know about his flowers, Martha?”

“Harry Valentine brought me a magnolia from there a few days ago,” replied Martha frankly.

The other murmured something to himself, then burst out: “Confound and hang the Tories!”

Martha was silent a moment, then remarked: “Well, however much you dislike them, I hope you will not harm Harry Valentine, if he ever falls into your hands.”

1262“It being your wish, I will always aim a mile above his precious head,” returned Elisha.

“You are a good fellow—a real good fellow; just the same as you always were,” continued Martha tenderly. “Oh! I often think of our old frolics together, Elisha.”

“Do you, really? Well, Martha, I often think of them too. What happy days those were!”

“Yes, much happier than these. O Elisha! you can’t think how changed everything is since this dreadful war began. Not a sloop sails up the creek now; no carriages pass along the road; no bees, no husking parties—everybody is gloomy. First this man’s barn is burnt, then that man’s; and chickens and horses and cattle are stolen. In short, between the Skinners and the Cowboys poor Westchester County is fast becoming a desert.”

“Well, for all that it is a glorious war, and will end in freeing us from England,” said Elisha, thumping his fist upon his knee.

“Ay, to be sure it will. God save our liberties! Hurrah for the Continental Army!” cried Uncle Pete, waddling into the house. Then, as he opened a cupboard which contained a number of bottles of rum and cherry-bounce: “Tell me, ‘Lisha, how you like Dolly Dumplings.”

“Like her? Why, Uncle Pete, she’s just the best animal that ever was shod. Nothing can catch her—not even the wind.”

“Right, my boy! Colonel Livingstone, who imported her sire from England, and who sold the mare to me five years ago, declared that she has in her veins the blood of the Flying Childers, and you know he ran a mile a minute.”

“Father, Popgun is calling,” said Martha, with a disturbed air.

1263“Is he?” And Van Alstyne hurried away as fast as possible; but before you could count ten he was back again.

“Too bad, ‘Lisha,” he said, “that you must quit us so soon—hardly time to take one drink. But some enemy’s cavalry are in sight and they’re on a trot.” Then out he went again to fetch Dolly Dumplings.

“Well, dear boy, may the Lord watch over you and keep you safe!” spoke Martha, in a tone of deeper feeling than she had yet evinced toward her lover. The latter gazed earnestly in her face a moment, then said: “Must I bid good-by and depart in uncertainty? O Martha dear! tell me what I so long to know: will you be my wife?”

Her response was: “Elisha, I love the brave, and the bravest shall win me.”

“Then, by Heaven, I’ll be a hero!” cried Elisha. These were his last words; in another moment he was gone. But ere Dolly Dumplings had galloped fifty paces the sign-board was turned round and King George came once more in view.

“Who are they, pa—Hessians or real Britishers?” inquired Martha calmly; for she knew they could not overtake Elisha.

“Hessians, I believe,” replied Van Alstyne.

“Detestable creatures!” exclaimed the girl, withdrawing into the house.

“Don’t say that, child. They’re as good as any soldiers who fight for the king; and if they halt here they’ll leave more than one guinea behind them.”

And so they did, for they were a party of very thirsty and hungry men who shortly arrived; and for the next hour and a half the Old 1264Stone Jug was as busy as a bee-hive. Many a bottle of spirits was emptied, every doughnut and pie was devoured; and in consideration of his being a staunch loyalist they paid Uncle Pete without grumbling, albeit the score was rather high.

“They’re gone at last—what a blessing!” said Martha, while her father was counting over the money to make sure it was all good coin.

“Why, how foolish you talk!” said happy Uncle Pete.

“Well, father, I’m in earnest. I don’t dislike real Britishers or Tories; but these German mercenaries I do detest.”

“Bah! bah!” growled Van Alstyne. “Perhaps to-morrow we’ll have a band of Continentals or some roving Skinners; then perhaps, day after, ‘tother side may visit us again. Why, child, I’m getting rich out of this war.”

“Take one side or the other,” returned Martha, shaking her head. “I’d rather be fair and open, even if we made less money.”

“Humph! We’d be in a pretty fix if I did that, child—a pretty fix. Why, this tavern wouldn’t stand a week, except for my double-faced sign-board; whereas now George Washington might be entertained here and depart highly edified, and so might King George. The only unpleasantness would be if they both happened to come at the same time. And so, child, you ought not to be finding fault.” Then, after pausing long enough to take a chew of tobacco: “And besides,” he went on, “’tis not easy in this world always to see the clear path we ought to follow. Why, you yourself are in a fix; and I don’t wonder at it, for in this township I can’t name two honester, jollier more manly fellows than ‘Lisha Williams and Harry Valentine. 1265And if I were a girl with those two boys for sparks, I believe I’d jump into East Chester Creek, so that neither of ’em might be disappointed.”

Here Martha’s merry laugh rang through the house; then, taking Elisha’s bouquet in one hand and Harry’s magnolia in the other, she stretched forth her arms and stood exactly half-way between the two love-gifts, and said: “Well, yes, I am in a fix.”

“And a very, very sweet fix,” mumbled Uncle Pete, rolling the quid about in his capacious mouth. “Many a young woman might envy you.”

“Well, I do wonder how long it will last. I must decide one of these days.”

“Don’t be in a hurry, child. Wait; have patience. If we are beaten and forced to remain colonies, marry Harry Valentine; if we secure our independence, then choose ‘Lisha. For ’twill go hard with the party that’s beaten; their land will be confiscated.”

“Dear, darling flowers! How delicious you are!” said Martha, bringing the magnolia and the nosegay together and pressing both to her lips; and she kept kissing them and smelling them, and smelling and kissing them, till at length her father said:

“Humph! they’ll soon wilt, if you treat the pretty things that way.”

“Oh! I’ll get fresh ones afore long,” answered Martha. “However, I will put these in water. They may as well last a few days.”

But a week went by, and then another week, without bringing again either of her suitors. The weather was delightful, for it was early June. The summer heat had not yet begun; and if it were not 1266for war, ruthless war, how fair all nature would have appeared! But although the meadows were spangled with dandelions and buttercups, the woods scented with dogwood blossoms, and the air full of the melody of bobolinks and orioles, the people of East Chester were more depressed than ever. Bob Reed’s mill had just been burnt by the Cowboys; in revenge the Skinners had scuttled a Tory sloop anchored in the creek; while some miscreants had even made an attempt to fire St. Paul’s Church in the village. But, sad as all this was, nothing caused Martha Van Alstyne so much distress as the doings at the Old Stone Jug. For two whole nights she was kept awake and bustling about, attending to the wants of a set of profane marauders who belonged both to the British and American side. These villains, sinking all difference of opinion, would occasionally unite to rob friend as well as foe;^[165] and it was to the Old Stone Jug they carried their plunder, which Uncle Pete would hide in the cavern behind the house.

“Well, don’t blame me, child,” said Van Alstyne. “Remember how I am situated. Why, if I had refused to conceal those bags of gold I’d like enough have been hung forthwith; for among the men who were here last night and the night before are some of the greatest scoundrels in America.”

“Well, I am going to choose my husband afore long,” answered Martha—“either Elisha Williams or Harry Valentine; and then you must abandon this tavern and come live with me. For if you stay here—”

“O child! I sha’n’t stay after 1267you’re gone. But why marry so soon? Why not wait a while?—at least, until we see what Burgoyne does with his army, which is large and well appointed. He may sweep everything before him; and if he does, then you’ll see your way much clearer, and I’ll be the first to tell you to wed Harry Valentine.”

Martha shook her head: “I’ll give my hand to the bravest, father, no matter which side he is on. And it is because they are both so good and so brave that I hesitate.”

“Well, now, child, if you’re not careful you may cause the death of ’em both. Ay, ’tis hard to say what wild, foolhardy deed they may not attempt in order to win you.”

“Do you think so?” exclaimed Martha, pressing her hand over her heart and turning pale. This thought had not occurred to her before. But it was too late. She had already told each wooer that the bravest one should have her.

The girl was inwardly lamenting her folly when a voice from the cherry-tree cried: “Be ready, sir.” And immediately she and her father listened with all their ears for the next call.

“Red-coats!” shouted Popgun in about three minutes.

“All right,” said Uncle Pete, and off he went to get the ladder. But quick Martha checked him, saying: “Why, father, the sign-board is all right for Britishers.”

“Oh! so it is,” ejaculated Uncle Pete; then, with a grin: “The fact is, child, I’m so used to turning it round and round—first to King George, then to George Washington, then back again to King George—that I’m afraid some day I’ll make a mistake, and I’ve half a mind to give you charge of it.”

1268“If you do I’ll either nail the sign fast to the house, or else take it away entirely,” answered Martha.

Her parent was still laughing at this innocent, unbusiness-like speech when the British dragoons arrived, and at their head was Harry Valentine.

Harry was a very different looking man from Elisha Williams: not only was he clad in a brilliant scarlet uniform, but he had more refined features and courtly manners, which seemed to confirm the view that Martha’s father held—namely, that the most genteel people were Tories. And now, while Harry clasped the hand of his sweetheart, the latter forgot altogether Elisha’s freckled but honest face, his sandy hair and homespun coat, with naught to distinguish him from an ordinary citizen save a black cockade and eagle feather in his hat, and she thought to herself: “Was there ever such a magnificent wig as my Harry’s! ’Tis powdered to perfection! Dear, darling boy!”

“Ah! there is the magnolia I gave you,” said Harry, smiling, as they entered the little sitting-room, where Martha passed most of her time when not engaged in the kitchen.

“How fresh it looks! Yet ’tis a good while since I brought it.”

“An age,” returned Martha, eying him fondly.

“And what pretty flowers those are yonder!” he continued, looking toward the other end of the mantel-piece.

“None could be prettier,” said Martha in a quiet voice, yet she felt the blood stealing over her cheeks.

“From Reverend Doctor Coffee’s garden, perhaps?”

“No indeed! They were given me by one whom nobody can come 1269up to—one who keeps ahead of everybody. Now guess his name!”

“Oh! I know—that Skinner, Elisha Williams,” said Harry with apparent indifference, but inwardly groaning.

“He is not a Skinner, any more than you are a Cowboy. You are both in the regular armies,” said Martha; then, laying her hand on Harry’s shoulder: “And, Harry, I hope, if Elisha is ever your prisoner, that you will treat him kindly.”

“For your sake he who in your eyes is ahead of all the rest of the world shall have not a single one of his red hairs injured,” answered Harry, making a low bow. “But might I venture to ask what valiant exploit has Elisha performed that you say he is ahead of me, his open, determined, but honorable rival?”

“O Harry! your dear brains are running away with you,” said Martha. “You speak hastily. I only meant that Dolly Dumplings is so fleet that not a trooper in the king’s army can catch Elisha. That is all I meant.”

“Is that really all?” exclaimed Harry, giving a sigh of relief.

“Yes, upon my word it is.”

“Well, Elisha must look out,” continued the young man, his countenance beaming once more. “He must not presume too much on the fleetness of his steed; for a hundred pounds reward has just been offered to whoever will capture Dolly Dumplings.”

“Indeed! A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Martha. “Well, for all that Dolly will still continue to show you her heels.”

At this Harry laughed, then said: “Martha, I hope the next time you see me I’ll have a decoration; we expect stirring events soon.”

“O Harry! pray don’t be rash,” 1270said the girl. “Do, do take care of yourself.”

“Stop no preaching, dear Martha. I love you too much to heed the bullets. You remember you said the bravest should possess you; and you are a treasure worth shedding blood for.”

“Oh! did I say that?” Here she pressed her hand to her brow. “Well, yes, I believe I did. But I was a fool, for who can be braver than you and Elisha? Who can doubt the courage of either of you?”

“Well, then, precious Martha, why not decide at once between us? Oh! I assure you ’tis a great trial for me, this long uncertainty.”

When he had spoken these words Martha turned her eyes upon Elisha’s nosegay, which, despite the water, was beginning to fade; then from the flowers her eyes dropped to the floor, while her heart throbbed violently. Then, looking up, she was on the very point of uttering something of vast moment, when, lo! a bullet crashed through the window, whizzed close by her head, and buried itself in the wainscoting, half blinding her with whitewash and mortar.

Immediately there was a great stir and confusion in the bar-room, where Harry’s company were drinking and smoking their pipes.

Quick the troopers were on their feet and rushing pell-mell out of the house, while their horses were pawing the earth and neighing furiously, for “whizz!” “whizz!” “whizz!” like so many bees the balls were flying past them.

“Good Lord! here they come, and close upon us!” gasped Uncle Pete, shaking like an aspen leaf as he glanced up the highway, then looking toward the sign-board. Would he have time to make the sign change front? Momentous 1271question! And on the American cavalry were coming—a whole regiment—on, on, at full speed. But, rapidly as they approached, the Britishers were too quick for them; every man of the latter was already in the saddle, and Martha, although seeing but dimly, was giving Harry’s hand a parting squeeze, heedless of the danger she was in and deaf to his urgent entreaties to withdraw.

“No, no, I’m not afraid,” she said. Nor did she retire until he had pressed his lips to her cheek; then back she flew into the house.

Scarcely had Harry put spurs to his horse when Uncle Pete—his movements happily hidden by a cloud of dust—sprang up the ladder, turned the sign-board round in a jiffy, then, pulling from his pocket a bit of chalk, drew it thrice across George Washington’s benign visage. After which down he came, or rather down he tumbled; the ladder was hastily flung aside, and through the doorway after Martha he ran, shouting: “Smash the bottles, child! Smash a lot of ’em!”

Poor Martha, who was cleansing the mortar from her eyes, was filled with amazement at these words. Had her parent suddenly lost his wits? Ay, surely he had, for he was already hard at work breaking bottle after bottle, and by the time Colonel Glover’s regiment, which pursued the enemy only half a mile, drew up at the Old Stone Jug, two pounds ten shillings would not have made good the damage which Uncle Pete had wrought to his own property.

“God save our liberties, and the devil take King George!” cried Van Alstyne as the American colonel dismounted; then, pointing indignantly at the sign-board: “Look, sir, what the British villains have done! Look!”

1272“Ay, disfigured our noble commander-in-chief,” answered the officer.

“But now come, sir, and see what they have done inside,” continued Uncle Pete, foaming at the mouth.

In a few minutes the tavern was crowded with officers and soldiers heaping maledictions upon the British for having destroyed so much excellent rum; the whole floor was reeking with spirits.

But Uncle Pete, in consideration of his loyalty to the American cause, recovered all he had lost, and more too; for the cavalry-men made the inn merry until the day was well-nigh spent. And when at length they departed there was not a more contented citizen in the township than Peter Van Alstyne.

“What a narrow escape we had!” he said to Martha when they were once more alone.

“Very; and we may thank God ’tis all over without one drop of blood being spilt,” answered the girl.

“Well, no, ’tisn’t quite over yet,” added the publican; then, going to the door, he shouted: “Popgun, come down.”

Popgun obeyed, but his movements were slow; he moved like one who has the rheumatism, and he took double the usual time to descend the tree.

“I say, you little black imp,” growled Uncle Pete as soon as the boy got within reach—“you little black imp, you fell asleep on your perch to-day. Now, don’t lie; you did, and you’re ‘sponsible for the broken bottles, and the disfigured sign, and the bullets in the wall. Ay, you’re ‘sponsible for every penny’s worth of damage, and now I’m going to punish you.”

“O massa! please don’t make me dance a hornpipe,” said the 1273unhappy boy, whining and wringing his hands. “Don’t! don’t! I’ll never fall asleep again—no, never.”

“Well, it’s a hornpipe I’m going to make you dance; and now begin.” So saying, Uncle Pete lifted up a stout ox-gad and brought it down with all his might on Popgun’s legs. The blow was followed by a piercing cry. Martha implored her father not to strike him again, but Van Alstyne was deaf to her appeals for mercy, and during several minutes Popgun continued to hop about like a dancing bear, and you might have heard his screams as far as East Chester village.

Finally, Uncle Pete having broken the whip over the poor child’s legs, Martha, who was truly vexed at such cruelty, led Popgun into the kitchen, intending to console him with something good to eat. But Van Alstyne, who knew how soft her heart was, said:

“Martha, I positively forbid you to give him one mouthful of sweetmeats, and not a single doughnut or tart. Obey me!”

The girl made no response, but, having fastened the kitchen door and brushed a tear out of her eye, bade the little sufferer sit down; then said: “Now, mind, you are to have no sweetmeats and no tarts and no doughnuts, so here’s some honey and a corncake.”

Popgun looked up in her face, and Martha was not a little surprised to see him recovering so rapidly from his terrible castigation; so broad was his grin that every one of his gleaming teeth was visible.

“I’d like to dance a hornpipe every day, Miss Martha,” he said, “for I love corncake and honey.”

“Do you? Well, then, you shall have plenty.”

But before the urchin began his 1274feast he whispered: “Miss Martha, you won’t tell anybody if I tell you a secret, will you?”

“Of course not,” answered Martha, who was anxious to please him, and thus make amends for the barbarous treatment he had received.

“Well, then, Miss Martha, look here.” And Popgun stooped, and, turning up the rim of his light linen trowsers, revealed underneath a pair of cowskin breeches about a quarter of an inch thick; and these breeches had proved a good friend to him, for he had danced many a hornpipe.

“Oh! fie, you naughty boy!” exclaimed Martha; and she was strongly tempted to take away the honey-jar. But after reflecting a moment she burst into a laugh, while Popgun tried to laugh too, but did not succeed for the honey which filled his mouth.

Never had Martha known so much anxiety as during the four months which followed Harry Valentine’s last visit. Neither of her lovers came to see her. Never had they stayed away so long before; and whenever any one arrived at the tavern with news she would listen with rapt attention and a sinking heart, fearful lest she might hear that some evil had befallen them. Often and often Martha would turn from her spinning-wheel to gaze on the flowers they had given her—poor faded flowers, but more precious now than diamonds in her sight; and instead of keeping them far apart, Martha set the nosegay and magnolia near together—so near that she might circle them both in one fond embrace.

It was an anxious, trying summer, too, for the patriots. Washington was suffering defeats in Pennsylvania; two important posts 1275on the Hudson River—Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton—were captured by the British; and Congress had fled from Philadelphia to York. Nothing seemed likely to rescue the cause of independence from utter ruin, save the army under General Gates, which was marching to meet Burgoyne; and every breath of rumor from the north was eagerly listened to.

“A crisis is approaching, child,” Uncle Pete would say, “and I guess you’ll be able to select your husband afore the next moon.”

But Martha had grown too down-hearted to heed what her father said, and more than once he found tears in her eyes.

By and by autumn came—rich, ripe, golden autumn. But in many an orchard the apples were left unpicked, for the young men were gone to the war and the old folks had no heart for the labor. The blackbirds were flocking, and Martha would watch them as they took wing for the south, and she felt toward the little birds as never before; for perhaps in their long journey they might pass over Harry and Elisha; in New Jersey, in Delaware, in Maryland, or even in the far-off Carolinas, they might see their camp-fires, might hear the cannon booming.

“Sweet birds, you will come back in spring-time,” she sighed. “Will Harry and Elisha come back?”

“Child, here is something that may cheer you up,” said Uncle Pete one October evening. The girl looked round, and, lo! he had a letter for her. Martha’s hand trembled as she took it.

A century ago people did not write as often as nowadays; indeed, comparatively few knew how to read and write. Hence it was not so very strange that Martha was 1276unable to tell at a glance from whom the letter came. Was it from Elisha? or Harry? or from some comrade of theirs imparting sad news?

Few moments in life are more big with keen suspense than the moment between the breaking of a letter’s seal and the reading of the first line, when the missive is from one very dear to us and far away. This interval of time—brief as three heart-throbs—may prove the boundary-line where happiness ends for ever and dark days begin, or it may set us smiling as Martha is smiling now; therefore let us peep over her shoulder and learn what the glad tidings are:

“I am coming in three days, dearest Martha, to take you to St. Paul’s Church and make you my darling wife. Now, don’t say nay. I implore you not to break my heart. I have won two decorations, and am a major, and in all America nobody loves you more truly than your devoted

“Harry Valentine.”

Although an exceedingly short letter, it required some little time for Martha to spell it all out; and when she did get to the end she was in such a flurry that she could barely speak when Uncle Pete asked what was the matter.

“O father! Harry Valentine says he will be here in—in three days to marry me. And—and he has won two decorations, and he is a major, and I don’t know what to think about it.”

“Humph! he has risked his life twice for you, has he? Got two decorations! Well, that ought to count a good deal in his favor.”

“Well, yes, it ought, father.”

“And do you know, child, there is a rumor flying about that Gen. Gates has found Burgoyne too 1277strong for him, and that he is retreating. Therefore, all things considered, I think you may bet on King George and marry Harry.”

“O father! how little you understand me,” exclaimed Martha with a look of reproach. “I may seem a flirt, a coquette, but I’m not. My heart is not like your sign-board, and I have suffered more than you imagine from not being able to decide between Harry and Elisha, who love me so truly, and each of whom is so worthy of my love.” Then, pressing her hands to her bosom: “Poor heart!” she cried, “what must I do? Oh! tell me, what must I do?” Then, hastening into the sitting-room, where she kept the nosegay and the magnolia, she put her lips to Elisha’s withered love-gift, then carried it off, leaving the magnolia alone in its glory. But ere Martha reached the window, where she meant to fling the flowers away, the glass which held them slipped from her quivering hand, and in an instant it lay shattered at her feet.

“Well, really, child, you do astonish me,” said her father the afternoon of the day when Harry Valentine was expected. “You can’t sleep, you’ve lost your appetite, and all because ‘Lisha’s posy dropped on the floor. Why, what nonsense!”

“Well, yes, it is silly,” said Martha. “One of the two I will wed, and I have made up my mind it is to be Harry, and I doubt not Elisha will live fifty years and be happy too. Any one might let a glass break.”

“Ay, ay. I’ve smashed scores of ’em, child, and never knew any ill to follow—except once, when I stumbled and fell on top of the broken bits and cut my finger.”

1278Martha now made a strong effort to dispel the sense of approaching evil which for three days had been haunting her, and during the next hour she kept in good spirits. She had on her best gown, there was a flush upon her cheeks, and every few minutes she would go to the foot of the cherry-tree and ask if Harry Valentine were in sight.

“No, miss,” answered Popgun the last time she put the question to him. “But there is a man in the cedars yonder making signs; I guess he wants to speak with you or master. He looks like an Indian.”

Martha did not hesitate to go herself and see what the stranger wanted; and after the latter had spoken a few words to her and she turned to leave him, the bright color had fled from her face and she trembled.

A half-hour later a cavalcade of gay horsemen arrived at the tavern, and, as we may imagine, Van Alstyne wondered very much why his daughter was not present to greet Harry Valentine. He searched all through the house for Martha; he called her name, but she did not answer. Where could Martha be?

In the meanwhile Harry, directed by Popgun’s finger, which pointed to the woods, had set out in quest of his love.

And Martha was soon found; but not, as the young officer had fancied she would be, gathering chestnuts or wild grapes by the brookside, by Rattlesnake Brook, where he had first met her five years ago—oh! never-to-be-forgotten day, when she was just emerging from girlhood and the first down was on his chin. But now Harry found her kneeling upon a mossy rock, praying. And when at the sound of footsteps Martha 1279rose up and flew into his arms, although transported with delight to meet her again, and to feel she had yielded him her heart at last—that heart which it had taken so long to win—nevertheless a pang shot through him when he discovered a tear on her cheek; ’twas easy to kiss the tear away, but why had she been weeping? He asked the question, but Martha only shook her head and said:

“Remember, dear one, the promise you once made me: if Elisha ever falls into your hands, you will do him no injury. Remember.”

And now evening has come, and a jovial party is assembled in the Old Stone Jug. Uncle Pete bestirred himself as never before to do his guests honor; he could scarce remain quiet a moment. The best his house afforded he gave without stint, and ’twas a free gift. Uncle Pete intended that his future son-in-law should long remember the hospitality of this autumn evening.

Martha was the only one who did not make merry. She sat close beside Harry Valentine, her eyes resting on his manly, sunburnt face; she seemed ready to devour him with her eyes, and spoke very little.

But ever and anon she would withdraw her hand from his and go peep out of the window. It was when she had done this for the third time, then come back and placed her hand within his again, that Harry observed in a tone of surprise:

“Why, my beloved, what is the matter? Your hand is grown suddenly cold as ice.”

“Is it?” said Martha nervously. There were other words quivering on her lips, but she held them back. In after-years she bitterly lamented her silence at this critical moment. It was late, yet not too 1280late—the moon was still a quarter of an hour below the horizon—and when Harry noticed her agitation, if she had only been frank with him, how different might have been the whole current of her after-life—how very different!

And now the sky in the east is growing rapidly brighter, and Martha’s heart is throbbing faster and louder—so loud that Harry might almost have heard it. But ’twas not necessary for him to hear the beating of her heart in order to discover her growing distress. Martha was leaning back in the chair, her cheeks were become as cold as her hand, and her eyes strayed from his eyes to the window in a wild, fearful way; then, looking at him again, she seemed about to say something, but did not, and Harry was really becoming alarmed at the strange mood she was in, when the tavern door was suddenly flung wide open, and, as it swept round on its hinges, a small, black hand passed swiftly over the table. In an instant the candles were extinguished, and in the pitchy darkness which followed Martha found herself borne away in somebody’s arms.

“Now, Martha, you’re mine,” said Elisha Williams exultingly, as he bounded like a deer up the road to the spot where he had left his horse.

“Be true to me, Martha. Mount! and we’ll hie to the Jerseys together.”

What the girl’s feelings were just at this moment ’twere not easy to describe. In her ears came deafening uproar from the Old Stone Jug—quick commands; the neighing of steeds; a voice cried, “Fire!”

Then—well, she must have swooned; for when next she became conscious 1281of anything, Martha found herself seated on the saddle-bow, Elisha’s arm supporting her, and Dolly Dumplings galloping at terrific speed along Cusser’s Lane.

And here let us say that the very first thought to enter Martha’s mind was a glad thought. Ay, her dark presentiment in regard to The Flying Scout had proved utterly untrue, and she even laughed aloud when presently she told Elisha what her fears for him had been. Whereupon he cried: “Me dead! Ha! ha! No indeed! Hurrah for Independence and Martha Van Alstyne!”

Then, while his voice was echoing through the woods which lined the road on either side—frightening an owl and rousing a partridge out of its sleep—Elisha went on to tell the great news of Burgoyne’s surrender. “I was present, my love,” he said. “I saw the British colors lowered. Hurrah for Martha and Independence! Hurrah! hurrah!”

But swift as was Dolly’s pace—her tail, back, and nose formed one beeline—it was none too swift, and she needed all the blood of her grandsire, the Flying Childers, to save her from being overtaken. On, on at a furious rate Harry Valentine was coming. He led the pursuit; his friends were close behind him. And now, we may ask, did Martha remonstrate with Elisha? Did she urge him to draw rein?—to surrender her to the one whom she had consented to wed on the morrow? No, indeed. Elisha’s astounding boldness in stealing her away from her home when surrounded by a score of armed men drowned every other thought; verily, he was the boldest of the bold. The bracing night-air, too, was like wine to her throbbing veins, and the moonbeams shimmering through 1282the trees lent a weirdness to the scene which prevented Martha from thinking calmly about anything. She felt as if bewitched. Dolly Dumplings appeared like a ghostly steed; Elisha was a wizard knight bearing her off to his enchanted castle; and not for all the world would she have slipped off the saddle to go back to the Old Stone Jug.

But great changes often come unawares, and in a few minutes everything changed. It happened thus: lying in the middle of the lane, directly in front of old Isaac Cusser’s house—from whom the lane takes its name—was a cow, and between the cow and the stone wall opposite the farmer had piled a load of salt hay. Now, had there been a little more light, Dolly Dumplings would have discovered the animal in time and jumped over her. But the trees just at this spot threw a broad shadow across Dolly’s path, and naught was visible until the mare got within a stride of the obstacle. Then she swerved violently to one side, and in another moment Martha found herself rolling over and over in the hay.

Needless to observe that Elisha did his utmost to stay the course of Dolly Dumplings. But, once past the cow, Dolly had instantly resumed her headlong gait, and she went quite a distance ere she was brought to a halt.

Poor Elisha! he knew well that Martha was lost to him; yet he did not hesitate to return—to approach within easy pistol-shot of where Harry Valentine and his friends were assembled round about the young woman. The farmer, too, had come out with a lantern, and Elisha, plunged in despair, could distinguish the figure of Martha standing upright, and he 1283could hear her voice, and even fancied she was laughing! Was this possible? No, no! Elisha would not believe his ears; and he called to her to be true to him—that he would never love another.

“Martha, Martha, I will always love you,” he cried.

“Save yourself! Do! do! Make haste!” came back the response to his words; and Elisha was slowly turning Dolly round when the crack of a pistol rang through the forest; ’twas followed by a sting in his breast; and while the mare continued her flight Elisha’s life-blood trickled down upon the saddle and left red marks along the road.

But, although desperately wounded, The Flying Scout was not going to be captured, and faithful Dolly, who heard the clatter of hoofs behind her, flew on swifter than ever. It was the firm belief of Elisha’s pursuers that he would turn to the right after leaving Cusser’s lane and take the way to Tuckahoe; for the bridge across the Bronx River, a half a mile on his left, had been destroyed. Although aware of this fact, Elisha nevertheless had the audacity to turn Dolly’s head toward the stream; and down the hill which led to it Dolly plunged, a dozen bullets whizzing by her. Would the Scout venture such a leap? From bank to bank was farther than any horse had ever been known to spring. But blood will tell—Dolly’s grandsire was the Flying Childers—and now like a bird she rose into the air, and, lo! to the amazement of the enemy, Elisha was landed upon the west side of the Bronx.

Here, as they abandoned the chase, let us go back to Martha Van Alstyne.

It is the morrow morning, and we find her once more under her father’s 1284roof, making ready to repair with Harry Valentine to St. Paul’s Church; for she has promised to become his bride, and she cannot break her word. Yet at this the eleventh hour Elisha holds the first place in Martha’s heart; she openly rejoices to hear that he escaped, and even twits her affianced husband for not having been able to catch Dolly Dumplings, whereupon Harry good-naturedly admits that not another steed in America could have cleared the Bronx at one leap.

“’Twouldn’t surprise me in the least,” Martha said to herself, as they were about to set out for the village, “if Elisha dashed up to the very church-door and carried me off a second time. But then,” she added after a moment’s reflection, “it is not likely to happen; no, I must banish him from my heart as soon as possible and love Harry alone.” Here she threw her eyes upon her betrothed and in all the lovely autumn landscape nothing was more lovely than those two faces as they met.

But although Martha was struggling hard to conquer her greater love for Elisha, ’twas a difficult battle she was waging with herself.

There are embers which will live and glow despite the ashes we heap over them; so even now, while her eyes were searching into Harry’s eyes, while her smile was answering his smile, Martha’s countenance fell anew and she recoiled from him. ’Twas at this very moment Popgun’s voice cried out:

“Dolly Dumplings’s in sight!”

This startling announcement was more than Martha could bear without the deepest emotion. Quick she looked up the road; the astonished Uncle Pete and all the others did the same, while the girl stretched 1285forth her hands to welcome the one who was approaching. Her heart was in her throat; every limb of her body quivered. On, on galloped the mare.

In less than two minutes Dolly dashed into the midst of the party gathered in front of the Old Stone Jug. And what a spectacle did she present! She had no rider, and the red marks which stained the empty saddle were blood-marks! Oh! surely they were. The wild look, too, and the fierce neigh of poor Dolly told plainly enough that something horrible had occurred.

It took Martha but an instant to decide what to do, and, breaking loose from Harry and her father, who were vainly striving to calm her, she sprang upon the saddle; then, turning to Harry Valentine with an expression pen cannot describe, “Marry you!” she cried. “No, not for the kingdom of England!” And away she galloped.

1286In a remote corner of the graveyard at East Chester is a tombstone with the following inscription carved upon it: “Here lie the remains of Martha Van Alstyne, spinster, who departed this life in the year of grace 1838, aged 81.” These few words tell the rest of our story. Martha, when she discovered that Elisha Williams had been killed, never married; and although no man knows Elisha’s burial-place, his name is not forgotten, and the bridge which spans the Bronx River at the point where Dolly Dumplings made her wonderful leap is called Williams Bridge.

As late as 1840 the ruins of the Old Stone Jug were visible on what is now known as Schieffelin’s Lane; Rattlesnake Brook still flows on, but the rattlesnakes have long disappeared; and here and there stands an aged tree beneath whose shade Martha and Harry and Elisha used to play together in the days when George III. was king.

1287

BROTHER AND SISTER.

Happy those turtle-doves that went, my Queen,

With you to the temple—tho’ to death they went.

Could they have known, they had been full content

To give their little lives. And well I ween

Your pitying hand caressed them; and, between

The turns you took with Joseph (favored saint!)

At carrying Jesus, you would soothe their plaint,

And hold to your heart their bosoms’ silver sheen.

But cherish more my sister-dove and me:

Carry within your heart, and all the way,

Our souls to the true Temple. Offered so,

They cannot perish—no, nor parted be:

For He whom you presented on this day

Whom you present His own must ever know.

Feast of the Purification, 1876.

1288

CHRISTIANITY AS AN HISTORICAL RELIGION.

II.

To know the true genius of Christianity is the same thing as to know the true destiny of man, and the actual order of Providence by which he is conducted to its fulfilment, through the state of his earthly probation. The true destiny of man is supernatural; his end is beyond the earth and the present life, which is the place and period of origin and transit only, where he has his point of departure, his impulse of direction, the beginning of the movement which is to draw a line of endless length on the absolute duration and absolute space of eternity and infinity. The actual order of Providence, within the infinitesimal limits of time and extension which bound man’s earthly existence, is exclusively determined, as to its ultimate end, to this eternal and infinite sphere of being, where man shares with God, according to the mode and measure which is possible to his finite nature, the “total, simultaneous, and perfect possession of interminable life.” This is precisely what is meant by eternal salvation, final beatitude, union with God, and all other terms of similar import. Any temporal good, in comparison with this, is trivial. It cannot be an ultimate object of God’s providence, and ought not to be regarded as an end by a rational man. These are the suppositions, the præcognita, from which all Christian philosophy must take its initial movement. Dr. Fisher enunciates, therefore, one of the axioms of Christianity 1289when he says that in the design of the divine religion given by God to mankind, “the good offered is not science,” or, as is evidently implied, any other temporal good, “but salvation.” The original right to this salvation and to the means of attaining it having been forfeited in the fall and restored only through Christ, “the final cause of revelation is the recovery of men to communion with God—that is, to true religion.” As a consequence from this, “whatever knowledge is communicated”—and, equally, whatever other good is communicated for human perfection in this present state—“is tributary to this end” (p. 3). The whole of human history before the Christian epoch, in general, and specifically the whole inspired history of patriarchal and Judæan religion, being a record of events looking towards the coming of the Son of God to the earth, the learned professor proceeds logically in making the statements which follow:

“Christianity is the perfect form of religion. In other words, it is the absolute religion, ... the culminating point in the progress of revelation, fulfilling, or filling out to perfection, that which preceded.... In Jesus religion is actually realized in its perfection.... In Christ the revelation of God to and through man reaches its climax.... In Christianity the fundamental relations of God to the world are completely disclosed.... Through Christ the kingdom of God actually attains its universal character.”^[166]

1290Many passages scattered throughout the entire work of Dr. Fisher repeat, confirm, or amplify these general statements of his fundamental conception of Christianity. Thus, he says that it “proposed the unification of mankind through a spiritual bond” (p. 42); that it brings God near “to the apprehension, not of a coterie of philosophers merely, but of the humble and ignorant” (p. 189); that it “made human brotherhood a reality” (p. 190). “From his first public appearance Jesus represented himself as the founder and head of a kingdom” (p. 443), and this kingdom “was to be bound together by a moral and spiritual bond of union” (p. 444). Moreover, “his kingdom was to act upon the world, and to bring the world under its sway” (p. 456); it was to “leaven human society with its spirit, until the whole world should be created anew by its agency”; “a world-conquering and world-purifying influence,” destined “for the accomplishment of a revolution, the grandest which it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive—it being nothing less than the moral regeneration of mankind” (ibid.)

The idea which lies at the foundation of all these statements is nothing else than that which St. Ignatius has made the basis of his Spiritual Exercises, and which is fully developed in the meditations on fundamental Christian principles which are placed at the beginning of the series for a retreat in books like the Raccolta of Father Ciccolini. On these principles is founded the whole system of instructions given to ecclesiastics and religious during their retreats, by which they are formed for the sacerdotal or religious life 1291or renovated in the spirit of their state. The very same form the basis of the sermons preached at the beginning of missions given to the faithful in churches, “On the End of Man,” “On the Value of the Soul,” “On the Necessity of Salvation.” That man is the only being on the earth who is an end in himself, and that all other creatures, together with all arrangements of divine Providence respecting this world, are for him; that the chief and ultimate end of man is his eternal salvation, and that everything else is intended as a means for attaining this end; is the doctrine inculcated and preached in all Catholic spiritual books and in all sermons, in all theological treatises, and expositions of Catholic philosophy which profess to explain the fundamental relations of the natural to the supernatural order. Any other idea of Christianity than this is unworthy of its Author. It is a very low and childish view which represents the perfection of humanity in respect to the political, social, and intellectual spheres of the earthly and temporal order as the direct object of the mission and work of Christ in the world. Præterit figura hujus mundi. That which is transitory cannot be an ultimate end.

There is nothing permanent and having an eternal value on the earth except the spiritual perfection of the human soul and whatever appertains to it or is inseparably connected with it. The regeneration and perfection of men in the spiritual and divine life is necessarily the only direct and primary object of the theandric work of Christ as the mediator between God and mankind. His kingdom is in the soul, his reign and conquests are in the spiritual realm. St. Augustine 1292explains that difficult statement of St. Paul, that the Son will finally deliver up his kingdom to the Father, by means of this Scriptural conception of the nature of his kingdom. This kingdom is the multitude of the saved, the complete number of the elect, in whose glorification the special work of the Son as creator and redeemer reaches its consummation and attains its final end. The kingdom is delivered up when these souls, in whom the reign of Christ is perfectly and for ever established by grace and divine love, are united with the divine essence in the beatific vision. The initial and temporal conditions of the eternal kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven, disappear, of course, in the fulfilment; as his human childhood, life, death, and resurrection were transient states or events, as the whole of human history is transient. In its initial state the kingdom of heaven on the earth is a preparation for its perfect state, which it contains in germ and principle, and with which it must necessarily have a similitude of nature. It is therefore only a truism to say that the kingdom of Christ is spiritual and its bond of unity spiritual. We may even say that the whole universe is a spiritual empire and its bond of unity spiritual. Physical beings, in the ontological order are metaphysical, and in the order of cognition are logical. All the transcendental predicates, which really express only phases of the same idea; being, unity, truth, and good; are, in an analogous sense, predicable of God and of everything which has or is capable of having existence. God is a spirit, and the ideal of all beings is in his intelligence. The [Greek: Logos] [Greek: endiathetos], in the bosom of the Father from eternity, and the [Greek: Logos] [Greek: prophorichos], 1293uttering the creative word whose effect is in time, whose intelligible expression is in all creatures, are one—the Word of God. There are material substances and forces, but their origin is spiritual; their essence and existence are the expression of thought; the space in which they move has its foundation in the essence of God; they are an adjunct of the spiritual world, and are subordinated to it with a view to the same end. There are temporal and contingent things, but their duration has a fixed relation to the absolute duration of God, and to his eternal, immutable decree and foreknowledge. Though some things are trivial and worthless by comparison with others, and every being is infinitely less than God, yet nothing is absolutely trivial or worthless, and every finite thing has infinite relations. Bodies are infinitely inferior to spirits, yet they are infinitely superior to nothing, and not only the grand bodies which express in magnitude and number an image of the immensity of God, but grains of sand and the minutest molecules, are terms of divine Omnipotence, and their being presupposes and imitates the being of God. God formed the body of the first man out of the dust of the earth before he breathed into him the living soul, and he will awaken all human bodies to an everlasting life from the dust of the universal tomb of humanity. The Word assumed not only a rational but also a corporeal nature into hypostatic union with the divinity in his own person, and arose bodily from the sepulchre to glorify matter as well as spirit, and make it a gem eternally lustrous and sparkling with divine splendor. God came to this small solar system, a mere point in the milky way, to 1294this minute planet, to the insignificant country of Judæa, to the little village of Bethlehem, to the narrow cave of the Nativity, to the humble cottage of Joseph and Mary, and was born and brought up the son of a humble maiden under the guardianship of an obscure artisan. The future and eternal kingdom of heaven with all its splendor, which was only made that it may serve as a reflection of the glory of the Incarnate Word, has its origin from these mere points in time and space. Things which, isolated and in their mere physical quantity, are almost nothing receive an infinite value through their relations. Nude first matter, apart from form, is, as St. Augustine says, “fere nihil—a being not-being.” Yet it seems to be rigorously demonstrated that the active force of every material element is capable of attracting or repelling other elements in an infinite sphere of space around its centre. The visible universe, considered as having a mere isolated existence and motion in space and time, is not much, compared with even one finite spirit—is fere nihil. The intellectual creation, considered as isolated within the bounds of nature, finite, actually existing only in one indivisible now of time, which by its gliding from a beginning point on an endless line never actually draws more than a line of finite duration, compared with the infinite possibility is not much more. All creation, even supposing that God continued to extend and multiply it for ever, could never become anything which would not be infinitely less than absolute space and duration. On the lower surface of things which faces the nothingness out of which they came they participate in not-being and resemble nothingness. In their negation 1295and privation, they are not. On their upper surface which faces the being above them they participate with all being, even the highest. That which is lower touches by its highest point that which is lowest in the higher, and so from the bottom to the top. The physical universe has a sufficient reason of being in the intellectual universe, the intellectual in the spiritual, and the spiritual at its apex touches God by the union of the highest nature—the created nature of the Word, with the uncreated, divine essence. The universe, notwithstanding its intrinsically finite and contingent being, receives thus a mode and order of relation to the infinite and eternal being, giving it a species of divinization which extends to its least and lowest parts. Therefore we say that the whole universe is a spiritual empire and its bond of unity spiritual.

This world is a garden of God, set apart for the planting and growth of human souls. The garden of Eden, which God planted and beautified as the residence of the first parents of the human race, is a type of the ideal earth as it was conceived in the mind of God. The redemption, in its ideal form, is a work for the restoration of paradise on earth, under a modified condition suited to the fallen state of man, and in its actual results is an approximation to this idea. The growth of human souls in the regenerated and spiritual life is its end, and the only thing of absolute importance in the sight of God. The Creator himself came on the earth in human form expressly for the sake of fulfilling this divine intention of bringing souls to the completion of their growth in a perfect likeness to himself. It is needless to quote his own distinct 1296and solemn affirmation of the value of the soul, and the worthlessness of the whole world beside, in comparison with its highest spiritual good. His great work in humanity may therefore be fitly summed up in the terse and succinct formula of “moral regeneration,” provided that these terms are so defined as to give them an adequate extension and comprehension. The whole plan of God in creating the universe, and elevating it through the microcosmical being man by the Incarnation, must be kept in view; and the nature of the regeneration to be effected must be so understood as to justify the necessity of the stupendous and multiplied means employed by the divine wisdom in bringing it to actual accomplishment. The universe, and this little epitome of creation which is man’s world, as well, is complex and composed of heterogeneous parts. The problem of man’s destiny and of the end proposed in the plan of the divine creator and redeemer of human nature is, therefore, necessarily complex. If it is expressed in a ratio of simple terms, these terms must be virtually equivalent to a great number and a great variety, corresponding to the complex reality which they denote and signify. A simplification of our ideas which is not the result of a combination of all the elements that ought to enter into composition, but is produced by the suppression of some, is a work of destructive and not of constructive philosophy. If we interpret, therefore, that spiritual doctrine which we have laid down in the beginning of this argument too literally and exclusively, we make a misinterpretation of the sense of Holy Scripture and of the writings of the saints, and manufacture for 1297ourselves a false and absurd doctrine.

A philosophy which aims to give the spirit a complete riddance of matter, and of the whole world beside spiritual existence in its purest and most immediate relation to God, may arrogate the name of spiritual philosophy, but it is a counterfeit spiritualism. If God desired that we should get rid of matter, and had no other aim except to produce purely spiritual being in his own likeness and in participation with his own pure essence, he would never have created anything except spirit, and he would have made it at once in that state of perfection which he willed it to possess. If this perfection were limited to the order of pure nature, nothing more was requisite than to create a multitude of intellectual beings naturally endowed with the intelligence and felicity conformed to their essence. If they were to be elevated to supernatural perfection in the beatific vision of God, one act of divine power and love would suffice to place them at the first instant of their creation in the term of being, the ultimate perfection, the everlasting felicity in the possession of the sovereign good, to which they were destined. There is no necessity for probation, gradual progress, or any sort of conditions precedent, in order that created spirits may be made perfect in cognition and volition, either natural or supernatural, in any finite degree and grade of existence and beatitude which God may choose in his pure goodness to communicate. Still less is there any reason, on the hypothesis of such an end in creation as we suppose, for the existence of matter and corporeal beings. Matter and body cannot help purely intellectual beings to attain 1298their proper intelligible object. The light of glory, and the direct illumination which gives the spirit an immediate intuitive vision of the divine essence, cannot be conjoined with any material, corporeal medium or organ. Why, then, did not God create angels only, and, if he desired to elevate creation to the hypostatic union with himself, assume the angelic nature? The only possible answer to this question is derived from the manifestation which God has made, through his works and through his word, that his plan of creation included something besides the natural and supernatural communication of glory and beatitude to created spirits. It was his will to create the corporeal, visible universe in connection and harmony with the invisible and spiritual world. It was his will to place man in the middle-point of all creation, and to give him a complex essence composed of rationality and animality, that he might unite in his substantial being the highest with the lowest—ima summis. Moreover, the creating Word assumed this nature as microcosmical, that in humanity he might elevate the entire universe and bring it in his own person to its acme.

Even this might have been accomplished instantaneously, without probation, without the long procession of second causes, without the efforts and the pain which the struggle toward the ultimate end has cost the creature, and to which the Incarnate Word subjected himself when he became obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis.

Why the long process from the chaos at the beginning toward the consummation of the end which has not yet been attained? The only answer to this question which 1299can possibly be given is that God chose to make the creature concur to its own glorification by the way of merit, and to bring the utmost possible effect out of created causality. This is the reason for the probation of the angels and of man; for the full scope given to free-will, notwithstanding the incidental evil which through this avenue has rushed in upon the fair creation of God; and for the choice of the most difficult and painful way of redemption and restoration through ineffable labors and sufferings.

The regeneration of humanity must, therefore, take its character from the supernatural destiny of man, his complex nature, and the relations in which it places him to the complex plan of God which takes in all the parts of the universe, from the lowest to the highest, and gives the utmost possible play to the action of created causality. Its chief end is to prepare human souls, through the grace and fellowship of Christ, to share with the other sons of God, the holy angels, in the glory and beatitude of the Incarnate Word in the kingdom of heaven. Included in this end of beatification in God, which is essentially the same for all spiritual beings who attain it, are the distinctive grades of glory, gained through grace and personal merit, in an ascending scale from the souls of infants to the soul of Jesus Christ, by which the celestial firmament is decorated. This beatitude in the vision of God certainly does not exclude the secondary and natural beatitude arising from the knowledge and enjoyment of the creatures of God, and this must therefore be a secondary and subordinate end in the divine plan. Intellectual cognition and volition are not organic 1300acts of human nature; and, therefore, if we believe in the bodily resurrection of our Lord and of the saints to a glorified corporeal life, we must admit the existence in the divine plan of some subordinate end, in view of which man was created as a composite being, and in view of which, also, the Word assumed the composite human nature, which is complete only by the union of the spiritual and material substances. The glorified body no doubt receives a reflected lustre from the glorification of the soul. But its glorified senses cannot be the organs of anything more than an elevated and sublimated sensitive cognition and enjoyment. The term of their action is the physical, visible creation to which human nature partially belongs; and therefore the final end of man is partially identified with the final cause for which the vast and everlasting visible universe was created. The Incarnate Word touches this visible, material realm of his creation by the bodily part of his human nature. The what and the wherefore of this almost infinite realm of nature we do not pretend to understand. It is certainly not a mere jeu d’esprit of Omnipotence, a causeless or transitory spectacle to excite the babyish wonder of the human race not yet out of its nursery. It belongs to the great sphere of the divine plan, a segment of one of whose great circles is human history on this earthly planet. As we cannot demonstrate the problem of this sphere and its great circles, we cannot completely solve the problem of man’s destiny on the earth. It is an enigma, a mystery. And, above all, the question Cur Deus Homo? the what and the wherefore of the Incarnation, is an enigma, a mystery for human reason, 1301only obscurely manifested to faith. Christ in history, universal history as having its mot d’enigme in Christ, must consequently present to the believing and enlightened mind of the Christian student an object of investigation and thought which he cannot hope to understand and know adequately, much less to comprehend. Whatever we can know must be learned by the manifestation which God makes of his wise intentions through his word and his works, the instruction which he deigns to give us by experience, reason, and divine faith.

For what is man being educated on the earth, and what did his Creator intend to bring him to when he came down in person, after a long series of precursors had prepared the way before him, to teach and to do that which could be entrusted to no mere creature, whether man or angel? The manifestation of Christ in the history of mankind on the earth will make known the answer to this question to all intelligent beings when this history is completed. But this will be only at the day of universal resurrection and final judgment. Until that day arrives there can only be a gradual and incomplete disclosure and justification of the ways of God to men, which are unsearchable and past finding out by human wisdom. The Eternal Word, who created all things, and directed all nations on the earth by his providence before he assumed human nature and died on the cross for their salvation, has not ceased, since his Incarnation, to carry on his work, or confined his care to a small number elected out of the mass of mankind. Nature has not been substantially or totally depraved by the fall, or become the 1302property of Satan. The Incarnation is not a mere device and contrivance, to which God was forced to resort because he could not otherwise pardon the elect, and substitute for the eternal punishment which was due to them an eternal reward due to Christ, and transferred to them without any personal merit of congruity or condignity. The plan of God for salvation through Christ is not a mere segregation of a certain number of individuals from the world, that they may devote themselves exclusively to their sanctification by purely interior, spiritual acts—waiting until death shall release their souls from a bodily existence which is a mere degradation, and a world which is utterly accursed and given over to the dominion of the devil. Such ideas are exaggerations and perversions of Christian doctrine. They necessarily provoked a reaction and revolt in the minds and hearts of men whenever they were taught; and there has been, consequently, a perpetual effort, among Protestants who were not willing to abandon Christianity altogether, to find some kind of rational religion which can plausibly assume to be the pure, original Christianity of Christ. But by eliminating or altering and diminishing the mysteries and supernatural elements of Christianity, they change its nature and reduce it to something so ordinary and commonplace that its divinity is lost. The ideal Christianity becomes a sort of peaceable, orderly, moral, well-educated society, in which as nearly as possible all men enjoy the comfortable and respectable mode of life belonging to the gentry of England, and the poorest class are as well off as the ordinary inhabitants of a pleasant, old-fashioned New 1303England village. That there is something attractive about this picture we will not deny. But we cannot think that the production of a state of merely natural well-being in society, of commonplace human happiness, even supposing it founded upon religion, sanctified by piety, and tending toward a more perfect happiness in the future life, was the real, ultimate end which our Lord had in view when he founded the church. The old idea of a millennium which used to prevail among the Puritans of New England had something in it very beautiful; but it was only a beautiful dream, never destined to be realized in this world. The philosophical dream of a golden age, to be attained by progress in science, civilization, political and social reform, is still more futile. The doleful and terrible wail of the pessimist philosophers and poets of Germany, which begins to find an echo over all the civilized world, would be the outcry of a despair justified by the whole history of mankind, were it not for the light which faith casts across the gloom, and the solution of the dark enigma of life which is given by the cross on which Jesus died, exclaiming, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The drama of human history is grand and terrible and tragic. It has scenes and episodes which have a character of quiet, delightful, and joyous comedy, but it is a tragedy; it has been so from the first, and will be the same to the end. The Son of God came on the earth in the very crisis of human history, and his human life was a tragedy, ending in a sublime triumph, but a triumph won by sorrow, conflict, and conquest. All that was tragic in previous history culminated in him, and subsequent 1304history can be nothing else than the last act of the tragedy hastening to the dénoûment, and preparing the way for the second coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, with great glory, to achieve his final triumph. The Apocalypse of St. John, in which all things that were to come to pass in the last age of the world passed before his entranced spirit in a series of sublime and awful pictures, shows that this horoscope is true. What for him was a vaticination is for us in great part a retrospect, by which it is historically verified, so far as the scroll of time has unrolled itself, and by which the similar character of that part which is still in prospect is surely foreboded.

Christianity is an historical religion. It is the outcome of all previous history, and its inspired documents alone, in which the genealogy of its founder is traced back to Adam, and the record of the origin of the human race preserved, give us authentic history of the most important facts which underlie all the great events and movements of the world. This history connects the beginning of human destinies with the earlier and higher sphere, where the history of the intelligent creation begins—with those great events, the trial of the angels, the rebellion of Lucifer, and the commencement of the warfare whose seat was transferred to the earth by the successful ruse of the serpent in the temptation of Eve. In the expulsion of our weeping parents from Eden into the outside world, humanity was led by a counter strategic movement upon the new battle-field, where Satan was to be vanquished in fair and open war. All the demons, reinforced by all the traitors and deserters 1305they could gain from among men, were allowed to pit themselves against the sons of God and the holy angels, and against the First-begotten Son himself when he came in the infirmity of human nature, as the captain of salvation, to become perfect through sufferings and to lead his brethren by the same arduous road to glory. Redemption and salvation consist essentially in liberation from the servitude of Satan; victory in the combat against that mass of false maxims, evil principles, and wicked men called the world, those low and vicious propensities called the flesh, and the seducing spirits sent forth by Satan to draw men into his rebellion against God. Human society was organized under the law of redemption, in the family, in the social, and in the political community, in religious communion, in order to reconstruct fallen humanity; to repair the ruin effected by the devil; to oppose a barrier against his further aggressions; to consolidate a perpetual force of resistance and warfare against him; and to be the instrument of the Son of God, the creator and redeemer of mankind, in effecting the final subjugation of the rebellion inaugurated and carried on by Lucifer. The division of nations, the colonization of the earth, the foundation of states, of industry and commerce, of art and science, of culture and civilization, is a divine work. Everything good in humanity is from the Word, the predestined Son of Man. The Book of Wisdom says that it was the delight of the eternal wisdom to be with the sons of men, and the early Fathers dilate on what is expressed in the German word Menschenfreundlichkeit, better than in any equivalent English term, as an 1306attribute of the Logos. That admirable sentiment of the Latin poet, Homo sum, et nihil humani alienum a me puto, may be most appropriately ascribed to the divine Person who joined the human nature to his uncreated essence in an indissoluble marriage. The devil is the author of nothing on the earth which has real being and life, but only of error and sin with their logical consequences—that is, of intellectual and moral perversion, of ruin, decay, and death. His kingdom is a graveyard and a realm of darkness beneath it. The kingdom of the living is the kingdom of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father through the Son. The power of Satan on the earth is gained by the invasion and treasonable surrender of the cities and fortresses founded by the rightful King of men, and consists in the influence which he usurps in the affairs of men, in the schism and heresy by which he breaks the unity of human brotherhood in Christ. The apostasy, the false religions, the corrupted ethics, the degenerate institutions of the old heathen world were schisms and heresies against the primitive revelation and the patriarchal unity of mankind in one true doctrine, worship, and discipline. The foundation of Judaism was a measure which the Lord adopted to oppose a bulwark against universal apostasy, to preserve the treasure of revelation and grace, and to prepare the way for a more perfect organization of the universal religion. Without abandoning the other nations, he concentrated his special providence upon Israel. And even here the history of his own special kingdom and peculiar people is altogether different from what our human reason and sentiments would expect 1307and wish for, and especially so in reference to the epoch when the Messias appeared. We cannot understand it, unless we recognize the universal law pervading the divine plan, by which almost unlimited play is given to free-will; the conflict of the powers of good and evil permitted to run its course; victory and salvation are achieved by labor, combat, and suffering; the world and humanity are set apart as a battle-field, between the Son of God, with his brethren by adoption among angels and men, on one side, Lucifer, with his army of apostate angels and men, on the other—a battle-field on which the everlasting destinies of the universe are decided for eternity.

After this long and circuitous digression we may direct our attention now on the specific nature of Christianity as an historical religion, and consider what organization Jesus Christ gave redeemed humanity in the universal church, how he embodied the absolute, universal religion, what means he adopted for achieving the work of the moral regeneration and eternal salvation of mankind.

The work undertaken by the Incarnate Word in person is evidently the continuation of that which he began through his ministering angels, his prophets, and his other human agents, and by far the most difficult and important part of the entire plan of God. Passing over his principal theandric work of redemption, we must affirm the same with equal emphasis and certainty of that which is supplementary to it, and by which it is extended to its term. In assuming human nature the Son of God assumed all its temporal and eternal relations; he grasped and drew into himself universal humanity and the whole creation. His first and direct object 1308was the glorification and beatification of human souls in God, but his action toward this end drew into its current and impelled by its energy all things connected with and subordinate to this highest and purely spiritual sphere of his creative wisdom. The action of Christ in history after his resurrection is necessarily more complex, more far-reaching and universal, more manifest and immediate, more obviously dominant and victorious, more evidently bearing on the final and eternal consummation of the divine plan in the universe through the destinies of man and the earth, than it could have been before that glorious and decisive event. Christianity, as an historical religion, must have more comprehension in its actual development than in its inchoate state before Christ. While it remains true that it is characteristic of the pure and perfect religion taught by the mouth of its divine Author to lead men to an interior, spiritual life, to the contemplation and love of God, to a paramount desire and effort for the salvation of the soul, and to bring this way of union with God in loving, spiritual brotherhood among men down to the level of the lowly and the poor in all natural goods, this idea does not require an exclusion of other and different aspects of the same religion. The specific good proposed and placed within reach is salvation, and not science, art, civilization, political order, social well-being, national development, the natural progress of mankind, the production of a brilliant series of great men, extraordinary works and events in the temporal order. The empires and cities, the grand monuments, the intellectual masterpieces, the entire array of results produced by human activity, and 1309all the splendor and felicity of the men who in outward seeming are the most favored and fortunate, are transient; they return to the nothingness from which they came. Nevertheless, they may be made tributary to something higher and more durable, and what is substantial and indestructible in and under these evanescent forms may survive and reappear, like the mortal part of human nature, by a future resurrection. There is no reason, therefore, why Christ, the Incarnate Word, in effecting the regeneration of the human race by means and instruments which are natural and human, yet not purely natural and human, or standing alone in their nude and finite essence, should not take hold of all human things and relations and subject them to his own special service. There is no reason why he should not have secondary and subordinate ends indirectly connected with his one principal and ultimate object. There is no reason why Christianity, though not identified with and merged in human affairs, should not be in intimate relations with them all. In fact, there is every kind of reason to the contrary, and as an historical religion it cannot be regarded in any other light. It must be in continuity with its own past on the same lines. The same constructive principles must pervade religion in all ages. The same law of curvature must be verified in every segment of the circle, and all the diameters must be equal. Unity is essential to universality. The superior courses of stone in the building must correspond to the inferior, and rest upon them and upon the foundation. Christianity as an historical religion must be of equal dimensions and similar structure to the substratum furnished by the pre-Christian universal 1310history, where, so to speak, its sub-cellar, crypts, and basement are covered, and in great measure buried in inexplorable obscurity, beneath the walls of its colossal architecture.

When we consider Christianity as a religion in the precise and restricted sense, and the church as a strictly religious society, we cannot identify the Christian Church and religion so completely with Christianity in the wider sense as to confound the central nucleus with its environment and atmosphere. We must distinguish, accurately and carefully, those things which are really distinct, though not disunited and separate from one another. Religion is well defined by Mr. Baring-Gould as consisting essentially in dogma, worship, and discipline. The church is its organic embodiment. The absolute and universal religion must of course throw off what was proper only to a state of inchoate and imperfect development, and the church must be freed from what was proper only to a partial and national organic constitution. This is a doctrinal certitude with an actual verification in history. It is needless to prove that our Lord never thought of making Christianity a mere extension of Judaism, and of founding a universal kingdom which should be an enlargement, co-extensive with the world, of David’s monarchy, with the institutes of Moses and the religious ceremonial of Solomon’s temple as the model of its civil and ecclesiastical polity and its ritual of worship. It is equally unnecessary to prove that the divine Master thought as little of going back to the more ancient and simple dispensation of patriarchal religion. This would have been a regression instead of a progression; a dwindling and dwarfing 1311of humanity into a second infancy instead of its expansion into adult proportions, similar to the absurd imagination of Nicodemus in respect to the process of regeneration. The absolute, universal religion, by virtue of the law of continuity in growth, must necessarily retain all that which pertained to the essence and properties of religion as such—that is, of religion generically and specifically considered in respect to human nature in a state of probation; a lapsed condition; and in the way of restoration, through the redemption with its law of grace, as revealed by God from the beginning. All pertaining to its integrity and to its accidents, in so far as any such appurtenance is suited to human nature in all ages and nations—giving greater perfection, adaptation to its end, and power in its operation to religion—must also be considered as permanent for a sufficient reason, viz., that its cause and motive are general and persistent, though it may undergo modification and be subject to variation. Natural religion is preserved in revealed religion, the patriarchal in the Mosaic, and all these in the Christian religion. Precisely how much has been preserved, how much modified or altered, and in what way, how much dropped as obsolete in Christianity considered as an historical religion, must be determined historically. We know, however, before we examine the historical documents of Christianity, that, unless God manifests in his actual providence a determination to derogate from constant and general laws by introducing an entirely miraculous dispensation, we shall surely find in historical Christianity certain features absolutely requisite in a human religion. There are such features or characteristics 1312which in their generic ratio are known with certainty, prescinding from any information given by the actual, objective manifestation which Christianity presents in its history. It must be adapted to human nature—that is, it must be a religion suitable to a being who is not a pure spirit, or one united to a body by accidental, extrinsic, and temporary relations, but who is composed of soul and body in his specific and permanent essence. It must be adapted to the conditions in which human nature exists in its earthly stage of progress toward perfection—that is, suitable to men who are in multifarious relations with one another in the family, in society, in the state; relations both amicable and hostile, relations of similarity and of opposition, relations of great complexity and variability. It must be adapted to the character of the divine Person from whom it proceeds; as the Son of God and the Son of Man, united with the Father in one essence by the Holy Spirit; hypostatically united within his proper personality subsisting in two distinct natures, by the same Spirit; sanctified in soul and body by this life-giving Spirit; and by the same Spirit sanctifying, and uniting in himself to the Godhead, redeemed humanity. It must be adapted to the temporal and eternal end for which it is intended—that is, suitable for the instruction, sanctification, unification, temporal and eternal salvation of all mankind, in all nations and ages; for the work of regeneration, individual, social, political, intellectual, moral, and physical, as an absolute, universal, world-conquering power.

In order to meet these requisitions, its spirit and body must be essentially and indissolubly united; 1313it must be organized in a perfect and unequal society of universal extension, sovereign independence, complex and irresistible forces. It must have both divine and human attributes, and be vivified by the divine Spirit. It must be inseparably united with its head and throughout its members, indefectible, immutable, and endowed with the plenitude of graces, gifts, and powers merited by Jesus Christ for mankind and sufficient for the production of the highest degrees of human virtue in the greatest possible variety. It must be supreme, and have all things subordinated to its own end, controlled by its influence, subservient to its purposes as instrumentalities of its dynamical action.

As the absolute world-religion, its dogma, worship, and discipline must vastly transcend the initial revelation, elementary ritual, and propædeutic order of Judaism. There is a kind of foreshadowing of all these features of the kingdom of Christ in universal history, and there are abundant types and prophecies of it in the history and inspired documents of the patriarchal and Judaic dispensations. We need only to confront the idea of Christianity, derived à priori from the consideration of the plan of God manifested in his works and word before the time of Christ, with the actual, historical Christianity, in order to give this idea distinctness, and to add the last complement of certitude to our judgment that it truly represents the reality. Wherever we find existing as a concrete, historical fact that which realizes in the fullest and the highest sense the predictions of the prophets; that which fulfils in the most perfect manner the anticipations of history; that which is the most worthy of the 1314stupendous miracles culminating in the resurrection; that which corresponds in magnitude and grandeur to all the great works of God; that which gives the most sublime significance to the destiny of man; that which magnifies in the most wonderful way the power and love of God and the object of the Incarnation—there we behold, with all the evidence which moral demonstration can furnish, the genuine, absolute religion, manifest before our eyes as historical Christianity. Facts interpret prophecy, confirm and consolidate the conclusions of reason, determine the sense of much that is ambiguous in the disclosures of revelation. The test of history is therefore safe and conclusive in respect to the genuine essence and nature of Christianity.

The application of this test shows that Catholic Christianity, which alone can claim unbroken, unaltered historical continuity and universality from the apostolic age, is the genuine and absolute religion of Christ. Any other species is unknown to history as an historical religion. The Catholic faith, worship, and discipline manifest themselves in the church of apostolic succession at the earliest period in which this church is clearly and distinctly visible through the medium of historical testimony. There is no resource for those who call in question the identity of Nicene Christianity with the apostolic religion, except in the obscurity of the century immediately following the death of St. John, and in the indistinct, incomplete, and, as considered separately from the traditional supplement and commentary, partly ambiguous records, allusions, and testimonies, in respect to some parts of Christian doctrine, worship, and discipline, of the New Testament. The nobler 1315class of modern Protestant writers admit in a general sense the historical continuity of the essence of Christianity in the Catholic Church, placing their own restrictions on the definition of that which is essential as distinguished from the non-essential, as well as from abnormal modifications. Those who are not of the semi-Catholic school are obliged to seek for some tenable ground on which to maintain their claim of fellowship in essentials with the universal church, in a theory of transition from apostolical to ecclesiastical Christianity during the period lying between the close of the first and the end of the second centuries. The hinge of the question is the institution of the episcopate, as a distinct and superior grade of the Christian presbyterate, with hierarchical authority. We do not propose to discuss the proofs from Scripture and the most ancient historical records of the apostolic institution of the episcopate, and of what is called the apostolic succession of bishops, as a principal and immutable part of organic Christianity. This controversy has been exhausted by the able writers of the high-church school. Professor Fisher presents but little in addition to what has been urged by the advocates of parity, and fully answered in several works easily accessible to English readers, though his manner of presenting his case is such as to make the most of it, and shows both critical ability and a candid spirit. A rejoinder ought to be minute and critical like the argument itself. As we have not at present time and space for this, we prefer to pass it over altogether. Our line of argument leads us to consider some deeper and more universal and at the same time more obvious and easily apprehended principles of 1316bringing the Catholic and Protestant theories of Christianity to an historical issue.

The essential nature of Christianity as represented by one of these theories is specifically different from what it is as represented by the other. According to the latter theory, the essence of the Christian religion is something exclusively spiritual and individual. The exterior organization is not in vital and substantial unity with it, but is an habiliment, an extrinsic instrument, a vehicle, or a separate medium. One who considers that faith, the way of salvation, spiritual union with God in Christ, are in a separate and independent sphere, very naturally and logically considers that questions of ecclesiastical organization and government are of inferior moment; that symbols of doctrine, forms of worship, and modes of discipline are not matters of perpetual and universal obligation as founded on divine right and law. Such a question as that of episcopacy must, therefore, appear to him as among the non-essentials; and even supposing that he admits the certainty or probability that it is the apostolic form, he will see no reason why it should be necessary to the being of the church, or even to its well-being, or why Christians should be divided in fellowship on account of matters merely belonging to exterior order and indifferent forms.