Volume 26 — VOL. XXVI., No. 156.—MARCH, 1878. (continued 5)

After resting for a time they repaired to the grotto; M. Guerrier having engaged two men-servants to assist him in lifting his wife from the carriage to the foot of the statue of Mary Immaculate. It was then about five o’clock. There it was that we first saw Mme. Guerrier. Her husband gave us the letter of M. Louis Bonnel, and thus we became acquainted with the trials of this family.

The prayer of Mme. Guerrier was ardent and absorbed. Motionless and fixed, as if in ecstasy, her gaze never quitted the material representation of the Holy Virgin, who had appeared where now her image stands, and whom she had come so far to invoke. Everything in her countenance and aspect expressed faith and hope.

Before setting out Mme. Guerrier had received absolution, and as much as possible disposed her soul for the reception of the great grace she implored. She was ready. Her husband, though a practical Christian, was still a little behindhand. Burdened as he had been with all the weight of temporal 1656anxieties, he had not been quite so active in arranging for his spiritual needs. With an exceeding watchfulness he had attended to everything relating to the comfort of his charge, but the preparation of himself he had delayed, awaiting for this, the decisive moment and the latest hour.

At Lourdes this hour came.

Late in the evening he requested the Abbé Martignon to hear his confession. As he had all along intended, he desired on the morrow to receive Holy Communion with his wife.

And thus in the sacrament of penance, after the avowal of his faults, he had the consolation of pouring out his troubles and deep anxieties into the sympathizing heart of his confessor. The details of these confidences are the secret of God, but this we know well: that the confessor, who is God’s lieutenant for the time, and who, in the name of the Father of all, pronounces the words of pity and pardon, often experiences, more fully than other men, the sentiment of deepest compassion. And great was the compassion of the Abbé Martignon for the misfortune of this distressed husband, for the sufferings of the wife, and the mourning of their family. He put aside all consideration of himself to think only for them. Not that he forgot his own sufferings, or the bright hope with which he was looking forward to the morrow; on the contrary, he remembered this; but a thought of a higher order, which had already presented itself to his mind, recurred to him now, and he at once acted upon it.

“Let your wife have confidence,” he said to his penitent, “and do you have confidence as well. I saw her when she was praying this 1657evening at the grotto. She is one of those who triumph over the heart of God and compel a miracle.” Then, telling him about his own novena, he added: “To-morrow, then, at eight o’clock I shall celebrate the Mass which is my last hope!... Well, say to Mme. Guerrier that not only will I say this Mass for her, but that, if I am to have a share in the sensible answer which I solicit, I give up this share to her. I make over to her intention all the previous prayers of this novena, and I substitute her intentions for mine, so that, if the answer is to be a cure, it shall not be mine but hers. Let her, before she goes to sleep to-night, and to-morrow on awaking, associate with her prayers the name of Mgr. Peyramale, and at eight o’clock come, both of you, to my Mass at the basilica. I have good hope that something will happen.”

In accepting with simplicity such an offer as this M. and Mme. Guerrier could not measure the heroism and the extent of the sacrifice which the Abbé Martignon was making in their favor. For this the knowledge of a long past was necessary—a past of which they knew nothing.

The sick lady did not fail to mingle in her prayers the name of Mgr. Peyramale, and towards eight o’clock in the morning she was taken to the basilica to be present at the last Mass of this novena, her feeling of assured confidence in her recovery being singularly strengthened by the noble act of self-denial made in her favor.

Since the previous day the crypt and upper church had been filled by the pilgrims from Marseilles. It would have been difficult to carry a sick person through the dense multitude, especially one to whom the least shock or movement caused 1658suffering and fatigue. One of the first chapels on entering was therefore chosen in which to say the Mass. It happened to be the first on the left, dedicated to Ste. Germaine Cousin.

Mme. Guerrier heard the Mass seated on a chair, her feet, absolutely inert, being placed on a priedieu in front of her.

While reading the epistle the remembrance of Mgr. Peyramale suddenly presented itself with extraordinary clearness before the mind of the celebrant, when he came to the last lines, and saw these words, whose striking fitness impressed itself irresistibly upon him:

“The Lord ... hath so magnified thy name this day that thy praise shall not depart out of the mouth of men, who shall be mindful of the power of the Lord for ever; for that thou hast not spared thy life by reason of the distress and tribulation of thy people, but in the presence of the Lord our God thou hast repaired our ruin.”^[203]

“I must die to repair the ruin,” had often been the words of Mgr. Peyramale.

At the moment of the Elevation all were kneeling except the paralyzed lady. In her powerlessness she was compelled to remain reclining, the sacred Host being brought to her where she lay.

Scarcely had she received the Blessed Sacrament when she felt in herself a strange power which seemed as if impelling her to rise and kneel, while an inner voice seemed to command her to do so.

Near to her knelt her husband, absorbed in prayer and thanksgiving 1659after Communion. He heard the soft rustling of a dress, looked up, and saw his wife kneeling by his side.

Respect for the holy place alone prevented the exclamation of wonder that rose to his lips. Instinctively he looked towards the altar—it was at the moment of the Dominus vobiscum—and his eyes met those of the priest, which were radiant with joy and emotion. At the Last Gospel Mme. Guerrier rose without effort and continued standing. As for her husband, he could scarcely remain upright, his knees trembled so. He gazed at his wife, afraid to speak to her or to believe the testimony of his senses, while she remained praying and giving thanks in the greatest calmness and recollectedness of spirit.

The priest laid aside his sacred vestments and knelt at a corner of the altar to make his thanksgiving, with what fervor may be imagined.

The sign he had asked had been given, luminous and unmistakable, on the ninth day, when, at the Mass said by himself, the requested answer came which by an heroic act of charity he had transferred to another. Whatever may have been the joy of the recovered lady, that of the priest was greater still. His friend, the Curé Peyramale, now in heaven, had already begun to manifest his presence there, while the circumstances attending the miracle seemed to show that Mary herself took in hand the glorification of the faithful servant who had been here below the minister of her work.

Neither the Abbé Martignon nor those who had accompanied him had then paid any attention to the details of the little side-chapel into which a hand more delicate and 1660strong than that of man had led them; and yet the stones, the sculptures, and inscriptions there were so many voices which repeated the same name. It was the first chapel on entering, and the commencement of the basilica. Under the window, on three large slabs of marble, is inscribed an abridged account of the eighteen apparitions, including the message with which Bernadette was charged by Our Blessed Lady: “Go and tell the priests that I wish a chapel to be built to me here”—a message which indicated the mission and the person of him who had dug the foundation and laid the first stone.

Above the great arch which forms the entrance to this chapel is inscribed the word “Pénitence”—the answer to the request for roses to bloom in February, and which spoke of suffering; while on the right of the altar, over the smaller arch leading to the next chapel, the sculptor has represented Simon the Cyrenian bearing the cross of Jesus.

On the altar is carved the young shepherdess saint (also of the south of France) who seemed best to typify the favored child of Lourdes—namely, the pure and innocent Ste. Germaine Cousin. Bernadette was wont to say: “Of all my lambs I love the smallest best.” Ste. Germaine is represented with a lamb at her feet, while behind her is the dog, symbol of Vigilance, Fidelity, and Strength, these virtues recalling the energetic pastor who had never suffered persecution to touch the child of Mary.

If, in granting this cure, Our Lady of Lourdes had not intended specially to associate with it the remembrance of her servant, would she not have chosen another moment 1661than this ninth day, asked for beforehand, another place than this significative chapel, and another circumstance than the last Mass of the novena made by that servant’s intimate friend? In all these delicate harmonies of detail we seem to perceive the divine hand.

We resume the narrative.

After her act of thanksgiving Mme. Guerrier rose from her knees, calm and serene, without the least excitement, physical or moral, but still radiant from the heavenly contact, and, turning to her husband, she said: “Give me your arm, dear; let us go down.”

Still fearing that what he saw was too good to last, M. Guerrier wished to summon the porters.

“No,” said the Abbé Martignon; “let her walk.”

Taking her husband’s arm, she pressed it for a moment to her heart, full of happiness and gratitude; then, with a firmer step than he, descended the two steps of the chapel and crossed the nave.

The Marseilles pilgrims thronged the church, singing the power of the Immaculate Mother of God, not knowing that close beside them, in a little side-chapel, during the stillness of a Low Mass, that benignant power had just been put forth.

On leaving the basilica Mme. Guerrier descended with ease the twenty-five steps of the stone flight at the foot of which the carriage was waiting.

The coachman gazed at Mme. Guerrier in amazement and remained motionless, until, on a sign from her husband, he got down and opened the door.

“No,” said the cured lady; “I wish to go to the grotto.”

“Certainly; we will drive there.”

1662“Not at all. Your arm is enough. I will walk.”

“She is cured,” said the Abbé Martignon; “let her do as she wishes.”

So, all together, they walked to the grotto.

Here Mme. Guerrier made her second act of thanksgiving before the image of Mary Immaculate. Then, after drinking of the miraculous spring, she went to the piscina, in which, though cured, she wished to bathe. After this immersion she lost entirely a certain stiffness which had remained, and which had somewhat impeded the free play of the articulations.

She made a point of returning on foot to the town, the carriage preceding at a slow pace; but about half-way the Abbé Martignon said, smiling: “Madame, you are cured, but I am not; and I must own that I can go no further. In charity to me let us get into the carriage.”

“Willingly,” she replied, and, hastening to it, she sprang lightly in.

They traversed Lourdes, until, a little below the old parish church, they turned into the Rue de Langelle, and stopped near the rising walls of the new one.

Mme. Guerrier and her companions alighted, and, descending some steep wooden steps, entered the crypt. Here was a tomb, as yet without inscription. She sprinkled some holy water over it with a laurel spray that lay there, and then knelt down and made her third act of thanksgiving by the venerated remains of Mgr. Peyramale.

During the week which had followed the death of this holy priest no pilgrimage had appeared in the mourning town. It was on this 1663same day of glory that the first, that of Catholic Marseilles, came to pray at his tomb, and thus the first crown (from a distance) placed upon it bears the date of the event we have just related: “Les Pélerins Marseillais, 16 Septembre, 1877.”

When M. and Mme. Guerrier returned to the house of M. Lavigne great was the joy of those who had so kindly received them. They regarded this miracle as a benediction upon their house, and heard with deepest interest the details of what had taken place.

“Madame,” then said M. Lavigne, “are you aware into what place exactly Providence led you in bringing you to us?... You are in the house which was the presbytery of Lourdes at the time of the apparitions; and you occupy the room in which M. le Curé Peyramale questioned Bernadette and received from her mouth the commands of the Blessed Virgin.”

After remaining some days at Lourdes M. and Mme. Guerrier returned to St. Gobain. The journey was rapid and without fatigue. Passing over its earlier details, we quote the following portions of a letter from M. Guerrier, now before us:

“When we reached Chauny my wife’s younger brother, M. Alfred Biver, was waiting for us at the station, full of anxiety; for, in spite of the letters and telegrams, he could not believe. What was his surprise when my beloved wife threw herself into his arms!—a surprise from which he could not recover, and which drew from him repeated exclamations during the drive of fourteen or fifteen kilometres from Chauny to St. Gobain. We drove rapidly, for we were eager to reach home. How long the way appeared! At last there was 1664the house! It was then about five in the evening. We saw the whole family waiting for us, great and small: sisters, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, and, above all, our dear little ones—all were at the door, eager to make sure that their happiness was real.

“Ah! when they saw their mother, sister, aunt alight alone from the carriage and hasten towards them, it was a picture which no human pencil could paint. What joy! what tears! what embraces! The mother of my Justine was never weary of embracing the daughter whom Our Lady of Lourdes restored to her upright, walking with a firm step—cured.

“Detained by his eighty-three years, her father was in his sitting-room up a few stairs. We mounted; he was standing at the door, his hands trembling more from happiness than age, and his noble countenance glistening with tears.

“‘My daughter!...’

“Mme. Guerrier knelt before him. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘you blessed me when, incurably afflicted, I started for Lourdes; bless me now that I return to you miraculously cured—as I said I should....’

“And, as if nothing were to be wanting to our happiness, it so happened that this very day was the fête of her who returned thus triumphantly to her father’s house. What a glad feast of St. Justine we celebrated!

“But this is not all. The family had its large share; the church also must have hers. The excellent curé of St. Gobain, the Abbé Poindron, had obtained from the lord bishop of Soissons authority to have solemn benediction in thanksgiving for the incomparable favor that had been granted to us.

“On the day after our arrival, 1665therefore, we repaired to the parish church, through crowds of awestruck and wondering people. The bells were ringing joyously, and the church was full as on days of great solemnity. Above the congregation rose the statue of Notre Dame de Lourdes, and, facing it, a place was prepared for her whom Mary had deigned to heal. The priest ascended the pulpit, and related simply and without comment the event that was the occasion of the present ceremony, after which some young girls, veiled and clad in white, took upon their shoulders the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the procession began; my dear wife and myself walking immediately behind the image of our heavenly benefactress, amid the enthusiastic singing of hymns of praise and the triumphal sound of the organ.... Then the Te Deum burst forth. Our Lord God was upon the altar....”

If earth has festivals like this, what must be the festivals of Paradise?

Here we would fain close our narrative, leaving the hearts of our readers to sun themselves in these heavenly rays. But in this world there is no light without a shadow. 1666In the letter we have just quoted M. Guerrier, after speaking with fervent gratitude of the heroic charity of Canon Martignon, says how earnestly he and his are praying for the restoration of his health. Alas! these prayers are not yet granted. A few weeks after the event here related he left Lourdes for Hyères, being too ill to return, as he had desired, to his own archbishop in Algiers.

In the midst of her joy Mme. Guerrier has a feeling very like remorse. “Poor Abbé Martignon!” she lately said to us; “it seems to me as if I had stolen his cure.”

No! This lady has, it is true, received a great and touching favor; but assuredly a still more signal grace was granted to that holy priest when he was enabled to perform so great an act of self-renunciation and charity—an act which bestows on him a resemblance to his divine Master, who said: “Greater love than this no man hath, to lay down his life for his people.” Let us not presume to pity him, for he has chosen “the better part.”

May his humility pardon us the pain we shall cause him by publishing, contrary to his express prohibition, this recent episode of his life!

1667

PIUS THE NINTH.

In the afternoon of Thursday, February 7, our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., died.

In his person passes away one who to two hundred millions of spiritual subjects was the greatest figure of the age, and who to all the rest of the world, if not the greatest, was certainly the most conspicuous. The history of the last thirty years—that larger history that takes within its scope the whole human family rather than this or that nationality or people—will in after-times centre around him. It will be seen that he has had a hand in shaping it, though to-day it may seem that that hand was brushed rudely aside or lifted only in impotent menace against the irresistible movements and the natural aspirations of the age. Time is a great healer and revealer of truth; and time will deal gently and justly with the memory of Pius IX. When the smoke of the long battle that has been raging in Europe, and more or less over all the world, during the last half-century, shall have finally cleared away, and men’s eyes be better prepared to regard all things honestly, truth, now obscured and hidden, will come to light, and the persistent action, misnamed reaction, of Pius IX. will appear to have been the truest wisdom and the soundest policy.

The field, of which this wonderful life is the central figure, is so vast, its lights and shadows so changing, its surface so diversified, and the events with which it is crowded are so many and so great, that one shrinks from attempting to picture it even faintly. Yet we cannot, even with the brief 1668time allowed us, permit the Holy Father to go to his grave without a tribute of admiration and respect for his memory, however inadequate that tribute may be. Into the minute details of his life we do not purpose here to enter. These are already sufficiently well known, and there are ample sources of information from which to gather them. We purpose rather passing a rapid glance over the most prominent events that mark the career of the Pope, that give it its significance and make of it one of the most remarkable in history.

Whoever attempts to deal with Pius IX., with a view to what the man was, what he achieved, what he failed to achieve, the meaning, the purport, and the influence of his life, must necessarily regard him in a twofold aspect: first, as a temporal prince, a man occupied with human and secular affairs; secondly, as the supreme head of the Catholic Church, the vicar of Christ on earth, and the father of the faithful. As the one his life was a failure, outwardly at least. He has gone to his grave shorn of all his earthly possessions and dignities; and his successor will enter into office much as the first pontiff entered, with no authority save that bequeathed him by his divine Master. As the second—as supreme pastor of the church—Pius IX. yields to none of his illustrious predecessors in point of moral and real dignity and grandeur. This is the strange and significant contrast in the man’s life: the decadence and utter loss of the temporal power and principality of the 1669church under his reign, with a contrary deepening and strengthening of the bonds that bind him to the faithful as their spiritual father and guide. In both these aspects we shall look at him: as a prince who failed in much that he attempted, and as a spiritual ruler who grew stronger by his very losses; under whom the church has marvellously, almost miraculously, developed; and who leaves it to-day in a spiritually stronger condition than perhaps it has ever been in. As a temporal sovereign there may have been greater popes than he; as a spiritual, few, if any, have surpassed him. And much, very much of the growth of the church within the period of his troubled reign is undoubtedly to be attributed to the personal influence of the pontiff, to his own high example of virtue and burning zeal, and to the keen eye he had for the church’s truest interests and welfare.

He was ushered into a revolutionary epoch, in a time when disaster was heaped upon the church and on civil society. Lacordaire says of himself: “I was born on the wild and stormy morning of this nineteenth century.” The same is true of him who became Pius IX. He was born at Sinigaglia, May 13, 1792, while Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were prisoners and waiting for the scaffold to release them from their woes. Napoleon I. had not yet arisen. The United States had not much more than come into being. Joseph II. ruled and reigned in Austria. France was in the hands of the progeny of Voltaire. Sardinia did not exist. Catholic Ireland did not exist politically. Australia was almost an unknown land. It was a period of moral earthquakes. 1670The progeny of Voltaire were very active in the propagation of their doctrines; and Italy, which for centuries had been the battle-ground of kings and the theatre of petty rival factions, offered an inviting soil for the evil seed. In 1793 the heads were struck off from Louis and his queen; the Goddess of Reason was enthroned in Notre Dame; and the reign of “liberty, fraternity, equality” began and ended with—“death.”

Then came that grim child of the Revolution, Napoleon, and changed everything. He had an eye to religion, and he wanted a sort of tame pope whom he might use as a puppet. Italy felt his iron heel, and things went from bad to worse there. It saw the pope, with others of its treasures, carried off by this rough-and-ready conqueror. In 1805 this same conqueror had himself crowned “King of Italy”—king of a kingdom which did not exist, save as a pillage-ground for whoever chose to enter. In 1808 the Papal States were “irrevocably” incorporated with the French Empire. So decreed the omnipotent conqueror. Where is his empire now? Where was it and where was he a few years afterwards? He was eating his heart out at St. Helena; his empire had vanished; and the pope whom he had captured and imprisoned was back in Rome.

ROME PREPARED FOR REVOLUTION.

All this time the young Giovanni Mastaï-Ferretti was pursuing his studies as conveniently as he could under such circumstances. We do not recall these events in the earlier life of the boy idly, but with a very distinct purpose: to show that when in 1846 Pius IX. was elevated 1671to the Papacy, and to the guardianship of the church’s temporalities, he stepped into no bed of roses. He stepped, on the contrary, into a very hot-bed of revolution—a revolution that, with less or more of secrecy, had overspread Europe, and that found its most convenient as well as its most necessary centre of attack in Rome and in the Papal States. Italy had long been the prey of Europe. The people had suffered terribly from foreign invasions. They suffered almost equally from home intrigues and jealousies. With all this the popes had nothing to do. It was simply a repetition of the history of the Italian peninsula from the disruption of the Roman Empire down. The outer barbarians were always knocking at her gates and trampling on her soil, invited there by native quarrels.

It is necessary to bear these things well in mind, in order to judge rightly of the difficulties against which Pius IX. had to contend. He was elected to an impoverished and disturbed principality, to a centre of revolution in an era of revolution. All Italy groaned with trouble. The people were ripe for any mad-cap scheme which should profess to better their condition. There was revolution in the air, all around them, all over the world. There were burning ideas afloat of people’s rights, and people’s wrongs, and people’s futures. Schemes of regeneration for the human race were abundant as the schemers; and some of these were very keen, far-sighted, and resolute men. Mazzini was one of them. His policy was simple enough, and it is the policy of all his followers to-day: For the people to rule you must first destroy the 1672rulers—kings; before destroying the kings, who (in Europe at least) are the representatives of authority, you must destroy the priests who preach submission to lawful authority. Death to the priests! death to the kings! and then, long live the people!

That, we believe, is a fair presentation of the Mazzini programme for the regeneration of Italy and of the rest of the world. It has its fascinations for empty minds and empty stomachs, and the masses of the people, particularly of the Italians, just about the time of which we write had both empty minds and empty stomachs. The people of the Papal States, in common with the people of all the other Italian States, and, indeed, of states generally, were not in the happiest condition possible. Wars and foreign invasions and constant turmoil from day to day are not the best agents of good government. So Pius IX. came to an uneasy throne.

PIUS IX. AS A POLITICAL REFORMER.

The cry of the Roman people, of the whole Italian people, as of all people just then, was for reform. They wanted a share in the government; and there was no harm in that. The new pontiff began his reign by at once setting about practical reform. His scheme was excellent. The details of it must be found elsewhere. Practically it amounted to letting the people have a just and rational share in the government. It was not universal suffrage. But the Papal States were not the United States; and there are intelligent and patriotic men in the United States even who begin to doubt about the actual efficacy of universal suffrage as a 1673panacea for all political or social evils. It is not long since Mr. Disraeli laid down the daring doctrine in the English House of Commons that universal suffrage was not a natural right of man, to which doctrine nobody seemed to object. The Pope, then, set earnestly and practically to work at every kind of reform. He set on foot a scheme of government which should admit the laity to their lawful place in civic functions. He looked to the laws of commerce, which were in a very bad state. He struck at vicious monopolies, in return for which the monopolists struck viciously at him. He was very careful about the finances, his treasury being low indeed, or rather non-existent. He advised the people, who, under the impulse of a steady conspiracy, seized every opportunity at the beginning of his reign of getting up festivals in his honor, to spend their money at home, or hoard it for an evil hour, or devote it to some charitable or educational purpose. He was clement to political offences. He was kind and charitable to the oppressed Jews of Rome, and removed their civil disabilities before England thought of doing so.

All this is matter of fact, beyond question or dispute. It was recognized by the outer world. All the crowned heads of Europe, with the exception of Austria and the Italian principalities, who found themselves in a position of painful contrast, sent their hearty congratulations to the Pope; and the voice of New York—non-Catholic New York—joined in with them. The Pope was, for the time being at least, the most popular man in the world as well as in Italy. And he deserved his popularity, for he 1674was real and resolute in what he attempted.

WHY HE FAILED AS A REFORMER.

How, then, came the sad sequel? Why did all this fail? Pius IX. looked even beyond the Papal States in his political schemes. He wished for a united Italy. He was a true Italian. He proposed a confederation of the Italian States, which, without infringing on any people’s rights, should constitute one Italy, show a united front to the foreigner, and remove all excuse for foreign interference. Why was this, too, a failure?

Because it was intended that it should be a failure. Because the men who used the clamor for reform as an agitating force among the people wanted nothing so little as actual reform, least of all in the prince of the church. Good government was what most they feared; for good government makes, as far as government can make, people happy and well off and reconciled to order. But order and contentment among the people were precisely what Mazzini least desired.

Pius IX. was in heart and soul and act a reformer of reformers. As a temporal ruler he desired nothing in this world so much as the welfare and happiness of his people, and he took all honest means to bring about that happiness and welfare. But he was met at the outset by a strong and wide-spread conspiracy—a conspiracy that had existed long before his time, that had laid its plans and arranged its mode of action, and that was ready to do any diabolical deed in order to carry its purpose through. The very willingness of the Pope to concede reforms helped it. It took him up and petted and played with 1675him. The clubs that roamed the streets and shouted themselves hoarse with Viva Pio Nono! and Viva Pio Nono solo! were instruments of the conspirators. The offices which the Pope threw open to the laity were seized upon by conspirators. His guards and soldiers were corrupted and led by corrupt officers and generals. Some of the clergy even felt the contamination. Ministry after ministry was tried and changed, and only succeeded in exasperating the minds of the people, as it was intended they should. The Pope had faith in human nature, and could not believe but that the honest measures which he devised for the benefit of his subjects would be honestly accepted by them. Although he knew of the conspiracy against his throne and against society, perhaps he scarcely realized its depth and intensity. The horrible assassination of De Rossi undeceived him, and the reformer and gentle prince had to fly for his life and in disguise from his own subjects.

TRIUMPH OF THE REVOLUTION.

Not two years of his reign have passed, and the Pope is already an exile at Gaeta. Pandemonium reigned in Rome. It was not the secret societies alone who brought all this about. They were aided by some, at least, of the crowned heads of Europe; and Palmerston, as infamous a politician as ever conspired against the right, was hand and glove with them, ably seconded by Gladstone, whose recent attack on the Pope cannot have surprised those who remembered his political career. Meanwhile Piedmont was creeping to the front in Italy, and though at first Mazzini was as thoroughly opposed 1676to Charles Albert as to the Pope and the priests, the conviction grew upon the conspirators that kings might sometimes be utilized as well as killed, and that Italy might, for the time being at least, be united under the Sardinian. This conviction only came slowly, and there was a man at the head of affairs in Piedmont who was keen in reading the signs of the times, and who never missed a chance. Cavour utilized the secret societies, and the secret societies utilized Cavour. In like manner Louis Napoleon, then coming to the front in France, utilized, and was in turn utilized by, them. Palmerston, Cavour, Louis Napoleon, a dangerous and powerful triad, were with the conspirators, while Austria blundered on with characteristic stupidity, actually courting the fate which has since overtaken it.

It may be said that we concede too much power to the secret societies. Who and what are they after all? A handful of men working in the dark, led by crack-brained enthusiasts who write inflammatory letters and publish silly pamphlets at safe distances from the scene of action. They are more than this, however. They are well organized, and they trade on real wrongs and disaffection too well grounded. Certainly, in the earlier period of the Pope’s reign men were far from being, as a whole, well governed in Europe. They were not at rest; they had not been at rest from the beginning of the century. Reforms from their rulers came very slowly and grudgingly. The conspirators possessed all the daring of adventurers, and spread out a political El Dorado glittering before the hungry eyes of bitter and disappointed men. In 1677such a state of affairs the wildest chimeras seem possible to the common mind, and in this lies the real strength of secret societies, which find their growth cramped only where men are freest and best off, as among ourselves.

A fair idea of what the reign of “the people” meant may be gathered from the state of Rome while the pontiff was in exile at Gaeta. It was cousin-german to the reign of the Commune in Paris in more recent days. And for this the Pope was driven from his own city. These were the reformers who could not be satisfied with the Holy Father’s rational measures of real reform. These were the “heroes” honored by England, by the United States, by all the enlightened and advanced men of all lands. It was for opposing and condemning these that Pius IX. is regarded by enlightened non-Catholics as a reactionist of the worst type, a foe to progress, an enemy to popular liberties. A government of assassins was preferred by the world, or at least by a very large portion of it, to the mild and beneficent sway of Pius IX. For condemning cut-throats he is against the spirit of the age; and for refusing to honor men like Mazzini and Garibaldi—men who openly professed and caused to be practised murder as a necessary political instrument—he is condemned as one who refused to recognize the progressive spirit of the times in which we live.

THE POPE AND LOUIS NAPOLEON.

While the Pope was at Gaeta, and while Rome was in the hands of what, without fear of contradiction, may be described as the vilest of vile rabbles, the baleful star of Louis Napoleon was rising over France. 1678He was false from the very beginning to the Pope, and the Pope understood him. But he was tricky and adroit. He had the born conspirator’s liking for mystery and secrecy and intrigue. He seemed by nature incapacitated to speak and act openly. He never was a friend to the Pope. By means that are already known and stamped in history he came to the lead of what, in spite of all vicissitudes and awful changes, remained at heart a Catholic nation. The trickster realized his position and trimmed his sails accordingly. He cared nothing for the Pope or for Catholicity; but the French people did. Moreover, the protection of the Pope and French predominance in Italy was a part of the Napoleonic legend, and likely to advance his own cause. French cannon, then, and French bayonets cleared the way for the return of the Pope to Rome. Not France, Catholic France alone, but all the world, had been shocked at the awful excesses perpetrated by the revolutionists in Rome, as was the case earlier still at the outbreak of the first French Revolution. France only anticipated Europe in its action by staying the reign of blood.

Louis Napoleon thenceforth assumed the character of protector of the interests of the Holy See. He was the persistent enemy of those interests. He was altogether opposed to ecclesiastical rule in an ecclesiastical state. This friend and protector of the Pope labored all his political life, and used the great influence of a Catholic nation, to bring about what has since been consummated: the robbery of the States of the Church, the invasion of the Holy See, the Piedmontese ascendency in Italy, and 1679the reducing of the head of the Catholic Church to a political cipher in his own states. Yet intelligent men are surprised at the ingratitude displayed by Pius IX. towards Louis Napoleon! Pius IX. loved France; he despised the dishonest trickster to whose hands the fate of so noble a nation was for a time committed. He despised him, for he knew him with that instinctive knowledge by which all honest and open natures detect duplicity and fraud, under whatever smiling guise they may appear. Some good qualities the man may have had. Open honesty was not one of them. Some regard for the Catholic religion he may have had. He never allowed it to interfere with his schemes or with the schemes of those of whom after all he was a tool, never a master. Louis Napoleon knew perfectly well that the Pope understood him and his schemes.

THE POPE AGAIN AS A REFORMER.

Pius IX. returned to Rome in 1850. He immediately set to work to repair the losses which his subjects had sustained during his absence. He proceeded in his work of reform. Within seven years he succeeded in clearing off the enormous debt with which the country had been saddled. The French commission, of which M. Thiers was a member, appointed to examine and report on the political wisdom and practical value of the institutions granted to his states by Pius IX., reported to the Republican Government (1849):

“By a large majority your commission declares that it sees in the motu proprio (the Pope’s decree reorganizing the government of the Pontifical States) a first boon of such real value that 1680nothing but unjust pretensions could overlook its importance.... We say that it grants all desirable provincial and municipal liberties. As to political liberties, consisting in the power of deciding on the public business of a country in one of the two assemblies and in union with the executive—as in England, for instance—it is very true that the motu proprio does not grant this sort of political liberty, or only grants it in the rudimentary form of a council without deliberative voice.

“... That on this point he (the Pope) should have chosen to be prudent, that after his recent experience he should have preferred not to reopen a career of agitation among a people who have shown themselves so unprepared for parliamentary liberty, we do not know that we have either the right or the cause to deem blameworthy.”

And Palmerston, whose testimony is surely as unbiassed as that of Thiers, said of the same act in 1856:

“We all know that, on his restoration to his states in 1849, the Pope published an ordinance called motu proprio, by which he declared his intentions to bestow institutions, not indeed on the large proportions of a constitutional government, but based, nevertheless, on popular election, and which, if they had only been carried out, must have given his subjects such satisfaction as to render unnecessary the intervention of a foreign army.”

We have gone into this matter of reform and home government in the Papal States at some length, because it is precisely on this ground of all others that the temporal power of the popes is attacked. Priests are unfit to rule, it is said; their business is with the souls of men, to tend to spiritual wants. They should have no concern with the things of this world. This may be all very well, and is a very convenient way of disposing of rights and properties which do not belong to us. If the invasion of the Papal States and their occupation 1681by a hostile power is justified on the ground that the Pope was a priest, and, because a priest, unfit to rule his subjects, that at least is intelligible. We have seen, however, that Pius IX. was in heart and in act a wise and just ruler, who aimed at doing nothing but good, and who did nothing but good, to his people, but who was steadily prevented from doing all the good he wished and attempted to do by conspiracy at home and abroad. Had he been left alone to work out the constitution he framed, to carry through the reforms he proposed and entered upon, it is beyond question that the States of the Church would have been more happily governed and more peacefully ordered than any states in the world. But he was prevented from ruling as he wished as well by the opposition of governments, such as those of Palmerston, Cavour, and Louis Napoleon, as by the organized conspiracy within his own domains—a conspiracy that sprang from causes with which he had had nothing to do, which assailed him because by his very position he was the symbol and type and fountain-head of all earthly order, and which would not be reconciled to good. He trod on volcanic ground from the beginning. All that a good man could do to dissipate the evil elements he did. But the conspiracy abroad and the conspiracy at home were too much for him. Indeed, the existence of the Papacy as a temporal power always depended on the sense of right and the good-will of men. There have been a few fighting popes in other days; but as a matter of fact the Papacy has always been a power built essentially on peace; and if powerful enemies insisted on invading 1682it, it was always open to them. The pope, like the Master whose vicar he is, is “the prince of peace.”

It is needless here to enter into the details of the intrigues and events that led up to the invasion of the Papal States, and to their forced blending into what is called united Italy. We cannot here go into the question as to when invasion is necessary and justifiable. Common sense, however, is a sufficient guide to the doctrine that no invasion of another’s territory or property is justifiable or necessary, unless the holder of that property is incapable; unless that property has been and is being grossly abused; unless those who live on that property invite the invasion on just grounds; and unless the invader can guarantee a better holding and guardianship of the property, a reform in its administration, a sacred regard for rights that are sacred. If any man can show us that any one of these conditions was fulfilled by the Sardinian invasion of the Papal States, we are open to conviction. Nor in this matter are we taking the rights and property of the church as something apart from ordinary rights and property, though they are so. We base our whole opposition to this most infamous usurpation and robbery on known and accepted natural rights common to all property and holders of property. It is useless to tell Europe that it solemnly sanctioned a sacrilege. Europe has forgotten the meaning of the word sacrilege. It has still some sense of what robbery and wrong mean, though constant practice in robbery and wrong and nefarious proceedings has so blunted its moral sense that it can always readily connive at the wrong, especially 1683when the wrong is done to the Catholic Church.

We invite all honest men to contrast the condition of the Papal States to-day, under the present Italian régime, with their condition under the Papal régime. They cannot show that that condition is bettered. All Italy is in a chronic state of legal and secret terrorism. There was no terrorism under Pius IX. The people groan under taxes such as in their worst days they never had to sustain. Parliamentary representation and freedom of election in Italy is a farce. As for the social and moral effects of the invasion, they have been dwelt upon so often and are so patent that they need no mention here. Pius IX. failed as a political leader and ruler, not because he was not a wise and just and benevolent ruler, but because, as we said, it was intended that he should fail. The combinations against him were too powerful. The wonder is that he withstood them so long. But history will faithfully record that the last ruler—the last, at least, as things are at present—of the temporalities of the church was the best and most just prince in Europe, and the one who cared most for the material and moral advance of his people.

PIUS IX. AS HEAD OF THE CHURCH.

So much for one aspect of the Pope’s life and character. It is a sad and a saddening one—the one in which he is most bitterly and unjustly assailed. Thus far the story has been one of a long and disastrous failure. We turn now to look at him in his greater character as Pontiff and High-Priest of the Catholic Church

Here the heart lifts, the eyes 1684grow dim, the pen falters, as we glance across the ocean and see the meek old man who has done so much for the church, who has served her so faithfully, who has given her so high and holy an example of undaunted faith, of burning zeal, of universal charity, of meekness and long-suffering, laid out at last on the bier to which the eyes of all the world turn in sorrowing sympathy and respect. In this is his true triumph. In the midst of universal disaster the great and mighty church, which was entrusted to him in a condition that was truly deplorable, so far as its existence in the various states of the world went, has gathered together its strength, has renewed its youth like the eagle, has flown abroad on the wings of the wind to the uttermost parts of the earth. In 1846 how stood the church in Europe? In England the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill had not yet been passed. The Act of Catholic Emancipation had only been granted in 1829. Ireland was still a political nonentity. Catholicity in France was suffering under the worst features of the Napoleonic Code. In Austria it was strangled by Josephism. In all places it was under a ban. In the United States and Australia it was still almost a stranger.

WONDERFUL GROWTH OF THE CHURCH.

But a new spirit was awakening among men. The American Revolution was productive of important results to mankind. The French Revolution, which followed, gave a startling impetus to these. All over the world men were rising to a new sense of their natural rights. The awakening found expression in deplorable and revolting 1685excesses here and there, but there were some right principles under the mass of extravagances and chimeras afloat. These principles good, earnest Catholics hastened to grasp and utilize. They beat the progeny of Voltaire, they beat the liberal philosophers, the apostles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, with their own weapons. They gave the right and lawful meaning to those words and would not surrender their claims. Thus uprose O’Connell, who gave the cue and the lead to so many other illustrious champions of civil and religious liberty. O’Connell roared and thundered in England, and made himself heard over the world. Montalembert and Lacordaire and the unfortunate De Lamennais took up the great Irish leader’s cry in France. Görres sharpened his pen in Germany. Balmes arose in Spain. Brownson was won over in the United States. Louis Veuillot found the antidote to his infidel poison, and the school of Voltaire found one of their doughtiest warriors heart and soul in the Catholic ranks. A crowd of men, equally illustrious or nearly so, sprang up and around these leaders. Catholic laymen took heart, entered zealously into good works and political life, and many a one lent his powerful pen and voice to the service of the church, in places often where the priest could not well enter. Catholicity assumed, if we may so say, a more manly and aggressive tone. The children of Voltaire were wont to laugh at it as a thing of cassocks and sacristans. They were astonished to find the young, the enthusiastic, the noble entering on what was veritably a new crusade, and defending their faith courageously and ably wherever they found it attacked. What Pius 1686IX. had attempted in his temporal dominions had actually and, as it were, spontaneously come to pass in the spiritual domain. The laity assumed their lawful place in the life of the church. The Holy Father encouraged them in every way possible; and his aged eyes have been gladdened by witnessing in all lands a new army of defenders of the faith growing up and disciplined, and daily increasing in numbers, strength, and usefulness.

He saw the faith in France and in the German states revive wonderfully. Able and zealous bishops were appointed; the education of the clergy, on which he always insisted with especial vehemence, was very carefully cultivated. Bands of missionaries followed the newly-opened rivers of commerce and carried the faith with them to new lands. The Irish famine of 1846–1847 sent out a missionary nation to the United States, to Australia, to England itself. Priests went with them, or followed them, and in time grew up among them. While Sardinia was confiscating church property, destroying monasteries and institutions of learning, and turning priests and monks out of doors, England and her possessions and the United States were beginning to receive them, and, in accordance with the principles of their government, letting them do their own work in their own way.

And so the church has gone on developing with the greatest impetus in the most unpromising soil. Already men say wonderingly that it is strongest and best off in Protestant lands. Pius IX. had the happiness of creating the hierarchy in England, in the United States, and in Australia, in the British possessions—wherever 1687the faith is to-day reputed to be in the most flourishing condition. But all this has not come about by accident. There was a very active, keen, and observant man at the head of affairs. It is wonderful how the Pope, with the troubles that were for ever pressing upon him regarding the affairs of the Papal States, could have found time to attend to those wider concerns of the universal church. But if he loved Rome and its people with a love that was truly paternal, his first care was always for the church of which he was the guardian. His heart was in every work and enterprise for the advancement of the faith. His eye was all-seeing. His prayers were unceasing.

GREAT EVENTS OF THE PONTIFICATE.

The definition of two great dogmas marks the pontificate of Pius IX. and will make it memorable for ever in the annals of the church: the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mother, and of the Papal Infallibility. The last was a death-blow to schism and heresy. We do not mean that schism and heresy will die out because of it. But it roots them out of their holes; and henceforth they will know that over them hangs a voice, not often used, indeed, or idly, but which, once it has uttered its last and final and solemn decision, is irrevocable. The scenes that Rome witnessed in its last declining days as the city of the popes will dwell in the memory of men. The bishops of all the earth, in numbers unprecedented, flocking to what was vainly thought to be the rocking chair of Peter, was perhaps one of the most striking testimonies to a scoffing and unbelieving 1688age of the immense vitality of the faith, of the vastness, the splendor, and renown of the Catholic Church. A more solemn testimony still was the joyful acceptance by the faithful of the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which, it was thought by those who knew not the Catholic faith, would rend the church asunder. The canonization of the martyrs of Japan, the thronging of the bishops and faithful to Rome on the occasion of the various jubilees, and the crowning event of last year, when all the Catholic world assisted at the celebration of the fiftieth episcopal jubilee of Pius IX., are other events that mark this great pontificate with significance and splendor. These last were as much personal tributes to the man as of respect to the supreme head of the church, and they showed, if aught were needed to show, that Pius, stripped of his dominions, bereft of his possessions, imprisoned in the Vatican, lived and reigned as, perhaps, no other pope lived and reigned in the hearts, not of a small section of his people, but of all the great church that covers the earth.

THE POPE’S PERSONAL CHARACTER.

One feature of all others marks the character of Pius IX. Personally the meekest and most yielding of men, he was always filled with the sense of his position and his sacred charge. We do not mean that as Pope he was proud, overbearing, intolerant. He was anything but that. But in all that touched the faith and the sacred prerogatives that had been placed in his pure hands he was simply inflexible. He would not yield a jot of them. He would not compromise. He would not temporize. 1689A singularly open, honest, and frank character, ready to trust all men, he seemed to scent out danger from afar off when it threatened what was dearer to him than life—life was always a small matter in his eyes—the chair of Peter and the faith of Christ. The utterances of his bulls and encyclical letters, the speeches that he delivered, sometimes off-hand, on important subjects, bear all one tone, never contradict one another. They are resolute and bold and breathe authority throughout. He saw from the first the movement of the age, and that it was moving in a false direction. The movement was, in one word, towards a complete rejection of divine authority, of divine revelation, and consequently of the church as a divine institution, and of all authority save such as men choose to set up for themselves. From his first papal allocution to the Syllabus of Errors to be condemned, he always struck at this spirit, and this spirit recognized its vigilant foe and master. Hence the rage with which his utterances were received in the courts of Europe and by the infidel press. But he never swerved from his course. He was never weary of condemning what he knew to be wrong; and the state of public opinion to-day regarding rights that were once held as sacred even by large and powerful non-Catholic bodies is a sufficient vindication, if any were needed, of the pontiff’s course. Rights, natural and supernatural, are everywhere invaded. The cloister is desecrated. The home is threatened with disruption by divorce and an easy marriage that is no marriage. Innocent infants are no longer consecrated to God. “Free” thought finds its issue in “free” religion, and free religion means 1690no religion. The sense of right has yielded to the sense of force. Education is handed over to infidels. This is the larger growth of the conspiracy that swept away the States of the Church only by way of a beginning to a wider sweeping that was to desolate the earth.

All this was what Pius IX. felt coming on and resisted to his last breath. He guarded the church well, and, if human judgment be allowed to follow him, he goes before his divine Master with a clean heart and untroubled conscience, having done his work thoroughly. We shall miss that majestic figure from our busy scene. We shall miss the grand old man seated prophet-like on the now bare and barren rock of Peter, the storms of the earth roaring around and threatening to overwhelm him, and he calm and unmoved, his head lifted above them clear and lovely in the white light of heaven. We shall miss the face that we all know as we know and cherish the picture of a father: with its large, bright eyes, its sweet lips, and that smile that could only come from a heart free from guile and clear from constant communings with heaven. Set the men of the age beside him, and see how they dwarf and dwindle away. Set Cavour, Louis Napoleon, Bismarck, Thiers, Palmerston, those known as the greatest among the leaders of men, by Pius IX., and what a contrast! The story of the struggle that he waged is told in this. Ages stamp themselves in the men they deify. In brutal, debased, but “civilized” pagan Rome statues were set up to men like Nero and Domitian and Claudius and Diocletian; and these were the gods of the degenerate Romans. The gods of to-day, the idols of 1691the people, are the men we have mentioned above and the lower brood of the Mazzinis, Garibaldis, Victor Emanuels, Gambettas. To the worshippers of these heroes Pius IX. was a despot and a ruler of a brood of despots, an enemy of the human race. The gown of the cleric has become the garb of ignominy and darkness; the blood-red cap of the revolutionist the beacon of liberty and light. The intellectual stream of Voltaire and the Voltairists, the men of “science” of to-day, filters down into the mud and blood of the rabble. These dainty gentlemen prepare the dynamite, leaving others more ignorant to fire it. This is the progress that Pius IX. stigmatized, and these the lights of the age whom he condemned. But his work has been effectual. He guarded the vineyard of the Lord. He made straight its paths. He weeded it well and watered it, if not with his heart’s blood, with the labors and sufferings of a long life that never knew rest or thought but of good to the whole human race. He has left to the world the example of a life of unspotted virtue, of large and wise charity, of undaunted courage and zeal, of meekness and childlike simplicity. He goes to his grave amid the tears and benedictions of the mightiest body on earth, followed by the sorrowing sympathy of all who esteem piety, honor integrity, and admire courage.

1692

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Morning Offices of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday. Together with a Magnificat for Holy Saturday and a few selections for the Tenebræ Function. Arranged and edited by Edwin F. MacGonigle, St. Charles’ Seminary, Overbrook, Pa.

The publication of this work is another comforting evidence of the reality of the revival of a better taste amongst church musicians, and of the demand of church people for a style of music at the divine offices which, at least, shall not outrage every sentiment of religious reverence and respect which they have for the house of God.

Although giving but few selections from the vast number of sentences, anthems, etc., enjoined to be sung during the great week, the choice made proves that there is a more general knowledge of the Rubrics than has hitherto prevailed amongst church musicians, and a consequent desire to produce the offices of the church in their entirety. It will also serve a purpose—to us a very desirable one—which is to turn the attention of choir-masters and organists to the sanctioned chant melodies for the Holy-Week services, which are, in our judgment, after long experience, quite unequalled by any musical melodies that were ever written.

We fail to see any possible reason for a harmonized morceau de musique to take the place of the cantor’s chanting of the Recordare at the Tenebræ function, nor can we discover any special merit in the composition itself. The works of Sig. Capocci seem to us to be better suited for exhibition at one of our “Vesper Series” concerts at Chickering and other halls than for practical use in choro before an altar—unless, indeed, the hearing of a musical concert is to be the proper and most edifying manner of satisfying the precept of hearing Mass devoutly, or of piously assisting at Vespers and Benediction.

Can the editor give any authority for the whining Fa# in the first member of the cadence of the Benedictus, No. 1, here treated as Do#? Sig. Capocci may have so written it; but then he ought to have known better.

Those who use concerted music for 1693their church services, and who possess capable singers, will no doubt be pleased to add this publication to their collection of “church music.”

A Visit to the Roman Catacombs. By Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D., canon of Birmingham. London: Burns and Oates. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This book is another proof of the untiring attention that Canon Northcote continues to devote to the object of his special studies—the Roman Catacombs, to which, as he modestly tells us, he first applied himself in 1846. The length of time that he has devoted to the subject, his diligence, scholarship, and perfect orthodoxy, make him the standard authority among English-speaking Catholics on all matters connected with those wonderful subterranean cemeteries which are inexhaustible mines of treasure to students of Christian antiquities, and points of attraction to all really learned, as well as to some ignorant and conceited, visitors to Rome. The traveller to the Tiber and the Seven Hills who does not visit the Catacombs has not seen one of the three Romes, and returns with a very inadequate knowledge of the Eternal City. A study of the Roman Catacombs is as necessary to enable one to understand the manners and customs of the early Christians, and to appreciate the various stages of the doctrines and practices of the church from apostolic times to the period that followed the triumph of religion under Constantine, and its splendid development of ritual and of ceremonial during the middle ages, as the careful examination of the deeply-planted roots of a mighty oak is wanted to show the lover of nature how so noble a tree grows up the monarch of the forest, “and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air may lodge under the shadow of it” (Mark iv. 32).

We are glad to learn from the preface of this short but interesting and instructive Visit to the Roman Catacombs that a second and enlarged edition of the Roma Sotteranea of the same author, published in conjunction with Rev. W. R. Brownlow in 1869, and which will contain the substance of De Rossi’s recently-issued third volume, is in preparation. We shall heartily welcome it. The present 1694little book contains a great amount of information in a convenient, attractive, and well-written form.

Materialism: A Lecture by P. J. Smyth, M.P., M.R.I.A., Chev. Leg. d’Hon. Dublin: Joseph Dollard. 1877.

This is a strong and outspoken defence of Christianity by a layman from the lecture platform against the attacks of materialism on religion as addressed to popular assemblies under the cloak of science. The lecture reaffirms the primitive convictions of the soul and the common consent of mankind against the unsupported assertions of the modern materialist school. The Irish people have heroically withstood the assaults made against their religious faith—assaults more cruel and persistent than have been even charged upon the Spanish Inquisition—and that, too, from a nation which boasts of being the champion of religious liberty. It is a cheering sign to see that they are fully able to defend their faith with personal intelligent conviction against the materialism of the demagogues of science. Ireland has a class of thoroughly-educated laymen, and when religion is invaded from every quarter, as it is in our day, it is time that men who have deep and strong religious feelings should speak out in words which are fraught with the power of intelligent conviction and in tones which will make themselves heard. Mr. Smyth’s lecture is solid, manly, and eloquent, and we hope to hear from him again and often.

Records of a Quiet Life. By Augustus J. C. Hare, author of Walks in Rome, etc. Revised for American readers by William L. Gage. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876.

The author of this volume, in presenting the picture of the Hare family, labored under the impression that he was revealing a model life to the public. Confined to non-Catholics, perhaps he and the writer of the American preface were not mistaken, and this class of readers will derive profit from its perusal. The Hares were Anglican clergymen, in charge of parishes, and with families. The volume furnishes pictures of the performance of their parochial duties, the life of their family circles, 1695and the characteristics of their members. The Hares were above the common run of men of their class in intellectual gifts and scholarly attainments. They appear to have done their best to fulfil the duties of their position with the incoherent fragments of Christian truth which their sect teaches. A Catholic feels after reading this volume as if he had been passing through a picture-gallery of second-class artists. Our counsel to non-Catholic readers is: read these Records, and then take up the Life of the Curé of Ars, or The Inner Life of Père Lacordaire, or A Sister’s Story, or The Life of Madame Swetchine, and you will understand, if not fully appreciate, our meaning.

Is the Human Eye Changing its Form under the Influences of Modern Education? Edward G. Loring, M.D. New York. 1878.

This is a very clever brochure upon a very vexed question—namely, does compulsory education of the young under certain bad hygienic and dietetic conditions produce ocular deformity, and is such deformity hereditary? Dr. Loring produces certain eminent German oculists who state that myopia (near-sightedness) is certainly hereditary. The doctor only partially agrees with the German savants whom he cites, and believes that no organ having reached its highest state of perfection, as has the human eye, can be changed by hereditary transmission, unless under conditions that affect the human organism as a whole, and that it would take ages to accomplish this under the most favorable conditions. The doctor explains why educated Germans as a rule are myopic by stating that the German forcing system for children under fifteen is radically wrong, and, moreover, that Germans as a nation are not fond of out-door sports. He further argues that their manner of cooking and sanitary arrangements are bad; all which, under certain conditions, will tend to produce hereditary myopia. Americans, it is stated, exhibit in some respects an inclination to follow the German plan rather than adhere to the traditional educational system of our ancestors of the English race.

1696Children, the doctor argues, must not be pushed in their studies until after fifteen, at which period the danger from over-use of the eye is diminished; and it is thus that watchmakers, type-setters, and other artisans who continuously use their eyes upon minute objects have better sight than the studious professional man or laborious scientific worker. We may sum up the article in a few lines when we say that nothing good, either physical or mental, can accrue from forcing young minds beyond a certain extent, and that we have reached, possibly passed, the ultimum in our present system of education. Encourage, as far as possible, out-door sports, and let the heavy mental work be done after fourteen. Give our children air and light, lest harm be done to the race.

An American Almanac and Treasury of Facts, Statistical, Financial, and Political, for the Year 1878. Edited by Ainsworth R. Spofford, Librarian of Congress. New York and Washington: The American News Company.

Few persons in this country are more competent to compile a volume such as this than the Librarian of Congress. Himself a practical bookseller, he brought years of the necessary experience to his aid. The results of this experience are manifest in the intelligently-arranged and trustworthy volume before us. It contains a vast amount of really useful information, on agriculture, politics, banks, finances, libraries, the census, chronology, commerce, the post-office, gold and silver coinage, education—in fact, on every practical subject about which persons need ready and accurate information. Its statistics can be relied on as trustworthy. It is preceded by a short “History of Almanacs,” in which Mr. Spofford enumerates several that have appeared of late years, though he has forgotten to mention the Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac, now in its tenth year. This, we presume, was an oversight; for, if we are not mistaken, it has been a guide to some of the statisticians in Washington with regard to the statistics of Catholic colleges and institutions of learning conducted by Catholics.