Volume 27 — CHAPTER III. CAPTAIN LEOPOLD INTRODUCES HIS FRIEND. (continued 2)

Count Amédée IX. and two princesses of the house of Savoy are also invoked as saints. There is a statue of St. Margaret of Savoy in the chapel of St. Felix at Hautecombe, representing her in a monastic dress, her hands meekly crossed on her breast. She was a daughter of Amédée, prince of Achaia, and after the death of her husband, the Marquis of Montferrat, having been wholly converted to God by the preaching of St. Vincent Ferrer, she entered a monastery and devoted herself to the care of the sick in a hospital. She was canonized by Pope Clement X.

The Blessed Louise of Savoy was an angel of piety from her childhood, and after the death of her husband, Hugues de Châlons, prince of Orange, she being then twenty-seven years of age and free from all obligations to her family, was solemnly veiled a nun in the convent of the Clairists at Orbe, which had been founded by a princess of her husband’s family early in the fifteenth century, and still observed the rule in all its primitive rigor. Here she died in 1503 at the age of forty-two. Fifty years after her death the Calvinists of Switzerland overthrew the altars of the conventual church, 770and gave the nuns the choice of going into exile or renouncing the monastic life. They chose the former, but before quitting the cloister they sent a crier through the streets to proclaim at the sound of a trumpet that if they had offended any one whomsoever they humbly begged his forgiveness, and declaring that for the love of God they forgave the offence committed against themselves in being banished from their monastery. They were nineteen in number. They took with them some chalices, ornaments, and rich vestments they owed to the liberality of the Princess Louise, and a Madonna of carved wood, called Notre Dame de la Grâce, which she had given the convent at her entrance into religion. At Ouchy they embarked in three small boats for Evian, on the southern shore of the Lake of Geneva, then faithful to the device on one of its gates: Deo regique fidelis perpetuo—gates opened more than once, at that disastrous period, to exiles of the faith. The sky was clear when the nuns set forth, but a sudden tempest sprang up which threatened destruction to their frail barks. The boatmen themselves were alarmed, much more these timid doves just driven from their nest, and to lighten the boats they threw all their effects into the water. They succeeded, however, in getting ashore, and the magistrates and people of Evian came forth in procession to meet them, the bells meanwhile ringing out a peal of welcome. A few nights after some fishermen found Notre Dame de la Grâce gleaming among the cliffs of Meillerie, and the people of Evian went forth again with white banners to receive and convey it to the church. Some years later Count Emanuel Philibert built these exiles a convent at Evian, where this Madonna was preserved for more than two centuries; but in 1792 the nuns were again dispersed and the Virgin concealed. The convent is now used as a Petit Séminaire, but people from all the country around still go to the chapel to pray before the Madonna of the Blessed Louise of Savoy.

Another princess, but not of the house of Savoy, is specially honored at Hautecombe—St. Erine, daughter of the Emperor Licinius, and niece of Constantine the Great. She was taken captive in the East by the army of Sapor II. of Persia, and martyred because she would not renounce the faith. Her body was afterwards taken to Patras, and Anselmo, a bishop of the Morea in the thirteenth century, who had great devotion to her, gave a portion of her remains to the abbey of Hautecombe, which, in spite of many vicissitudes, is still preserved here in a reliquary of silver given by Charles Felix, King of Sardinia. The boatmen on the Lac du Bourget invoke St. Erine in perilous storms, and many miracles are attributed to her intervention throughout the valley. On Whitmonday her relics are solemnly exposed to veneration in the church.

In one of the aisles at Hautecombe is the tomb of Beatrice, daughter of Count Thomas I., and granddaughter of Humbert the Saint—one of the most beautiful and accomplished princesses of that age. She married Raymond Bérenger, the last count of Provence, and was not only one of the most brilliant queens of the Court of Love, but rivalled the troubadours themselves in the Gai Science. One of her songs, addressed to her husband, has been preserved:

771“I fain would think thou hast a heart,

Although it thus its thoughts conceal,

Which well could bear a tender part

In all the fondness that I feel;

Alas! that thou wouldst let me know,

And end at once my doubts and woe.

“It might be well that I once seemed

To check the love I prize so dear;

But now my coldness is redeemed,

And what is left for thee to fear?

Thou dost to both a cruel wrong:

Should dread in mutual love be known?

Why let my heart lament so long,

And fail to claim what is thine own?”^[157]

What is unique in history, this Beatrice of Savoy had four daughters and three granddaughters who were all queens or empresses. As Dante says:

“Four daughters were there born

To Raymond Berenger; and every one

Became a queen, and this for him did Romeo.”

It was this Romeo de Villeneuve, the able minister of Count Raymond, whom Dante finds worthy of a place in his Paradise, who is said to have first foreseen the grandeur of united France, and who negotiated the grand alliances of his master’s daughters. One married St. Louis of France; another, Henry III. of England; a third, Richard of Cornwall, afterwards Emperor of Germany; and the fourth, Charles of Anjou, King of Naples and Sicily. As for the granddaughters, Beatrice of Sicily became Empress of Constantinople; Margaret of England, Queen of Scotland; and Isabella of France, Queen of Navarre.

Beatrice of Savoy was first buried at Echelles, where a magnificent tomb was erected, on which she lay, surrounded by the statues of her children and grandchildren with their consorts—twenty-six in number, all of white marble; but the tomb was destroyed at the Revolution, and her remains afterwards transported to Hautecombe, or at least what was saved of them, and placed in a new tomb.

It was her daughter, the fair Eleanor of Provence, a princess of remarkable beauty and talent, who married Henry III. of England. Through her influence her uncle Boniface, of whom we have spoken, was appointed successor of St. Edmund of Canterbury. The English historians do not speak so favorably of Archbishop Boniface, but the number of foreigners who followed Eleanor to England gave great offence to the people. Many of them married rich heiresses, and several families, like the Fletchers, Butlers, and Grandisons, can trace their descent from a Grandson, Boutillier, and La Fléchière of that period.

That part of London called the Savoy was so named from another uncle of Queen Eleanor’s—Peter, brother of Archbishop Boniface, who was created earl of Richmond, and had this tract of land given him by the king in the Strand, where he built a palace. This was afterwards rebuilt on a grander scale by the first duke of Lancaster, and became a place of historic interest. It was appropriated to the use of King John of France while a captive in England (1356-1364), and “thyder came to see hym the kyng and quene often tymes, and made hym gret feest and cheere.” And here, by the way, King John brought his Bible in the vernacular, and thumbed it well too, it appears, for in the account of his expenses is recorded the sum of thirty-two pence paid “Margaret the bindress” for a new cover with four clasps. In the Savoy, too, lived John of Gaunt, “time-honored Lancaster,” to whom the place descended, and here the poet Chaucer was his frequent 772guest. One of the scenes in Shakspere’s “Richard II.” is supposed to be laid here, though at that date the palace had been sacked and destroyed by Wat Tyler’s followers.

This Peter, Earl of Richmond, who gave the name to the Savoy, was called the Petit Charlemagne on account of his valor and other eminent qualities. He acquired great influence over Henry III., but returned to his native land at the death of his brother, to whom he succeeded in the government, being then sixty years of age. The abbot of St. Maurice, in gratitude for his services in behalf of the Valaisans against their suzerain, who oppressed them with his tyranny, gave him the celebrated ring of St. Maurice, that was henceforth used as the symbol of investiture by the counts of the house of Savoy. Count Peter died at the castle of Chillon in 1268. His tomb, the richest at Hautecombe, has ten pale mourning figures around it, called pleureuses, and a bas-relief represents him as ambassador at the court of Louis IX., arranging a treaty of peace between France and England. Over his tomb is painted on the wall the burial of Christ, and near by is the raising of Lazarus, with their lessons of hope beyond the grave.

Archbishop Boniface, Beatrice, Countess of Provence, etc., were the children of Count Thomas I., whose first wife, Beatrice of Geneva, is buried here. She was called the Mater Comitum, or the Mother of Counts, because three of her sons, Amédée IV., Peter, and Philip, all succeeded to the government of Savoy. It was she who, being at Susa when St. Francis of Assisi passed through, promised to build a convent of his order if he would give her a piece of his habit. He tore off one of the sleeves and gave it to her. It was long preserved in the chapel of the princes of Savoy, whose descendants have driven the Franciscans of these days from their homes. This relic is still preserved in the church of the Capuchins at Chambéry. At Hautecombe, too, is buried Beatrice Fiescha, wife of Count Thomas II., and niece of Pope Innocent IV. She belonged to the great Genoese family from which afterwards sprang the mystic St. Catherine of Genoa. It was her son, Amédée V., surnamed the Great, whose large tomb, inscribed Belli Fulmen, stands on one side as you enter the nave. His is the most glorious name of the house of Savoy. He was famed for his deeds of valor, which read like a chapter from the old romances of chivalry. He is said to have taken part in twenty-two pitched battles and thirty-two sieges. His most famous exploit was his expedition to Rhodes to aid the Knights of St. John in defending the island against the Turks. At the request of the grand master he took the white cross on a red shield^[158] instead of the eagle, the original cognizance of the house of Savoy. He likewise assumed the famous device, F. E. R. T., which is generally interpreted, Fortitudo ejus Rhodum tenuit—His valor saved Rhodes. He was on intimate terms with his royal kinsman of England, was present at the marriage of Edward II. with Isabella of Valois and at Edward’s coronation, and was employed in negotiations between England and France. Here, too, lies his daughter Agnes, with her recumbent statue on the 773tomb, clasping a crucifix to her breast, remarkable for pose and expression.

Count Aimon comes next. He and his wife Yolande lie on a tomb in the Chapelle des Princes, his feet on a lion, hers on a dog, beneath a baldachin, surrounded by saints and quaint pyramids. He was the second son of Amédée V., and destined at first to the ecclesiastical state, but, his elder brother having died, he succeeded to the title and displayed great military ability on the side of the French in their wars with England and the Netherlands. He protected the poor, loved justice, established courts of assizes, and founded hospitals and churches. Pope Benedict XII. had a special esteem for him, and gave him and his successors the first place after crowned heads at the coronation of the Sovereign Pontiffs. He married Yolande de Montferrat, of the imperial family of Palæologus.

Amédée VI., son of Aimon, called the Comte Vert, or Green Count, was one of the most chivalric knights of the fourteenth century. His whole life was spent on the battle-field, and he rendered his name immortal by his courage and gallant deeds. He gained the battle of Abrets against France, aided Pope Gregory IX. and the Emperor Charles IV. in crushing the Visconti, and rescued the Greek Emperor John Palæologus from the hands of the Bulgarians, who held him prisoner at Gallipolis, and replaced him on the throne of Constantinople. The tournament he gave at Chambéry in 1348, on the Place de Verney, was celebrated by the poets and romancers of the day. The colors he wore on this occasion, as well as his followers, and even his steed, procured for him the name of the Comte Vert. He founded the supreme order of the Annonciade, one of the most ancient known, in honor of Our Lady, consisting of fifteen knights; and built a Carthusian convent at Pierre-Châtel for fifteen monks, whose duty it was to say a daily Mass in honor of the fifteen mysteries of Our Lady’s life, for the fifteen knights of the order. Charles III. of Savoy afterwards added fifteen golden roses, part enamelled red and part white, to the collar, and the medal of the Annunciation.

The king of Sardinia is still grand master of the order, and its collar is the most glorious decoration he can confer. Two of the original collars, presented by the Comte Vert, were long preserved at Hautecombe. Amédée VI. also created a charitable office called the Advocate of the Poor, still kept up—a magistrate supported by the government for gratuitous services to the poor, whom he is bound to defend at court when their cause is just. Like all the old knights, Amédée was devout to Our Lady, and has left a monument of his piety

“Où les grands châtaigniers d’Evian penchent l’ombre.”

—the church of Notre Dame, which stands in a beautiful spot overlooking Lake Leman. He died of the plague at Naples in 1383, but his body was brought to Hautecombe for burial. Twenty-four prelates and a host of lords from Savoy and the surrounding countries attended the obsequies. His wife was Bonne de Bourbon.

Amédée VII., styled the Comte Rouge, or the Red Count, from the color of his hair, was the son of the Comte Vert. He married Bonne 774de Berry, daughter of John of France, Duke de Berry. He added Nice and Ventimiglia, and the valley of Barcelonette, to the domains of his ancestors, thus extending them to the sea. The gradual acquisitions of the house of Savoy gave rise to the witty saying that the kingdom thus formed was like an artichoke that had been plucked leaf by leaf. The Conte Rosso was remarkable for personal address and valor, which he loved to display at jousts and tournaments. He made his first essay at arms against the sire of Beaujeu, and at a tournament at Bruckberg defeated the earl of Huntingdon with the lance, and the earls of Arundel and Pembroke with sword and battle-axe. His judgment and prudence caused him to be repeatedly chosen mediator by the sovereigns of Europe. He was a patron of letters and founder of the University of Turin. He died in his thirtieth year at Ripaille, some say of a fall from his horse; others, that he fell a victim to poison or the medicaments of a Bohemian quack, who promised him a luxuriant head of hair and an improved complexion. The statue on his tomb represents him in armor, resting on his sword after victory. In a bas-relief he is fighting for Charles VI. of France, at the head of seven hundred Savoyards, against the English and Flemish at the siege of Bourbourg.

The Conte Rosso’s widow, Bonne de Berry, left Savoy in 1395 and married her cousin-german, Bernard VII., Count of Armagnac, who became head of the Orléans faction when his daughter Bonne married the young Duke Charles, and was murdered in a frightful manner by the Burgundians at Paris in 1418. Her first husband poisoned, her second murdered, Bonne de Berry amply expiated her strong ambition and ended her days at Rhodez in the practice of the most heroic piety. She left in Savoy, besides her son Amédée VIII., two daughters, one of whom married Louis, the last prince of Achaia, at whose death in 1418 Piedmont was united to Savoy. This princess, named Bonne, like her mother and grandmother, left one of the most curious legacies on record—a bequest for a daily Mass of Requiem in the chapel of the princes of Achaia, in the church of the Franciscans at Pignerol, for twelve thousand years! She evidently thought the end of the world very remote, and had great confidence in the stability of human affairs and the scrupulous fidelity of her heirs.

One of the chapels at Hautecombe was founded by the Count de Romont, a natural son of the Conte Rosso. He went to the Holy Wars, and was a captive seven years among the Saracens. The shield on his statue is sown with crescents, and here and there on the border of his garments is the Arabic word Alahac—God is just—recalling his exploits in the East. Twenty-eight princes and princesses of the house of Savoy have been buried at Hautecombe, but the place lost its prestige when Turin became the capital. In 1793 the monks were driven out, and the lands sold as part of the national domains. The republican commissioners went down into the vaults, opened the tombs, and carried off all the precious objects they could find; among others the ducal crown from the tomb of Duke Philibert in the caveau of the Chapelle des Princes. The ancient resting-place of sovereigns was 775turned into a fabrique de faience, and the buildings had partly fallen to ruin when they were redeemed by Charles Felix, King of Sardinia, in 1824, from his own private means. He began the restoration of the church, and peopled the abbey again with Cistercians. And here he was buried, at his own request, in May, 1831. His wife, Marie Christine, completed the work and found a grave here in her turn.

Amédée VIII., the son of Bonne de Berry and the Red Count, was not buried at Hautecombe, but at Ripaille, on the southern shore of Lake Leman. Few travellers visit this place, though it is one of the most interesting excursions to be made from Geneva. It stands on a point of land projecting into the lake just beyond Thonon, but seems so low and hidden from the water that it might be taken for a mere grange and its dependencies in the midst of orchards and woods. A pleasant walk from Thonon brings you to a grove of linden-trees that shade a monastic-looking establishment with pepper-box turrets and long corridors leading to monk-like cells. Connected with it is a church of the Renaissance, with pillars of gray marble in front, and above is the cross of Savoy serving as a support to the tiara and keys of the Papacy! Here was buried the first duke of Savoy, the last of the anti-popes, the “bizarre Amédée,” as Voltaire calls him; “the Solomon of his age,” as he is styled by others.

Ripaille seems to have been a place of great antiquity, for Roman inscriptions and remains have been found here, as well as ornaments of the time of the Merovingians, but it was only a maison de plaisance in the time of Amédée VI., who left it to Bonne de Bourbon. Amédée VII. made it a hunting-lodge and here died. It was Amédée VIII. who gave it a world-wide celebrity, and by his life here unwittingly added a new expression to the French language. He married Mary of Burgundy and had nine children. He united Savoy and Piedmont, over which he ruled forty years. He entertained the Emperor Sigismund with such splendid hospitality on his way to Italy that he elevated him to the rank of duke. This was in 1416. After the death of his wife, but still while in the height of his influence and prosperity, he suddenly retired from the world to Ripaille, taking with him six noblemen who had participated in the most important transactions of his reign. He rebuilt the old manor-house, surrounded it with moats, and flanked it with seven seigneurial towers, with a suite of apartments connected with each, communicating with each other by a long corridor. The tower next the lake was loftier than the others, and connected with a square edifice of villa-like pretensions reserved for his own use. The others were for the six lords who accompanied him. To the east was a park planted with oaks in the form of a star, still to be seen, venerable and broad-spreading. This park was surrounded by a wall and laid out with alleys and winding paths. Amédée and his companions did not retire here to become monks, nor did he at first give up the reins of government, as some have declared. But he laid here the foundation of the order of chivalry known as the Knights of St. Maurice—a semi religious establishment in his day, under the direction of the canons of St. 776Augustine. Its members assumed a particular costume, consisting of a gray habit and cowl, and a gold cross suspended from the neck. They divided their time between religious exercises and affairs of the state. They constituted, in fact, a permanent senate to manage the government, for which they fitted themselves by meditation and prayer. And Amédée wished his successors to have recourse to the Knights of St. Maurice on all important occasions. They were always to be seven in number, and recruited from the highest class. Here the duke married his son, gave judgment in certain cases, and showed by numerous acts that, though he had appointed his son lieutenant-general, he had by no means abdicated.

Of course the world took it up. There were two reports. Some said the duke had given himself up to mortification and penance with a view to the Papacy. Others declared he and his followers led a life of debauchery. The expression faire ripaille^[159] is said to be derived from the unfavorable reports spread abroad respecting their manner of life. But it was not used in his time, nor, indeed, till the seventeenth century. These imputations are not derived from any writer of the day, unless we except Monstrelet, who in his Chronicles thus speaks of the duke’s life at Ripaille: “He and his followers are served, not with roots and water from the fountain, but with the best wine and best meats that can be found.” This is by no means a proof of sensuality, and, as the knights were under no vow to live on roots and pure water like the hermits of Thebaïd, there was no reason why they should not select the best meats and use the purest wine at their repasts. What would have been a simple, abstemious life for a prince and his courtiers might seem luxurious to the peasantry around, who perhaps gave rise to such reports. But Monstrelet, who had been made governor of Cambrai by the duke of Burgundy—a prince exceedingly hostile to Amédée—would be likely to take an unfavorable view of the life at Ripaille. This is why Guichenon considers his chronicle untrustworthy in everything relating to the history of Savoy. And he was too far distant to have a personal knowledge of what was occurring there. Oliver de la Marche, who also belonged to the court of Burgundy, is not so unfavorable to Amédée. He says “he governed so wisely in the time of French divisions that Savoy was the richest, safest, and most productive of any country around.” Two other writers are more explicit as to the duke’s manner of life. Raphael Volaterra, speaking of the election of Amédée as pope under the title of Felix V. by the Council of Bâle, says he was “chosen on account of the fame of his mortifications.” Jean Gobelin, the duke’s secretary, declares he led a very austere life. Onofrio Panvini, an Augustinian monk, says his life was “angelic.” The Père Daniel, a conscientious historian, after examining the case, says it is certain he led an innocent life here, without any scandal. And Æneas Sylvius, secretary of the Council of Bâle, eminent as a writer, and who became pope under the name of Pius II., visited Amédée at Ripaille and bears this testimony: “The one who had 777more votes than the rest was the most excellent Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, dean of the Knights of St. Maurice in the diocese of Geneva. The electors, considering that he was leading the life of a celibate, and that his conduct was that of a religious, thought him worthy of governing the church,” and, after eulogizing the duke at some length, adds that “he only wore what garments were necessary to protect him from the cold, and only ate enough to keep him from dying of hunger.” When the members of the Council of Bâle wished to set up a pope of the Gallican race in opposition to Eugenius IV., it is evident that they would only choose, after serious consideration, a person of irreproachable life. In fact, they did make the most minute inquiries, which led to the explicit statement that the duke, though not in orders, had “always been regular in his habits, assiduous at the offices of the church, and exact in saying his breviary.”^[160] It was Voltaire who made the calumny popular. The calumnies concerning Amédée have been caught up and perpetuated by a school always glad to find an ecclesiastical dignitary, even if an anti-pope, suspected of excesses, and have led some grave historians like Duclos to state that the duke and his followers led a voluptuous life at Ripaille.

Amédée certainly should not be excused for yielding to the solicitations of the Council of Bâle and usurping the tiara. Père Monod says he resisted for a while and shed torrents of tears, dwelling on the difficulty of the oaths to be taken, and even pleading the cause of his competitor, Eugenius; but the members made him believe it would be for the welfare of the church, and he yielded. A deputation from the council came to Ripaille to offer him the tiara, and he was enthroned with great pomp in his church December 17, 1439, on which occasion he abdicated the government in favor of his son Louis, drew up his will, and gave the Knights of St. Maurice a new dean, or prior, chosen from their number. But he atoned for his weakness a few years after by the voluntary resignation of his usurped office, and retired a second time to Ripaille, as cardinal of the title of St. Sabina, legate of the Holy See, and administrator of the dioceses of Lausanne and Geneva, thus restoring peace and unity to the Catholic Church. After spending two years in retirement he died, and was buried in his church at Ripaille. The eventful life of a prince who by turns had been count, duke, anti-pope, cardinal, and bishop, who was married, a widower, and a cenobite, is not without a certain dramatic interest that needs not the shading of calumny.

A grandson of Amédée VIII., Louis II., the dethroned king of Cyprus, came also to Ripaille to die. He married Charlotte de Lusignan, heiress of the king of Cyprus, and she and Louis were crowned as king and queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia—high-sounding titles that soon became a mere name, for they were forced to fly before James, a natural son of the late king, who had married Catherine Cornaro of Venice, and was aided by the soldan of Egypt. Queen Charlotte made a solemn donation of Cyprus to her nephew Charles, and died a guest of Pope Sixtus IV. at Rome in 1487, the last of the illustrious house of Lusignan, which had ruled over Cyprus for three hundred years.

778In 1536 Ripaille was devastated by the Bernese—that is, the abbey. They respected the château. The tomb of Amédée VIII. was broken to pieces, and his remains at a later day were taken to Turin. In 1575 Ripaille was restored to the order of St. Maurice, which Gregory XIII. united to that of St. Lazare three years later. When St. Francis de Sales was Bishop of Geneva he placed Carthusians at Ripaille. Now it belongs to a private gentleman.

A TRUE LOVER.

At her heart’s door he knocked and cried,

“Love! art thou there?

So long to find thee I have tried.

Sweet Love! dost hear?”

But Love sat silent all the while,

Nor did he give

One token—neither tear nor smile—

That he did live.

That knock so light it might have chanced

Love heard no sound,

And in so fair a place entranced

In sleep lay bound.

For sure no deepening of her cheek

That touch awoke;

No drooping of her eyelids meek,

Love’s light to cloak.

He knocked more loudly than before:

“Dear maid, give ear.

Lo! here I wait at thy heart’s door

This many a year.

“First did I seek from thy true eyes

If love dwelt there;

I saw in them sweet thoughts arise—

Love had no share.

“Oft from the rose of thy pure cheek,

In my sad quest,

Did I an answer’s shadow seek,

But none possessed.

779“From thy sweet mouth I thought to win

Some trembling sign,

If that love’s life could but begin—

Thine linked with mine!

“The even sunshine of thy lips

Too calmly fell;

If love sat there in sweet eclipse

I could not tell.

“In thy pure speech’s spotless gold

Some link I sought

Wherewith the love I begged, to hold,

But gathered naught.

“No thrill unconscious in thy hand

Wherein Love spake,

Too calm and gracious didst thou stand

My touch to wake.

“Lo! I have asked of hand and cheek,

Dear mouth and eyes;

Now in thy very heart I seek

If Love there lies.

“Ah! Sweet, my life is not misspent

Because I wait

Like soldier in his camping tent

At thy heart’s gate:

“Each day my life’s work still goes on,

My duty done,

For thee, as time comes and is gone,

Each honor won;

“And bears my life, though sadly weak,

A pure renown:

With honor must I honor seek—

Thy love, my crown!

“I dare not, if in things most high

I held no part,

E’er win such love as sure must lie

Within thy heart.

“I seek thy blessing on my life;

Lo! here I wait

That holy gift for strength in strife

At thy heart’s gate.”

780He knocked more loudly than before,

And Love awoke,

Soft loosed the latch of her heart’s door,

And softly spoke;

Quick speeding unto cheek and eyes,

All unforbid,

Trembling in speech so pure and wise,

No more heart-hid.

Her lover waits no more to win,

Early and late;

Love-crowned, he proud hath passed within

Her pure heart’s gate.

ST. PAUL ON MARS’ HILL; OR, THE MEETING OF CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

There is, perhaps, no other episode in the adventurous journeyings and heroic life of the Apostle Paul so full of interest as his visit to Athens. To all those whose acquaintance with Grecian history enables them to take in the peculiar surroundings and associations of that visit it certainly affords the most fascinating incident in connection with the progress of the Christian faith; and it has always been regarded as the most interesting event in the heroic age of Christianity. For what other event presents such striking antithesis?—the newly-established religion of Jesus of Nazareth face to face with the intellect and cultivation of Greece, the disciple of a crucified Galilean come to dethrone the disciples of Plato, a semi-barbarian Jew come to teach the mighty Athenians, who had taught the world.

The historical outline of the subject is thus given in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles:

“And they that conducted Paul, brought him as far as Athens, and receiving a commandment from him to Silas and Timothy, that they should come to him with all speed, they departed. Now whilst Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred within him, seeing the city wholly given to idolatry. He disputed therefore in the synagogue with the Jews, and with them that served God, and in the market-place, every day with them that were there. And certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics disputed with him, and some said: What is it that this word-sower would say? But others: He seemeth to be a setter-forth of new gods: because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And taking him they brought him to Areopagus, saying: May we know what this new doctrine is which thou speakest of? For thou bringest in certain new things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean. (Now all the Athenians, and strangers that were there, employed themselves in nothing else 781but either in telling or in hearing some new thing.) But Paul standing in the midst of Areopagus, said: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. For passing by and seeing your idols, I found an altar also on which was written: ‘To the unknown God.’ What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you. God, who made the world and all things therein, seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Neither is he served with men’s hands as though he needed anything, seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things: and hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation. That they should seek God, if haply they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live and move and are: as some also of your own poets said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ Being therefore the offspring of God we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold or silver, or stone, the graving of art and device of man. And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men, that all should everywhere do penance. Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed, giving faith to all, by raising him up from the dead. And when they had heard of the resurrection of the dead some indeed mocked, but others said: We will hear thee again concerning this matter. So Paul went out from among them. But certain men adhering to him, did believe: among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.”

St. Paul went to Athens direct from Berœa in Macedonia; he had had a most successful apostolate among the Berœans, and had no intention of quitting the place so soon, were it not that his old enemies, the Jews of Thessalonica, came down upon him and compelled him to flee for his life. It was only seventeen miles to the coast, and some of his Berœan converts conducted the persecuted apostle as speedily as possible to the sea. From where they embarked it was a sail of three or four days in a small boat to the Piræus. If the great apostle of the Gentiles had an eye for the beautiful in nature, if scenes consecrated by historic association had any charm for him, he must have revelled in this quiet sail on the Interior Sea. As soon as he cleared the headlands of the Macedonian shore he saw Mount Olympus towering close above him; and as he drew near the Thessalian Archipelago Mount Athos and the picturesque coast-line of Attica began to be visible. For a distance of ninety miles on his voyage the long island of Eubœa forms the outer boundary of the narrow sea, and every spot on either shore is classic ground, hallowed by some association of the past. On the northern shore of Eubœa itself is the pass of Thermopylæ; opposite the southern extremity, on the coast of Attica, are the plains of Marathon; and when the little vessel rounded the cape of Sunium, Ægina, Salamis, and the beautiful isles of Greece were in full view. But although one can scarcely imagine St. Paul to have been wholly insensible to the surpassing beauty of such scenes, the historic associations which they recalled gave him but little concern, for he was going to Athens to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, and this was his all-absorbing thought.

How little did the fishermen who tended their nets on the Ægean Sea think what destiny the white sail that passed them bore to Attica; and how little did the people who came down to the beach to see the strange vessel come in imagine what a conqueror they had 782received on their shores! After landing at the Piræus St. Paul at once sent back to Berœa for Silas and Timothy. And it might appear from the account given in the Acts as if he were afraid to begin work in Athens alone; but if he had any such hesitation his natural courage and burning zeal soon overcame it, and he lost no time in entering upon his labors.

Over the ruins of the long walls which in the days of Pericles were the bulwark of Greece, Paul of Tarsus passed on to Athens. As he entered the gates of the city a sight met his eye which “stirred up his spirit within him,” and inflamed the passionate ardor of his zeal for the knowledge of the one true God. Evidences of the grossest idolatry everywhere met his view. Turn which way he would, statues of Minerva, Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, and the Muses were before him; on every street-corner, in every portico, he saw altars raised to the false gods of Greece.

It was the custom of St. Paul, as, indeed, it was of all the apostles whenever they entered a strange city, to seek out the Jews—who were even then scattered all over the civilized world—and to begin his public teaching in the synagogue. And it may have been with this object in view that he went to the Agora, or market-place, for he well knew where the trading proclivities of his countrymen would make them apt to congregate. But the Agora of Athens was a place of pleasure rather than of business; ideas were the chief commodities exchanged there, and it was far more the resort of philosophers and sophists than of merchants and money-changers. It was, in fact, a sort of City Hall park filled with statues and fountains and plane-trees, and, as a matter of course, with loungers; and in those degenerate days nearly all the men of Athens were loungers, and did little else than loll around the Agora, inquiring after news and discussing the events of the time.

Such was the market-place of Athens, where St. Paul disputed every day for we know not how many days.

Let us picture to ourselves the great apostle of the nations, clad in the toga of a philosopher visiting the Agora from day to day to break the Gospel tidings to all who would listen to him. At one moment we can fancy him seated under a plane-tree in earnest conversation with a venerable Israelite, who nervously strokes his beard as the apostle insists that Christ was the true Messias, and in him was the fulfilment of the prophecies and the only hope of Israel. At another moment he is in the midst of a group of scoffing sophists, hotly disputing with them the unity of the Godhead and the immortality of the soul. And again we can picture him walking alone through the market-place, absorbed in his thoughts, and with an expression of sadness on his countenance as he contemplates the gross errors that surround him in the “city wholly given to idolatry.”

The monuments of Athenian glory, the masterpieces of Athenian art, the works of Phidias, of Praxiteles, in the midst of which he moved, had no charm for Paul of Tarsus; they but “stirred up his spirit within him.” He longed to sweep them all away and plant in their stead the rude cross of Jesus Crucified. Renan, in his life of St. Paul, works himself up into a rhetorical frenzy over the feelings awakened in the apostle by the beautiful statues of Greece. He makes an apostrophe to them and warns them of their danger. “Ah! beautiful and chaste images,” he writes, “true gods and true goddesses, tremble. Here is one who will raise the hammer against you. The fatal word has been pronounced—ye are idols. The error of this ugly little Jew will prove your death-warrant.”^[161]

The popular religion of Greece was a religion of the senses; it had little or no hold on the soul and none at all on the intellect. In its first developments it was the religion of patriotism—patriotism elevated into a divine sentiment. Its gods and goddesses were the supposed founders and promoters of the state. In its later developments it was the religion of beauty and art—an adoration of the ideal in form and feature—and its gods and goddesses became the gods and goddesses of beauty; hence the production of those masterpieces in architecture and art which are still so despairingly inimitable. If art alone could ensure the perpetuity of a religion, the religion of Greece would still remain. Neither the eloquence of St. Paul nor the sublime maxims of the Gospel which he preached would have been able to supplant it. But God has implanted in the mind of man the desire for the true as well as for the beautiful; and the possession of truth alone can satisfy the soul.

The Athenians were always in great unrest on religious matters; they were ever inquiring, ever disputing, ever seeking out new gods and new forms of worship, and of course were never satisfied. How, indeed, could they be satisfied, seeing that their religion had no foundation in reason, and hence no foundation in truth? It is one of those strange, unaccountable phenomena in the history of the development of the human mind that a people so intellectual as the Athenians, and having such a grand philosophy, should have held to such an absurd, unreasoning system of religion. Reason and religion in their minds appeared to have been wholly separate. Philosophy had its sphere, religion had its sphere, and there was little or no contact or relation between them. In this connection M. Renan makes a remark which is unusually profound and is well worth quoting. Speaking of the philosophers of Athens, he writes: “The aristocracy of thinkers cared very little for the social wants which made their way through the covering of so many gross religions. Such a divorce is always punished. When philosophy declares that she will not occupy herself with religion, religion replies to her by strangling her. And this is just; for philosophy is nothing, unless it points out a path for humanity—unless it takes a serious view of the infinite problem which is the same for all.”^[162]

But although Greek philosophy did not seek to reconcile the popular religion of Greece with reason, which in truth it would have been vain to attempt, it did effect a reconciliation of supreme importance to mankind—it reconciled the mind of Greece and of the civilized world to some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and so prepared the way for the coming of Christ and the preaching of St. Paul.

It will hardly be a digression here to look a little into the origin of Greek philosophy and the glimpses of truth to which it attained.

Socrates was the father of Greek 783philosophy. There were philosophers before him and there were far greater philosophers after him; but those who preceded him, such as Thales and Pythagoras, were physicists, and their speculations were almost wholly confined to the material universe; and those who succeeded him were his pupils, and simply followed up the new field of investigation he had thrown open to them. Socrates was the sage par excellence, the first to turn his looks within and explore the regions of the soul. He was the true founder of moral philosophy, the first to lay down the great maxim that “the proper study of mankind is man.” The human mind, its powers and moral perfectibility, was the one great subject of all his speculations.

Socrates was born in Athens 469 B.C., and he died there 399 B.C. He died a martyr—the first great martyr in the cause of moral truth and liberty of conscience. His father was an indigent sculptor, and for a time he himself followed the same profession, but he early abandoned it for the pursuit of wisdom. He was a self-taught man, and the means that he took to discipline his will and obtain the mastery over his passions and senses were almost the same the saints have used. He practised self-denial and mortification in a remarkable degree; and the forbearance and long-suffering he exercised towards his violent-tempered wife, Xanthippe, betoken the sublimest patience.

The apostle of wisdom, Socrates went about the streets and squares of Athens day after day for many years, questioning, catechising, reasoning with all who would listen to him, insisting ever on the wisdom of his great maxim, Γνώθι σεαυτόν—know thyself. He felt himself commissioned by the gods to teach the higher laws of conscience to the Athenians. Nor was he so very far astray in this, for we cannot fail to recognize the providence of God in the mission of Socrates. He undertook the direction of individual consciences, and his relations towards some of his friends more nearly resembled those of a father confessor than anything else. The tie that bound the brilliant Alcibiades to the uncouth philosopher was peculiarly tender. Socrates saved his life at the battle of Potidæa, and he in turn saved the life of Socrates at the battle of Delium. The friendship that grew up between the profligate youth and the austere sage was a strange one. It was the wonder of all Athens; and whenever they appeared together in public Alcibiades was jeered at by the youth of the city. Socrates for a time exercised the greatest influence over his young friend, and restrained those passions in him which seemed ungovernable. Such was the power of Socrates over minds the least disposed to receive his moral teachings and submit to their restraints. But what were the moral doctrines of Socrates? And in what way were the teachings of this sage a preparation for Christianity, so that he should merit to be called the precursor of St. Paul at Athens? In the first place, Socrates laid down those principles of moral ethics which are also in part the basis of Christian ethics. He taught that the supreme good of man lay in the path of wisdom and virtue, and he declared fidelity to conscience to be the highest law of life. With him began that new departure in philosophy which 784directed the attention of mankind to mind rather than matter. The pleasures and possessions of the world are contemptible when compared with wisdom and virtue and the perfection of the soul, in the teachings of Socrates as well as in the teachings of St. Paul. In his system, too, every other consideration must yield to the law of conscience and of God. “The word of God,” he says, “ought to be first considered”; and in the exhortation which he is represented in the Phædo as making to his friends to care for their souls he appears to strike the key-note of the Gospel. “O my friends,” he said, “if the soul is truly immortal, should we not take the greatest care of her, not for the short period of life but for eternity? And the danger of neglecting her eternal destiny does appear dreadful” (Phæd. 107). Were not these words the remote echo of the great question of the Gospel, “What doth it profit a man....”? The language of reproof which Socrates addressed to the gross-minded and sensual, whose only aspiration in life is self-indulgence and sensuality, reminds one of the energetic rebukes of St. Paul to those who make a god of their bellies and their passions. And the declaration of liberty of conscience which Socrates made before his judges when his life was trembling in the balance was worthy of a Christian martyr. “A man who is good for anything,” he said, “ought not to calculate the chances of living or dying. He only should consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong, acting the part of a good man or a bad one” (Mem. ii. 1. 28).

Besides these moral teachings, Socrates maintained the existence of a Supreme Being, who exercised a care over all things and preserved harmony in the universe. He did not, however, break through the pagan influences that surrounded him sufficiently to hold to the belief in one only God, but, while he accepted the doctrines of polytheism, he maintained that there was one Supreme Lord, who exercised a universal providence over all things; and he further taught that in the eyes of this Supreme Being all men were equal and there was nothing meritorious but virtue. This was a bold innovation when we remember the Athenian notions of race and caste. He was also of opinion that the gods exercised a watchful care over men and frequently inspired their actions; and the demon of Socrates, about which we hear so much, appears to have been a sort of guardian spirit, whose promptings, though always negative, he constantly looked for and never disregarded. These certainly were somewhat Christian conceptions of morality and of God, and although they are rather offset by other teachings and views of the Greek sage, yet in the main his doctrines foreshadow the light of the Gospel. Were it not, however, for the great disciple who immediately followed up his teaching and threw the light of his genius around it, the system of Socrates, if it can be called a system, would have accomplished little in the way of preparation for Christianity.

For the last eight or nine years of his life Socrates had had Plato for his disciple, and it was through Plato that his teachings were transmitted and developed into that sublime system of philosophic truth which St. Augustine so greatly admired and approved.

785Plato, the prince of human intellects, by his unaided reason attained to the knowledge of many of the truths of revelation. The notion of a Supreme Being which he received from Socrates he developed into an almost Christian conception of God and his attributes. In his system the Supreme Deity is not merely the source of the harmony of the universe, but he is also the Father who created out of goodness; and he is in himself so good and perfect that no unrighteousness, no imperfection can be conceived as existing in him. Plato even appears to have had some notion of the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, though of course vague and indistinct. His speculations on the destiny of man and the immortality of the soul are wonderfully luminous. He recognized after a fashion the fallen nature of man and the need of some divine mediation or redemption to raise him up; but in his theory of Fall and Redemption moral and physical defilement and regeneration are strangely and somewhat incongruously blended. Plato’s conception of virtue was exalted and his definition of it singularly Christian. “Virtue,” he said, “is the resemblance to God according to the measure of our ability.” “Be ye imitators of Christ,” “Be ye God-like,” says St. Paul; and to become God-like is to become “holy, just, and wise,” according to Plato.

He also held the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, and he gave it as his opinion that the rewards and punishments of this life are as nothing compared to those “that await both the just and the unjust after death.” He encouraged the just to be patient in all their trials and afflictions in life, assuring them that everything would work together unto their good, for the gods would have a care over them and see to it that no enduring misfortune should happen to them, and the only great and irreparable evil, after all, was “to go to the world below having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice and impiety.”

The lofty speculations of Plato in the domain of religious truth have led many to suppose that he was acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures and drew some of his inspiration from them. And this is by no means improbable. The Jews were wanderers and exiles as early as Plato’s time; and if he did not himself read their law, he certainly, in his extensive travels, must have met and conversed with those who were acquainted with the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. At all events he must have known something of the primitive traditions of mankind; and we are not forbidden to think that, though a pagan, such a pure and lofty soul may have had some light from on high to enlighten him.

It is well known what a harmony Philo Judæus and the Alexandrian school established between the teachings of Plato and the principal doctrines of the Jewish dispensation; and what a near approach Neo-Platonism made to Christian philosophy in the first centuries of the Christian era.

Next to Socrates and Plato the man who did most to create Greek philosophy, and change the current of thought of the ancient world in the direction of Christianity, was undoubtedly Aristotle. Though a disciple of Plato, he did not follow in the wake of his great master, but struck out a new course for himself. The genius of Aristotle was 786neither so lofty nor so speculative as that of Plato, but his intellect was, if possible, more acute and his mind far more systematic. He made a complete analysis of the human understanding, and laid down those rules of logic and principles of certainty which are to guide men in the search after truth. He reduced all knowledge to a system, and made the grasp of the principles of all science possible to the human mind. His grand argument for the existence of a Supreme Being from the necessity of a prime mover—Primus motor—has never been surpassed, and has done good service in every age for the cause of theism.

The moral doctrines of Aristotle, though not so much in harmony with Christianity as those of Plato, were on the whole not adverse to it, and they exerted at least a negative influence, in preparing the minds of men to receive the morality of the Gospel.

Greek philosophy reached its acme in the schools of Plato and Aristotle; after them there were no more great creative minds. The philosophers who succeeded them did but borrow from them; they were the sources whence all future philosophic wisdom was drawn; they were the recognized masters of human thought, not alone to the Greeks but to the Romans, to the civilized and intellectual world; and the influence they exerted in giving direction to the current of thought of the ancient world can scarcely be over-estimated.

Here, then, four hundred and fifty years before St. Paul set foot in Athens, were three great pioneers of truth who prepared the way for him. They were raised up by the providence of God, in the midst of the darkness and superstition and sensuality of the pagan world, to remind man of his destiny, to teach him that he was made for wisdom and truth. They were set up as the partial teachers of truth to the gentile world until the divine Teacher should come who would teach them all truth.

During four centuries their doctrines of the existence of a Supreme Being, of the providence of God over men, of the immortality of the soul, of moral responsibility and fidelity to the law of conscience, filtered through the generations, until in the fulness of time Paul of Tarsus came to engraft their wisdom on the divine philosophy of Jesus Christ. That we should not hesitate to recognize the special providence of God in the development of Greek philosophy, that we should not refuse to Socrates, to Plato, to Aristotle a providential mission in the ancient world, are opinions for which some of the greatest doctors of the church have contended. Their philosophy certainly tended to do away with polytheism and to establish the unity of the Godhead. It led the human intellect in the pursuit of wisdom and the search after truth. It created a lofty ideal of intellectual wisdom and morality, and by elevating the moral above the material, the future above the present, it prepared the way for the spiritual reign of Christianity.

“Plato and Aristotle,” says a Protestant author, “have had a great work appointed them, not only as the heathen pioneers of truth but as the educators of the Christian mind in every age. The former enriched human thought with appropriate ideas for the reception of the highest truth in the 787highest form. The latter mapped out all the provinces of human knowledge, that Christianity might visit them and bless them” (Conybeare, Life of St. Paul).

And here we skip over four hundred years of the reign of Greek philosophy, and come at once to the actual meeting of Christianity and Greek philosophy in Athens.

The schools of philosophy that were dominant in Athens at the time of St. Paul’s visit were the Stoics and Epicureans. The Stoics were pantheists, and the Epicureans were not far removed from atheists—poor representatives both of the noble systems of Plato and Aristotle. In their hands Greek philosophy was rapidly declining. Athens, which in the century before had been the school of Cæsar and Brutus and Pompey, whither Cicero and Atticus and Horace had gone to receive instruction, had now no higher wisdom to impart than the philosophy of pleasure and pride. Nothing could be more opposed to the spirit of Christianity than the system of Epicurus, which made the highest good of man to consist in the pursuit of pleasure alone, denying the immortality of the soul and rejecting all notion of a hereafter, and having for its first principle, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.” Nor had the system of Zeno and the Stoics very much in it that was in harmony with Christianity, although there were some points of affinity. The Stoics taught that God was merely the soul or mind of the universe; that the soul of man was corporeal, and after death would be consumed by fire or absorbed in the infinite. The highest aspiration of man in the Stoic system should be to attain to the state of complete apathy, perfect indifference to all things. There should be in the human breast neither passion nor pity, no sense of pleasure or pain. Their moral doctrines, however, were based on those of Socrates, and hence they inculcated a practical rule of life and morality, and they laid great stress on fidelity to the dictates of reason. This, and the heroic spirit of fortitude which the Stoic discipline strove to impart, were its only points of affinity with Christian teaching. To be sure some of the later or Roman Stoics, such as Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, made a very near approach to Christianity in many things, but then they lived more in the light of Christian truth. The worst feature in the Stoic philosophy was the view it took of suicide. Self-destruction was not only permitted but was positively approved by the Stoics, and nearly all the great leaders of the sect set the example of it.

Such were the philosophers with whom St. Paul disputed every day in the market-place of Athens. The doctrines of the Stoics at least were not new to him; for Tarsus in Cilicia, where Saul was born and educated, was a great centre of Stoic philosophy, and from his youth up he must have been more or less familiar with the salient points of the Stoic system. The “Painted Porch,” the headquarters of the Stoics in Athens, was situated in the Agora, and the Garden of the Epicureans was close at hand, so that in the market-place St. Paul was in the midst of the rival sects of philosophers—in fact, on the battle-ground. We can have little doubt of the kind of reception the Epicureans would give him. It was a part of their system to make light of everything, 788and to treat nothing seriously except their dinners. He spoke to them about “Jesus and the resurrection.” Of course they called him a “word-sower” or a “babbler,” though Renan will have it that they called St. Paul a “babbler” because he spoke bad Greek. The Stoics were grave men, however, and they gave him a respectful hearing. He knew the current of their thoughts and how to address himself to them; and his doctrines must have excited their curiosity, if not their interest. They it was, doubtless, who invited him to the Areopagus, the supreme tribunal, where every important question in religion, law, and philosophy was heard and pronounced upon. It was an exceedingly great mark of respect for St. Paul and his opinions that he should be invited from the vulgar discussions of the Agora to speak before the most ancient and most august assembly of Greece; it shows the impression he must have made by his learning and eloquence on the cultivated men of Athens, and it is a proof that after all St. Paul must have spoken pretty good Greek. The Areopagus, or “Council of Twelve,” was a tribunal set up in the earliest days of Grecian autonomy to try capital offences. Solon, 600 B.C., made it a sort of high council of state and bestowed upon it the power of veto. Only men of unblemished reputation, who had rendered signal services to their country, were eligible to become members of it. The Athenians regarded it as the most sacred institution of their state, and it was, in truth, the most venerable tribunal of the ancient world. Though it had been stripped of many of its prerogatives, it still retained its prestige and took cognizance of all matters relating to religion and education in Greece. Had St. Paul been invited to address the Roman Senate in the days of its greatest glory, he would have spoken before a more powerful but not a more august assembly than was the Areopagus the day that he stood before it on the summit of Mars’ Hill.

It was one of the great events that mark an epoch in the world’s history when Christianity, in the person of St. Paul, was summoned to appear for judgment before that high tribunal wherein all the cultivation and wisdom and intelligence of the gentile nations were concentrated. It was a solemn moment for the Christian cause, and what must have been the feelings of the great apostle as he ascended the long flight of stone steps that led him up to Mars’ Hill and into the midst of the sacred circle of the Areopagus? The curious multitude pressed after him; the twelve venerable judges, seated in benches hewn out of the rock, awaited him, impatient to dispose of this “setter-forth of new divinities.” It was a scene around which was gathered the glory of the ancient world and the expectation of the new. From the summit of that hill which overlooked Athens St. Paul could, as it were, survey all the wisdom and philosophy and religion of the past. His eye could rest on the spot of the Academy where Plato taught, and on the Lyceum where was the school of Aristotle. Right before him stood the Temple of Mars and the Pantheon of Minerva, and rising close above him was the Colossus of Athens, cast out of the brazen spoils of Marathon. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece were before him, and they summed up nearly all that was great in the past.

789It was not the first time that St. Paul had preached Christ before a great assembly, and we may be assured that he entered upon his subject with his accustomed boldness. Standing up in the midst of the Areopagus, with outstretched hand, he began his abrupt exordium. Even the pagan poet Longinus, in his list of the orators of Greece, includes the name of “Paul of Tarsus, the patron,” as he says, “of an opinion not yet fully proved.” And St. Paul’s speech on this occasion must have called forth the full powers of his oratory. By all accounts the personal appearance of the great apostle was not striking, and we can hardly conceive of him as possessed of the graces of oratory; but these count for little in addressing popular assemblies. His power lay in the divine earnestness of his faith and his burning zeal for its propagation. He always spoke with the light that struck him blind on the road to Damascus shining in upon his soul, and the Voice that he heard ringing in his ear. Jesus Christ and his Gospel were an actuality to him, and he made them an actuality to all who heard him. There was no doubting the sincerity of his conviction—every tone of his voice, every expression of his countenance, every motion of his body was a declaration of the supreme power of the faith that possessed him. It was a novel experience to the free and easy Athenians, who were never thoroughly in earnest about anything, to have a man so consumed with earnestness make an appeal before them, and it must have impressed them not a little. They must have been a good deal taken by surprise also by the manner in which St. Paul introduced his subject. Instead of feeling his way timidly in the presence of so august an assemblage, he made a bold dash, carried the war at once into the enemy’s country, fought them on their own ground and with the weapons they themselves had furnished him. The people of Athens were so religious or so superstitious, or both, that they wanted to make sure that no god should be left unhonored in their city; and after raising an altar to every god of whom they had heard, they bethought themselves that there might still be some god of whom they had not heard, and so they raised an altar and dedicated it “To the unknown god.” Pausanias states that there were several such altars in Athens, and Petronius declares that so bountiful were the Athenians in providing altars and statues for the gods “that it was far easier to find a god in Athens than a man.” St. Paul might take it for granted that every false god was honored in Athens by name, and the only god who was “unknown” was the one true God whom he came to preach to them. This gave him at once an opening and a way to escape the accusation that he was a “setter-forth of strange divinities,” which would have been prejudicial to his cause before the Areopagus. It was a master-stroke, and in it we discover a good illustration of that cunning of the serpent which the apostles were told to imitate. It is supposed that we have only the outline of St. Paul’s speech on Mars’ Hill preserved to us in the Acts of the Apostles; and yet the outline is in itself complete and perfect in its adaptation to the audience. The Athenians were above all things proud of their city, and St. Paul told them that he 790was struck by its aspect; he noticed the religious feeling manifested in the setting up of so many objects of worship; and after having thus engaged the attention of the people he proceeded to lay before them the Christian conception of the Supreme Being, which must have recalled to the philosophers present the highest flights of Plato and commanded their attention. He struck directly at the atomic theory of the Epicureans by asserting the creative act of God and the divine Providence that rules the universe and orders all things. He spoke of the “God in whom we live, move, and be.” And the Stoics were full of interest; he appeared to side with their pantheistic notions of the Deity; he even quoted one of their poets—Aratus of Cilicia—and we can almost fancy some of the grave philosophers of this sect rising to applaud him. But in the next breath he crushed them, for he declared that God is a personal being, that he is equally the Father of all men, and that there is only one way to approach him—the same for all—the philosopher must come down from his high conceits and do penance just the same as the poor and illiterate. He broke down the barrier of race and national pride by declaring “that God made of one blood all the nations of mankind,” and the past times, however glorious they might appear, were in reality times of ignorance when the truth was not known. And to their utter astonishment he makes the “foolishness” of Christ and his resurrection the basis and proof of all religious truth and righteousness. This was the least philosophical part of St. Paul’s discourse and created the most opposition; but it was the most irresistible, for it was a fact.

Athens had heard great orators before, but this was the most immortal speech ever uttered in her hearing; even apart from its sacred character it would hold its own for eloquence and skill among the greatest productions of the past. It is the true model of Christian eloquence, and illustrates that economy in the way of presenting divine truth which is the most striking feature in the teaching of St. Paul. “Instead of uttering any invective,” says Dr. Newman, “against their polytheism, he began a discourse upon the unity of the divine nature, and then proceeded to claim the altar consecrated in the neighborhood to the unknown god as the property of Him whom he preached to them, and to enforce his doctrine of the divine immateriality, not by miracles but by argument, and that founded on the words of a heathen poet.”

But the speech was not well received, nay, it was interrupted, cut short, and, powerful as it was, only a very few persons in that large assembly were converted by it, and of these two only are mentioned—Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and the woman Damaris, of whom nothing is known. It created a profound impression, nevertheless. It took the philosophers of Athens completely by surprise; they were wholly unprepared to meet it, and the only part to which they could make an immediate objection was the Resurrection, and they took advantage of this to postpone the discussion and so escape the relentless logic of St. Paul.

Nor did they give him another hearing, as they had promised. 791They were insincere; like the modern triflers with truth, they were afraid they might hear too much, and so took refuge in evasion. Such are still the tactics of flippant philosophers and men of bad faith all the world over. They simply do not want to know the truth, and hence they mock at it and evade it. But even the conversion of one member of the high council of Greece was a great gain for Christianity. Dionysius was a conquest worthy of St. Paul, and to have given to France her glorious St. Denis was a result that well repaid the highest effort of Christian eloquence.

Thus it was that Christian philosophy encountered Greek philosophy on the summit of Mars’ Hill, and silenced and dethroned it; and during twenty centuries thus has it silenced and dethroned every system that has come in conflict with it; and although its supremacy has been constantly disputed, it still remains supreme in the domain of reason and of truth. In cultivated Athens we behold the highest point to which unaided human reason can attain, and it is in cultivated Athens that we first find Christianity asserting its claim to be the gospel of reason as well as of faith.

Christianity is the only system of religion that has made philosophy its handmaiden and used it to elucidate its doctrines. It is, in fact, the only religious system that can confidently appeal to the higher powers of reason, and hence it is the only creed that has ever made really intellectual conquests, that has ever compelled rationalism and scepticism to pause before it and believe, or at least doubt. Christianity alone, among all the religions of the world, has been able to exact the complete homage of the minds as well as the hearts of cultivated men.

But although philosophy to a certain extent prepared the way for Christianity, and Christianity constantly uses philosophy and appeals to it, it is a great mistake to suppose that philosophy played a very important part in the formation and propagation of the Christian faith. The religion that bears the name of Christ is not a theory gradually developed, but from the very first a definite system of religious teaching resting on facts. The logic of facts, not of philosophy, has propagated Christianity. St. Paul appealed to philosophy in Athens, and he converted two persons. St. Peter appealed to facts in Jerusalem, and he converted eight thousand. This is about the proportion of the relative influence of philosophy and fact in the propagation of the Christian religion. Jesus and the Resurrection, the facts at the bare mention of which the Athenians mocked, were the facts that a century later converted Greece when the tide of human testimony spread on from Judea and confirmed them. Philosophical theories have never founded a religion, they have never wrought any great revolution in the belief of mankind; facts alone can produce wide-spread conviction and change.

The rationalism of our day affects to treat Christianity as a theory of religion, a mere phase in the development of the religious thought of mankind, and as such to judge it and dispose of it; it feigns to ignore altogether the Christian religion as a system resting on facts. This is certainly a crafty move; for it is easy to get rid of a theory, but facts cannot well be 792explained away. Once they are well established, facts are invincible. And the evidences of Christianity are facts—well-established, invincible facts—that can neither be ignored nor explained away. The Christian religion is a philosophical religion, inasmuch as it is in complete harmony with whatever is sound in the philosophy of any age; but it is also an historical religion, and in its origin and progress rests on the certain basis of human testimony.

The divine Founder of Christianity did not appear in a remote age of darkness and obscurity, but in an age of intellectual culture and enlightenment—in an age when history had already attained to its full purpose and perfection. So that the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ, and the progress of the religion he founded, at once dropped into the stream of history and became a part of it. This is shown by the fact that so many contemporary pagan historians have in their writings referred to Christ, his miracles, his doctrines, and his sufferings.

The Great Teacher who came to give true light to the world was not afraid of the light; and it was without doubt a part of the eternal design that he should appear in an era of intellectual activity and culture and criticism, so that human reason might have no excuse for rejecting him, and the future enemies of Christianity could not upbraid it with being a system hatched out in darkness and obscurity. Here is a point we should particularly insist upon: Jesus Christ has his place in history as much as Cæsar or Napoleon or Washington or any other great man of the past. His miracles are as much matters of history as the victories of Cæsar; his law is as much a matter of history as the Code of Napoleon; and the kingdom of Christianity which he founded is as palpable a fact to-day as the republic of George Washington.

Christianity is only a theory, say the rationalists. What a barefaced falsehood in the face of all history! Christianity an effect without an adequate cause, say they. What an outrage on reason! Verily, the theories by which the rationalistic school would account for Christianity are on a par with the Hindoo theory of the world, for they also rest on nothing at all.

Christianity is not a natural outgrowth or development of Judaism; it is not a skilful adaptation of Oriental liturgy and Greek philosophy; but it is a religion of reason and truth, resting on the eternal facts of the Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the God of all truth.

793

ONE TO ONE.

“The one soul to the one God.”—Rev. Henry Giesen, C.SS.R.

“One unto one!” O Jesus, can thy creature

Be truly one to one with thee, her King?

Can the poor sinful heart for which thine suffered

To thee alone in love and sorrow cling?

To thee, the Son of God, the Word Eternal,

So dreadly pure, so infinitely just?

“One unto one”! My God, when I would say it,

’Tis answered me, “Remember thou art dust.”

“One unto one”! O Jesus, meek and loving,

And humbled down to Bethlehem for me,

Humbled to own a human heart and nature,

Jesus, my Saviour, now I come to thee!

I see thee on thy Virgin Mother’s bosom—

An infant, though a God, a Judge, a King:

“One unto one”! Ah! yes, my infant Saviour,

To thee at last I dare my love to bring.

Again, in prayer and sorrow I behold thee

Prostrate beneath the olive-trees’ dark shade,

The blood of agony for us outpouring,

The burden of our sins upon thee laid.

“One unto one”! Yes, here too may thy creature,

With all her sins before her, bring her heart

Near unto thine; for she is only asking

That in thy agony she may have part.

“One unto one”! The thorny crown, the scourges,

The gall, the nails, the cross, the cruel spear,

The death-swoon, and the last dear words—O Jesus!

“One unto one”—how can I say it here?

Only thy Mother with her priceless dolors,

Methinks, can rightly say this daring word;

She who shared all thy passion, meekly standing

Beside thy cross, soul-pierced with Simeon’s sword.

Dead is the Son of God, the Son of Mary;

Dead for our love—for very love of me!

“One unto one”! O Jesus, my Redeemer,

Grant that my life may die for love of thee.

Grant that thy cross may be my only treasure,

Thy blood my riches, and thy grace my prize;

Until, my penance done, my sins all pardoned,

“One unto one,” to thee my spirit flies!

794

HIS IRISH COUSINS.

Mr. Eugene Percival was seated in the dining-room of the Garrick Club, London, engaged in discussing a quiet little dinner consisting of a plate of real turtle, a red mullet, and a pin-tailed duck, preparatory to turning into Covent Garden to hear Titiens in Semiramide, when a servant approached him, bearing two letters upon a silver salver.

“Irish mail, sir.”

“For me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Percival quietly finished his glass of pale sherry and ordered a clean plate ere he troubled himself about his Hibernian correspondence.

“Irish letters!” he murmured. “Who could write to me from that out-of-the-world country? Jack Hotham, possibly. His regiment is quartered on some solid bit of bog called the Curragh.” He leisurely took up the nearest epistle. “A woman’s hand, by Jove! And such a hand. How she does scatter the ink! Place aux dames. Now, madam, I am prepared for the worst.” And throwing himself back in his chair, he proceeded to open the envelope. The letter ran as follows:

“Ballybo, Co. Mayo, June 1, 187-.

“Dear Cousin: A very nice young man, who says he is intimate with you, has been stopping here for a few days for the salmon-fishing. By the merest accident your name came on the tapis, and I immediately claimed you as a kinsman, my mother and your father having been second cousins. As kinsfolk should at least become acquainted with one another, I take this opportunity of letting you know that my eldest boy, Charley, and his sister Geraldine, are going to visit London next week, when any attention you can show them will be most gratefully received by your affectionate cousin,

“Martha Mary Grace Devereux.

“P. S. They will stop at the Charing Cross Hotel. Charley is twenty-three and Geraldine four years younger.”

“Of all the cool epistles I ever read this is the coolest,” muttered Percival, holding the letter at arm’s length, as though it were combustible. “I never heard of Martha Mary Grace Devereux before. I have no relations in Ireland. The idea of having a hulking savage with a brogue that would peel a potato, and dressed like a navvy, and an awkward, dowdy, gawky girl, thrust upon me is rather too good. No, no, my Irish friends. I respect you at Bally—Bally-what-you-may-call-it, but in Piccadilly not quite.” Here he commenced his ripe Stilton. “The idea of my being seen in Mayfair with—Pshaw! it’s too good.” He turned the second letter over with his knife.

“A school-boy’s hand. I suppose this is from Charley, with a modest demand for a box at the opera for himself and his sister for every night during their stay, seats on one of the Four-in-hand Club coaches, tickets for the Zoo for Sunday, invitations to swell balls. I know what Irish cousins mean, and, per Bacco! I’ll keep the Channel rolling between us. Let’s see what Charley says. A monogram, C. D. Gorgeous! Who’d have thought of so much civilization in Mayo—wherever that may be?”

“Ballybo.

“Mr. Charley Devereux’ compliments to Mr. Percival”—that’s civil at any rate—“and begs to 795say that in order to oblige his mother”—whose mother? My poor mother died when I was toothless—“he writes this note. Mr. C. D. doesn’t believe in bothering people who don’t care about him”—come, now, this is a sensible lad—“and he doesn’t care for people whom he doesn’t know”—sensible again. “If Mr. Percival wants to see Mr. C. D., he will find him at the Charing Cross Hotel on and after Monday next.”

“I say, Minniver, just come over and take your Lafitte here. I have such a bon bouche for you!” said Percival, addressing a gentleman seated at a neighboring table.

“What’s the row?” demanded Mr. Minniver, a tall, aristocratic man, whose hair was parted in the centre and whose eye-glass was the sole occupation of his life.

“Two letters from Ireland.”

“No!”

“Fact.”

“Take my glawss and decanter over to Mr. Percival’s table,” said Mr. Minniver, addressing a waiter.

“Shall I read ’em to you, Minniver?”

“Are they in Irish?”

“Oh! dear, no.”

“Then let me have the two barrels.”

“Congratulate me, old fellow.”

“On what?”

“I have been claimed by Irish cousins.”

“What a nuisance!” observed Mr. Minniver in a tone of intense disgust, and letting his eye-glass fall on the table with a click, whilst he took a sip of the rich, tawny wine.

“That’s not enough. To claim me does not fill their cup of happiness. They are coming over to see me.”

“By Jove!” wiping the glass carefully and screwing it hard into the corner of his eye.

“Yes. Just read this letter. This is the one that claims me, that takes me into the fold, and here’s another that repudiates me.”

“That’s a very extraordinary document, Percival,” observed Mr. Minniver with an owl-like glance, solemn, important, but vacant withal.

“Read this now; it’s from Charley.”

“Why, this ought to be framed and glazed. How old Thackeray would have chuckled over this in the smoking-room! You must let us have it in the smoking-room; the fellows are infernally dull just now.”

“Take both, my dear boy.”

“Thanks. What are you going to do?”

“Preserve a masterly inactivity.”

“You’ll reply?”

“I think not.”

“Drop a pasteboard at the Cross?”

“Cards are expensive luxuries just now. You forget it’s the height of the season, Minniver!”

“Then you’ll let it sink?”

“Most unquestionably.”

“I s’pose you’re right.”

“Well, rather. I can stand a good deal but Irish cousins. As the Princess Huncomun says in ‘Tom Thumb,’ ‘I shudder at the gross idea.’”

“It would never do, Percival—never, never.” And wagging his empty head sagaciously, Mr. Minniver again dipped his beak in the juice of the grape.

Mr. Eugene Percival is a swell of the first water; a bureaucrat in the most exalted sense of the term; a clerk in the Foreign Office, with expectations of a third secretaryship at no distant date. His mother, 796an heiress, died in giving him birth; his father, a captain in the Seventeenth Lancers, fell in the bloody ride of death at Balaklava. A guardian took possession of the boy, and, having placed him at Eton, later on transplanted him to Cambridge, where he took a degree, making a fair fight for honors. The failure of the banking firm of Overend & Gurney, of Lombard Street, deprived Percival of over half his property, and then he resolved upon work.

“I cannot live upon fifteen hundred a year and idleness,” he said.

“I could live, and live well, on a hundred a year with work.”

Through the influence of no less a personage than Benjamin Disraeli he was installed at the Foreign Office at a nominal salary, and the evening upon which this story opens he was twenty-five years of age, five feet eight inches in height, with yellow hair closely cropped, as is the fashion amongst the golden youth of the present hour, his eyes dark blue, his nose a delicate aquiline, his mouth and teeth unexceptionable, and the whole man bearing the unmistakable stamp of gentleman.

A few days subsequent to the receipt of his Irish letters Mr. Eugene Percival strolled from the Garrick into Covent Garden Market, but little altered in its appearance since the days when Sam Johnson and Topham Beauclerk went on a rouse amongst the vegetable wagons, and at unhallowed hours, as the worthy lexicographer subsequently—and sorrowfully—admitted.

Taking the central arcade, the bureaucrat stopped to admire bouquets that would have brought tears of envy into the pretty eyes of Mlle. Louise of the Marché aux Fleurs, so fearfully and wonderfully were they made up, so delicious in their harmonies, such veritable tone-poems in their lustrous yet satisfying effects. Stepping into a flower-shop, he invested in a two-shilling moss rosebud reclining upon the petals of a sprig of stefanotis, attached to his coat by a young lady who addressed him by name.

“Mr. Pommery ‘as just been ’ere, Mr. Percival.”

“What! another bunch of violets?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied with a saucy laugh.

“Why, he must be spending a small fortune.”

“These wiolets come from Algiers.”

“And he sends a bunch every day?”

“Every day, sir.”

“And you are sworn to secrecy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you won’t tell to whom those violets go?”

“Not for anything.”

“Where do they go?”

The young lady shook her head.

“It is refreshing,” laughed Percival as he quitted the shop, “to find one woman who can keep a secret.”

He strolled down the arcade, gazing at the flowers and fruits, and the bizarre crowd that gently surged hither and thither, from the costermonger who came for his salad and radishes, to the “Dook” who sought his five-guinea bouquet; from the weedy-looking woman, smelling horribly of gin, who shelled peas, to the countess in search of an orchid to make up her priceless collection.

He was standing opposite a window wherein lay exposed a basket 797of Belle Angevine pears labelled “£30 a dozen,” when a hand was laid on his shoulder and a cheery voice exclaimed:

“Not thinking of that lot, Percival?”

“Not quite, Pommery. They’re a cut above me. My buying price is sixpence, and I falter at anything above that lordly sum.”

“They’re not much, these Angevines. I had a cut into one last night at a little dinner Baby Bowles gave six of us at the Star and Garter—a pre-marital affair.”

“Pre-marital! Has the Baby surrendered at discretion?”

“He has surrendered, which says little for his discretion.”

“Pauvre garçon! By the way, you’ve been away, Pommery?”

“Yaas.”

“Whither?”

“Guess.”

“Norway, after the salmon?”

“No.”

“Monaco, after Rouge et Noir?”

“No.”

“Paris, after a good dinner?”

“You’d never guess. Hold on to your umbrella now, Percival, for I’m about to startle you. I’ve been in Ireland.”

“Never!”

“A fact, I assure you.”

“And you’re alive to tell the tale?”

“Ireland is not bad quarters, I can tell you. I was capitally fed. I had a game of Polo in the Phœnix Park—and that is a park. I had as good a rubber at the Kildare Street Club as ever I played at the Raleigh. I saw some very fit soldiering at the Curragh of Kildare. I landed my thirty-seven-pound salmon from a river with an impossible name in Connemara. I took to Connemara con amore—excuse the pun, it’s rather early. And I’ll let you into a secret, Percival: I mean to return for the grouse on the 20th of August.”

“Apropos of Ireland, get Minniver to show you two letters I received last week from some people calling themselves my cousins; they are the richest things in town. They have had nothing in the smoking-room of the Garrick so good since the night old Fladgate told Thackeray that, in order to render his lectures on the Four Georges a success, he should hire a piano.”

Jack Pommery is a clever, hard-working young barrister—a coming man. He was senior wrangler of his year at Cambridge, and carried off one or two “big things.” He rowed in the ‘varsity eight and boxed like a prize-fighter. Pommery, while he believes in work, stoutly maintains that the brain can only do a certain amount of it, and under cover of this theory casts aside wig and gown for a run with the Pytchley, a pull on the Thames, a breezer in the Channel under double reefs, a month on the moors—in a word, he goes in for what Micky Free termed “hapes o’ divarshin.”

“I’ve just seen your fleuriste, Jack. She still keeps the key of the blue chamber.”

“She’ll not sell me.”

“And you won’t let me into the secret—you won’t divulge the name of the violet lady?”

“Some day.”

“Some day is no day.”

“It’s a caprice, Percival. Every clever man has a caprice.”

“Bravo! Let me hear you blow that trumpet again. Why, the guard of the Windsor Coach doesn’t use his yard of tin with greater effect,” laughed Percival.

“Bah! chaff! The story is very simple. It is idyllic. I meet a 798girl, no matter where. She has violet eyes. She is as modest as a violet. Qui me cherche me trouve is her motto—a true woman’s motto, my man. I went spooney on her. I am spoons still. I told her that until I met her again I would send her a bunch of violets every day. I send the bunch of violets every day, et voilà tout!”

“Very pretty and sentimental, ’pon honor—worthy of being written by Wilkie Collins and set to music by Arthur Sullivan. I won’t press you on the subject, Jack, but I’ll tell you what I will press you to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Come back to the Garrick and have a steak—one of our famous fat slugs of beef that Thackeray revelled over after his favorite dish of tripe.”

“Try a chop at the Albion with me. It’s a real English chop-house, a tavern in the best sense of the good old English word. We’ll be sure to meet some queer people there. The theatrical stars most do congregate within its precincts. Toole, Irving, Barry Sullivan haunt it when not ‘on circuit.’ Confound their impudence in appropriating the pet terms of my honorable profession!”

“Have at thy chops, slave!” cried Percival melodramatically as they passed along through groves of cabbages, batteries of turnips, golden vistas of carrots, groups of women engaged in shelling peas.

The two entered the tavern, and, having seated themselves in a sort of loose box constructed of black oak, with a table set in the middle, Pommery gave the order to a waiter whose pronounced accent bespoke an intimate acquaintance with the road that leads from the Upper Lake at Killarney to Gougawn Barra. He was an honest-looking, open-faced, elderly man, civil without being servile, and the possessor of a twinkle in the corner of his eye that proclaimed the land of his nativity equally with his unctuous and oily brogue.

A loud rapping on the table in the next compartment made itself heard, while an authoritative voice called:

“Has that sheep been caught yet?”

“It’s on the fire, sir,” responded the waiter.

“I suppose you intend that as a sample of Irish wit.” This said with a sneer.

“Troth, mebbe it’s good enough for—” and the man checked himself.

“Let me have none of your impertinence, fellow. You Irish require to be kept under heel, every one of you.”

“Do we?”

“You do, and it takes an Englishman to do it.”

“See that, now,” said the waiter, angrily brushing the table, and by a vigorous effort keeping back the fierce retort that was on the leap in his heart.

“Get me my chop.”

“I’ll get it, never fear,” hurrying away.

Percival and his companion overheard this dialogue.

“If I were that waiter,” exclaimed Pommery, “I’d chuck the chop at that insolent fellow’s head.”

“What can the poor wretch do? He’s paid for this sort of thing.”

“He’s not paid to be insulted by a man who, the chances are, considers himself a gentleman.”

“It’s very bad form.”

The waiter returned with the autocrat’s luncheon.

“How dare you bring me a chop 799cooked in this way? Do you imagine I am in an Irish pig-sty? Send me an English waiter.”

At this moment a tall, awkward-looking youth, attired in a home-spun suit of gray frieze, ill-fitting if not shabby, slowly arose from a table right opposite, and, lounging over, quietly asked:

“Will I do?”

“Do what, sir?” demanded the irate Saxon.

“Wait on you.”

“Wait on me? You are not a waiter.”

“I am an Irishman; perhaps I might be able to please you better than my countryman.”

Pommery leaned over to Percival: