Volume 27 — THE HOME-RULE CANDIDATE. A STORY OF “NEW IRELAND.” CHAPTER III. THE RIVALS. (continued 2)

“And many a saying furthermore of God-loved seers of old

Fears her with dreadful memories”;

“Nor was he worser than himself in such a pinch bestead”

—such lines in a translator to whom this dialect was still a living language would not seem unnatural. They would be simply the expression of the effect made by Virgil on the mind of that age, and so far, since every age has its own idiom, they would not necessarily be un-Virgilian at all. Even such extraordinary phrases as

“An ash ...

Round which, sore smitten by the steel, the acre biders throng,

And strive in speeding of the axe,”

for

“Ornum

Cum ferro accisam crebrisque bipennibus instant

Eruere agricolæ certatim”;

or

“When Jove, a-looking down

From highest lift on sail-skimmed sea, and lands that round it lie,

And shores and many folk about in topmost burg of sky,

Stood still,”

for

“Cum Jupiter, æthere summo

Despiciens mare velivolum terrasque jacentes

Litoraque et latos populos, sic vertice cœli

Constitit”;

or

“An ancient mighty rock, indeed, which lay upon the lea,

Set for a landmark, judge and end of acre-strife to be,”

for

“Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat,

Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis”;

or,

“No footstrife but the armed hand must doom betwixt us twain,”

for

“Non cursu, certandum sævis est comminus armis”

—such phrases as these, if to any translator at any time they could have seemed a natural way of saying things, would not then, in such a translator’s version, have struck us with more than the passing and not unpleasant sense of quaintness which is part of the charm we find in the diction of a past age when used by its lawful owners. But when a poet of the nineteenth century sacrilegiously invades the tomb and seizes upon this castoff and moth-eaten verbal bravery of buried ages to bedeck himself withal, it is much as if he should come to make his bow in a modern 46drawing-room arrayed in the conventional dress-coat, Elizabethan ruff and trunks, Wellington boots, and a Vandyke hat. The novelty might please for a moment, but the incongruity must offend in the end. In the very time which Mr. Morris so much admires they knew this to be false art. “That same framing of his stile to an old rusticke language,” says Sir Philip Sidney in his Apologie for Poesie, speaking of The Shepherd’s Calendar, “I dare not alowe, since neither Theocritus in Greeke, Virgile in Latin, nor Sannazar in Italian did affect it.”

Still worse is it when our amateur of second-hand finery, the bric-à-brac of language, selects such a poet as Virgil—Virgil, whose name is a synonym for supreme, for perfect elegance, whose “taste was his genius”—as a lay figure to drape with these shreds and tatters of an obsolete, fantastic verbiage, “mouldy-dull as Eld herself”—to quote and illustrate at once from Mr. Morris^[5]—and smelling of the grave. This persistence in going out of the way to hunt for archaisms at once—to repeat a word which best hits our own feeling—teases the reader and distracts him. We seem to feel Mr. Morris amiably tugging our coat-sleeve at every turn to point out this or that fresh eccentricity of language. We fancy we see him chuckling and rubbing his hands gleefully here and there over the discovery of some more than usually exasperating way of violating the usages of modern speech. So vexed and harassed, it is impossible to get much taste of the Æneid; through this word-jugglery we catch such glimpses of it as of the painted scene a conjurer has set behind him to throw his tricks into relief Of a piece with this laborious renaissance of a forgotten tongue are the studied mispronunciations, such as Ænĕas for Ænēas and Erāto for Erăto:

“So did the Father Ænĕas, with all at stretch to hear”;

“To aid, Erāto, while I tell what kings, what deedful tide”;

the false rhymes, such as “wrath” and “forth,” “poured” and “abroad,” “abroad” and “reward,” which might be forgiven to the stress of so long and difficult a task had we not such reason for suspecting them to be intentional; the occasional use of phrases familiar, even low, and totally at variance with Virgil’s lofty and cultivated style, such as “gobbets of the men” for frusta, iii. 632; “Phrygian fellows” (Phrygii comites); “those Teucrian fellows”; “the other lads” for juventus; “but as they gave and took in talk” (hac vice sermonum); “he spake and footed it afore” (dixit et ante tulit gressum); “unlearned Æneas fell aquake” (Horruit ... inscius Æneas)—surely a most undignified proceeding for a hero; “so east and west he called to him, and spake such words to tell” (dehinc talia fatur)—the list is long, scarce a page but would swell it; or the compound epithets which Mr. Morris—herein, no doubt, taking his cue from Chapman, but not so happily or with such good reason—has coined profusely. “In the Augustan poets,” says Prof. Conington, “compound epithets are chiefly conspicuous by their absence, and a translator of an Augustan poet ought not to suffer them to be too prominent 47a feature of his style.” This assertion must be qualified with regard to Virgil, who, in imitation of his model, Homer, and in obedience, perhaps, to a supposed law of epic composition, has too many compounds to permit it to pass unchallenged—such, for instance, as armisonus (Palladis armisonæ—“Pallas of the weapon-din”), velivolus (“sail-skimmed”), legifer (legiferæ Cereri—“Ceres wise of law”), letifer (“deadly”), cælicolus (“heaven-abider”), laniger (“woolly”), noctivagus (“nightly-straying”), and the like. Yet, not content to render these by English compounds even where it is not always expedient—since the compound form in our own language will often, from its strangeness in a familiar tongue, seem strained and awkward, where in the less familiar Latin it seems only natural and elegant^[6]—Mr. Morris has introduced many other compounds of his own invention for which there is no authority in Virgil at all, which in many instances are discordant with his style and not seldom downright grotesque—such combinations as “hot-heart” for ardens, or “cold-hand in the war” (frigidus bello) or even “fate-wise,” “weapon-won,” “war-lord,” “battle-lord,” “air-high,” “star-smiting,” “outland-wrought,” “heaven-abider” (cœlicolus), “like-aged,” “goddess-led,” etc., which meet us at every turn. And what are we to say of such inventions as “murder-wolf,” “death-stealth” (“on death-stealth onward the Trojan went”—hic furio fervidus instat), “dreaming-tide” for somnus, “war-Turnus,” “weapon-great,” “helpless-fain” for nequidquam avidus, “hero-gathered stone” (lapis ipsi viri), “anger-seas,” “wounding-craft,” “bit-befoaming,” “speech-masters,” or those others, if possible still more extraordinary, already mentioned, “weapon-smith,” “wound-smith,” “tooth-hedge”? These, and scores of other such we have marked for notice, are surely as little like Virgil as they are like any English that is spoken to-day; and they are scarcely less potent than Mr. Morris’ archaisms in disturbing and altering the Virgilian tone. Of a like effect are the quaint and unconsequential translations now and then of Latin names—as of Musæ into “Song-maids,” Eumenides into “Well-willers,” Avernus into “Fowlless,” and soon—whereby for a perfectly familiar and intelligible term of the Latin is substituted in the English a grotesque and puzzling word, and which again stops the current of the story until the reader can readjust his mind to the novel ideas it awakes. The most unclassical of readers has his notions formed of the Muses and the Furies, at least, if not of the Eumenides; but of these Song-maids—who might as well be milk-maids—and of these Well-willers—who rather suggest well-diggers—he must form a new notion as he reads. And one might add, at the risk of seeming to split hairs, that in thus translating the word Eumenides we lose much of the effect of that euphemism with which the Greeks, like all strongly imaginative peoples, sought to keep disagreeable subjects at arm’s length—the form τι παθεῖν, as a synonym for dying, is 48exactly paralleled by the Irish phrase “suffered,” applied to an executed rebel—or perhaps to ward off the wrath of these ticklish neighbors, as Celtic races, again, are in the habit of calling fairies “the good people.” A more substantial objection is that Mr. Morris seems capricious in the matter, for we see no particular reason for his translating one such name and others not at all—-why he should not give us Quail-land for Ortygia, or Chalk Island for Crete, as well as Westland for Hesperia, or Fowlless for Avernus.

It is a result of these affectations, or—for we are loath to press the charge of affectation against a poet whose own writing is so genuine and sincere—of these peculiarities of style, which have on the reader all the seeming and effect of affectation, that the pathos of Virgil, the one quality to which Mr. Morris should have been best fitted to do justice, he has greatly impaired. Affectation is fatal to pathos; one cannot have much feeling for the woes which are carefully set forth in verbal mosaic. Take but a single example—a passage in Virgil already referred to—which sets forth admirably that faculty the Latin poet has to so curious a degree of infusing sadness into mere words, but in which Mr. Morris is little behind him. It is the death of Æolus, which Mr. Morris renders thus:

“Thee also, warring Æolus, did that Laurentine field

See fallen and cumbering the earth with body laid alow;

Thou diest, whom the Argive hosts might never overthrow,

Nor that Achilles’ hand that wrought the Priam’s realm its wrack.

Here was thy meted mortal doom: high house ‘neath Ida’s back—

High house within Lyrnessus’ garth, grave in Laurentine lea.”

It only needs to compare this with the original to see how far it misses the pathos of the Latin; it needs only to compare it with Mr. Morris himself, where he has forgotten or failed to be sufficiently archaic, to see the reason of the miss. Take, again, the passage from the shipwreck in the second book already referred to:

“Now therewithal Æneas’ limbs grew weak with chilly dread;

He groaned, and, lifting both his palms aloft to heaven, he said:

O thrice and four times happy ye that had the fate to fall

Before your fathers’ faces there by Troy’s beloved wall!

Tydidĕs, thou of Danaan folk, the mightiest under shield,

Why might I never lay me down upon the Ilian field?

Why was my soul forbid release at thy most mighty hand,

Where eager Hector stooped and lay before Achilles’ wand,

Where huge Sarpedon fell asleep, where Simois rolls along

The shields of men and helms of men and bodies of the strong?”

The word “wand” for telo has an odd look, but that may be forgiven to the rhyme; and the rest is simple, emotional, and true. In like happy moments of oblivion we catch an echo of Jason, as in the opening of book vii.:

“The faint winds breathe about the night, the moon shines clear and kind;

Beneath the quivering, shining road the wide seas gleaming lie....

The fowl that love the river-bank and haunt the river-bed

Sweetened the air with plenteous song and through the thicket fled.”

The rising of the Rutules in vii. 623 is an animated picture unmarred by too many of the mannerisms we have spoken of:

“... All Ausonia yet unstirred brake suddenly ablaze;

And some will go afoot to field, and some will wend their ways

Aloft on horses dusty-fierce; all seek their battle-gear.

Some polish bright the buckler’s face and rub the pike-point clear

With fat of sheep; and many an axe upon the wheel is worn.

They joy to rear the banners up and hearken to the horn.

49And now five mighty cities forge the point and edge anew

On new-raised anvils: Tibur proud, Atina stanch to do,

Ardea and Crustumerium’s folk, Antennæ castle-crowned.

They hollow helming for the head; they bend the withe around

For buckler-boss; or other some beat breastplates of the brass,

Or from the toughened silver bring the shining greaves to pass.

Now fails all prize of share and work, all yearning for the plough;

The swords their fathers bore afield anew they smithy now.

Now is the gathering trumpet blown; the battle-token speeds,

And this man catches helm from wall; this thrusteth foaming steeds

To collar; this his shield does on, and mail-coat threesome laid

Of golden link, and girdeth him with ancient trusty blade.”

Passages like this—and, indeed, there are many of them—only deepen our regret that Mr. Morris should let a whim of doubtful taste deprive us of what might have been otherwise the best rendering of the Æneid yet. One other passage we will give, and then cease to tax longer the patience of the reader. It shall be the gallant picture of Turnus sallying forth to battle (xi. 486), which, as it is taken from the like description of Paris, near the end of the sixth Iliad, will permit us to compare Morris’ manner with Chapman’s:

“Now eager Turnus for the war his body did begird:

The ruddy gleaming coat of mail upon his breast he did,

And roughened him with brazen scales; with gold his legs he hid;

With brow yet bare, unto his side he girt the sword of fight,

And, all a glittering, golden man, ran down the castle’s height.^[7]

High leaps his heart, his hope runs forth the foeman’s force to face;

As steed, when broken are the bonds, fleeth the stabling place,

Set free at last, and, having won the unfenced open mead.

Now runneth to the grassy ground wherein the mare-kind feed;

Or, wont to water, speedeth him in well-known stream to wash,

And, wantoning, with uptost head about the world doth dash,

While wave his mane-locks o’er his neck, and o’er his shoulders play.”

Compare Chapman, Iliad vi. 503 (Οὐδέ Πάρις δήθυνεν ἐν ὑψηλοῖοι δόμοιοιν):

“And now was Paris come

From his high towers, who made no stay when once he had put on

His richest armor, but flew forth; the flints he trod upon

Sparkled with lustre of his arms; his long-ebb’d spirits now flow’d

The higher for their lower ebb. And as a fair steed, proud,

With full-giv’n mangers, long tied up, and now his head-stall broke,

He breaks from stable, runs the field, and with an ample stroke

Measures the centre; neighs and lifts aloft his wanton head,

About his shoulders shakes his crest, and where he hath been fed,

Or in some calm flood wash’d, or stung with his high plight, he flies

Amongst his females; strength put forth his beauty, beautifies,

And like life’s mirror bears his gait: so Paris from the tower

Of lofty Pergamos came forth.”

Is not the modern older in style than the ancient?

We lay aside Mr. Morris’ book with a mingling of admiration and regret. The critical and poetical ability shown in it is of the first order—no man could have spoiled Virgil so thoroughly as we think Mr. Morris has in places who did not know him au bout des ongles, just as a clever parody shows true appreciation of an author—and its ingenuity is amazing. But one feels it to be a wasted ingenuity, and the predominant sentiment with which we leave the book is one of annoyance that a man should so wilfully do ill what his very errors prove him capable of doing so well. Yet for all that the book wins upon us as most of Mr. Morris’ work has a way of doing; and if one could but get reconciled to a Norseland Æneis, we should no doubt find it pleasant enough.

50Perhaps we cannot better dismiss our subject than by saying, in the old-time fashion of comparison, that of these three translations Conington’s will probably be read for the story by those who know Virgil not at all; Mr. Cranch’s for its literalness by those who half know Virgil and are willing to know him better; and Mr. Morris’ for its very ingenuity of perversion by those who know Virgil so well that to see him in any new light, even a false light, only adds a fillip to their love for him.

ST. CUTHBERT.

Behold the shepherd lad of Lammermuir

Tending his small flock on the uplands bleak.

Alone he seems, yet to his young heart speak

Voices that none may hear except the pure.

His dreaming eyes—where duller souls, secure

Of earth alone, see naught—are quick to seek

Angels howe’er disguised; and week by week

The higher call within grows clear and sure.

Now see him, humbly clad, with staff in hand,

Thread the wild vales of Tweed and Teviot,

To bear God’s Word through a benighted land,

And bless with prayer each peasant’s lonely cot.

Brave soul wert thou, though few thy worth may sing,

Thou chosen saint of England’s noblest king.

51

PILATE’S STORY.

Caligula was reigning, C. Marcius was prætor at Vienne, in Dauphiny, when a litter, escorted by a number of cavaliers, one evening entered the triumphal gate of this metropolis of Gaul. Many gathered together at the unusual display. On the door of the modest little house before which they stopped, and which stood close by the Temple of Mars, was the name of F. Albinus in bright red letters. An old man, tall in stature, but now bent with age and fatigue, alighted from the litter, and, preceded by two of his attendant Hebrew slaves, entered the reception-room, where he was greeted by his friend, the master of the house.

After having bathed and received the usual attentions at the hands of the slaves, he proceeded with his host to the supper-room to enjoy the evening meal. The lamps were lighted, and Albinus was alone with the new guest, with whom he entered into conversation as soon as the dish of fresh eggs was placed before them.

“Many years have passed since we separated,” said Albinus; “let us empty a cup of Rhone wine to your return.”

“Yes, many years!” sighed the old man; “and cursed be the day whereon I succeeded Valerius Gratus in the government of Judea! My name is unlucky; a fatality is attached to all who bear it. One of my ancestors left the stamp of infamy on the name of Roman when he passed under the yoke in the Caudine Forks, after fighting against the Samnites; another perished in Parthia, fighting against Phraates; and I—I—”

The wine remained untasted, while his unbidden tears fell into the cup.

“Well! you—what have you done? Some injustice of Caligula exiles you to Vienne; and for what crime? I read your affair in the tabularium. You were denounced to the emperor by your enemy, Vitellius, the prefect of Syria; you punished a few Hebrew rebels who, after assassinating some noble Samaritans, entrenched themselves on Mount Garizim. You were accused of doing this out of hatred to the Jews.”

“No, no, Albinus; by all the gods! it is not the injustice of Cæsar which afflicts me.”

“What exactions did you impose?”

“None.”

“Did you carry off any Jewish women?”

“Never!”

“Did you gibbet any Roman citizens, as Verres did in Sicily?”

Pilate did not reply.

“I always took you to be good and sensible,” continued Albinus; “hence I did not hesitate to proclaim aloud in the city that your spoliation and exile were an outrage. It was never referred to the senate. The whole affair was evidently owing to some caprice of Vitellius.”

“Albinus, let us talk of other things. I am tired, having just arrived from Rome. Serious things for to-morrow, says the sage. This Rhone wine is exquisite.”

52“Beware of it, Pontius; it disturbs the brain.”

“So much the better. But I am not afraid of it. I am accustomed to the wine of Engaddi; that is a potent Bacchus.”

“As you please. But tell me, you who come from Rome, what stirs men’s minds there? Have you aught to interest my ear?”

“The auguries are bad. I did not recognize Rome; she no longer goes forward, but steadily sinks!”

“What say you?”

“I say what is. From here you cannot detect the mysterious subterranean noise which rumbles as with the approach of that invisible, superior power now irresistibly pushing the empire to its ruin. Our gods are vanquished; they abandon us. Listen, Albinus; let me this evening throw a smile to your Penates, and no more words of what is sorrowful. Night is the mother of sadness, but the triclinium counsels gayety. Tell the child to turn me a cup of wine of Cyprus, and ask the slave to bring my sandals and prepare my bed. I love not the gloom of night; let us haste to sleep, that the day may sooner come.”

Albinus bowed, and the desires of Pilate were complied with. As the slave approached him with a silver hand-basin for washing his hands, Pilate’s face turned pale as with fright, while the light of his eyes was terrible to behold.

The next day was the eve of the kalends of August. Pilate took a walk with Albinus in the Roman city of Vienne, and listened abstractedly to the conversation of his friend, who pointed out the various localities as they passed along, and the many splendid monuments rising on every side.

“There is left no trace of the domination of the Allobroges here,” said Albinus. “Since the death of Julius Cæsar they have ceased to disturb the city. Life is quiet and peaceable at Vienne, and you can spend here the years which the gods still grant you in secure contentment.

“Here before us is the palace of the emperors; it is not so grand, so sumptuous as that on Mount Palatine, but it is good enough for those who never visit it. Look to the left, and see the temple of Augustus and Livia; unless your eyes are weakened by the sun of Judea, you can read, from here, the inscription: Divo Augusto et Liviæ. Beyond is that dedicated to the Hundred Gods. If we go down to the river we can get a little fresh air on the bridge. Vienne, as you may have already remarked, is a very pleasant place of residence; the climate is quite mild, being so thoroughly sheltered by the surrounding mountains from the violence of the winds. We are only fifteen leagues from Lyons; and by the Rhone our away to both Marseilles and Arles is shortened. These three important cities are under the government of Vienne, as Tiberius has decreed; so thank fate, which has sent you to so pleasant a place of exile.”

Albinus remarked a look of trouble in the face of the old man, whose eyes were fixed on a point of dust in the direction of the river-bank, and from which were seen gradually to emerge horsemen with armor glistening in the sun.

“It is the prætor,” said Albinus; “he has been visiting the works at the amphitheatre. That is his daily ride.”

“Let us avoid the prætor,” said Pilate; “may he never know my face!”

53As they reached the “Quirinal” street on the way back, they were met and separated by a crowd of idlers who, attracted by the trumpets, had gathered from every side to witness the passage of the prætorian escort. Pilate found himself isolated, and soon became an object of interest, as is the case with one who seeks alone to stem a popular current. His dress was enough to attract insulting remarks. For from his long sojourn in Judea Pilate had insensibly adopted Hebrew fashions in dress, gesture, and deportment. His very figure, black hair, and dark complexion (he was of Iberian origin) betrayed more the Hebrew than the Roman.

“Let the Jew pass; he is going to the synagogue,” said one at his side.

“Mothers! watch your little ones,” said another; “the wolf is out of the Quirinal.”

“We had better take him and crucify him,” muttered a third.

But nothing further was done to molest him, and Pilate passed safely through the crowd, with head sunk upon his breast and suppliant bearing, as far as the head of the street, where a different scene awaited him.

Seeing a house which closely resembled that of Albinus (for a number of them were similar in construction), and finding the door standing open, he hastily entered, glad to find its shelter at last, and closed the door behind him.

A fearful cry chilled the blood in his very veins; he heard his own name uttered, and thrust his fingers in his ears at the ominous sound.

The master and his family were at their daily labor, as basket-makers, beneath the interior peristyle called the impluvium. When he entered the master recognized Pilate, for he knew the more than famous name of the stranger whose exile to Vienne had been made public. “Pilate! Pilate!” he cried; and the women and children dropped their wicker-work as they, too, repeated this formidable name, stained with the blood of God himself. The family were Christians.

Pilate asked an asylum, but they did not understand him, as he spoke a sort of Hebrew-Latin and they were Gallic Allobroges. Still, as they caught the name of Albinus twice or thrice repeated, the father made signs to the rest of the family to be seated, and, as if recalling some divine precept of charity learned in the secret assembly of the faithful, he approached Pilate and quietly showed him the house of his neighbor Albinus. Pilate crossed the street and entered his friend’s house.

Albinus was not over-displeased when the rude crowd separated him from a companion whose appearance bade fair to compromise him before the public. Like a good courtier he prudently stayed to see the prætor, shouted Vivat imperator! and praised the rare magnificence of the escort and the beauty of the horses; after which he quietly returned to his house, where he found his friend in an agony of despair.

“I am recognized,” cried Pilate as Albinus entered; “the little children pointed their fingers at me on the street. O Albinus! remember that our lips as very children uttered words of friendship; remember that we played together on the banks of the Tiber; that we have sat at the same banquets and raised our cups in the same libations. Remember the past and protect me beneath the inviolable shelter of thy roof. I seek a refuge beneath 54the sacred wings of thy hospitality.”

Albinus was too moved for utterance, and silently pressed the hands of Pilate.

“There are Christians, then, at Vienne also?” asked Pilate, as he passed his hand over his aching brow.

“Oh! yes, as there are everywhere,” replied Albinus, “except in our temples. You are afraid of those people, then?”

“Ah! yes, yes. I fear them. I fear everybody. Jews, Romans, Pagans—all are odious, terrible to me! The Romans see in me a criminal fallen into disgrace before Cæsar; the Jews, a severe proconsul who persecuted them; and the Christians, the executioner of their God!”

“Their God! their God! The impious wretches!”

“Albinus, have a care what you say!”

“They adore as a God that Jesus of Nazareth who was born in a stable and put to death on a cross?”

“They would not adore him if he had dressed in garments of velvet and lived in princely halls.... Albinus, I am about to submit my life to your judgment; you will see whether I am worthy of the hospitality which you offer me.”

Changing his seat for one more comfortable, Pilate continued:

“Albinus, order your doors to be closed, and let a slave watch at the porch, as when a young virgin first enters the doors of her spouse. The ear of Cæsar is everywhere on the alert. And now listen. All my misfortunes spring from the death of this man, this Nazarene. Tiberius cursed me because of him; Caligula now exiles me because of him; for this boldness of the Christian sect, which to-day threatens the empire, began at the foot of Calvary. If Jesus had not been put to death, his followers would never have crossed the Jordan nor the sea of Cæsarea. It is the death of that man which has made so many martyrs. But could I prevent that death?

“When I was about to set out as successor to Valerius Gratus, Sejanus summoned me to the Palatine and gave me his instructions. ‘You are intimate,’ he said, ‘with the Roman policy; hence a few words will do. Judea is a beautiful country; after completing its conquest we must strengthen its possession by a paternal government. Let all your care be to draw blessings down upon the Roman name. We have left the Jews a king of their own race, their temple, their laws, their religion. They are a brave and haughty race, with heroic deeds inscribed in their history, and which they well remember. Govern them wisely, that they may regard you more as a stranger visiting than as a master holding the reins.’

“I set out with my wife and my servants. When near the quarter of the Tres tabernæ I met Tiberius, then returning from Pannonia. Recognizing the imperial escort, I immediately alighted to salute Cæsar. He had received at Brundisium my nomination, and confirmed it, and now, offering me his hand most graciously, he said:

“‘Pontius, you have a fine government; let your hand be firm and your speech conciliatory. Act in public matters according to your own good sense, and never forget the eternal maxim of the Romans:

‘Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.^[8]

Go and be happy.’

55“The auguries were favorable, you see.

“I reached Jerusalem, took solemn possession of the government, and gave orders for a splendid feast, to which I invited the tetrarch of Judea, the high-priest, and the other Hebrew dignitaries and princes of the people. At the appointed time not a guest appeared! This was a mortal affront. Some days later the tetrarch deigned to honor me with a visit, but he was cold and full of dissimulation. He pretended that their religion did not permit them to sit at our table nor offer libations with Gentiles. I thought best to accept this excuse graciously; but from that day the conquered were in declared hostility with the conquerors.

“Jerusalem was, at that time, the most difficult subject-city in the world to govern; the people were so turbulent that from day to day I was always expecting a sedition. To suppress this I had only a centurion and a handful of soldiers, so I wrote to the prefect of Syria to send me a reinforcement of troops, but he answered that he had hardly enough for himself. Ah! what a misfortune that the empire is so large; we have more conquests than soldiers.

“Among the thousand rumors which circulated about me there was one that attracted my special notice. Public rumor and my secret agents alike reported that a young man had appeared in Galilee with a remarkable sweetness of speech and a noble austerity of manner, and that he went about the city and the borders of the sea, preaching a new law in the name of the God who had sent him. I at first thought that this man intended to arouse the people against us, and that his words were preparatory to a revolt. But my fears were soon dissipated; Jesus the Nazarene spoke as a friend rather of the Romans than of the Jews. Passing one day, in my litter, near the pool of Siloe, I saw a large gathering of people, and remarked in the midst a young man standing with his back to a tree and quietly addressing the crowd. I was told that it was Jesus, but I could have guessed it at once, so different was he in appearance from those who listened. He seemed about thirty years of age, and the wonderful reddish-blond tint of his hair and beard gave a luminous appearance to his noble countenance. Never have I seen so mild a glance, so calm a face; he was a striking contrast to the dark skins and black beards of his auditors. From fear of disturbing the liberty of his speech by my presence I passed on, leaving my secretary to mingle with the crowd and hear his words. This man’s name was Manlius; he was grandson of that chief among the conspirators who awaited Catiline in Etruria, and, having dwelt many years in Judea, understood perfectly the Hebrew tongue. He was, moreover, sincerely devoted to my interests, and I could always trust him. On my return home I found Manlius awaiting me with a detailed account of the speech which Jesus had pronounced. Never in the Forum, never in the books of sages, have I met anything comparable to the maxims which had that day reached the ears of Manlius. One of those rebellious Jews such as abound at Jerusalem having asked if tribute were to be paid to Cæsar, Jesus answered him: ‘Render under Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, and unto God what is God’s.’

“Thence the great liberty which I gave to the Nazarene; it was doubtless 56in my power to arrest him at any time, put him on a galley, and send him to Pontus, but I should have felt myself acting against justice and good Roman sense. The man was neither seditious nor rebellious. I gave him, perhaps without his knowledge, the benefit of my protection; he was free to act, to speak to the people, to fill a whole square with his audience, to create a legion of disciples to follow him from city to desert, or lake to mountain, and never did an order from me interpose to trouble either orator or auditory. If some day—may the gods forefend!—if some day the religion of our fathers fall before the religion of Jesus, Rome will pay a noble tribute to her own generous toleration, and I, unhappy I! will be called the instrument of what the Christians call Providence—what we call fate.

“But this great liberty which Jesus enjoyed from my protection displeased the Jews—not the common people, but the rich and powerful. True, they were the very ones whom Jesus did not spare in his discourse, and that was for me an additional political reason for allowing him free speech. He told them—that is, the Scribes and Pharisees—that they were a race of vipers and no better than whited sepulchres. And another time he sharply criticised the ostentatious charity of the rich man, saying that the mite of a poor widow woman was far more precious to God. New complaints against the insolence of his speech came to me nearly every day. Deputations came with their griefs before my tribunal. I was told that he would be assaulted; that it would not be the first time that Jerusalem had stoned those who called themselves prophets; and that if the prætor refused them justice they would appeal to the emperor.

“So I was beforehand with them. I at once wrote letters to Cæsar, and the galley Ptolemais carried them to Rome. My conduct was approved by the senate, but I was refused the reinforcement of troops which I asked, or at least I was given to hope that the garrison of Jerusalem should be strengthened after the war with Parthia was terminated. That was an interminable delay, for our wars with Parthia never end.

“Being too weak to repress a sedition, I determined to make a move which would pacify the city, without obliging me to make any humiliating concessions; so I at once sent for Jesus of Nazareth.

“He received my messenger with due respect, and came straightway to the prætorium.

“O Albinus! now that age has weakened every part of my bodily frame, and that my muscles in vain ask a little vigor from my thin and cold blood, I am not astonished if Pilate occasionally trembles; but I was younger then, and my Spanish blood, mingled with the Roman which coursed through my veins, was proof against any ordinary emotion of fear. When I saw the Nazarene enter my basilica, where I was walking, it seemed as if a hand of iron held me to the marble of the pavement. I thought I heard the very bucklers of gilt-bronze, dedicated to Cæsar, sigh as they hung against the columns. The Nazarene was as calm as innocence itself; he stood before me, with a single gesture, as if to say: Behold me. For some time I remained contemplating, with mingled terror and admiration, this extraordinary man, type of a physical perfection unknown to any of the innumerable 57sculptors who have given face and form to so many gods and heroes. ‘Jesus,’ said I at last, when my emotion had subsided—‘Jesus of Nazareth, for nearly three years I have allowed you freely to speak in public and everywhere, nor do I now regret it. Your words have ever been those of a true sage. I know not whether you have ever read Socrates or Plato, but there is in your language a majestic simplicity which raises you far above even those great philosophers. The emperor has been informed of it, and I, his humble representative at Jerusalem, count myself happy to have allowed you the toleration of which you are worthy. I must not, however, disguise from you that your words have provoked against you powerful and terrible enemies; be not astonished that you have thus become an object of hatred, for so was Socrates to those who encompassed his death. Your enemies are doubly irritated, against you and against me: against you, because of your sharp criticisms; against me, because of the liberty which I have allowed you. I am even accused of complicity with you to destroy what little civil power has been left to the Hebrews by Rome. I give you no commands, but I charge you seriously to spare the pride of your enemies, that they may not stir up against you a stupid populace, and that I may not be obliged to detach from these trophies the axe and the fasces, which should serve here only as an ornament and never as an occasion of fear.’

“The Nazarene answered me:

“‘Prince of the earth, thy words spring from a false wisdom. Tell the torrent to stop midway on the mountain-side, lest it uproot the trees of the valley. The torrent will tell thee it obeys the voice of God. He alone knows whither goeth the water of the impetuous stream. Amen, amen I say unto thee, before the roses of Sharon bud the blood of the just shall be shed.’

“‘I do not wish your blood to be shed,’ I exclaimed hastily. ‘You are more precious in my eyes, because of your wisdom, than all those turbulent and haughty Pharisees, who abuse our Roman patience, conspire against Cæsar, and mistake our forbearance for fear. The dolts!—not to know that the wolf of the Tiber sometimes conceals himself under an innocent fleece! But I will defend you against them; my prætorium is open to you as a place of refuge. You will find it an inviolable asylum.’

“He shook his head quietly with an air of godlike grace, and replied:

“‘When the day comes, there will be no shelter on earth, nor in the depths, for the Son of Man. The only asylum of the just is above. What is written in the books of the prophets must be accomplished.’

“‘Young man,’ said I, ‘I have just made you a request. I now give you a command. The preservation of order in the province confided to my charge requires it. I demand that the tone of your speech become more moderate. Beware of opposing my will! You know my intentions; go and be happy.’

“With these words my voice lost its severity and became mild again, for it seemed that a harsh word could not be uttered before this extraordinary being, who calmed the storms of the lake with a motion of his head, as his own disciples testified.

“‘Prince of the earth,’ said he, ‘I do not bring war to the nations, but charity and love. I was born the 58very day when Cæsar Augustus proclaimed peace to the Roman world. Persecution cannot come from me; I expect it from others, and do not flee before it. I go before it, in obedience to the will of my Father, who has appointed my way. Keep thy foolish prudence. It is not in thy power to stop the victim at the foot of the altar of expiation.’

“Saying these words, he disappeared like a luminous shadow behind the curtain.

“What could I do further? Fate could not be averted. The tetrarch who then reigned in Judea, and who has since died, devoured by worms, was a foolish and a wicked man. The chiefs of the law had chosen this man to be the tool of their hate and vengeance. To him the whole cohort addressed themselves in their thirst for vengeance against the Nazarene.

“Had Herod consulted only his passion, he would have put Jesus to death at once; but although he regarded his impotent royalty as a matter of importance, still he shrank from an act which might injure him with Cæsar.

“Some days later I saw him coming to the prætorium. He began a conversation with me on indifferent subjects, in order to conceal the true object of his visit; but, as he rose from his seat to go, he asked, with an air of indifference, what I thought of the Nazarene.

“I replied that Jesus seemed to me one of those grave philosophers such as arise among the nations from time to time; that his language was by no means dangerous; and that it was the intention of Rome to leave to this sage perfect liberty of speech and action.

“Herod smiled at me with malignity, and with an ironical gesture departed.

“The great feast of the Jews was near at hand, and their leaders determined to take advantage of the popular exaltation which is always manifested at the Paschal season. The city was crowded with a turbulent rabble, who shouted for the death of the Nazarene. My emissaries reported that the treasure of the Temple had been used to stir the popular feeling. The danger was imminent, and my very power was insulted in the person of my centurion, whom they hustled about and spat upon.

“I wrote to the prefect of Syria, then at Ptolemais, and asked for one hundred horse and as many foot-soldiers, but he reiterated his former refusal. I was alone, in a mutinous city, with a few veterans, too weak to suppress the disorder, and with no choice but to tolerate it.

“They had already seized Jesus, and the triumphant people, knowing that they had nothing to fear from me, and hoping, on the word of their leaders, that I would tacitly acquiesce in their designs, rushed after him through the streets, shouting: ‘Crucify him! crucify him!’

“Three powerful sects had coalesced in this plot against Jesus: first the Herodians and the Sadducees, who had a double motive—hatred against him and impatience at the Roman yoke. They had never forgiven me for entering the holy city with the banners of the empire; and although I made them an unwise concession in this matter, the sacrilege still remained in their eyes. Yet another grief stood against me, because I had wished a contribution from the treasures of the Temple towards certain buildings of public importance, and which had been coarsely refused. Then the Pharisees, who were the 59direct enemies of Jesus: they did not trouble themselves about the governor, but for three years they had angrily heard and endured the severe language of Jesus against their weaknesses. Too weak and pusillanimous to act alone, they eagerly embraced the quarrel of the Herodians and Sadducees. Besides these three parties, I had also to struggle against a crowd of those idle, worthless beings who are always ready to rush into a sedition out of love for disorder and a taste for blood.

“Jesus was dragged before the council of priests and condemned to death; after which Caiphas, the high-priest, made a hypocritical act of submission by sending the condemned man for me to pronounce the sentence and have it executed. My answer was that as Jesus was a Galilean it did not concern me; so I sent him to Herod. The wily tetrarch pretended great humility, protesting his remarkable deference for the lieutenant of Cæsar, and left the fate of the man to be determined on by me. My palace resembled a citadel besieged by an army; for at every moment the seditious crowd was reinforced by fresh arrivals from the mountains of Nazareth, the cities of Galilee, the plains of Esdrelon. It seemed as if all Judea had invaded Jerusalem.

“My wife was from Gaul, and had, like most women of her nation, the gift of reading the future. She now came, and, throwing herself in tears at my feet, exclaimed: ‘Beware of laying a violent hand on this man. His person is sacred. I saw him in a dream this night; he walked upon the waters, he rode upon the wings of the wind, he spoke to the tempest, to the palm-trees of the desert, to the fish in the waters, and they all responded to his voice. The torrent of the brook Kedron was as blood before me; the imperial eagles were in the dust, and the columns of this very prætorium were crumbled, while the sun was in darkness, as a vestal at the tomb. There is misfortune about us, Pilate; and if you do not believe in the words of the Gaul, listen hereafter to the maledictions of the senate and of Cæsar against the cowardly proconsul!’

“Just then my marble staircase trembled, as I may say, beneath the steps of the angry multitude. They had returned with the Nazarene. Entering the hall of justice, followed by my guards, I demanded in a stern voice of the crowd: ‘What will ye?’

“‘The death of the Nazarene!’ shouted the mob.

“‘What is his crime?’

“‘He has blasphemed; he has predicted the ruin of the Temple; he calls himself the Messias, the Son of God, and says that he is the King of the Jews!’

“‘The justice of Rome does not punish these crimes by death!’

“‘Seize him! Crucify him! crucify him!’

“Their ferocious cries seemed to shake the very foundations of the palace, and but one man amid all this tumult was calm: it was the Nazarene! One might have taken him for the statue of innocence in the temple of the Eumenides.

“After many useless efforts to withdraw him from the hands of the self-willed multitude, I had the fatal weakness to command what, at the time, occurred to me as the only thing that might perchance save his life. I ordered him to be beaten with rods, and, calling for a basin, washed my hands before the 60crowd, which, if not hearing my voice, might at least catch the allegorical meaning of my act.

“But they would have his life. Often in our civil troubles I have seen what an angry crowd can be capable of, but all my memories and experience of the past were effaced by what I saw then. I might almost say that Jerusalem was peopled by all the infernal spirits of Hades, and as they crowded about me there seemed an odor as of sulphur exuding from their bloodshot eyes and inhuman countenances. Their very movements were not as of men, but, like the waves of an angry sea, they rolled and dashed, in ceaseless undulations, from the prætorium to Mount Sion; yelling, shouting in a most unearthly manner, such as never in the troubles of the Forum or the seditions of the Pantheon assaulted a Roman ear.

“The day had slowly darkened, as in a winter evening, such as we saw it when the great Julius died—’twas also near the ides of March—and I, the mortified governor of a province in full and unrestrained rebellion, stood leaning against a column, gazing through the gray, unnatural light at the infuriated spirits who bore the innocent Jesus to his death.

“It became gradually quiet about me, for the whole population had followed to the place of execution, leaving the city as silent and as mournful as the tomb, even my very guards having disappeared, save the centurion alone. I, too, felt alone; isolated from the rest of mankind, and in my strangely-excited heart, I understood that what was passing around me pertained rather to the history of the gods than to that of men. The sounds brought by the wind from Golgotha announced to my horrified ear a death-agony such as never human nature underwent before. Dense leaden clouds shrouded the pinnacle of the great Temple, and thence seemed to envelop the vast city as with a veil of impenetrable darkness. Terrible signs of perturbation were manifest on earth and in the air, prodigious enough to make Dionysius the Areopagite exclaim: ‘Either the Author of nature suffers or the whole universe is being dissolved.’

“At the first hour of the night I wrapped myself in a cloak and walked down into the city towards the gate leading to Golgotha. The sacrifice was consummated! The attitude of the people was no longer the same, for the crowd re-entered Jerusalem, disorderly, of course, but silent and moody, as if filled with shame and despair. Fear and remorse were in every heart. My little cohort passed by, as silent as the populace; the very eagle had been draped as in mourning, and in the last ranks I heard some soldiers talking in a curious manner of things which I could not comprehend. Others were relating prodigies somewhat like those that have often terrified Rome by the will of the gods. Now and then I came across groups of men and women in grievous sadness as they moved over that sorrowful way, or as, in some cases, they turned back towards the mount of expiation, expecting, perhaps, some new prodigy.

“Returning to the prætorium, my own breast seemed to embrace all the desolation of this painful scene, and as I climbed the stairs I saw, by the lightning flash, the marble still covered with His blood. There stood, awaiting me in most humble attitude, an old man, accompanied 61by several women, sobbing in the darkness.

“Throwing himself at my feet, the old man wept.

“‘What do you ask, my father?’ I said in a mild voice. He answered:

“‘I am Joseph of Arimathea, and I come to beg, on my knees, the favor of burying Jesus of Nazareth.’

“Raising him up gently, I promised that his wishes should be complied with. At the same time I called Manlius, who went with some soldiers to superintend the burial, and to place a few sentinels over the grave, that it might not be profaned. A few days afterwards the grave was empty, and the disciples of Jesus published everywhere that their Master had risen again, as he had foretold.

“There now remained for me a last duty to perform: to send a full account of this extraordinary event to Cæsar, which I did that very night; and the minute relation which I gave was not yet completed when daylight appeared.

“The sound of trumpets drew me from my task, and, glancing towards the gate of Cæsarea, I saw an unusual stir among the soldiers and sentinels, and heard in the distance other trumpets playing Cæsar’s march; it was my reinforcement of troops, two thousand in number, who had, in order to arrive more promptly, made a night-march. ‘Oh! the great iniquity had to be completed,’ I cried, wringing my hands in despair. ‘They arrive the next morning to save a man who was sacrificed the day before. O cruel irony of fate! Alas! as the Victim said on the cross: ”All is consummated.“’

“From that moment, invested with abundant power, I set no limits to my hatred against the people who had forced me into both crime and cowardice. I struck terror into Jerusalem. And, as if further to excite my vengeance, I shortly afterwards received a letter from the emperor, wherein he blamed my conduct very severely. My official account of the death of Jesus had been read before a full senate, and had excited a profound sensation. The image of the Nazarene, honored as a god, had been placed in the sacred place of the imperial palace. The courtiers, who were opposed to me, seized the pretext to begin that long series of accusations which now, years after the death of Tiberius, have at last brought me to this city of exile, where my life is to go out in anguish and remorse.

“I have told you all, Albinus, and my words have opened to you my innermost soul; you will surely do me the justice to say that Pilate was more unfortunate than wicked.”

The old man ceased; tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks, while his fixed and hollow eyes seemed to gaze with fright upon some scene, invisible to other eyes, the lugubrious phantasm of an ever-present past. Albinus was wrapt in sombre thought, seeking in what manner of speech to simulate pity for his guest.

“Pontius,” said he, “your misfortunes are not ordinary ones, yet there may be a balm for the ulcers of your memory and heart. You must invoke the Fates, whose good-will may disarm the anger of the gods.”

Pilate gave such a smile, amid his tears, as distressed the prudent Albinus.

62“The city is a bad place for you,” pursued Albinus; “hatred is at home in public assemblies, and Janus, who watches at the threshold, cannot protect the domestic hearth against violence from without. Why not ask of our mountains the quiet and peace which seem refused to you here? The air of the fields invites repose and counsels forgetfulness of canker care.”

“I fear to understand you,” said Pilate, turning suddenly pale and with quivering lips. “Yes, I am afraid I comprehend your meaning too well; like a serpent, you take a long turn to attain your end. You wish to close the door of your house against the old man!”

“The gods, whom I invoke, and who hear me,” said Albinus, “know that I have never violated the sacred laws of hospitality, but—”

“Yes,” interrupted the old man—“yes, towards others, but towards me you will find an excuse for violating them. I understand—do not finish! I must spare a friend the embarrassment of words which his lips refuse to utter. Albinus, I feel the spirit of a Stoic revive in me; the waxen torch flashes up yet once before going out. Listen; I am about to salute your Penates. I will depart.”

Albinus lowered his eyes and was silent.

“Well! well! your silence speaks, as Marcus Tullius says. I will call my servants.”

“Your servants?” said Albinus, as Pilate rose from his seat. “Your servants? You have none; they have fled from you!”

“It is well!” answered Pilate.

“One alone has remained faithful—an old soldier.”

“Ah! that is Longinus; I know him. Tell the servant to call Longinus, and permit me to blow out your lamp; the oil is exhausted, and here is the dawn.”

“Oh! blame me not, Pontius. Let not your farewell insult my household gods!”

“I blame you? No, I pity you. The blood of Rome weakens in every vein; there are no Romans now. Let altars be everywhere erected to Fear; the house of Albinus is built on the very threshold of the Temple of Mars!”

And Pilate uttered a loud, hard laugh, which ceased at the entrance of the soldier.

“May your fidelity be rewarded, Longinus! You did not follow the deserters. Albinus, do you know what this soldier did? He was in the spearmen; he was at Golgotha, at the foot of the gibbet, when the Nazarene died; he pierced his heart with his lance. Longinus will die a Christian. Have you girded on your sword, old soldier, my last friend?”

The soldier made a sign of assent.

“All is, then, ready.” And Pilate saluted Albinus.

An hour after these two men had reached midway the side of a mountain overlooking the city of Vienne. The sun was rising in all the calm beauty of a summer morn; its first rays glistened upon the gilt-bronze dome of the Temple of Victory and the marble roof of the Temple of the Hundred Gods. Mysterious night still reigned in the sacred woods which crowned the dwelling of the Immortals. The city, inclined towards the Rhone, seemed listening in unbroken silence to the harmonious murmurings of the stream; the hill-tops floated in an atmosphere of molten gold, while the noise of 63cascades, the song of birds, and the countless melodies of a fresh, delicious morning, rising from valley to mountain-top, filled all whose hearts were light with joy and gratitude to the Powers above.

Pilate halted, his eyes fixed on a dark chasm which, yawning, stood before him. In the depths below could be heard the mournful plash of waters, to the eye unseen; dense brush, interwoven with dwarf oaks and the wild fig, hung over and, half-concealing, yet increased the horrid abyss, and a piece of the rock, detached and hurled over, struggled and tossed awhile among the resisting vines before dropping into the gloomy waters to send up a series of ill-boding, mournful echoes.

Pilate smiled at the gulf of horror, then turned to contemplate the immense sublimity which surrounded his agony of despair; he thought of the death of the Nazarene—that death so calm amid the universal distress of nature—and wept bitterly.

“Longinus,” said he, “put up your sword; I do not need it. I can die without you; I do not wish you to soil your hands with my blood, for you are yet covered with another blood which will never be effaced. Yes, Longinus, the Sage of Golgotha was one of the superior intelligences; retain that belief. All who stained their hands with his blood have perished miserably; think of Herod and Caiphas. Tiberius likewise was suffocated in his bed at Capreæ, and I yet survive—I! See how I imitate them!”

And he threw himself into the abyss. Longinus heard the interlacing branches crack, but saw only the torn remnants of a toga here and there adhering to the thorny plants which grew upon the sides. He heard the dull bound of the body from rock to rock, and a last unearthly cry of agony, enhanced by echo, and fading to the splash of water as its disturbed surface leaped and glistened in the rays of the now penetrating sun.

So died the man under whom Christ suffered.

64

ON CALVARY.

SUGGESTED BY A PAINTING BY J. L. GÉRÔME.

In the strong sunshine lies Jerusalem,

Undarkened yet by shadow of the doom

That hideth in the terror-freighted gloom

Lying afar along the low hills’ hem.

Twinkle the silver-leavèd olive-trees,

Resting in garish light ’neath heaven’s cloudy seas.

From Calvary’s Mount descends the winding train;

Glitter the Roman eagles in the sun,

Leading the soldiers and the people on

To tread the city’s dolorous streets again,

Whose blood-tracked stones would cry, had they but breath,

“Woe! woe! Jerusalem, for this day’s deed of wrath.”

Almost unheeding passes on the crowd,

Save, here and there, turned from the populace,

Rests look of doubting or malignant face

On That we see not in death’s anguish bowed.

Wild cries of hate mount up and break the still

And ominous glare that broodeth dumbly o’er the hill.

Our sad hearts hear the very footsteps fall,

The horse-hoofs striking hard against the stones,

And distant echoes of heart-broken moans—

Jerusalem’s daughters mourning so the thrall

Of Him, their fairest one, to death betrayed,

The hands that blessed their little ones so sore arrayed.

Where is the dying King the cross uplifts?

We cannot see him, and our upraised eyes

Meet but the awful gloom in far-off skies,

The lurid moon dull gazing through the rifts

Of gathering darkness; here the waiting glare

Of cruel sunshine making all the city fair.

Fain would we kneel with Magdalen and weep,

Clasp wounded feet in passionate embrace,

Win with the loved disciple word of grace,

Vigil with God’s woe-stricken Mother keep:

We cannot find Him, and blaspheming cries

From that retreating train still in fierce chorus rise.

65Is He not here? Lo! sadly looking down,

Just at our feet a shadow strange we trace

Falling across the sunlit grassy place—

The likeness of three crosses darkly thrown,

And His, the centre one, e’en so most fair

Through semblance of a form divine it dim doth bear.

Here, ’gainst the sunshine traced, lie those bent knees

That knew the sorrow of Gethsemani

As trembled they ’neath its dread mystery;

Here droops the thorn-crowned head in silent peace,

And here, in the unswerving shadow lined,

Are stretched the arms that bear the ransom of mankind.

So rests unseen the presence of the Lord

Whose shadow seems as blessèd aureole,

A holy writing on a sacred scroll,

Rich oil from consecrated vessel poured—

All merit his, the Infinite Son of God,

Whose death so lightly falls on earth’s poor, soulless sod.

Within the painted shadow is no life,

Save in the grassy sward whereon it falls.

Beyond arise the city’s firm-built walls.

With spring’s swift-coursing sap the boughs are rife

Of the gnarled olives with their silver leaves

Shining against the dusky veil the storm-wind weaves.

We see the wild-faced moon in skies far-off,

The bare and weary light of undimmed sun,

And Caesar’s glittering eagles leading on

The thoughtless people, who, with jeer and scoff,

An abject God in proud derision scorn,

Alike from barren shade and living presence turn.

O weary thought! hath earth lost sight of Him?

And do her children with dulled vision grope,

With fain-believing heart and doubting hope,

His cross a parable with meaning dim?

A shadow resting in the feeble clasp

Of them that fear the bitterness of truth to grasp?

Is all that sorrow of the Son of Man

A dreary darkness shutting out the light?

Poor human pain dwarfing eternal might?

An o’ergrown bramble with its prickly span

Piercing the delicate leaves of earth-born flowers,

And blighting with harsh touch kind nature’s generous powers?

66Alas! that men that Infinite Love should fear,

Should dread its glory and its shade despise,

Banish its semblance from imploring eyes,

Give men but empty shadow to revere—

Blind beggars leaving them unto whose cry

None answereth when He of Nazareth goes by.

Of this sad modern world of ours to-day

The artist’s picture seemeth counterpart,

When men erase old lessons from the heart,

Striving who farthest from the cross may stray—

Swift, swift descending ’neath the eagles’ shine,

Some longing face still turned to meet the gaze divine.

In her long-ordered way the earth moves on,

The moon doth change with steady law her face,

Swift-growing grass still hides our footsteps’ trace,

And dew falls softly when the day is done:

All nature’s tale seems old, but one thing strange—

The Christ of God a shade the westering sun shall change!

Nay, fear not! Stand to-day as e’er of old

The faithful Maries, who brave vigil keep,

The loved disciple with a love as deep

As in old days lay shrined in heart of gold;

And rests God’s patience till from shadowed sod

The piercing cry break forth, “This was the Son of God.”

A BISHOP’S LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE IN THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE.^[9]

The diocese of Paderborn is one of the largest in Germany. Its bishop, Dr. Conrad Martin, has just published a little work^[10] which may vie with Silvio Pellico’s Le mie Prigioni, being an account of a three years’ banishment from his see. It is not “poetry and truth,” remarks the writer of this pamphlet in his preface, “but only the truth which is written down in these pages.”^[11] And true to his statement, the bishop tells us in dispassionate language of his captivity, of its joys and sorrows, of the friends who were so true to him in his adversity, of the whole Catholic Church, who shared his banishment in a measure, and of that most august prisoner whose sympathy is so freely given to his suffering brethren, and whose captivity is in itself, perhaps, a pledge that they too must taste of his own chalice.

With the presentiment of future events, or rather of the storm which was about to break over their pastor 67on account of the Kulturkampf, the people of Paderborn came in large numbers in the spring of 1874 to assure him of their love and devotion. The demonstration began on the 25th of March, when the train deposited five thousand pilgrims in the ancient city of Paderborn. They repaired to the bishop’s house, and terminated the meeting by simultaneously falling on their knees to recite aloud the Apostles’ Creed. These deputations lasted for two months, and on one occasion the number of deputies amounted to fifteen thousand. It is not an insignificant fact to see how well and bravely the flock stood by the pastor in his hour of need. But at last the cloud burst. Repeated infringements of the May Laws were laid to the bishop’s charge; and the fine in proportion rose to a sum altogether beyond his means, and a corresponding term of imprisonment was the only alternative. Here an unknown, and therefore doubly generous, benefactor interposed, and paid the money required without the bishop’s knowledge. But, to use his own simple language, Dr. Martin, “from higher considerations, thought he could not accept the benefit,” and protested against it,^[12] whereas the local authority said that he could. At last an answer came from Berlin deciding that he should submit himself to imprisonment. As the bishop would not consent to that, force was used, and on the 4th of August, 1874, he was taken from his house through a dense crowd of sympathizers to his prison, where he was witness of a scene “not to be described by words.” Bouquets of flowers fell at his feet from all sides, and the steps leading up to the abode of his sorrow were thick with them. Two works had been near his heart as a pastor—the establishment of ecclesiastical institutions for the fitting education of the clergy, and the labor of love which is expressed by the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This touching devotion was therefore one of the first-fruits of his own workings, and it has become widely known through the world. But never before had the bishop of Paderborn shared the prison common to malefactors of every degree. The prisoner was then conducted to his two cells. One he describes as “certainly not roomy, but still not wholly unpleasant”;^[13] the second was to serve merely as a bed-room. Loneliness is the prisoner’s trial, and when first the bishop heard the lock and key tell him of his utter solitude, sad thoughts pressed themselves upon him. Many years before he had paid a pastoral visit to this same prison, and his own encouraging words spoken then came home to him now. “Could you only have imagined then,” he said to himself, “that you yourself should be confined in the same dungeon, and come to need the recommendation to resignation and patience which you gave to those prisoners? Oh! what a change, what a comparison then and now—then, when there was no Kulturkampf, but an undisturbed and joyous peace. O tempora, o mores!”^[14] But the angel of consolation was at hand. The thought of that divine Providence whose care of us is so beautifully specified in Holy Scripture brought peace. “Every hair of our head is numbered.” The bishop determined upon active endurance, and during those first few hours of his imprisonment planned for himself an order 68of duties for the coming solitary days. That night the breaking of a pane of glass in his bed-room window, caused by the hurling of a stone from an unknown hand outside, was a little alarming, and, in spite of inquiries on the subject, it could not be discovered whether the missile was directed by a friend in a serenading spirit, or by a foe who might have taken umbrage at the demonstrations of intense affection on the part of the people of Paderborn.

For the rest the bishop, according to his own account, had small cause for complaint during his confinement at Paderborn.^[15] His food was provided and sent from his house. He was allowed to read and write when and what he liked. Strict supervision was, however, exercised on his correspondence and on the visits which he received. These were permitted in the presence of a third person only, and letters might be read and sent under the same condition. The Holy Sacrifice, which was his daily refreshment, supplied many deficiencies in that lonely heart. But the “body of death” had still to suffer much from privation of air and exercise. It is true that once a day the prison bolt was withdrawn for an exercise of two hours in the court-yard. This had to be taken in common with the other prisoners, in a very limited space, so that the bishop often preferred to sit by an open window in his room, there to enjoy what air he could get.

On the 17th of August, the eighteenth anniversary of his episcopal consecration, the widowed cathedral of Paderborn was filled with an assembly of the bishop’s faithful children, who celebrated the occasion by heartfelt prayers for him to God. Flags adorned the houses of the Catholic inhabitants. But the pastor’s heart was further gladdened by the intelligence that from the very first day of his captivity a certain number of the faithful gathered every evening in the Gaukirche to offer up the rosary for their oppressed church. And now, after the lapse of three years, the same practice is kept up, and who would be so presumptuous as to say that the divine Head of the whole body will not allow pleading so constant finally to bring about the desired end? It reminds us of that supplication of the infant church to remove Peter’s chains, or of a case which was brought before our personal observation in Germany.^[16] Our Lord’s presence in the Holy Eucharist had been banished from his sanctuary through the working of the May Laws, but the villagers succeeded each other during the day in unremitting prayer before the altar where he once dwelt.

Upon the bishop’s six weeks of confinement followed eighteen of custody. The only distinguishable difference between the two consisted in the non-bolting of the prison-door from the exterior. On the outset he was saddened by the command to surrender his office as bishop. The summons came to him through the Oberpräsident von Kühlwetter, whose attitude to Dr. Martin from the beginning of the Kulturkampf had been most hostile. One act in particular of the bishop’s seems to have roused the enmity of the non-Catholic party, but the principle of authority must fall to the ground where demands wholly contrary to his conscience are urged upon a spiritual ruler. The act in question had 69been a certain pastoral letter in the affair of the Old Catholics. The bishop replied immediately that “devotion to the Catholic Church had been his first love, and that it would be his last.” Ten days of respite were allowed for the reconsideration of the question, under the threat of ultimate expulsion from his dignity. But, thanks to an energetic nature and the quiet peace which is the fruit of a brave determination, it had small influence over the bishop. He labored to finish his work on the Christian Life, and time, which is so often the greatest trial of the prisoner, passed rapidly away. His feast-day was the next small event to break the monotony of his life. From his window he could see the festive appearance of some neighboring houses, and from far and wide came wishes of sympathy and affection. The telegraphic messages and letters of congratulation numbered over eight hundred on this day, and proved a provision of encouragement for several succeeding days. They were the flowers of persecution, and as such most dear to the bishop’s Catholic spirit.

Oppression does indeed often bring the work of the Lord to a timely and palpable development, and we may echo the prisoner’s words: “Would years of hard work have given evidence of so close a union as well as this short and fleeting sorrow?”^[17] At the same time two other addresses reached him which were a source of particular joy: the one from a good number of Belgian noblemen, who thereby drew forth a remonstrance on the part of Prince Bismarck, the other from two imprisoned bishops of the far west who were themselves confessors of the faith, and protesting by their personal suffering against the evil spirit of Freemasonry. They were the bishops of Para and Pernambuco, who, profiting by the journey of a priest to Europe, took occasion to express their love and sympathy to the fellow-sufferer in Germany who was bearing the self-same testimony to Catholic truth as they themselves. Comfort, too, came from the Holy Father, who sent first a gold medal, and then, on the feast of St. Conrad, a telegraphic message of greeting and good wishes. But the price of these favors was suffering and greater suffering. The threat on the part of the secular power to depose the bishop was now carried out. Many and grievous had been his shortcomings, according to the standard established by the May Laws, and amongst the accusations brought against him was the erroneous charge that he alone amongst the German bishops had worked in favor of the Papal Infallibility at the Vatican Council. Extensive quotations from his pastoral letters were given in the indictment, whilst the words he had addressed on various occasions to his faithful children, their constant devotion to him, the legal measures recently carried out, and the cause now pending were alleged as the ground why he could not continue to exercise his office. He was invited to appear on the 5th of January, 1875, to answer these charges, after which day, and having simply refused to accept the act of deposition, it was nailed to his door inside. There it remained quietly hanging, says the bishop with dry German humor, “without my casting one single glance upon its contents.”^[18] The feast of 70Christmas, which occurred in the midst of these cares, found him not altogether joyless. The prison chapel bore for him a resemblance to the lonely grotto of Bethlehem.

The bishop fancied that after enduring his twenty-four weeks of imprisonment he might hope for fresh air and liberty. That hopefulness was rather surprising. Instead of the accomplishment of this expectation, his house was stripped of its furniture (which was afterwards sold), and he himself was conveyed on very short notice to the fortress of Wesel, it being explicitly stated that this penalty was the consequence of the before-mentioned pastoral regarding the Old Catholics. The same sympathizing crowd met him on his way to the station, and his private secretary accompanied him by choice to the scene of his new imprisonment. It was on the 20th of January, 1875, that the bishop entered on the two months’ penalty at Wesel, and there he seems on the whole to have been better off than at Paderborn. He could walk freely on the ramparts, and enjoy to a certain extent social intercourse with the other prisoners, who were in most cases priests of his own diocese. Three cells were assigned to him for his use; the third was an act of thoughtfulness on the part of the commandant, who had reserved it for the bishop’s daily Mass. If, indeed, it had not been for the Holy Sacrifice—for every day, Dr. Martin remarks, “holy” Masses were said up till ten o’clock by the imprisoned priests^[19]—the fortress would have borne a resemblance to the middle state where souls are detained for a time on account of their sins. The supervision exercised was slight, beyond the visitation of all the cells twice every day. Once when the bishop was taking exercise on the ramparts which overlooked the Rhine—in itself like the face of an old friend to Dr. Martin—some of the faithful who descried him in the distance knelt for his blessing. The act, the bishop knew not how, was communicated to the commandant, who forbade him in writing to repeat it. At Wesel correspondence was free, and even newspapers of all kinds were permitted. Feelers were sent out by the government to test the bishop’s sentiments with regard to his civil deposition, but his consent could never be obtained. And he was cheered and supported by an address which was brought to him towards the middle of March by a nobleman on the part of his diocese. It contained these words: “It is true that your lordship as bishop has been deposed by the Royal Court of Justice in Berlin, but you are, and will remain, our bishop, and we will be faithful to you until death.”^[20] Two thick volumes bore the signatures to this statement, and they numbered ninety-six thousand.

After his life in the fortress the bishop was refreshed by a little breathing-time in a friendly house in Wesel itself. His host had just married and taken his bride to Rome. On their return they brought to the exiled pastor a new token of sympathy from the Holy Father in the shape of another gold medal. The days passed pleasantly for the bishop, as far as that was possible out of his diocese, until he made the discovery that he had not yet paid the entire penalty of the famous pastoral. He was sentenced to another month’s 71imprisonment in the fortress. “I had always thought,” he writes, “that for one offence it sufficed to be punished once. But the powers of the state said no.”^[21] Summer had come, and a return to the fortress in that season was no small penance. The sun’s penetrating rays made the prisoner’s little cells almost intolerable, and the bishop’s health began visibly to decline. He lost his appetite and his sleep, and the only remedy, according to the doctor, to produce return of vital power would have been change of air and a course of sea-baths. But for this desired end he learned from the mayor of Wesel that it would be necessary to undergo an examination from the district doctor, and to procure a written statement that such treatment was necessary. Moreover, it was enjoined that the place chosen for the cure should be at least twenty miles distant from the diocese of Paderborn. A Protestant district doctor was accordingly consulted, and his opinion exactly corresponded with the bishop’s own account of his state, whereupon Dr. Martin gave himself up to the pleasant hope of soon being able to leave Wesel. “I wished for haste the more,” he says, “as my state became worse from day to day. The continual agitation in which I was kept helped to aggravate things. For day after day I received tidings of new ruins which the unhappy Kulturkampf worked in my poor diocese.”^[22] In the autumn of 1873—that is, after the promulgation of the May Laws—the bishop had given faculties to four newly-ordained priests. This is the most natural and harmless action of a bishop, for what spiritual act can take place without that exercise of his jurisdiction? Pronouncing a priest competent for the care of souls is analogous to the action in law of giving a brief to a barrister. What if the church should require a barrister to present himself to the bishop for approbation before he received such a brief? But the May Laws completely confuse spiritual and temporal things. The bishop was accused of breaking article fifteen of those regulations, which runs that “spiritual rulers are bound to present such candidates as are about to receive a spiritual office to the Oberpräsident, whilst at the same time the office is specified.” If the barrister obtain briefs after he has been called, the bishop does not meddle with him; but because the priests in question had exercised their faculties Berlin thought well to condemn the bishop to a further imprisonment of six months.

But now a new phase began in the life of Dr. Martin. Having “waited and waited” for the permission to follow out the cure which a disimpassioned authority had pronounced absolutely necessary, he resolved to act in spite of the law, and to fly from Wesel. He considered this course not only allowable, but even obligatory, seeing two principal reasons. His health was seriously endangered, if he could not have the required treatment, and that health belonged not to himself but to his diocese. Furthermore, in Wesel his movements were so closely watched that one single act of the pastoral office might give the government a plea for still more rigorous measures. Therefore on the 3d of August he wrote an official letter stating his intended departure from Wesel on the morrow; and so, as the clock struck the hour of midnight, he was quietly crossing the bridge 72over the Rhine, and on the following day, the 5th of August, he was received at the Castle of Neuburg by the family of Ausemburg. How full his heart was of his appointed work we may gather from the attempt to return to Paderborn. At Aix-la-Chapelle two railway authorities recognized him, and he was counselled by a valued friend to go back to Holland in “God’s name!” The document which reached him a few days later proved the soundness of the advice. It was from the Minister of the Interior at Berlin, announcing to him the fact that he was from henceforth an outlaw in the eyes of his country. The May Laws further exhausted their bitterness against him by the warrant which was issued from the district court in Paderborn for another imprisonment of six months. But it seems that these punishments did not affect the bishop’s peace of mind. Amidst tokens of universal love and devotion he was spending his time chiefly with the Ausemburg family, occupying his leisure with writing on religious subjects, amongst which one was Devotion to the Sacred Heart. After his fruitless attempt to join his bereaved flock he had directed his efforts in the first place towards his own physical restoration. After a three weeks’ cure in Kattwyk, which worked a wonderful change for the better in his state, he visited the bishops of Haarlem and Roermond, and rejoiced his spirit by witnessing some of the fruits of the new and vigorous Catholic life which has been promoted in Holland by the re-establishment of the hierarchy. Whilst Dr. Martin was with the bishop of Haarlem he received intelligence of the dreadful fire which the “dear Paderstadt” had sustained.

These peaceful days, however, were not of long duration. They were shortened by one of the bitterest experiences which a pastor can be called upon to endure—that is, an unfaithful friend. A priest of his diocese (the only one besides Mönnikes, he remarks) had gone over to the enemies of the church, and vainly had the bishop tried the power of loving exhortation. He was obliged at last to use that spiritual weapon which has ever been obnoxious to a world impatient of restraint, and to pronounce excommunication, fully conscious of the possible consequences of the step, and therefore prepared to accept them. The government of Holland was too weak to protect an exile. It gave way under more powerful pressure, and the bishop was ordered to leave.

“I prayed to God for light,” he says. “I asked St. Joseph (it was in March, 1876) to lead me where I should go.”^[23] His steps were directed to Catholic Belgium; but whatever the character of the population may be, that of the policy of its government is rightly defined by the bishop as the effort to keep out of the way of Prince Bismarck’s complications, which effort is the ne plus ultra of political wisdom. He was not, therefore, much astonished when he received orders to leave the Belgian frontier.

A homeless, houseless exile, the bishop once more wandered forth in strict incognito, we are not told where, but the place must have been wisely chosen, for there he remained in great retirement from April, 1876, till the following April. Then it was that Rome, the home of all Catholic hearts, once more awoke his desires; but, owing to the well-known 73sentiments of the Italian government, he was aware that the journey had its dangers for a bishop under the ban of the Kulturkampf. He set out, nevertheless, and on his journey through France experienced numberless consolations and the warmest reception from the French bishops. Persecution imprints on the heart the device, Cor unum et anima una.

On the 24th of May, 1877, the feast of St. Monica, he arrived in Rome for the fifth time. Men are trying to make even the Eternal City new, and as the bishop walked through the familiar streets he felt that the voice might indeed be the voice of Jacob, whilst the hands were the hands of Esau. The Colosseum, consecrated by remembrances so heart-stirring, now appeared to him as a dearly-loved face whence the spirit had fled. It is the nature of Rome to be the most conservative of cities, and never are natural laws overturned with comfort. These were the German bishop’s thoughts as again he compared what had been to what was, the more so as he found the improvement wholly exterior and material, and, along with finer streets in course of erection, was obliged to notice a lowering of moral tone in their inhabitants. Even the faces of the men he met seemed to have altered; for, he says, they are mostly not Romans, but a kind of heterogeneous mob gathered from all quarters of the globe.

When Pius VII. returned to Rome after the persecution which had threatened to annihilate his power, he invited his enemy’s family to partake of hospitality in that city, as the land of great misfortunes; but now the Holy Father, his successor, could offer nothing but an affectionate greeting to a bishop who had borne so noble a witness to the truth. The shadow of Pius IX.’s captivity must fall upon all his children. An exiled bishop sought refuge in Rome as the home of his father, and Rome could not give him what he sought. By the advice of several cardinals Dr. Martin changed his residence and went out only in secular dress, but not before he had been denounced by unfriendly papers as one who was under arrest. On the 24th of May, in consequence of continued persecution from the press, and in honest fear of more serious ill-treatment, strengthened by the loving farewell and the apostolical blessing of the Holy Father for himself and his diocese, the bishop of Paderborn set out for an unknown place of exile, happy at least in his resemblance to One who, coming unto his own, was not received by them.

The early church wrote the acts of her martyrs, in order that the remembrance of their deeds should never perish, and the church of the nineteenth century may be allowed to record the struggle of her confessors not only for a perpetual memorial of them, but also that others who are not in the fight may realize at once the presence of the battle-field and the nature of the warfare. We have seen that it exists; its nature cannot be better defined than by the words of him whose confessorship we are recording:

“The Papacy is in fact the one and only point round which the Kulturkampf is raging, and I am convinced that if the ‘deposed’ and banished bishops were to break off their connection with the Papacy to-day, to-morrow they would be re-established in all their honors and privileges.... On the 3d of August last it was three years since 74I parted from my beloved flock. After God that flock is daily my first and last thought. My prayers, my anxieties, my studies, and my occupations of whatever nature belong to it. I will be true to it till death, and I hope by God’s grace that it will be true to me. Hours of temptation come upon me sometimes, it is true—hours when the painful doubt suggests itself whether I shall ever return to it. But I take courage to myself again through a trusting look up to God. He has counted every hair of our heads, and, if my return is in accordance with his providence, no Kulturkampf will have power to prevent it. But should it be his good pleasure that I close my eyes to this world separated from my flock, I say with most humble resignation: May His will be done!

“But even supposing that all we ‘deposed’ and exiled bishops should die in banishment, the church, and the church in our German Fatherland, will finally conquer. He to whom all power in heaven and on earth is given is her protector; and, let her enemies be as numerous and powerful as it is possible to be, an hour will come when of them also it will be said: ‘They who sought after her life are dead.’”^[24]

MONTSERRAT.

O streams, and shades, and hills on high,

Unto the stillness of your breast

My wounded spirit longs to fly—

To fly and be at rest;

Thus from the world’s tempestuous sea,

O gentle Nature, do I turn to thee!

—Fray Luis de Leon.

No one visits Barcelona, or ought to visit it, without going to Montserrat, the sacred mountain of Spain, and one of the most extraordinary mountains in the world: the naturalist, to study its singular formation and the thousand varieties of its flora; the mere tourist, to visit its historic abbey and explore the wonderful grottoes with which the mountain is undermined; and the pilgrim, as to another Sinai, torn and rent asunder as by the throes of some new revelation, where amid awful rifts and chasms is enthroned its Syrian Madonna, like the impersonation of mercy amid the terrors of divine wrath. It is one of those wonderful places in Catholic Christendom around which centres the piety of the multitude. Hermits for ages have peopled its caves. The monks of St. Benedict for a thousand years have served its altars. Saints have kept watch around its venerable shrine. The kings and knights of chivalric Spain have come here with rich tributes to offer their vows. And the poor, with bare and bleeding feet, have, century after century, climbed its rough sides out of mere love for their favorite sanctuary.

Poets, too, have come here to seek inspiration. Several Spanish poets of note have celebrated its natural beauties and its legendary 75glory. Goethe could find no more suitable place than this wild, mysterious mountain for the scenery of one of the most wonderful parts of Faust—the scene where he makes the Pater Ecstaticus float in the golden air, the hermits chant from their mystic caves, and the bird-like voices of the spirits come between like the breathings of a wind-swept harp.^[25]

We took the Zaragoza railway, and in an hour after leaving Barcelona were in sight of the towering gray pinnacles that make Montserrat like no other mountain in the world. It rises suddenly out of the valley of the Llobregat more than three thousand five hundred feet into the air, and looks as if numberless liquid jets, sent up from the bowels of the earth, had suddenly been congealed into colossal needles or cones. These cones unite in a rocky base, about fifteen miles in circumference, which is cleft asunder by an awful chasm, at the bottom of which flows the torrent of Santa Maria. The base of the mountain is fringed with pines, but the cones are ash-colored and bare, being utterly devoid of vegetation, except what grows in the numerous clefts and ravines. This serrated mountain, standing isolated in a broad plain, strange and solitary, seems set apart by nature for some exceptional purpose. It looks like a vast temple consecrated to the Divinity. Even the Romans thought so when they set up their altars on its cliffs. It is the very place for the gods to sit apart, each on his own pinnacle, and talk from peak to peak, and reason high, and arbitrate the fate of man.

The sharp needles which give so peculiar an appearance to the mountain are mostly of a conglomerate stone composed of fragments of marble, porphyry, granite, etc., and not unlike the Oriental breccia. Some say that these enormous clefts have been produced by the agency of water or volcanic force; others, that the mountain, like Mt. Alvernia in Italy, where St. Francis received the sacred stigmata, was rent asunder at the great sacrifice of Mount Calvary, of which these profound abysses and splintered rocks are so many testimonials. Padre Francesco Crespo, in a memorial to Philip IV. on the Purísima Concepcion, says of it: “Astonishing monument of our faith, divided into so many parts in sorrowful proof of the death of the Creator!” And Fray Antonio, a Carmelite monk: “And in Montserrat is verified that which was spoken in St. Matt. xxvii.: And the earth did quake and the rocks were rent.”

We stopped at the station of Monistrol, two miles from the town of that name which stands at the very foot of the mountain, and walked along the banks of the Llobregat by an excellent road, often bordered with olives at the right, while the other side was overhung by cliffs fragrant with rosemary and wild thyme. We passed several cotton manufactories, for this is the region of contrasts: Industry is running to and fro in the fertile valley, while Contemplation kneels with folded palms on the rocky heights above. But what divine law is there that makes physical activity superior to moral, or productive of greater results, as so many would have us believe in these cui bono days? Who knows what rich returns the cloud-wrapped altar above has rendered to these heavens? or how 76much the proud world owes to the solitary Levite who in the temple keeps alive

“The watchfire of his midnight prayer”?

Monistrol derives its name from monasteriolum—a little monastery, which was built here by the early Benedictines. It is said that Quirico, a disciple of St. Benedict, came to Spain in the sixth century, and, hearing of an extraordinary mountain in the heart of Catalonia, called Estorcil by the Romans, he came to see it and said to his disciples: “On this mount let us build a temple to the Mater pulchræ dilectionis.” His project was not realized till three centuries after, but he is believed to have built a small convent at the foot of the mountain.

It was late in the afternoon when we drew near the spot where St. Quirico and his disciples set up their altar, and the little white town of Monistrol lay closely hugged in at the foot of the mountain, behind which the sun sets by two o’clock, so that it was already in the shadow. On the outskirts we were surrounded by a swarm of swarthy gipsies ready to tell our future destiny for a real, as if we did not already know it! We crossed one of those bombastic bridges so common in Spain, as if there were a flood for the immense arches to span, and just beyond met the cura—a tall, thin man, with an abstract, speculative look, but who proved himself able to give good practical advice, which we followed by going to the little posada hard by for the night, and awaiting the morning to ascend the holy mountain. It was a clean little inn, but as primitive as if it had come down from the time of St. Quirico. Not a soul could we find on presenting ourselves at the door, and it was only by dint of repeatedly shouting Ave Maria Purísima! that a brisk little woman at length issued from some cavernous depth, as if called forth by our magical words. She gave us a dusky little room, with a crucifix and colored print of St. Veronica over the bed, and, after exploring the town, we took possession of it for the night while the tops of the mountain, that rose up thousands of feet directly behind the house, were still flushed with light.