Volume 27 — THE HOME-RULE CANDIDATE. A STORY OF “NEW IRELAND.” CHAPTER III. THE RIVALS. (continued 3)

The following morning was warm and cloudless, though in the middle of February. The tartana came at ten o’clock—a wagon with a hood, drawn by three stout mules—and we set off with two men and three women, all Spanish, and all as gay as the crickets on the wayside. If their forefathers ascended the mountain with streaming eyes and unshod feet, they, at least, went up on stout wheels, and with many a song and quirk, though perfectly innocent withal. They were light-hearted laborers, released from toil, going with their lunch to spend a holiday at Our Lady of Montserrat’s. Just after starting we passed the little chapel of the Santísima Trinidad, built, as the tablet on it says, to commemorate the happy ending of the African war in 1860. We soon left Monistrol below us. The view at every moment became more extended as we wound up the steep sides of the mountain. At the right was always the towering wall of solid rock, while the left side of the road was often built up, or at least supported, by masonry. Vines and olives clung to the crags as long as they could find foothold, and here and there was an aloe on the edge of the precipice. The bells of 77Monistrol could be heard far below. The plain began to assume a billowy appearance, swelling more and more to the north till lost in the mountains. The air grew more exhilarating. In two hours’ time we came to a chapel with a tall cross before it, and nearly opposite suddenly appeared the abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat, seven or eight stories high, with a cliff rising hundreds of feet perpendicularly behind, divided by deep fissures, and terminating in needles that looked inaccessible, but where we could see a hermitage perched on the top like the nest of an eagle. There is no beauty about the convent, or pretension to architecture, but there is a certain austere simplicity about it that harmonizes with the mountain. The narrowness of the terrace has prevented its extending laterally, so it has been forced to tower up like the peaks around it. The mountain, as M. Von Humboldt says, seems to have opened to receive man into its bosom. But nearly everything is modern, and everywhere are ruins and traces of violence left by the French in their ravages of 1811. Passing through an arched gateway, we found ourselves in a close, around which stood several large buildings for the accommodation of pilgrims. These are of three classes, according to the condition of the visitor, and named after the saints, such as Placido, Ignacio, Pedro Nolasco, Francisco de Borja, etc. The poor have two houses for the different sexes, where they are lodged and fed gratuitously. Bread is distributed to them at seven in the morning; at noon, more bread with olla and wine; and at night the same. Pilgrims of condition sometimes go to receive the bread of charity, which they preserve as a relic. No one, rich or poor, is allowed to remain over three days without special permission. Even the better class of rooms are of extreme simplicity, containing the bare necessaries for comfort. They are paved with brick, and the walls are plastered, but not whitewashed. A man brought us towels, sheets, and a jug of water, and left us to our own devices. The visitor offers what he pleases on leaving. Nothing is required. Meals are obtained at a restaurant at fixed prices. After taking possession of our rooms we went to pay homage to Our Lady of Montserrat.

The first thing that struck us on entering the large atrium, or court, that precedes the church, was a marble tablet recording one of the greatest memories of Montserrat:

B. Ignativs—A—Loyola—

hic-mvlta—prece—fletv-

qve—Deo—se—virginiqve

devovit—hictamqvam

armis—spiritalib’—

sacco—se—mvniens—perno-

ctavit—hinc—ad—socie

tatem—Iesv—fvndan

dam—prodiit—an

no M—D—XXII.—F. Lavren ne

to. Abb. dedicavit.

An. 1603.

For here it was that in 1522 came the chivalrous hero of Pampeluna, who had passed his youth in the court of Ferdinand V., trained in the practice of every knightly accomplishment, but now smitten down, like St. Paul, by divine grace, and come here in accordance with the principles of Christian chivalry in which he had been nurtured, to devote himself to Jesus and Mary as their knight. He laid aside his worldly insignia, and put on the poverty of Christ as the truest armor of virtue, and, on the eve of the Annunciation, kept his vigil of arms before the altar of Our Lady, whom he now chose as the Señora 78de sus pensamientos—“no countess,” as he said, “no duchess, but one of far higher degree”—and he hung up his sword on a pillar of her sanctuary as a token that his earthly warfare was over.

“When at thy shrine, most holy Maid,

The Spaniard hung his votive blade

And bared his helmèd brow,

‘Glory,’ he cried, ‘with thee I’ve done!

Fame, thy bright theatres I shun,

To tread fresh pathways now;

To track thy footsteps, Saviour God!

With willing feet by narrow road;

Hear and record my vow.’”

So, in the Book of Heroes, Wolf-dietrich, “the prince without a peer,” stopped short in his career of glory, and, going to the abbey of St. George, laid his arms and golden crown on the altar and consecrated himself to God.

On the other side of the entrance is a similar tablet relating to St. Peter Nolasco, a knight of Languedoc, who, after serving in the religious wars of the times, ascended Montserrat on foot, and, when he arrived at the threshold of the house of Mary, fell on his knees, and in this position approached her altar, where he spent nine days in watching and prayer. It was during one of his prolonged vigils that he conceived the project of founding the celebrated Order of Mercy, which required of its members to give themselves, if need were, for the liberty of their brethren in bondage, and which in the course of about four hundred years (1218-1632) ransomed, at the price of millions, four hundred and ninety thousand seven hundred and thirty-six Christians (among whom was the great Cervantes) from the prisons of the Moors, where they had endured sufferings no pen could describe.

Dwelling on these saintly memories, we passed through the arcades of the court, green and damp with mould, and came to the church. The exterior, of the Renaissance style, is by no means striking. There are columns of Spanish jasper on each side of the door, with niches between for the twelve apostles, of whom only four remain. And over the entrance stands our Saviour giving his blessing to the pilgrim. There is a single nave of fine proportions, divided transversely by one of those iron rejas, or parcloses, peculiar to Spain, with a succession of chapels at the sides, by no means richly decorated. It was noon, and there was not a person in the large church. Divested of its ancient riches, and simply ornamented, it needed the crowds of pilgrims for whom it was intended to give it animation and effect. But the antique Virgin was there, in the centre of the retablo over the high altar, surrounded by lights, and we were glad of the silence and solitude that surrounded her.

The sacred image of Our Lady of Montserrat is believed to be one made by St. Luke the Evangelist at Jerusalem, and brought to Spain by St. Peter, and long preserved in a church erected by St. Paciano at Barcelona under the title of the Blessed Maria Jerosolimitana,^[26] where it was still venerated in the time of San Severo, a bishop under the rule of the Goths. According to an old chronicle, it was to preserve it from the profanation of the Moors that, on the tenth of the kalends of May, 718, Pedro the bishop, and Eurigonio, a captain of the Goths, took the holy image of the Blessed Mary, and carried it to the mountain called Asserado, and hid it in a cave.

79Amid all the wars and commotions of that age, it is not surprising that the remembrance of the holy statue became a dim tradition, and the precise spot of its concealment utterly forgotten. It was not till two centuries after that some young shepherds, guarding their flocks at the foot of the mountain, observed that every Saturday night, as soon as the darkness came on, a light descended from the heavens and gathered in a blaze around one of the lofty peaks. Their story was at first made light of at Monistrol, but, coming to the ear of the curate, a great servant of God and Our Lady, he resolved to ascertain its truth for himself. Accordingly, the next Saturday night, he set forth at an early hour with a number of people for the most favorable point of observation. As soon as it grew dark the supernatural light was seen, and a soft, delicious music heard issuing as from the depths of a cave. The curate did not venture to approach, but returned to consult the bishop of Vich, then residing at Manresa, the former place being in the hands of the Moors. This bishop, whose name was Gondemaro, took the curate and other members of the clergy, and, accompanied by several knights, ascended the mountain at the usual hour of the wonderful occurrence. They found the cliff enveloped in a cloud of fragrance. A shower of stars settled around the summit like a crown, and dulcet symphonies came forth from its bosom. This phenomenon lasted till midnight, when the music died away, the stars returned to their spheres, and silence and darkness resumed their empire.

The bishop passed the remainder of the night in dwelling on what he had witnessed, and at the first ray of dawn summoned the curate and requested him to take the necessary means for examining the place by daylight. He was not obliged to repeat the command. The curate took his parishioners, and, accompanied by the bishop, went in procession along the banks of the Llobregat, and up the sides of the mountain as far as practicable. Then he despatched several young shepherds, who could climb the rocks like goats, to explore the cliff. After no little fatigue and danger they discovered a cave on the edge of a precipice, and within it the sacred image of the Mother of God, surrounded by an odor like that of a garden of flowers. The joyful cries of the shepherds, repeated by all the echoes of the mountain caves, made known their discovery. The bishop took the statue in his arms, and, desirous of carrying it to Manresa, they went circling the wild peaks with songs of joy in the direction of Monistrol; but when he attempted to go past a certain place on the mountain his feet became fastened to the ground like iron to a loadstone. The Virgin had chosen the mountain for her abode, and would not abandon it. After the first moment of astonishment the bishop comprehended the meaning of the Soberana Señora, and a chapel was soon built to receive the statue, which he entrusted to the care of the curate of Monistrol.

But this was not the first chapel on the mountain. The oldest was that of San Miguel, on the other side of the ravine of Santa Maria, said to have been built out of the ruins of a temple of Venus. We went to see it that afternoon. It stands on a lofty ridge of the mountain to the north, commanding a magnificent prospect. Beneath is 80the whole valley of the Llobregat, but what below seemed like a vast plain here looked like the sea in a storm, in which wave after wave succeeded each other till lost in the Pyrenees. And these, capped with snow, looked like the foaming sea, run mountains high, all along the northern horizon. The whole country was dotted with villages. The river looked like a thread of silver winding through the surging valley. The sounds came up from below in a subdued murmur. At the right lay the Mediterranean, calm as a sea of crystal. Behind the chapel rose the tall cones, like the watch-towers of a vast fortress.^[27] The solitude, the wildness, the awful depths over which we hung made a profound impression on us all. “How easy for the soul to rise to God in such a place!” we said. “Let us remain here the rest of our lives. With books to read, the chapel in which to pray, the mountain-side on which to meditate, and such a glorious view of God’s world around us, what more in this world could we ask for?” Every now and then came the peal of the convent bells. The air was fragrant with the balsamic odor of the shrubs. The glowing sun lit up mount and sea. And a certain melancholy about these gray peaks and unfathomable abysses, the ruined hermitages and violated chapels, and even the wintry aspect of yonder plain, gave them an additional charm. While sitting on the rocks a Spaniard came along with his daughter, and, entering into conversation, we learned that they were visiting the holy mountain for the last time together, she being on the point of entering a sisterhood. They both showed the most lively faith, and talked with enthusiasm of Montserrat, telling us how it had been rent asunder at the Crucifixion. After they had gone on in the direction of Collbato we sat a long time in silence, and then went slowly down the winding path, bordered with laurel, holly, heather, and shrubs of various kinds. On the way we met a long file of pupils from the abbey, ranging from ten to twenty years of age, all in gowns and leather belts like young monks. Two of the Benedictine fathers came behind them.

It was nearly night when we got back to the monastery, and as soon as we had dined we went to the church. It was wrapped in utter darkness, all but the sanctuary, which was blazing with lamps around the Madonna and the tabernacle. We knelt down in the obscurity close to the reja. In a short time thirty or forty students entered in their white tunics, and, encircling the altar, began the Rosario in a measured, recitative way that was almost a chant. Then they gathered around the organ and sang the Salve and Tota pulchra es with admirable expression. The lateness of the hour, the vast nave shrouded in darkness, the blazing altar, with the black Madonna above in her golden robes after the Spanish fashion, the groups of worshippers motionless as statues, the venerable monks of St. Benedict in the choir, and the white-robed singers around the organ, gave great effect to the scene. We wished we might keep our vigil before the altar, like St. Ignatius; but one of the lay brothers, with a queer old lantern that must have been handed down from the Goths, began to hustle us out of the church as soon as the devotions were over, and we went stumbling through 81the dark court into the open air; and giving one look at the violet heavens, across which flashed a shooting-star, and to the tall black cliffs that overshadowed us, we went to our rooms, our hearts still under the influence of the music. The bells of the monastery kept ringing from time to time as long as we were awake, and they roused us again at an early hour the following morning, as if the laus perennis were still kept up as in the olden time.

It was not yet day, but we hurried to the early Mass, which is sung with the aid of the students, followed by another chanted by the monks, and the sun was just rising out of the sea when we came from the church. As soon as breakfast was over we went to visit the cave of Fray Juan Garin, which is in the side of an enormous cliff it seemed fearful to live under. He was lying there in effigy, with his book and rosary, a water-jar at his feet, and a basket at his head, as if he had just gone to sleep. His legend, though not pleasing, is too closely connected with the early history of the mountain to be wholly omitted. It has been sung, too, by poets, and one scene, at least, in his life has been perpetuated in sculpture.

Fray Juan Garin is said to have been born in the ninth century of a noble family of Goths at Valencia, and in the time of Wifredo, Count of Barcelona, became a hermit on the lone heights of Montserrat. He is represented as a man of wasted aspect, with a long beard, who lived in the cave of an inaccessible cliff, and, when he went forth, carried a long staff in his hands, which were embrowned by the sun. Here he attained to such consummate sanctity that the very bells which hung between the two pillars before the ancient chapel of SS. Acisclo and Victoria rang out of their own accord whenever he approached. Every year he made a pilgrimage to the capital of the Christian world, and tradition says the bells of the Holy City spontaneously rang out at his arrival, like those of Montserrat. It would seem as if this holy hermit, regardless of the world, and by the world forgot, could have nothing to disturb his peace. But the great adversary had his evil eye on him, and resolved on his fall. For this purpose he turned hermit himself, as in the old rhyme, and put on a penitential robe and long white beard, which made such an impression on the count of Barcelona, when he presented himself before him, that he took his advice and brought his beautiful daughter Riquilda, who was thought to be possessed, to try the efficacy of Fray Juan’s prayers.

Meanwhile, the devil established himself in the very cave on the top of the cone above the monastery still known as the Ermita del Diablo, and soon after the two hermits met as if by accident.

They looked at each other, but without at first breaking the holy silence that set its seal on their contemplative life. At length the Diablo addressed Fray Juan, saying he was a great sinner who had come to the mountain three years previously to seek pardon of God for his innumerable offences in solitude and mortification, and expressing surprise that they had never met before. Garin at first repulsed his advances, as if by instinct, but the Diablo continued to speak with so much unction on the redoubled fervor that would result from a holy union of prayer and 82penitential exercises that Garin at length yielded, and finally let no day pass without meeting him and unveiling the innermost recesses of his heart.

We will not enter into the details of the tragedy which ended in the murder of the beautiful Riquilda. But when Fray Juan awoke to a sense of his crime, he was seized with so terrible a remorse that he once more set off for Rome to throw himself at the feet of him to whom are given the keys of earth and heaven, and confess his heinous sin. But the bells no longer rang out as he drew near. He was now

“A wretch at whose approach abhorr’d,

Recoils each holy thing.”

Even the pope, with the power to him given to wash men’s sins away, had no ghostly word of peace for him. But he sent him not away in utter despair. He imposed on him by way of expiation to go forth from his presence like a beast of the earth, to live on the herbs of the field, and keep an unbroken silence till a sinless child a few months old—O power of innocence!—should assure him God had remitted his sin.

And Fray Juan submissively went forth from the Holy City on his hands and feet, and directed his weary course once more to Montserrat. Meanwhile, the Virgin, as Mr. Ticknor says, “appearing on that wild mountain where the unhappy man had committed his crime, consecrates its deep solitudes by founding there the magnificent sanctuary which has ever since made Montserrat holy ground to all devout Catholics.”^[28]

In the course of time Fray Juan’s garments were worn out; exposed to the blazing sun of Spain, he grew swarthy of hue, and his body became covered with hair that made him look like a wild beast, for which, in fact, he was taken by the royal foresters, who fastened a rope around his neck and led him to Barcelona, where he was put in the stables of the count’s palace of Valdauris, and became at once the wonder and terror of the people.

Not long after the lord of Catalonia made a great feast to celebrate the birth of his son, now four or five months old, and one of the guests expressing a wish to see the curious beast from Montserrat, Fray Juan was led into the hall. As soon as he appeared the infant prince, speaking for the first time in his life, said: “Rise up, Fray Juan Garin; thou hast fulfilled thy penance. God hath pardoned thee.” And the penitent rose up and resumed his original form as a man.^[29] He then threw himself at the count’s feet and confessed his crime. Wifredo could not refuse a pardon God had granted through his child. He ordered Fray Juan to conduct him to his daughter’s grave, and, followed by all the lords and knights of his court, he went to the mountain, and there, beside the newly-erected chapel of the Virgin, he found the tomb of the princess. When it was unsealed, to their amazement Riquilda opened her eyes and came forth from the grave. Around her neck was a slight mark, like a thread of crimson silk. As Faust says of Margaret:

“How strangely does a single blood-red line,

Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,

Adorn her lovely neck!”

83The overjoyed count took his daughter back to Barcelona, where an immense crowd came to see her whom the great Madre de Dios had awakened from the sleep of death. One of the knights of the court, struck with her beauty, requested her hand in marriage, but Riquilda felt that after so strange a restoration to life, she ought to consecrate herself to God on the mount where the wonder had been accomplished.

Wifredo, who was a great builder of churches, determined to erect a magnificent convent on the mountain. Fray Juan worked on it with his own hands, and after its completion retired to a cave, where he penitently ended his days. The convent was peopled with nuns of noble birth, and Riquilda placed at their head. Eighty years after Count Borrell, who was now lord of Catalonia, fearful of a Saracen invasion, substituted monks and transferred the nuns to the royal foundation of Santa Maria de Ripoll.

This legend of a rude age, gross in some of its details, has been celebrated in several poems, one of which, still read and admired, takes a high place in Spanish literature. This is El Monserrate, by Cristóbal de Virues, a dramatic poet, who was a great favorite of Lope de Vega’s. Virues had served as a captain in the Spanish wars, and taken part in the battle of Lepanto. He belonged to an age when, as Mr. Ticknor says, many a soldier, after a life of excess, ended his days in a hermitage as rude and solitary as that of Garin.

The old counts of Barcelona made great donations to the convent of Montserrat, as well as the kings of Aragon after them. The monks were exempted from imposts and taxes, and made honorary citizens of Barcelona. They not only had possession of the mountain, but held feudal sway over several towns and lordships. The rule of St. Benedict is known to have been observed here in 987, when Prior Raymundo was at the head of the house. It was a dependence of the abbey of Ripoll until the fourteenth century, but on account of its miraculous Virgin, and the extraordinary history of its foundation, it at once acquired great celebrity, and not a day passed without numerous pilgrims. In the twelfth century there were so many that Don Jaime el Conquistador ordered all who went to the mountain to take with them the provisions necessary for their subsistence. These pilgrims, who were often from distant provinces, used to come with bare feet, sometimes with torches in their hands, or bearing heavy crosses, or scourging their bodies, or with a halter around their necks and manacles on their hands, as if they were criminals. And when the monks saw them coming in this manner, they went out to meet them, and released them from their vow by special authority from the pope, and brought them in before the holy image of the Mother of God, where their sighs and tears broke forth into piteous prayers.

These pilgrims had a kind of sacred character which prevented them from being cited before tribunals till they returned, except for crimes committed on the way, under a penalty of five hundred crowns. Leonora, the wife of Don Pedro el Catolico, was the first queen of Aragon to visit the sanctuary, and Don Pedro the Great the first king. The latter passed the night before the altar of Our Lady, imploring her aid against the French, who 84were invading Catalonia. Don Jaime and his wife Blanca came together and endowed the monastery, of which their son was then prior. Don Pedro el Ceremonioso came twice: on his way to the conquest of Majorca, and again at his return, when he presented a silver galley in thanksgiving for his success. Queen Violante, wife of Juan I., came here with bare feet, out of pure love for the Virgin, bringing with her rich gifts.

When Ferdinand the Catholic was nine years old his mother brought him to Montserrat and consecrated him to the Virgin. After the conquest of Granada he and Queen Isabella came here together, with Prince Juan, their son, Isabella, widow of Don Alonso of Portugal, Doña Juana, afterwards called la Loca, and others of the royal family. They brought with them the two young sons of the last king of Granada, who were baptized under the names of Juan and Fernando. In the retinue were the great Cardinal Mendoza and a number of prelates. On this or some other occasion their Catholic majesties presented two magnificent silver lamps to burn before Our Lady of Montserrat, and Queen Isabella gave twelve yards of green velvet, and two of brocade, to the sacristy.

It was about this time that thirteen monks from Montserrat were chosen to accompany Christopher Columbus in order to establish the faith in the new regions he might discover. At their head was Dom Bernardo Boil, a noble Catalonian, who was raised to the dignity of patriarch and papal legate. Columbus gave the name of Montserrat to an island he discovered in 1493, on account of the resemblance it bore to the holy mountain of Spain, and the first Christian church erected in America was called Nuestra Señora de Montserrat.

Charles V. came to Montserrat when nineteen years of age, accompanied by his tutor, Adrian of Utrecht, afterwards pope. They found the court full of soldiers, with lighted torches in their hands, and the Count Palatine at the head of an embassy to offer him the crown of Carlo Magno in the name of the electors of Germany. Charles went to prostrate himself at the feet of the Virgin, and the following day left for Barcelona, after giving the father abbot the title and privileges of Sacristan Mayor of the crown of Aragon. He subsequently bestowed many gifts on the abbey, and gave it rule over the town of Olessa and other places. He visited it repeatedly, and not only remained several days at a time, but is even said to have tried the monastic life he afterwards embraced in the convent of Yuste. The third time he came here was in 1533, and on Corpus Christi day he walked in the procession with the monks, carrying a lighted candle in his hand. He liked to pass such great solemnities in a monastery, contributing by his presence and generosity to the brilliancy of the festival. He always invoked Our Lady of Montserrat before engaging in battle, and attributed to her his victories. He was at Montserrat when he received notice of the discovery of Mexico by Hernando Cortes, and when he heard of one of his important victories over the Moors. And on St. Margaret’s day, 1535, the parish of Santa Maria del Mar at Barcelona sent a deputation of twelve persons to the mountain, habited as penitents, to pray for the success of the royal arms. They united with the monks and hermits in a devout procession around 85the cloister, and made such prevailing prayer at the altar of Our Lady that Charles V. that very day took possession of Tunis. When the emperor, in 1558, found he was dying, he called for the taper blessed on the altar of Montserrat, and holding it in one hand, with the crucifix that had been taken from the dead hand of his mother Juana in the other, this great monarch, who, as he acknowledged to his kinsman, St. Francis Borgia, had never, from the twenty-first year of his age, suffered a day to pass without devoting some part of it to mental prayer, now slept for ever in the Lord.

Isabella of Portugal, wife of Charles V., likewise came here, and in her train the Marques de Lombay, afterwards Duke of Gandia, and Viceroy of Catalonia, now venerated on our altars under the name of San Francisco de Borja. With him was his wife, the beautiful Leonora de Castro, lady of honor to the empress. As a memorial of her visit, Isabella presented the church with a silver pax of artistic workmanship worth two thousand ducats, and a little ship garnished with diamonds valued at 10,800 pesos.

Some years after Doña Maria, daughter of Charles V., came here with her husband, Maximilian II., Emperor of Austria, to obtain a blessing on their marriage, and she spent several days here on her return to Spain. Her page, at that time, was the young Louis de Gonzaga, son of the Marquis of Castiglione, who afterwards entered the Society of Jesus, and is now canonized.

With this empress came also her daughter, the Princess Margarita, who prostrated herself at the feet of the Virgin and implored the grace of becoming the spouse of her divine Son. Tradition says the Virgin gently inclined her head in token of consent. At all events, the princess, after her prayer, took a dagger from one of the cavaliers, and with blood from her own veins thus wrote:

“I solemnly pledge myself to become the spouse of Christ, to whom I here offer myself, begging his Virgin Mother to be my mediator. In faith of which I subscribe myself,

“Margarita.”

She placed this vow in the Virgin’s hand, and afterwards fulfilled it by becoming a nun in the royal foundation of the Carmelites at Madrid under the name of Sr. Margarita de la Cruz. This interesting document was long preserved in the abbey, but disappeared when the house was ravaged under Napoleon.

Philip II., the monarch who boasted that the sun never set on his dominions, visited Montserrat four times, one of which was on Candlemas day, when he took part in the procession, devoutly carrying his taper. He presented Our Lady with a silver lamp weighing over a hundred pounds, and an elaborate retablo for her altar which cost ten thousand ducados.

Don John of Austria came here after the battle of Lepanto, and brought several flags taken from the enemy, as trophies to the Virgin of Montserrat, and hung up in the centre of the church the signal-lantern taken from the vessel of the Turkish admiral.

The abbey at this time was one of the richest in Spain. It was surrounded by ramparts and towers for defence. It had its courts and cloisters full of sculptures, and carvings, and tombs of precious marble, whereon knights lay in 86their armor, and abbots with mitre and crosier. But the church was too small for the number of pilgrims, and dim in spite of its seventy silver lamps. Abbot Garriga, one of the ablest men who ever ruled over the monastery, resolved to build a new one. This distinguished abbot rose from the humblest condition in life. When he was only seven years old his father, a poor man, ascended the mountain on an ass, with a kid in one pannier and his son in the other, and offered them both at the convent gate. The porter accepted the kid, but refused the boy. The father, however, persisted in leaving him, and the abbot, struck with his intelligence, gave him a place in the school. He received the monastic habit at the age of nine. While a novice he used to lament the inadequate size of the church, and predicted he should rebuild it. He subsequently became abbot, and fulfilled his prophecy, but he ended his days in the lofty hermitage of St. Dimas, where he had retired to prepare for eternity.

When the new church was completed, as the Virgin could not be removed under penalty of excommunication, the sanction of the pope had to be obtained. Philip III. came to take part in the ceremony, and with him a crowd of courtiers and Spanish grandees. On Sunday, July 11, 1593, the king and all the court went to confession and holy Communion in the morning. In the afternoon the sacred image was taken down from the place it had occupied for centuries, and clothed in magnificent robes, given by the Infanta Isabella and the Duchess of Brunswick. Then the procession was formed, preceded by a cross-bearer carrying a cross of pure silver, in which was set a piece of the Lignum Crucis surrounded by five emeralds, five diamonds, a topaz as large as a walnut, and a great number of pearls. Then came forty-three lay brothers, fifteen hermits, and sixty-two monks, chanting the Ave Maris Stella, each one carrying a wax candle weighing a pound. After them were twenty-four scholastics, and then the statue of Our Lady, borne by four monks in orders, wearing rich dalmaticas. Over it was a gorgeous canopy supported by noble lords. Behind followed Abbot Garriga and his attendants, and, after the peasant’s son, King Philip III., bearing a torch on which was painted the royal arms, and a long train of lords and ladies, the highest in the realm. With all this pomp the Madonna was borne up the nave of the new church, and, amid the ringing of bells and the chant of the Te Deum, was placed on her silver throne, given by the Duke of Cardona.

All the kings of Spain, down to the end of the eighteenth century, came here with their votive offerings. The church had a font of jasper, a reja of beautiful workmanship that cost fourteen thousand ducats, and around the altar of the Virgin burned over two hundred costly lamps, the gifts of kings, princes, and nobles. She had four gold crowns studded with gems; one estimated at fifty thousand ducats, sent by the natives of Mexico converted to the faith. The monstrance for the exposition of the Host gleamed like the sun with its rays of sparkling jewels. Chalices were covered with rubies. There were golden candlesticks for the altar, and ornaments of amber and crystal, and vestments of cloth 87of gold embroidered with precious stones, and a profusion of other valuable things that may to Judas eyes seem uselessly poured out in this favored sanctuary.

To this wonderful church, for the gilding of which he had contributed four thousand crowns, came Don John of Austria in the seventeenth century, and, penetrating into the sanctuary, he placed his hands on the sacred altar, and in a distinct voice pronounced the following: “I swear and promise to maintain with my sword that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin from the first instant of her being,” which vow was repeated by all the knights in his train. There was formerly a painting in one of the chapels to commemorate this scene.

Many children of the first families of Spain used to be brought to Montserrat and consecrated to the Virgin. Sometimes they were even left here to pass their boyhood. Don John of Cardona, a Spanish admiral, who distinguished himself in the wars with the Turks, and at one time was viceroy of Navarre, was educated here, and said he valued the honor of being a page of Our Lady of Montserrat more than having been the defender of Malta against the infidel. He took for his standard her glorious image, and, when he died, was buried, at his own request, at her feet. So were many others, famous as soldiers or statesmen, reared on this secluded mountain. The pupils, as now, wore a semi-monastic dress. They daily recited the Office of the Blessed Virgin, sang at the early Mass, and ate in the monks’ refectory. Nor were they all nobles. There were peasants’ children, too, among them, but they were all reared together in that simplicity of life that seems traditional among the Benedictines. The divine words that for ever ennobled the innocence of childhood have done more to efface artificial distinctions in monastic houses than the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence has ever done in our beloved republic. But in Spain there has always been a certain courtesy towards the lower classes that has tended to elevate them, or, at least, to maintain their self-respect. It is said that the dignity of man in that country seems to rise in proportion as his rank descends.

Among the more recent memories of the school, it is told how, September 30, 1860, Queen Isabella II. came here with her son, now King Alfonso XII., then only three years old, and had him made a page of Our Lady of Montserrat, and he was clothed in the dress of the pupils in the presence of the court.

But to return to the history of the abbey. The day came when all its riches were suddenly swept away. Catalonia was the first to rise against the government of Napoleon. Montserrat, being considered almost impregnable, was made a depot of provisions and munitions of war. It was fortified, and bristled with cannon like a citadel. Suchet attacked the mountain. It was vigorously defended by three hundred Spaniards entrenched in the defiles, but the French succeeded in gaining possession of it. The monastery was blown up. The hermitages were ruined. The hermits were “hunted like chamois from rock to rock,” and the treasures of the church were carried off as spoils of war. All the testimonials of the faith of 88Spain that had been accumulating here for centuries were swept away: the gold and the jewels, the paintings and carvings, the Gothic cloister and the tombs of alabaster—all, all disappeared. Only one priceless jewel remained, around which all the others had been gathered—the ancient Madonna brought from the East, which was once more concealed in a cave, as in the time of the Moors.

Towards the close of our second day on Montserrat we passed through an avenue of cypresses behind the monastery, and came to a small terrace on the very edge of the precipitous mountain-side, around which was a wall adorned with great stone saints that were gray and mossy, and worn by the elements. Against the wall were seats, and, in the centre of the plot, a tank for gold fish, with a few plants and shrubs around it. Here is an admirable view to the northwest, and we stood leaning a long time against the wall, looking at the broad Vega beneath, and the long range of Pyrenees that stood out with wonderful distinctness against the pure evening sky. Directly beneath us was Monistrol, and, beyond, Manresa, only three leagues off, but seemingly much nearer; and along yonder road winding through the Valley of Paradise, as it used to be called, must have gone St. Ignatius from Montserrat in his newly-put-on garments of holy poverty, which could not, we fancy, hide his courtly bearing or eagle glance.

Nothing could surpass the exquisite gradations of light and color that passed over the landscape while the sun was going down. The pleasant valley grew dim. Manresa receded, and her white walls soon looked like a ship at sea. A purple mist began to creep up the mountain-sides. The snowy summits were suffused with a blush of rosy light. The last gleam of the sun, now below the western horizon, flashed from peak to peak like signal-fires, and then died away. The purple hills grew leaden. The rosy peaks became paler and paler till they were actually livid, and finally faded away into mere fleecy clouds.

Then we walked reluctantly back through the tall, dark cypresses to the convent, and through the shadowy cloister to the church, which we found dark but for the usual cluster of lamps around the altar, suspended there—beautiful emblem of prayer—to consume themselves before God, in place of the hearts forced to live amid the cares of the world.

There is an old legend, embodied in a Catalan ballad, that tells how an angel one night ordered Fray José de las Llantias, a lay brother of Montserrat, now declared Venerable, to quickly trim the dying lamps lest the world be overwhelmed in darkness because of iniquity.

The next morning, after the usual offices, we went to receive the father abbot’s blessing and visit the treasury of the Virgin—no longer filled with countless jewels, but containing many touching offerings that tell of perils past, such as soldiers’ knapsacks and swords, sailors’ hats, innumerable plaits of hair, etc. Then we went up a winding stair, on which, at different turnings, three white angels pointed the way, to kiss Our Lady’s hand, according to the custom of pilgrims. Afterwards we took a guide, and went to visit several of the hermitages, most of which are still in ruins. That of the Virgin has been restored, and from below 89looks like a small château rising straight up from the edge of the precipice overhanging the ravine of Santa Maria. The ancient Cueva, or cave, where the Madonna was found, is now converted into a pretty chapel lighted by small stained windows. The adjoining cell has a balcony that hangs over the abyss, commanding a lovely view.

The hermitage of San Dimas, or Dismas, is on one of the most inaccessible peaks.

“Gistas damnatur, Dismas ad astra levatur,”

says the old Latin rhyme. This cell is now in ruins, but it was once fortified and had a drawbridge. Col. Green entrenched himself here in 1812 with a detachment of soldiers, and cannon had to be put on a neighboring height to dislodge him. It was in one of its chapels the great Loyola made his general confession, and to a Frenchman. In ancient times there was a den of robbers here, for which reason it was placed under the protection of the Good Thief when it was converted into a hermitage.

The hermitage of Santa Cruz is approached by a flight of one hundred and fifty steps cut in the solid rock. It is said to be so called because Charlemagne, when fighting against the Moors in the north of Spain, ordered a white banner, on which was a blood-red cross, to be set up on this peak. Here lived the Blessed Benito de Aragon for sixty-three years. The hermits generally lived to an advanced age, to which the pure air, as well as their simple life and regular habits, conduced. There are about thirteen of these hermitages scattered over the mountain. That of Santa Magdalena, one of the most picturesque, is two miles from the monastery. They are all built on a uniform plan. There is a chapel, and connected with it is a small house containing an antechamber, a cell with an alcove for a bed, and a kitchen. On one side there is a little garden with a cistern. The hermits made a vow never to leave the mountain. On the festival of St. Benedict they received the Holy Eucharist together and had dinner in common. On certain days in the year they descended to the abbey, and always took part in the great solemnities. Their director, appointed by the abbot, lived in the hermitage of San Benito. Their rule was very austere. They observed an almost continual fast, and their abstinence was perpetual. Fish, bread, and the common wine of the region constituted their food. Most of their time was passed in exercises of piety, varied by the culture of their little gardens. They were allowed no pets of any kind, but the birds of the air became so familiarized with their presence as to approach at a signal and eat from their hands. This was no small pleasure, for there are nightingales, goldfinches, robin red-breasts, larks, thrushes, etc., in abundance on the mountain. When ill they were removed to the infirmary at the abbey.

The most elevated hermitage is that of San Geronimo. The way to it lies along the edge of deep ravines, over steep cliffs, through narrow fissures—a rough, fatiguing, enchanting excursion. There is a fresh surprise at every instant, from the continual variety of nature. We gathered fragrant violets, daisies, the purple heather, delicate ferns, branches of holly and box, that grew in crevices along the mountain-paths. We were so fatigued when we arrived that we 90were glad to sit down against the crumbling walls of the hermitage, and eat our lunch, and take a draught from the cool cistern. The cell is on the brink of a gulf worn by torrents, into which it makes one giddy to look. Close by rises a tall cone which is the highest point of Montserrat. Here is a magnificent prospect of mountain, and sea, and four provinces of Spain. On the north is Catalonia and the glorious Pyrenees; at the east the blue Mediterranean, with the Balearic Isles in the distance; to the south the coasts of Castillon and Valencia; and to the west Lerida and the mountains of Aragon.

The hermit of San Geronimo was always the youngest, and as the others died he descended to a cell less exposed to the inclemency of the seasons, leaving his place to a new-comer. It is a solitary peak, indeed, to live on, and yet in sight of so vast a world. We were there at noon, when the sun was in all its splendor, lighting up the snows of the mountain and the waves of the sea. The wind began to rise with a solemn swell, giving out that hollow, ominous sound which De Quincey says is “the one sole audible symbol of eternity.” The holy mountain, shivered into numberless peaks; the abysses and chasms that separate them, only inhabited by birds of prey; the variety of aromatic plants that grow in the rich soil collected wherever it can find room; the exhilarating air; the marvels of creation on every side, seemingly “boundless as we wish our souls to be,” constitute an abode in which one would wish for ever to live. The lines of Fray Luis de Leon in his Noche Serena might have been inspired by this very spot:

“Who that has seen these splendors roll,

And gazed on this majestic scene,

But sighed to ’scape the world’s control,

Spurning its pleasures poor and mean,

And pass the gulf that yawns between?”

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Tall, gaunt, with clear-cut and unmistakably New England features, and feet that would not admit of Cinderella slippers, is the tout ensemble which Emerson photographed upon our retina when we heard him lecture recently. We liked his calm and self-poised manner. There was no heated concern when the Sibylline leaves on which his lecture was written became inextricably mixed. Paradoxically enough, his theme was “Orators and Oratory.” His high, shrill voice, his ungainly manners, and his utter absence of gesture make him the most unattractive of speakers. But there was a certain “fury in his words” which fastened the attention. The next thing to being an orator is to love oratory; and his reverence and admiration for the eloquent in speech pass his own eloquent expression.

Emerson’s sentences are so pointed that frequently the point is so fine as to be lost. His eloquence is anything but Asiatic, and, indeed, its terseness very much resembles affectation. He is called 91the American Carlyle, but his proper title is the American Montaigne. There is not an idea in Emerson that cannot be traced to the garrulous old Frenchman. The first reading of Emerson is an era in a young man’s life. The short, apothegmic sentences strike him with the force of proverbs. The happy quotation and illustration seem inspirations of genius. The misty transcendentalism has a roseate hue, in delightful contrast with the bald practicality of Watts’ hymns and orthodox sermons. The stimulating style, resultant from exquisite taste and the manly resolve to carry out Pope’s advice about the “art to blot,” is high perfection when compared with the weak and weary prosing of moral essayists. Yet there is nothing original in Emerson. He has contributed little or nothing to the body of ideas. Not even his poetry, which is supposed to be productive of ideas, presents anything new or striking. The passion for nature-worship, which Wordsworth carried to its highest expression, becomes tiresome and unnatural in Emerson’s short metre and careless versification.

What is the source of his power? Why do New England critics rave over him? Even J. Russell Lowell, who, with all the limitations of a narrowed culture, ranks respectably as a literary critic, cannot find words in which to laud the New England philosopher. He finds the secret of his influence to consist in his “wide-reaching sympathy” and his being able to understand the use of a linchpin equally with the stellar influences. Lowell himself is under the witchery of mere words. His cultivated mind is drawn to the beautiful by acquired æsthetic taste. His estimate of Dante, as published in the New American Cyclopædia and afterward in Among my Books, fills the thoughtful Italian student with amazement. He is a critic of words, and is childishly led by a bright figure or exquisite metaphor. Emerson, whilst seeming to disregard words, pays profound attention to their collocation and effectiveness. This school is not a school of thoughts but of words; and it is under this aspect that we intend examining it. It is the thorough embodiment of poor Hamlet’s objection to the book which he is reading: “Words, words, words.” We read and read, and are charmed with Thucydidean terseness and Solomonic wisdom; but when we begin to reflect “all the riches have escaped out of our hands.” It is about time to expose this wily old philosopher, who has been throwing rhetorical dust into the eyes of several generations. He may have a noble manhood; he may be sincere; but there can be no question that it is the ignotum pro magnifico which has been the cheap cause of his popularity.

Thomas à Kempis tells us that “words fly through the air and hurt not a stone.” There is certainly no objection to a writer’s careful elaboration of his style. The study of words is a part of rhetoric. But there is a subtle and elusive application of words, outside of their obvious and generally-used meaning, which is at once a rhetorical and a logical vice. And as ideas fail, so words are sedulously cultivated. The style is the man, as Buffon did not say; but what of an affected style? If there is any truth in the saying, it convicts Emerson of being stilted, unnatural, and affected. No man thinks by jerks and starts, and no man writes so. The fanciful and abrupt indicate either affectation or an unbalanced intellect. All the 92great philosophers write calmly and equably. The sustained strength of Plato, on whom Emerson professes to model himself, is in direct contrast with the abruptness of Seneca, who was a mass of conceit and hypocrisy. We have no quarrel with Mr. Emerson on account of his studied style; only, with Sydney Smith, we object to a discourse in which are hung out preconcerted signals for tears or excitement. It is quite easy to form a quaint style. The success of Charles Lamb’s imitation of Sir Thomas Browne, or of Bret Harte’s or Thackeray’s burlesques of popular novels, shows how quickly a ready writer can fall into a philosophical diction. Emerson attempts the epigrammatic. Like Pythagoras, he disdains reasons. The ipse dixit, he supposes, will suffice for his disciples. He contradicts himself on his very self-satisfactory theory of “not being in any mood long.” He admires opposite characters; but, to the credit of American good sense be it said—good sense even in a philosophe—he does not “boil over,” like Carlyle, in all sorts of oddities of hero-worship. The Yankee hard head which he has cannot be softened by all the philosophy and poetry in the world; and, notwithstanding his ethereal views, he drives a hard bargain.

Can we review this philosopher to the satisfaction of our readers, or must they peruse him themselves in order to form a vague idea of his system?

It may be Emerson’s boast that he has no system. This restlessness under any, even nominal, régime is a characteristic of contemporaneous philosophy outside the church. There is liberty enough in the church; and, in fact, beyond it we see nothing but imprisonment, for nothing so practically chains the intellect of man as irresponsible freedom. It is like the liberty of the ocean enjoyed (?) by a mariner without sails or compass. A Catholic philosopher can speculate as much as he pleases. The security of the faith gives him a delightful sense of safe freedom. Like O’Connell’s driving a coach and four through an act of Parliament, he may go to the outermost verge of speculation. St. Thomas moves the most outrageous fallacies, speculations, and objections, and discusses them, too, with all the boldness of intellectual freedom. It is Dr. Marshall, we think, who shows that all intellectual activity and freedom are enjoyed within the spacious bounds of Catholic truth. Even in theology there are wide differences. The Catholic intellect is supposed to be completely bridled. We once read a powerful arraignment of our Scriptural proofs for purgatory, written by an eminent Protestant theologian. He must have been surprised to learn that Catholic theologians do not attach all importance to the Scriptural argument for purgatory. The different schools of Catholic theology argue pro and con. as keenly as old Dr. Johnson himself would have desired, but without the slightest detriment to the unity of the faith. Nothing can be falser than the received Protestant notion that we are helplessly bound by a network of petty definitions and regulations. There are, however, great and immovable principles which are understood to guide and vivify the Catholic intellect. And such systemization is necessary to all knowledge. Without it a man’s mind, like Emerson’s, wanders comet-like, attracting attention by its vagaries, but is of no intelligible use to the universe, and gives no light, except of a nebulous and perplexing nature.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, of all 93American writers, had the true transcendental mind, ridicules it unsparingly. His doleful experience upon Brook Farm, when he attempted to milk a cow, may have had a practical awakening effect upon his dreams. In a little sketch entitled The Celestial Railroad, in which he whimsically carries out Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, he introduces Giant Transcendentalism, who has taken the place of Giant Pope, and Giant Despair, that interrupted Christian’s progress to the Delectable Mountains. Giant Transcendentalism is a huge, amorphous monster, utterly indescribable, and speaking an unintelligible language. This language, which Emerson strives to make articulate, we read with mingled amusement and astonishment in the German writers. Emerson is not a member of the Kulturkampf, like Carlyle. His mind does not take in their wild rhapsodies. His essay on Goethe (in Representative Men) is cold and unappreciative when compared with the Scotchman’s eulogies. We firmly believe that no healthy intellect can feed upon Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, or even Kant, who was the most luminous intellect of the group. Emerson has not the stolid pertinacity of Herr Teufelsdröckh. His genius is French. He delights in paradox and verbal gymnastics. Carlyle works with a sort of furious patience at such a prosaic career as Frederick the Great’s. He gets up a factitious enthusiasm about German Herzhogs and Erstfursts. Emerson would look with dainty disdain upon his Cyclopean work among big, dusty, musty folios and the hammering out of shining sentences from such pig-iron.

Whence his transcendentalism? We believe that it has two elements, nature-worship and Swedenborgianism. Of nature-worship we have very little. Like Thomson, the author of the Seasons, who wrote the finest descriptions of scenery in bed at ten o’clock in the morning, we are frightfully indifferent to the glories of earth, sea, and sky, whilst theoretically capable of intense rapture. This tendency to adore nature, and this intense modern cultivation of the natural sciences, we take as indicative of the husks of religion given by Protestantism. Man’s intellect seeks the certain, and where he cannot find it in the supernatural he will have recourse to the natural. The profound attention paid to all the mechanical and natural sciences, to the exclusion, if not denial, of supernatural religion, is the logical result of the absurdity of Protestantism. Perhaps Emerson’s poetic feeling has much to do with his profound veneration for fate, nature, and necessity, which are his true god, with a very little Swedenborgianism to modify them.

And here we meet him on his philosophy of words. A word, according to St. Thomas, should be the adæquatio rei et intellectus, for a word is really the symbol and articulation of truth. Where words convey no clear or precise idea to the mind they are virtually false. The terminology of Emerson falls even below Carlyle’s in obscurity. What does he mean by the one-soul? What by compensation? What by fate and necessity? Explica terminos is the command of logic and reason; yet he maunders on in vague and extravagant speech, using terms which it is very probable he himself only partly or arbitrarily understands. He is not master of his own style. His own words hurry him along. This fatal bondage to style spoils his best thoughts. He seems to aim at striking phrases and ends in paradox. 94His very attempt to strengthen and compress his sentences weakens and obscures his meaning. The oracular style does not carry well. He is happiest where he does not don the prophetic or poetical mantle. When we get a glimpse of his shrewd character, he is as gay as a lark and sharp as a fox. He muffles himself in transcendentalism, but fails to hide his clear sense, which he cannot entirely bury or obfuscate. It seems strange to us that such a mind could be permanently influenced by the fantasies of Swedenborg, whom he calls a mystic, but who, very probably, was a madman. The pure mysticism of the Catholic Church is not devoid of what to those who have not the light to read it may seem to wear a certain air of extravagance, which, apparently, would be no objection to Emerson; but it is kept within strict rational bounds by the doctrinal authority of the church. We do not suppose that Emerson ever thought it worth his while to study the mystic or ascetic theology of the church, though here and there in his writings he refers to the example of saints, and quotes their sayings and doings. But it must be a strange mental state that passively admits the wild speculations of Swedenborgianism with its gross ideas of heaven and its fanciful interpretations of Scripture. Besides, Emerson clearly rejects the divinity of Jesus Christ, which is extravagantly (if we may use the expression) set forth in Swedenborgianism, to the exclusion of the Father and the Holy Ghost. He is, or was, a Unitarian, and his allusions to our Blessed Lord have not even the reverence of Carlyle.

Naturalism, as used in the sense of the Vatican decrees, is the proper word to apply to the Emersonian teaching. He has the Yankee boastfulness, materialistic spirit, and general laudation of the natural powers. His transcendentalism has few of the spiritual elements of German thought. He does not believe in contemplation, but stimulates to activity. In his earlier essays he seemed pantheistic, but his last book (Society and Solitude) affirmed his doubt and implicit denial of immortality. He appears to be a powerful personality, for he has certainly influenced many of the finer minds of New England, and, no doubt, he leads a noble and intellectual life. His exquisite æstheticism takes away the grossness of the results to which his naturalistic philosophy leads, and it is with regret that we note in him that intellectual pride which effectually shuts his mind even to the gentlest admonitions and enlightenments of divine grace.

It is a compliment to our rather sparse American authorship and scholarship that England regards him as the typical American thinker and writer. We do not so regard him ourselves, for his genius lacks the sturdy American originality and reverent spirit. But Emerson made a very favorable impression upon Englishmen when he visited their island, and he wrote the best book on England (English Traits) that, perhaps, any American ever produced. The quiet dignity and native independence of the book charmed John Bull, who was tired of our snobbish eulogiums of himself and institutions. Emerson met many literary men, who afterward read his books and praised his style. He has the air of boldness and the courage of his opinions. Now and then he invents a striking phrase which sets one a-thinking. He has also in perfection the art of quoting, and his whole composition betokens the artist and scholar.

There is a high, supersensual region, 95imagination, fantasy, or soul-life, in which he loves to disport, and to which he gives the strangest names. One grows a little ashamed of what he deems his own unimaginativeness when he encounters our philosopher “bestriding these lazy-pacing clouds.” He wonders at the “immensities, eternities, and fates” that seem to exert such wondrous powers. When Emerson gets into this strain he quickly disappears either in the clouds or in a burrow, according to the taste and judgment of different readers. There is often a fine feeling in these passages which we can understand yet not express. Sublime they are not, though obscurity may be considered one of the elements of sublimity. They are emotional. Emerson belongs rather to the sensualistic school; at least, he ascribes abounding power to the feelings, and, in fact, he is too heated and enthusiastic for the coldness and calmness exacted by philosophical speculation. Many of his essays read like violent sermons; and his worst ones are those in which he attempts to carry out a ratiocination. He is dictatorial. He announces but does not prove. He appears at times to be in a Pythonic fury, and proclaims his oracles with much excitement and contortion. It is impossible to analyze an essay, or hold on to the filmy threads by which his thoughts hang together. It is absurd to call him a philosopher who has neither system, clearness of statement, nor accuracy of thought.

It is a subject of gratulation that Emerson, who has been before New England for the past half-century, has wielded a generally beneficial influence. With his powers and opportunities he might have done incalculable harm; but the weight of his authority has been thrown upon the side of general morality and natural development of strength of character. We know, of course, how little merely natural motives and powers avail toward the building up of character; but it is not against faith to hold that a good disposition and virtuous frame of mind may result from purely natural causes. He has preached the purest gospel of naturalism, shrinking at once from the bold and impious counsellings of Goethe and from the muscularity of Carlyle. He has given us, in himself, glimpses of a noble character, and his ideals have been lofty and pure. New England could not have had a better apostle, humanly and naturally speaking. Its cultivated and rational minds turned in horror and disgust from its rigid Calvinism, its outré religious frenzies, and its sordid and prosaic life. They found a voice and interpreter in Emerson. He marks the recoil from unscriptural, irrational, and unnatural religion.

Puritanism, always unlovely, despotic, and gloomy, began to lose its hold even upon the second generation of the Puritans. Its life will never be thoroughly revealed to the sunshiny Catholic mind. Perhaps its ablest exponent was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, in the Scarlet Letter, revealed its possibilities and, in fact, actualities of hideousness. We have no fault to find with any elements of stern self-control or ascetic character that it might develop, but its effect on the intellect was darkening and crippling. The whole Puritan exodus from England was a suppressed and blinding excitement. The rebound from their harsh and unbending discipline was terrific. The frowning-down of all amusement, the irritating espionage over private life, the high-strung religious enthusiasm which it was necessary to simulate 96if not feel, the abnormal development of ministerial power and influence, and the baleful gloom of Calvinistic doctrine, were elements that had necessarily to be destroyed, or they would madden a nation. They could no more endure, if it were possible to extirpate them, than could a colony of rabid dogs. Human nature, as created by God, tends to preserve the primal type. It asserts its functions, its rights, its powers, and its aptitudes. After a century, in which religious intolerance ruled New England with a rod of iron, the long-pent-up storm burst with indescribable fury and scattered orthodoxy to the four winds. The people breathed more freely; the atmosphere cleared; there was a healthy interchange of sentiment. The predominance of public-school education, combining with the multiplication of books, developed that crude and half-formed culture which has characterized New England to the present day. The best-educated portion of the Union, filled with all the insolence of a little learning, aspired to rule the nation, and succeeded. Its ideas were zealously propagated. Wherever a Yankee settled he planted all New England around him. The peddler did not need religion, but the philosopher did. The culture of æsthetics engaged some; others went off into Socinianism. The doctrines of Fourierism had charms for many, among whom was Emerson. He longed for an ideal life. The country was not leavened then, as now, by the solid thought and practice of Catholicity. The mystic radiance and grace of the Adorable Sacrament did not sweetly pervade the whole atmosphere of the land. Satan was busy and jubilant. The strangest and most eccentric forms of religion sprang up like rank mushroom growths, with neither beauty nor wholesome nutriment. It was then that Emerson’s call to a high manhood seemed to have the right ring in it. At least, it attracted and fixed the wandering attention of New England. For many a winter he lectured, speaking great words, the heroic wisdom of old Plutarch and the practical sense and insight of Montaigne. His fine scholarship won the scholars and his homely maxims charmed the farmers. It was well that in that dreary, chaotic period there was a brave and bold speaker who did not entirely despair of humanity, even when he and his companions had broken adrift from their anchorage in the rotten and worn-out systems of Protestant theology.

The grace of the faith has thus far escaped the Concord philosopher, but who shall speak of the ways of God? The theologian will solve you quickly all questions in his noble science, except questions upon the tract of grace. There he hesitates, for the most intimate and personal communications of God with the soul take place in the mystery of grace. Every man has his own tractatus de gratia written upon his own heart in the all-beautiful handwriting of God, sealing us, as St. Paul says, and writing upon us the mark that distinguishes us as his beloved. It is the miserable consequence of the New England system of early education, which inheres in a man’s very spirit, that it perversely misrepresents the Catholic Church. It is simply astounding how little Americans know about our divine faith. They have never deemed it worth their while to examine it, taking it for granted that all that is said against it is true. We remember, as a boy, reading Peter Parley’s histories, which were very popular in New England, and not a page was free from some misrepresentation of 97the church. Emerson classes “Romanism” with a half-dozen absurd theories; which goes to show that he has not even reached that point of culture which, according to its advocates, understands and embraces all the great creeds of humanity, in their best and most universal truth.

Mr. Emerson is now in the sere and yellow leaf, and it is to be feared that his intellectual pride, and that nauseating flattery which weak-minded people assiduously pay to men of great intellectual attainments, have left in him a habit of vanity which is fatal to truth. We have known very able men who were prevented from seeing the truth of Catholicity by the dense clouds of incense that their admirers continually wafted before their shrines. The fulness of divine faith which he lacks, and for which he seems mournfully to cry out, is in the happy possession of the humblest child of the Catholic religion; not, as he would think, merely instinctive or the result of education, but living and logical, the gift and grace of the Holy Ghost. Emerson is no theologian, though once a Protestant minister, which fact, however, would not argue much for his theology. But he has a heroic and poetic mind whose native strength manifests itself even in the very eccentric orbit through which it passes.

PAPAL ELECTIONS. III.

In view of the sad affliction which has so recently befallen the church in the demise of Pope Pius IX.—now of happy memory—we shall preface this article on papal elections with a brief account of the ceremonies that follow upon the death of a Sovereign Pontiff.

As soon as the pope has breathed his last amidst the consolations of religion, and after making his profession of faith in presence of the cardinal grand-penitentiary—who usually administers the last sacraments—and of the more intimate members of his court, the cardinal-chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, accompanied and assisted by the right reverend clerks of the apostolic chamber, takes possession of the palace and causes a careful inventory to be made of everything that is found in the papal apartments.^[30] He then proceeds to the chamber of death, in which the pope still lies, and, viewing the body, assures himself, and instructs a notary to certify to the fact, that he is really dead. He also receives from the grand chamberlain 98of the court—Monsignor Maestro di Camera—a purse containing the Fisherman’s ring which His Holiness had used in life. The cardinal, who, by virtue of his office of chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, has become the executive of the government, sends an order to the senator of Rome, who is always a layman and member of one of the great patrician families, to have the large bell of the Capitol tower tolled, at which lugubrious signal the bells of all the churches throughout the city are sounded. Twenty-four hours after death the body of the pope is embalmed, and lies in state, dressed in the ordinary or domestic costume, upon a bed covered with cloth of crimson and gold, the pious offices of washing and dressing the body being performed by the penitentiaries or confessors of the Vatican basilica, who are always Minor Conventuals of the Franciscan Order. It is next removed to the Sistine Chapel, where it is laid out, clothed in the pontifical vestments, on a couch surrounded with burning tapers and watched by a detachment of the Swiss Guard. On the following day the cardinals and chapter of St. Peter assemble in the Sistine and accompany the transport of the body to the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the Vatican basilica, where it remains exposed for three days, the feet protruding a little through an opening in the iron railing which closes the chapel, that the faithful may approach and kiss the embroidered slipper. The nine days of funeral services—Novendialia—which the Roman ceremonial prescribes for the pope now begin. These are his public obsequies. For the first six days the cardinals and prelates of the court and Holy See assemble daily in the choir chapel of the canons of St. Peter, where, the Office for the Dead being chanted, a cardinal says Mass; but during the remaining three days the services are performed around an elevated and magnificent catafalque which in the meanwhile has been silently erected in the great nave of the basilica. This structure is a perfect work of art in its way, every part of it being carefully designed with relation to its solemn purpose, and in harmony of form and proportions with the vast edifice in which it is reared. It is illustrated by Latin inscriptions and by paintings of the most remarkable scenes of the late pontificate, and adorned with allegorical statues. A detachment of the Noble Guard stands there motionless as though carved in stone. Over the whole is suspended a life-size portrait of the pope. A thousand candles of yellow wax and twenty enormous torches in golden candelabra burn day and night around it. On each of these three days five cardinals in turn give the grand absolutions, and on the ninth day a funeral oration is pronounced by some one—often a bishop, or always at least a prelate of distinction whom the Sacred College has chosen for the occasion. In former days the cardinal nephew or relative of the deceased had the privilege, often of great importance for the future reputation of the pontiff and the present splendor of his family, raised to princely rank, of selecting the envied orator. Ere this, however, the final dispositions of the pope’s body have been made. On the evening of the third day, the public having been excluded from the basilica, the cardinal-chamberlain, cardinals created by the late pope, clerks of the chamber and chapter of St. Peter, headed by monsignor the vicar—who is always an archbishop in partibus—vested in pontificals, assemble in the 99chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, in which the pope still lies in state. The body is then reverently enfolded in the gold and crimson cover of the couch, and taken up to be laid in a cypress-wood coffin, into which are also put three red purses containing medals of gold, silver, and bronze, as many of each sort as there were years of the pontificate, bearing the pope’s effigy on one side, and a design commemorative of some act of his temporal or spiritual government on the other. If there should be a relative of the late pope among the cardinals, he covers the face with a white linen veil, otherwise this last office of respect is performed by the major-domo. When the coffin has been closed it is placed inside of a leaden case, which is immediately soldered and sealed, while the metal is hot, with the arms of the cardinal-chamberlain and major-domo. A brief inscription is cut at once on the face of this metal case, giving simply the name, years of his reign, and date of death. The coffin and case are now enclosed in a plain wooden box, which is covered with a red pall ornamented with golden fringes and an embroidered cross, and carried in sad procession to the uniform temporary resting-place which every pope occupies in turn in St. Peter’s, in a simple sarcophagus of marbled stucco which is set into the wall at some distance above and slightly overhanging the floor of the church, on the left-hand side of the entrance to the choir chapel. A painter is at hand to trace the name of the pope and the Latin initials of the words High Pontiff—Pius IX., P.M. Before the pope’s body is taken up from the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, some workmen, under the direction of the prelates and officers of the congregation for the supervision of St. Peter’s—Reverenda Fabrica di San Pietro—have broken in the sarcophagus at the top and removed its contents (which in this case were those of Gregory XVI., who had been there since 1846) to the crypt under the basilica until consigned to the tomb prepared, but not always in St. Peter’s, either by the pope himself before his death^[31] or by his family or by the cardinals of his creation, and the new claimant for repose takes his place there.

During the nine days that the obsequies of the pope continue the cardinals assemble every morning in the sacristy of St. Peter’s to arrange all matters of government for the States of the Church and the details of the approaching conclave. These meetings are called general congregations. At them the bulls and ordinances relating to papal elections are read, and the cardinals swear to observe them; the Fisherman’s ring and the large metal seal used for bulls are broken by the first master of ceremonies; two orators are chosen, one for the funeral oration and the other for the conclave; all briefs and memorials not finally acted upon are consigned to a clerk of the chamber, etc., etc. On the tenth day the cardinals assemble in the forenoon in the choir chapel of St. Peter’s, where the dean of the Sacred College pontificates at a votive Mass of the Holy Ghost, after which the orator of the conclave—who, if a bishop, wears amice, cope, and mitre—is introduced into the chapel, and, after making the proper reverences, ascends a decorated pulpit and holds forth on the subject of electing an excellent pontiff: the pope is dead; long live the pope; the Papacy never dies!^[32]

100After the sermon and the singing by the papal choir of the first strophe of the hymn Veni Creator, the cardinals ascend in procession to the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican palace, where the dean recites aloud before the altar the prayer Deus qui corda fidelium, and afterwards addresses his brethren on the great business which they are about to engage in, exhorting them to lay aside all human motives and perform their duty without fear or favor of any man. All the persons who are to remain in conclave, as the prelates, custodians, conclavists or attendants on the cardinals, physicians, barbers, servants, are passed in review, and take an oath not to speak even among themselves of matters concerning the election. Every avenue leading into the conclave, except the eight loop-holes or windows, as mentioned in a former article, are carefully closed by masons; one door, however, is left standing to admit any late-coming cardinal, or let out any one expelled from, or for whatever cause obliged to leave, the conclave. It is locked on the outside by the prince-marshal, and on the inside by the cardinal-chamberlain, both of whom retain the key of their own side. The lock is so combined that it requires both keys to open the door. On the following day the cardinal-dean says a votive Mass de Spiritu Sancto, at which all the cardinals in stoles receive Holy Communion from his hands.... Fervet opus....

As soon as the cardinal upon whom the requisite two-thirds of all the votes cast have centred consents to his election, he becomes pope. This consent is absolutely necessary, and, although the Sacred College threatened Innocent II. (Papareschi, 1130-1143) with excommunication if he did not accept,^[33] it is now admitted that no one can be constrained to take upon himself such a burden as the Sovereign Pontificate.

Thirty-eight popes, from St. Cornelius, in 254, to Benedict XIII., in 1724, are recorded in history as having positively refused to accept the election, although they were afterwards induced by various motives, however much against their own inclinations, to ratify it. As soon as he has answered in the affirmative to the question of the cardinal-dean, proposed in the following very ancient formula: Acceptasne electionem de te canonicè factam in Summum Pontificem? the first master of ceremonies, turning to certain persons around him, calls upon them in an audible voice to bear witness to the fact.^[34] The new pope then retires and is dressed in the ordinary or domestic costume of the Holy 101Father, three suits of which, of different sizes, are ready made, and disposed in the dressing-room for the elect to choose from. It consists of white stockings, cassock and sash with gold tassels, white collar and skull-cap, red mozzetta, stole, and shoes. He then takes his seat on a throne and receives the first homage—adoratio prima—of the cardinals, who, kneeling before him, kiss his foot and afterwards his hand, and, standing, receive from him the kiss of peace on the cheek. We see, from the ceremonial composed in the thirteenth century by Cardinal Savelli, that the present custom is not very different from the mediæval one; for, speaking of the pope’s election, he says: Quo facto ab episcopis cardinalibus ad sedem ducitur post altare, et in ea, ut dignum est, collocatur; in qua dum sedet electus recipit omnes episcopos cardinales, et quos sibi placuerit ad pedes, postmodum ad osculum pacis. The custom of kissing the pope’s foot is so ancient that no certain date can be assigned for its introduction. It very probably began in the time of St. Peter himself, to whom the faithful gave this mark of profound reverence, which they have continued towards all his successors—always, however, having been instructed to do so with an eye to God, of whom the pope is vicar. In which connection most beautiful was the answer of Leo X. to Francis I. of France, who, as Rinaldi relates (Annal. Eccles., an. 1487, num. 30), having gone to Bologna, humbly knelt before him and kissed his foot, se lætissimum dicens, quod videret facie ad faciem Pontificem Vicarium Christi Jesu. “Thanks,” said Leo, “but refer all this to God himself”—Omnia hæc in Deum transferens, et omnia Deo tribuens. To make this relative worship more apparent a cross has always been embroidered on the shoes since the pontificate of that most humble pope, St. Gregory the Great, in the year 590. It is curious to read of the objection made to this custom by Basil, Tzar of Muscovy, to Father Anthony Possevinus, S.J., who was sent to Russia on a religious and diplomatic mission by Gregory XIII. in the sixteenth century. His eloquent defence of the custom, appealing, too, to prophecy,^[35] is found in the printed account of his embassy (Moscovia, Cologne, 1587, in fol.)

When the pope is dressed in the pontifical costume he receives on his finger a new Fisherman’s ring, which he immediately removes and hands to one of the masters of ceremonies to have engraved upon it the name which he has assumed. The popes have three special rings for their use. The first is generally a rather plain gold one with an intaglio or a cameo ornament; this is called the papal ring. The second one, called the pontifical ring, because used only when the pope pontificates or officiates at grand ceremonies, is an exceedingly precious one. The one worn on these occasions by Pius IX., and which his successor will doubtless also use, was made during the reign of Pius VII., whose name is cut on the inside. It is of the purest gold, of remarkably fine workmanship, set with a very large oblong diamond. It cost thirty thousand francs (about $6,000), and has 102a contrivance on the inside by which it can be made larger or smaller to fit the wearer’s finger. (Barraud, Des Bagues à toutes les Époques. Paris, 1864.) The Fisherman’s ring, which is so called because it has a figure of St. Peter in a bark throwing his net into the sea (Matthew iv. 18, 19), is a plain gold ring with an oval face, bearing the name of the reigning pope engraved around and above the figure of the apostle, thus: Leo XIII., Pont. Max. On the inside are cut the names of the engraver and of the major-domo. The ring weighs an ounce and a half. It is the official seal of the popes, but, although the first among the rings, it is only the second in the class of seals, since it serves as the privy seal or papal signet for apostolic briefs and matters of lesser consequence, whereas the great seal of the Holy See is used to stamp the heads of SS. Peter and Paul in lead, and sometimes, but rarely, in gold, on papal bulls. This ring was at first a private and not an official one, as we learn from a letter written at Perugia on March 7, 1265, by Clement IV. to his nephew Peter Le Gros, in which he says that he writes to him and to his other relatives, not sub bulla, sed sub piscatoris sigillo, quo Romani Pontifices in suis secretis utuntur. From this it would appear that such a ring was already in well-known use, but it cannot be determined at what period it was introduced, or precisely when it became official, although it is certain that it was given this character in the fifteenth century; but another hundred years passed before it became customary to mention its use in every document on which the seal was impressed by the now familiar expression, “Given under the Fisherman’s ring,” which is first met with in the manner of a curial formula in a brief given by Nicholas V. on the 15th of April, 1448: Datum Romæ, apud Sanctum Petrum, sub annulo Piscatoris, die xv. Aprilis, MCCCCXLVIII., pontificatus nostri II.^[36]

Briefs are no more sealed with the original ring, which is always in the keeping of the pope’s grand chamberlain, who, as we have said, delivers it to the cardinal-camerlengo on the pope’s decease, to be broken in the first general congregation preliminary to the conclave, according to a custom dating from the death of Leo X. A fac-simile is preserved in the Secretaria de’ Brevi which serves in its stead; but since June, 1842, red sealing-wax, because too brittle and effaceable, is no longer used, but in its place a thick red ink or pigment is employed. Briefs are pontifical writs or diplomas written on thin, soft parchment and more abbreviated than bulls, and treating of matters of less importance, requiring, therefore, briefer consideration^[37]—whence, perhaps, they derive their distinctive name, although it has been suggested that the word comes from the German Brief, a letter, and was introduced into Rome from the imperial court during the middle ages. They are signed by the cardinal secretary of briefs, and differ from bulls in their manner of dating and their forms of beginning and ending. Their heading always contains the name of the reigning pope and the venerable formula, Salutem et apostolicam benedictionem, which was first used by Pope John V. in the year 685. When the pope sends a brief to a person who is not baptized he substitutes 103for this form the other one, Lumen divinæ gratiæ. Both briefs and bulls are always dated from the basilica nearest to which the pope resides at the time; thus, we understand why the brief erecting the diocese of Baltimore was dated (6th of November, 1789) from St. Mary Major’s, although Pius VI. was then living at the Quirinal palace. Another of the very ancient and venerable forms used by the popes is Servus servorum Dei—Servant of the servants of God. It is a title first assumed by St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century as a hint to the arrogant patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster, who had taken the designation of universal bishop, which belongs only to the Roman Pontiff: “Whoever will be first among you shall be servant of all” (Mark x. 44).

As soon as the cardinal who has been elected gives his assent to the election, the cardinal-dean asks him what name he would wish to take. This custom of assuming a new name is very old, and has been much disputed about by writers on papal matters. The great Baronius has expressed the opinion in his Ecclesiastical Annals that John XII., who was previously called Octavian, was the first to make the change, which he did probably out of regard for his uncle, who was Pope John XI. Cardinal Borgia has observed in this connection, as showing that the change of name was yet a singularity, that the pope used to sign himself Octavian in matters relating to his temporal, and John in those relating to his spiritual, government. Martinus Polonus started a fable that Sergius II., elected in 844, was the one who first changed his name, because known by the inelegant appellation of Pigsnout—Bocca di Porco; but the truth is, as Muratori says in one of his dissertations on Italian antiquities (Antiquitatum Italic., tom. iii. dissert. xli. p. 764), that Sergius IV. (1009-1012), and not Sergius II., had this only for a surname or sobriquet, as was commonly given in that age at Rome, but was baptized Peter. He changed his name, indeed, according to the custom then becoming established as a rule, but, as Baronius observes, not ob turpitudinem nominis (Os porci), sed reverentiæ causa: cum enim ille Petrus vocaretur, indignum putavit eodem se vocari nomine, quo Christus primum ejus sedis Pontificem, Principem Apostolorum, ex Simone Petrum nominaverat. It has long been usual for the new pope to take the name of the pope who made him cardinal. There have been, however, several exceptions even in these later times. In some special cases, as in the signature to the originals of bulls, the pope retains his original Christian name, but, like all sovereigns, he omits his family name in every case. There have also been exceptions to this change, and both Adrian VI. and Marcellus II. kept their own names—the only two, however, who have done so in over eight hundred years.

The word pope—in Latin Papa, and by initials PP.—was once common to all bishops, and even to simple priests and clerics; but when certain schismatics of the eleventh century began to use it in a sense opposed to the supreme fatherhood of the Roman Pontiffs over all the faithful, clergy as well as people, it was reserved as a title of honor to the bishops of Rome exclusively. Cardinal Baronius says, in a note to the Roman Martyrology, that St. Gregory VII. held a synod in Rome against the schismatics in the year 1073, in which it was decreed “inter alia plura, ut PAPÆ Nomen unicum 104esset in universo orbe Christiano, nec liceret alicui seipsum, vel alium eo nomine appellare.”^[38] Another singularity about one of the pope’s titles deserves to be noted. The word Dominus in Latin—lord—was originally used only of Almighty God, and a contracted form—Domnus—was employed in speaking of saints, bishops, and persons of consideration; but in course of time, although a vestige of the once universal custom still lingers in the Jube Domne benedicere of the Office recited in choir, the term Domnus came to be specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff, for whom we pray in the litany as Domnum Apostolicum. Cancellieri, who, as usual, has sought out an abstruse subject, gives everything that can be said upon the matter in his Lettera sopra l’Origine Delle Parole Dominus e Domnus e Del Titolo Don che Suol Darsi ai Sacerdoti ai Monaci ed a Molti Regolari. In Roma, MDCCCVIII.

PALM SUNDAY.

Claiming the hill-crowned city as its own,

The gray cathedral rears its rough-hewn front

Like ancient fortress built to bear the brunt

Of leaguering ram on e’er unyielding stone;

Signing with holy cross the land it claims,

Its walls protecting seek the infinite blue

Grown, softly falling painted window through,

High heaven brought down to shape life’s noblest aims.

In this strong fortress, safe from those salt waves

Of doubt that curve and break and evermore repeat

The weary lesson of life incomplete,

Moaning and groping in unsunny caves,

Beating against a rock that will not break,

Flinging their bitter anger far on high,

Seeking to chill the tender flowers that lie

Close nestled to the rock for its warmth’s sake,

I kept sad feast one doubting April day,

When robins’ song had drifted from the hills,

When buds were bursting, and the golden bells

Of town-nursed bloom were ringing ill away.

With folded hands St. Helen’s glance beneath,

I trod in thought the highway of the cross—

Jerusalem’s triumph blending with her loss,

The palm-bough changing for the thorny wreath.

105And clasped the folded hands about the bough

Of northern hemlock that as palm I bore,

Listening the words of sorrow chanted o’er—

The old evangel’s solemn voice of woe;

O wondrous power of a passing breath!

O tearful sweetness of that voice of God

Breaking amid the clamor of the crowd

Of Jews and soldiers hastening him to death!

Often the chant bad stirred my soul before

In humbler church, till had familiar grown

Almost each word and every varying tone

That with each added year a new grace wore;

But never grace so pitiful as this

That filled the arches with all deep distress,

With passionate sense of human guiltiness—

Our God sore bruised for our infirmities!

Oh! blinding sweet the vision that awoke

Within my soul to fill my eyes with tears!

To-day was it, not in those long-past years,

That Heart divine, with love unbounded, broke.

Oh! blinding sweet in its strange melody

The voice that, rending heart, called from the cross,

In that dark hour of life’s bitterest loss,

“Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani!”

O strong gray walls! blessed was that little space

Ye left our souls with Christ on Calvary,

Where hearts might weep their living cruelty,

In their own depths Jerusalem’s lesson trace.

O cross-boughed branch of spicy northern spruce

That witness bore on that dim April day

To faith no waves of doubt shall wash away,

To love’s dear chains no envious state shall loose,

Blessing was ours who bore thee that gray morn

Through all the heedless glances of the street,

Through longing looks that knew thy meaning sweet,

And spoken words of unbelieving scorn.

Alas! for those, of eyes and heart both blind,

Who in such symbol find but empty rite,

Who, dazzled by a false and flickering light,

See not the cross wherewith the palm is signed.

Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, Mass.

106

THE LATE Mr. T. W. M. MARSHALL.^[39]

On the 14th of December, 1877, died, at the age of sixty-two years and a half, Mr. T. W. M. Marshall. He had borne a long and trying illness of many months with invariable patience and resignation, and gave up his soul to his Maker and Redeemer after a most Christian preparation. He has well deserved that some more explicit notice of his life and what he did in it should be made public than what has hitherto, so far as we know, been given in any native or American source of information. The following slight account is drawn up by one who has known him well for nearly a quarter of a century.