Part 12 — WITH OUR READERS

This department is open to our readers for the expression of their opinions on questions of public interest. The editors, while inviting contributions bearing on measures and events of general interest, reserve the right to exclude such matter as is not deemed suitable, and are not responsible for opinions expressed.

FRANCE AND THE CHURCH

A great epoch is transpiring in the republic of France—greater, in fact, than the triumphant continuance of the French democracy. The passing of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in that country presents a more marvelous condition or situation than the continued perpetuation of the republican form of government.

The Church of Rome, saving a few years of Huguenot power, and the short-lived revolution preceding the advent of Napoleon, has, for more than ten centuries, linked its history with that of France. In fact, the latter has, since the days of Charles Martel, been known as the “eldest daughter of the church.” And what a history! A Roman pope crowned King Pepin in the eighth century and Napoleon in the nineteenth. Not a line of history, of romance, of tradition, of public or private right, or public or private wrong, but through the ages has been mingled with her name. From Flanders, on the English channel, to Provence on the Mediterranean, from Lorraine, on the east, to Gascoigne in the west, it was all Catholic, and Roman Catholic. The counts of Paris, Flanders, and of Anjou; the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, of Guise; and the Bourbon Princes, were all originally Roman Catholics.

Who is there that has not in the morning of life read with delight of the martial prowess and religious fervor of Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orleans? Her love of her church, and her love for her country, ought to be remembered by men who are now playing fast and loose with the fortunes of both. Who but will admit that their Excellencies, Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, with their imperious sway, did more to extend the glory of France than either of the great Louises under whom they ministered? What student of French history could forget the names of La Valliere, De Montespan, and Maintenon, brilliant, charming, but dissolute, who, losing royal favor, sought and found solace in the sacred precincts of the cloister? The grand cathedrals at Rheims, at Rouen; Nôtre Dame and the Madeleine at Paris; the many rare and splendid chapels to the famous chateaux of monarchs, and princes, that line the Loire, the Seine, the Rhone, and Garonne—do they not speak in ancient protest to the late separation and sequestration? Who but that remembers the sweet, dignified bearing, and devout humility of the peasant husband and wife bowed in prayer, in the field, at the ringing of the angelus, as portrayed by Millet? Typical of religious France! Can such things be swept away and become a mere memory at the beck of secular and temporal power?

The French Revolution of 1789 with its consequent vulgar excess brought about in 1801 the so-called “Concordat,” it being a carefully drawn agreement between Pius VII and Napoleon, which restored, with material restrictions, the power of the church in France. When one writes of the church in France he means the Roman Catholic Church, for ninety per cent of the communicants of religion there belong to that denomination. There is little or no doubt but that Napoleon overreached the Pope in that agreement. Only divinity itself could have coped with the masterly genius of that most wonderful man—the “man of destiny”—who, in changing the map of the world by his sword, wrought a greater change in its human affairs through his policies. Much church property had been confiscated during the revolution, and had passed from the state to other hands. The titles, so acquired, to that property were to be left undisturbed by the restoration of the church. Again, the government reserved, in the Concordat, the right to nominate the archbishops and bishops of the church, and assumed and asserted the right to determine their attitude between the Vatican and the state.

The law of “Separation,” as it is called, was passed December 5th, 1905, by which annual stipends, previously guaranteed by the state to bishops and priests were abolished, and the churches, parochial residences, and buildings used for religious purposes, including monasteries, convents, seminaries, all, should fall under the authority of the state to be regulated by civil corporations known as “associations of worship.” The law provided twelve months from its passage, that it should be ratified by the church.

The civil associations are to hold the church property and have the right to dictate the mode and manner of the worship therein, even the uses for which the property shall be employed.

Is it any wonder that Pius X, speaking for Rome, should have rejected such a law? To confiscate one’s property is one thing—to have the power to dictate one’s form of worship is quite another thing. Any gendarme with the order in his hand issued by any upstart official could disperse at pleasure the worshippers at any sanctuary in the republic. The French law is not a mere separation of church and state; far more, it is a subjection of the church to the state.

In France the seats of the mighty in the main are filled now by the disciples of Voltaire—men of the type of Jaures, Delpech, and Clemenceau. M. Briand, the Minister of Education, the reputed author of the “Associations” bill, is charged with declaring in a public speech to the educational authorities under him:

“The time has come to root up from the minds of French children the ancient faith which has served its purpose, and replace it with the light of free thought. It is time to get rid of the Christian idea. We have hunted Jesus Christ out of the army, the navy, the schools, the hospitals, the insane asylums, the orphan asylums and the law courts; and now we must hunt him out of the state altogether.”

In such a fight Christendom itself ought to have a sympathy. The chief Rabbi of France, M. Lehmann, one of a religion long persecuted, of this action of the French Assembly, says:

“How could one think on the one hand that the state should suppress establishments which had been guaranteed by nearly every constitution since 1791, and protected by every law, and, by means of the same act, should seize the property they have acquired with its approbation?... What we want is that places of worship should belong to those who have built them and who pray in them, and that every religious denomination should preserve the form of organization which is the most conformable to its traditions and aspirations.”

Surely a member of a so-called Protestant communion may say amen! to the foregoing quotation. Surely, any American stands for freedom of religious belief, as well as that private property shall not be taken for public use, without just compensation. Think of the millions in value sequestrated under the French law of 1905, aside from other considerations! What a beautiful and dignified protest has the world recently heard from Archbishop Ireland, not only intellectually the foremost churchman of his faith, but almost unparalleled among orators of this or any other land. Of the rape of the French church, among other things, he says:

“For the moment the situation is, undoubtedly, serious—and serious for the one as for the other of the contestants. Yet, seen more near, it reveals no coloring of despair, either for France, or for the Church of France. A bright morning, I dare predict, will at a not distant time dawn over the field of battle, dropping from the skies sunshine and peace and begetting both in the Church and in France, joy and exultation that the passage-at-arms, angry as it once was, has opened the way to a clearer understanding of mutual interests, to a warmer glow of olden mutual love.

“The Catholic Church,—of course I love her, and I champion her cause with delight. And France, too, I love. While I shall blame her, I shall not forget all that she has been, during her storied centuries, to mankind and the Church, and I now bid my hearers to nurture no rancor against her, and if I beckon her to defeat, it is that she rise from defeat greater and more glorious than victory could have made her.”

Those who have followed with discerning eyes this oldest of human institutions among the works of the ages, will look forward with hope to a speedy and healthy reconciliation between the government of France and a religious institution which for longer than a thousand years has been part and parcel of it; which has conserved in great degree its morals, contended for the peace of its citizens, and especially, during the monarchies, added glory and renown, wherever opportunity offered. The Roman Church has ever been an hierarchy, believing in hallowed or consecrated authority, in what concerns religious order or government, and too often, doubtlessly, extending this idea to secular or state affairs—yet, on the whole, who is so wise as to declare what better results had been to us now had other influences dominated at the many great and appalling crises in history which that ancient organization has had to face? This aside, however, will the Christian governments of the world lie by without a protest to this wholesale confiscation, and avowed determination to uproot religion in the very heart of Europe, when it is their custom to make formidable protests against the action of Turkey in Armenia, and against atrocities of every nature repellant to civilization?

As a humble communicant of a Protestant Church, personally an unworthy Christian, I have taken the pains to give a very abridged history of what is passing in France, and registering a feeble public protest against it.

John Francis Lockett.

Henderson, Ky., Jan., 1907.

A DUCK HUNT IN KANSAS

Cedar Vale, Kans., Nov. 18, 1906.

Dear Trotwood: I have read your Christmas goose hunt and think it great. Let me take you a duck hunt in this territory, the land of the Osages, the richest tribe in America. Their pasture lands lie some fifteen miles to the south, and extend for forty to fifty miles to the south and west of here, a vast tract of rich grazing land settled along the larger streams. Beaver Creek heads in the state and flows in a general direction nearly south. Salt Creek, some eight or ten miles east of Beaver, also flows nearly south. In order to secure a supply of water for their herds of Texas cattle, the cattlemen that hold leases on the grass land between the two creeks have constructed ponds, or tanks, in the heads of the draws and ravines that start off in either direction, and carry the surplus water of early spring. By throwing up a bank of earth across a draw near its head a pond from 150 to 200 yards in length and from 50 to 75 yards wide and eight to ten feet deep is secured, and this usually lasts the year round.

In the spring and latter part of our winter the ducks, and sometimes geese, stop for several weeks to pick up corn after the cattle that are fed along the creeks, and it is then that the ducks use these ponds as a roosting place. Situated, as they are, five or six miles from any human habitation, back on a high prairie, not even a bush or tree in sight, the lay of the country sloping to the east and west, the ducks appear to think they have found a safe retreat from the merciless hunter. Not so, however. It is here that the pot-shot hunter is in his glory. Sometimes, in early spring, just after a northwester has blown itself out, and we get a few warm days, I have seen these ponds full of ducks; yes, and sitting out in the grass on each side for a good hundred yards in each direction. It was just such a time as this, during the first days of March, 1903, that I and my good Swede friend, Norling, found ourselves camped about a mile below one of the tanks in a small draw that ran off in the direction of Beaver Creek. We had selected this particular pond for our night’s sport because we knew that a bunch of some 2,000 head of cattle was being fed over on Beaver about five miles away, and then we had stopped at the pond before going into camp to see if there were any signs. It did not require an old hunter to see the signs there. The damp ground around the edge of the pond was strewn with loose feathers and stamped and patted where the ducks had roosted along the water’s edge until it looked like the floor of a large poultry yard.

The sun had just set and there was a bank of red in the west, the wind was coming in little gusts from the north and the night promised to be clear. The moon would be up in about an hour.

“There they come,” said Norling, in a low voice, and then, just across the narrow draw, a bunch of a dozen or so passed, flying close to the ground and headed straight for the pond. It was still light enough to see them when they reached the pond. They did not circle, as is usual with ducks about to light, but raised slightly just before reaching the pond, and then, poised for a second, appeared to drop in, and so still was the evening and the wind blowing from the pond toward us, we could hear the water splash as they struck it.

So intensely had our interest been fixed on the first bunch we had not noticed others that were coming. Scarcely had the first ones settled before another flock began to drop in, and now they seemed to be coming in a steady stream. There was a continuous splash, splash, splash, as one after another they settled in the water. For at least an hour they came in this way.

“By Jimminy, George, I believe already there is so many in there as we could with us home take! Let us see how many we could rake down for the first shots,” said Norling. The moon was up now and cast a dark shadow from one side to the other of the draw. Taking a piece of white chalk from my pocket I drew a heavy white line between the barrels of my gun from sight to sight.

“What is that for?” asked Norling.

“Well, you see, if you are aiming too high you see a long white mark, if too low you cannot see it at all, and when just right you only see a small white spot, and when shooting by moonlight this enables you to shoot with a good deal of accuracy,” I replied.

“Come on, now, and be careful. A step in this dry grass would make noise enough to send every duck out of that pond. Follow this cow path and keep down low so they won’t see your head over the dump. The pond is nearly full of water.”

We were nearly half way, now, and it would not do to talk, not even to whisper, as a duck has very sharp hearing. The sharp whistle call of the sprig tail seemed to nearly drown the quack, quack of the mallard, and the splash, splash of the water against the dam told us we had but a few yards farther to go. At the foot of the dam we crawled on hands and knees until by stepping to our feet our heads and shoulders were above the dump. And then such a sight! The slight noise we made as we rose to our feet caused every duck in the water and on the banks to turn in our direction, and the rays of the moon fell on their white breasts and was reflected back here and there by an open patch of water. But only for an instant did this scene remain. Just one quick glance and then our guns came to our shoulders, a long white streak, then a small white dot in line with a thousand white breasts, a flash and a sharp report, followed by the greatest quacking, splashing and whirr of wings I had ever heard. So great was the noise made by the immense flock taking wing that I could not hear the report of the second barrel of my own gun. A few more shots were fired at crippled ducks that were still able to swim, a short wait for the wind to drift the dead ones to the bank, and then we picked up thirty-one dead ducks, all stopped by our first four shots. Sport and meat enough for one night?

Just write me a line a few days before you come and I will meet you at the train; and, by the way, I have some colts three years old by The Peacher, 2.17¼, pacing at two years old, and by the summaries the best sire of the season owned in Kansas. These colts are out of mares by Bertran, 2.20, and Capitalist, 2.29½, and they can step some, too. Better come about the 10th of March.

Yours truly,

George Beuoy.

THE DREAM AND THE BUSINESS

(Hobbes)

The year 1906 was pre-eminently a year of the so-called fiction of psychology. This is hardly a passing fad. The more enlightened and cultured a people, the more are they interested in character study. Men and women and motives are more entertaining than mere beauty of description, or complicated plot. And the really successful novels of the year are written by women, and seem to be concerned with the intricate workings of the feminine mind.

Not since the appearance of “Lily Bart” in “The House of Mirth” have we had such a striking character as “Sophy Firmalden” in “The Dream and The Business,” by John Oliver Hobbes.

This, Mrs. Craigie’s last work, is certainly one of the cleverest productions of the year.

A very unusual feature of this book is a letter from the Hon. Joseph H. Choate to the publishers expressing his appreciation of Mrs. Craigie as woman and author.

The refined atmosphere that permeates all her works—the delicate touch peculiarly Mrs. Craigie’s own—are compelling features of this brilliant book.

Clever dialogue there is in abundance.

Conservatism exists in America “only in Webster, side by side with the word pre-historic.”

That radical nature inherent in all Americans seems to have been toned down by Mrs. Craigie’s English education and environment. The conservative English spirit, just blended with a certain amount of American radicalism to add flavor, presents some most attractive views of life and living.

It was pathetic, as well as a sad blow to the literary world, that Mrs. Craigie should die just as this book went to press.

James Firmalden was full of illusion, impetuous and enthusiastic. He started out in life with the mistaken idea that the “most important acts in a man’s life—the choosing of a career and of a wife—are accidents.” There is always a youthful affair. James Firmalden’s was with Nannie Cloots. As Lord Marlesford said, “This is always the way with women, sooner or later they make you play the fool exceedingly.” “The Cloots family were already on his shoulders.” He developed with age; broke their engagement and had the manhood to tell the “loyal lie.” Ever afterwards he led a single, uncompleted life.

Dr. Firmalden, the Oxford minister, was one of the many who tried to believe he had gained wisdom with age, but, like numerous elderly persons, he had only lost the power of wondering.

His sermons usually contained many “shiny, well-worn platitudes which are always tedious.”

Sophy Firmalden, one of the leading characters, endowed with good looks and native wit, was never very happy. One is never wholly satisfied. “The child wears the mother’s skirts enviously while the mother mourns her youth.”

“There was that fastidious and elusive instinct in Sophy which always makes for suffering.”

Inclined to fanaticism and moody, an over developed conscience kept her from marrying the one man she loved because he was irreligious. They were never at ease together for their relation could never degenerate into common comradeship.

Sent abroad to forget Lessard, she thought she had done so, and married another. “What a charred trail she left in her path!” Becoming cynical, she said “she would never again allow herself to care much for anybody—it was always so disappointing.” She declared there were two kinds of men, “Those who were born to protect us, and those who were born to understand us”—her husband belonged to the former.

She knew little of the world—had not even seen “Fedora.” One of her friends said it could not harm her—she could not possibly understand it.

She had a passion for good clothes. “A girl who is satisfied with her wardrobe can bear many privations.” “Sophy’s silk dresses were the source of much fortitude in her domestic philosophy.”

James Firmalden’s first love, Nannie Cloots, was of obscure origin—her mother having once been an ornament of the ballet. Reared with a fanatical regard for appearances, she was “picturesque, artless and fresh in her absurd ideas.”

“She was a chaser after celebrities—and wore claret-colored silk at ten o’clock in the morning. Her chief delight was to associate with frumpish Philistines.” “She saw the world; and found it stuffed with sawdust.”

Henry Firmalden was ruled by his wife. “In the city, he was a man who could show great decision and force of will—but at home he was docile, silent and often hungry.”

Lady Burghwallas, one of the minor characters, belonged to the class “who must have their social illusions nourished by the newspapers.”

Lessard belonged to the Bohemian set. Of Huguenot extraction, he was of a defiant mood, accompanied with melancholy characteristic of the sect from which he sprang.

An “aristocratic vagabond,” he was a man of the world with a wayward heart. Spontaneous and unconventional, he was disposed to quarrel with the established order of things.

He was a singer and also a mediocre dramatist, who was admired by certain “long-haired men who should have been born women, and by short-haired women who should have not been born at all.”

Gloriana Twomley is an overdressed woman, but clever after a fashion. She had tact to manage her husband in such a way as to keep him happy, and at the same time make him entirely satisfied with her work. He never realized it, “for the less wit a man has, the less he knows that he wants it.” Her relationship was large. There were many “in-laws” and she was kept busy trying to regulate their affairs.

The most entertaining character in the whole book is Lady Marlesford. Vivacious, tactful and pretty, her highly disciplined mind could bear agitation, pain or anything better than being bored. She and her husband were of a violently different temperament. He, selfish, exacting and unresponsive, could not appreciate her brilliant mind. Her keen sense of humor made him nervous. Whenever he said anything but the obvious, she invariably asked, “Who said that?” In conversation, she always kept him “mentally out of breath.” “The pair having exhausted their dislike, were almost attached to each other by a common bond of suffering.”

It is impossible to read “The Dream and The Business” understandingly and fail to be entertained.

Mark Harwell Pettway.

THE FAMILY SCRAP BOOK

We have begun this department expecting our readers to make it. It has been suggested by a number of our readers, and there is no department that should be more popular. There are few of us who have not in old scrap books, or elsewhere, something—in prose or poetry—that we cherish; that has become part of our souls. Send them in, thus preserving them and permitting others to enjoy them.

L’ENVOI

“STONEWALL JACKSON’S WAY”

SOME TIME

LARK

WEARY OF MYSELF

The following is poetry—every line of it—and infinitely good. It is by Matthew Arnold.

THE JULEP

HOW WE RISE

A FABLE.