The Project Gutenberg EBook of Donahoe's Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 4, April,
1886, by Various
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Title: Donahoe's Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 4, April, 1886
Volume 15 (January 1886 - July 1886)
Author: Various
Release Date: January 28, 2012 [EBook #38695]
Language: English
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Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, JoAnn Greenwood
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[Transcriber's Note: The following Table of Contents has been added (not
present in the original). Remaining transcriber's notes are at end of
text.]
Welcome of the Divine Guest 305
John Scotus Erigena 306
Frau Hütt: A Legend of Tyrol 308
Echoes from the Pines 310
Musings from Foreign Poets 312
Erin on Columbias Shore 314
The Ursuline Convent of Tenos 316
Southern Sketches. XIX. 320
The Church and Modern Progess 328
Give Charity While You Live 333
Emmet's Rebellion 335
The Annunciation:--March 25th 339
Much-a-Wanted 339
Mixed Marriages 344
Farewell, My Home 345
The "Ten-Commandment" Theory 346
Bay State Faugh-a-Ballaghs. IV. 347
Drunkenness in Old Times 351
The Paschal Candle 352
Our New Cardinal 359
The Irish as Conspirators 362
Orders of Knighthood 366
Low-necked Dresses 367
Columbus and Ireland 368
Miss Mulholland's Poems: "Vagrant Verses." 369
Seeing the Old Year Out: A True Story 370
Juvenile Department 373
Lenten Pastorals 384
Notes on Current Topics 385
Personal 396
Notices of Recent Publications 397
Obituary 398
Donahoe's Magazine.
Vol. XV. BOSTON, APRIL, 1886. No. 4.
"The future of the Irish race in this country, will depend
largely upon their capability of assuming an independent
attitude in American politics."--RIGHT REV. DOCTOR IRELAND,
_St. Paul, Minn._
The Welcome of the Divine Guest.
In a rare old Irish story,
I have read with a tear and smile,
Of a scene in a little chapel
In Erin's far-off isle;
A little rustic chapel
In a wild yet fair retreat,
Where the hardy sons of the mountains
On hallowed mornings meet.
* * * * *
The priest at the lighted altar
Is reading the blessèd Mass;
And the place is thronged from the chancel,
Clear out to the churchyard-grass;
All kneeling, hush'd and expectant,
Biding their chosen time,
'Till the bell of the Consecration
Rings forth its solemn chime;
When lo! as the Host is lifted,
The Chalice raised on high,
Subdued yet clear, the people
Send forth one rapturous cry:
"Welcome! A thousand welcomes!"
(While many a tear-drop starts:)
"Welcome! _Cead mille failthe!_
White Love of all our hearts!"
Oh, the passionate warmth of that whisper!
Oh, the grace of that greeting strong!
On the tide of its glowing fervor,
All hearts are borne along!
And the blaze of the Son of Justice
Lights up that dim old spot,
And kindles in every spirit
A flame that dieth not!
Ah! friends in our stately churches,
When we gaze on the gorgeous shrine
Where the Sacred Host reposes,
Like a great white Pearl divine,--
Let the voice of our faith find utt'rance
In a greeting free from guile;
Let us cry with our Irish brothers
In Erin's far-off isle:
"Welcome! a thousand welcomes!"
(What bliss _that_ prayer imparts!)
"Welcome! _Cead mille failthe!_
White Love of all our hearts!"
ELEANOR C. DONNELLY.
John Scotus Erigena.
During the ninth century there lived few more remarkable men in Western
Europe than John Scotus Erigena, the celebrated Irish theologian,
philosopher and poet. Little beyond mere conjecture is known of his
birth and early education. Indeed, the first well-authenticated facts in
connection with his life is that in the year 851 he held the offices of
rector and professor of dialectics in the famous Royal School of Paris,
and that he occupied at the same time apartments in the palace of
Charles the Bald, son of Louis le Débonnaire, and grandson of the
Emperor Charlemagne. It may, however, be interesting to see what
historical critics have to say of his birth and early antecedents.
Almost all writers of weight are agreed that John Scotus Erigena was an
Irishman. In fact, there is hardly any room for doubt on the subject. If
all other evidences of the fact were absent his very name furnishes
proof enough that John was a son of the Emerald Isle. John Scotus
Erigena simply means John the Irish Scot--Erigena being a corruption of
a Greek word, the translation of which is "of the sacred isle," and
every school boy knows that Ireland was known at that time throughout
the nations of the earth as the "_insula sanctorum et doctorum_," the
"island of saints and sages."
It was in 851 that he published his famous work on "Predestination."
Long before that time, however, his name was well known in France, so
that it may be safely assumed that he came to that country about the
year 845. At this calculation we may place his birth somewhere about the
year 820.
Prudentius, his colleague in the Scolia Palitina, or Royal School of
Paris, says that he was the cleverest of all those whom Ireland sent to
France. _Te solum omnium acutissimum galliæ transmisit Hibernia._ When
we consider that Prudentius was so intimately connected with him as to
style himself his "_quasi frater_," any doubts that might remain as to
Erigena's nationality should entirely vanish.
But, it may be asked, why did this great man leave Ireland to seek
shelter and patronage from a foreign king? Had he not at home a field
wide and fertile enough for even his towering intellect in the numerous
monasteries and schools which were at this time the pride and glory of
Erin? The cause of his departure from his home and friends was probably
the inroads of the Danes, who, in the year 843, under their brutal
leader Turgesius, "plundered Connaught, Meath and Clonmacnoise with its
oratories," and thus rendered a residence in the country anything but
desirable for the holy monk and erudite scholar.
We have seen that John published his work "De Prædestinatione" about the
year 851. In combating the errors of Gottschalk, he unfortunately
broached new errors of his own, and thus incurred the displeasure of the
Holy See.
The most precious volume in the Royal Library at Paris was a Greek copy
of the works of "Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite." Many unsuccessful
attempts had been made to translate this work, and when Charles the Bald
found that the erudite rector of the Royal School could translate Greek,
he ordered him to furnish a translation which he did. It was published
in 861, and a copy sent to Pope Nicholas I. The Sovereign Pontiff, who
was not inclined to look with great favor on the author of "De
Prædestinatione," did not approve of the translation, and as a
consequence of some farther negotiations between Charles and the Holy
See, Scotus was, in 861, dismissed from his position in the Scolia
Palitina. He did not, however, just then cease to be connected with the
Royal Palace. His principal works are--"De Divisione Naturæ," "Liber de
Divine Prædestinatione," Translation of the Ethics of Aristotle and of
the writings of "Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite," and a "Commentary on
the Gospel of St. John." That John Scotus Erigena erred and erred
gravely, no one can for a moment deny; but we should remember with the
learned and distinguished Coadjutor Bishop of Clonfert (the Most Rev.
Dr. Healy), "That he erred not in the spirit of Luther and Calvin, but
of Origen and St. Cyprian."
How long he remained in Paris after his dismissal from the Royal School
cannot be determined, nor do we know how he ended his days. Some assert
that "he was murdered by a band of infuriated students at Oxford or
Malmesbury," but this is by no means certain.
Jan. 18th, 1885. OLLAVE FOLA
Frau Hütt: A Legend of Tyrol.
The Austro-Bavarian Alps are perhaps unsurpassed in number and average
height by any group of mountains in the world. There is always more or
less snow on their summits, and as they are continually attracting the
clouds and causing a changeable, capricious climate in their
neighborhood, they may be said, like fashionable ladies, to have a
different dress for every day in the week, and to look beautiful in
whichever dress they choose to wear. They are beautiful when they stand
out clear and sublime in the perfect sunlight of a cloudless day. They
are beautiful in the night when the moonlight grows even more silvery
from its contact with the snow upon their tops, or when there is no moon
and the stars are rivalled by the bonfires which merry climbers have
kindled upon their well-wooded sides. They were beautiful in the only
thunder-storm I have seen during my residence among them,--their tops
hidden by the clouds and the lightning flashing furiously down their
sides, as if the thunderer of Olympus himself were hurling his bolts
into the valley, while "a million, horrible, bellowing echoes" bounded
and rebounded from mountain to mountain. And they were very beautiful on
the day when I first heard this little legend which I am about to put
into writing. It was raining in the valley, but yet it was possible to
see more or less of all the mountains, and the summit of one of them was
perfectly visible above the clouds that covered its sides. This was Frau
Hütt, a peak whose shape bears a remarkable resemblance to that of a
monstrous woman on horseback; and this is its legend as it was told to
me by a very obliging _kellnerin_ in the cosey little inn where I was
sitting:
"Frau Hütt was a beautiful young maiden who lived in this very valley a
great many hundreds of years ago, and one morning she determined to have
her favorite palfrey saddled and take a canter up the mountain-side. It
was a lovely morning and she was soon glowing with exercise and
pleasure. She had passed over the lower part of the mountain, and was
enjoying the merry, upward rush through the cool, fresh air, when she
suddenly perceived a beggar standing in the road before her, with head
uncovered and hands outstretched for alms. Now, Frau Hütt was a selfish,
cold-hearted woman, and instead of checking her steed or turning him
aside, she rode straight upon the helpless beggar, and in a very few
seconds he was being trampled beneath her horse's feet and was spending
his dying breath, not in praying for his soul, but in cursing hers.
"His curse took immediate effect. Frau Hütt was at once struck by
remorse. The glow of exercise fled from her cheeks, and she began to
feel chilly and faint, and to think of returning home; but she shuddered
at the thought of repassing the beggar's mangled corpse. And when at
last she attempted to check her steed and head him for the valley, she
found with horror that the brute had acquired a will of his own and
would no longer obey the bit; and when she tried to hurl herself from
the saddle, it was only to discover that she was firmly fastened to her
seat and could not move from it. So horse and rider rushed upward higher
and higher, upward through the frosty mountain air and over the frozen
mountain snow, and all the time Frau Hütt grew colder and colder, and
felt the very blood in her veins ceasing to circulate, and her muscles
becoming so stiffened that she could not even shiver. And when they had
reached the summit of the mountain where people in the valley might best
see her and be best warned by her fate, the palfrey rested, and Frau
Hütt's whole body became what her heart always was,--stone.
"And even unto this day, once every year at a certain midnight, when the
air is silent except for here and there the crowing of a cock, and the
continuous gurgle of our rivers rushing to the sea, a mist arises from
the muddy waters of the river Inn and thickens into a cloud and floats
northward; and when it approaches Frau Hütt, it slowly takes the form of
a beggar with head uncovered and hands outstretched as if for alms; and
then the upper part of the mountain trembles visibly, just for all the
world like a mortal shuddering in the presence of some ghastly horror.
"And have I seen this myself?" repeated our kind informant. "No, indeed;
and I suppose if I were to ask the same question of the person who told
me the story, he would reply, after the fashion of all ghost-story
tellers, that his mother's first husband knew a gentleman whose aunt's
next-door neighbor was reported to have seen it often. At any rate, one
cannot easily watch for the spectre, because nobody knows the date of
its annual appearance. 'And how in the world could a woman and her horse
ever become so monstrously large as to form the peak of that great, big
mountain?' Oh, that is easily answered. They did not become so. They
always were so, for it all happened in the days of the giants."
CASPAR PISCHL.
* * * * *
CHARLES O'CONOR.--"He went to Ireland and visited the seat of his
ancestors at Belanagre, in Connaught, the result of which was that upon
his return he changed the orthography of his name. Before that time he
and his father had spelled Conor with two n's, but he then dropped one
of the n's upon discovering that the family name was anciently spelled
in that way. I was once asked if I knew why he had changed the spelling
of his name from two n's to one, and I answered that he was descended
from the Irish kings, and found, when he visited Ireland, that they
spelled the name in that way, which information Mr. Nathaniel Jarvis,
the witty Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, who was present,
supplemented with the remark that he supposed that the Irish kings had
always been so poor that they had never been able to make both n's
meet."
Echoes from the Pines.
"----, This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow,
But God alone, when first His active Hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul."
The palm, the laurel, and all the fountains of Pindus, Helicon and
Parnassus, were sacred to the muses. The deep and dark pine woods of
Maine, if not sacred to the muse of the author of "Echoes from the
Pines," seem at times to have been a source of inspiration to her. We
say "at times," and in a relative sense only, for assuredly, Margaret E.
Jordan, the gifted author of the beautiful volume of poems, with the
above title, sought her sources of inspiration at a higher fount than
this, or any named in the pages of ancient mythology. Of her, indeed, it
may be truly said,--
"His active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul."
These poems, about fifty in number, are scattered throughout the work
like wild flowers o'er mead and hill, in copse and glen. They are, to
some extent, artless in composition, free and flowing in style,
garnished with pure and holy thoughts, and most of them, while stamped
with the royal sign of deep religious thought,--truest source of all
poetic inspiration,--are free of the namby-pambyism common to what are
sometimes called "religious" poems.
Nearly all these poems are written in words of one syllable; that, at
least, is a chief characteristic of them. This simple beauty of
composition is oftener felt than observed. Thus, in our immortal lyrics,
the Irish Melodies, Moore deals largely in this style.
Take a glance at the following:--
"The harp that once through Tara's hall
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's wall,
As if that soul were fled;
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more."
This beautiful simplicity is too often overlooked by the lovers of the
Irish Bard, yet it indicates great strength of mind and a powerful
pinion not only in poetry but in prose. (_Vide_, Cardinal Newman's
_Apologia_).
The patriotic poems in Miss Jordan's collection are full of fervent
pathos and fine feeling.
Take this stanza for example:--
"'Twas no disgrace to be Irish
In the far-famed days of old,
When the tale of our redemption
In Tara's halls was told.
When the holy feet of Saint Patrick
Blessed the land whose soil they trod,
And a pathway traced, yet never effaced,
From Ireland to God.
* * * * *
"'Tis no disgrace to be Irish,
Or to bear the faith to-day
That Ireland's sons have cherished
Thro' many a weary way.
What! a disgrace to be Irish!
A pride and a joy let it be!
More than fortune or fame, prize the faith and the name,
Of the Saint-hallowed isle of the sea."
In the spirited poem, "Leave their Fair Fatherland," in which the cruel
process of emigration as a panacea for the sufferings of Ireland is
described by the author, the opening stanza gives the tone of the whole
poem:--
"Leave the fair land of their fathers,
The graves of their grandsires--for what?
Have ye not hearts in your bosoms,
Or think ye the Irish have not?
When sounded our trumpet of battle,
Were they cravens? Nay, bravest of men!
And they fought till the 'stars' rose in triumph
Never to vanish again!"
Our poet is not above giving "A Bit of Advice," and the way she gives it
is this:--
"Whene'er you find a chance to wed
A noble girl, don't slight it;
And if you cannot speak your mind,
Why, just sit down and write it."
But the fellow who couldn't "pop the question" to "a noble girl," would
not deserve to get her, and we think the noble girl would say the same.
The above selections are by no means the best we could have given. They
are selected at random, and chiefly because they admit of selection
without injuring the sense of their meaning. In other instances it would
have been necessary to quote the poems entire, and this, of course, was
neither desirable nor practicable in the small space at command.
The author of these poems is not unknown in Boston and throughout the
New England States. It would be an encouragement to her to find that her
efforts were not without promise of reward, and confident we are that
those who spend a dollar in purchasing this handsome volume will not
regret it. We have all a duty to discharge in the encouragement of
Catholic writers and here is an excellent chance.
The work is beautifully brought out by the spirited publishers, McGowan
& Young, of Portland, Me. It is printed on the finest paper, well and
handsomely bound, gold lettered and red edges. It has a dedication so
brief and beautiful that we give it entire. It is a little poem in
itself. Here it is:--
"TO MY BELOVED FATHER AND MOTHER."
Were it possible to reveal even a little of what this abdication means,
and what it conceals, the effort of Margaret E. Jordan would reap a rich
return for literary labors performed under trying circumstances. Our
beautiful singer could not well refrain from writing about "Gethsemane."
Her devotion and her love to our Suffering Lord must needs find its vent
among the trees of Mount Olivet!
Procure a copy of "Echoes from the Pines," and the sweet music and
balsamic odor will be deliciously refreshing and grateful to every
sense.
P. McC.
Musings from Foreign Poets.
THE PEARL AND THE SONG.
From the German of Ebert.
The million-tinted pearl of ocean
Lies shrined within its mortal shell,
And sails the deep in wavy motion,
Responsive to each tidal swell.
These songs of mine that shell resemble
Freighted with tears, in ebb and flow,
Like to the shell they float and tremble
On the wild ocean of my woe.
THE MODERN MUSE.
From the Italian of Leopardi.
While still a youth and all aflame
With fire poetic, I became
A pupil of the Muses nine;
One took my hand in kindly mood,
And led me to the inner shrine--
The secret workshop, where apart,
In silence and in solitude,
They wrought the marvels of their art.
The Muse then showed me, one by one,
And in minute detail outlined
The various tasks to each assigned;
I listened, marvelling much the while;
"Pray, Muse," I asked, "where is the file?"
She answered lightly as in scorn,
"The file is rusted and outworn,
'Tis used no more in prose or rhyme."
"But why not mend it if 'tis broken?"
Lightly again the words were spoken,
"The fact is, friend, we have no time!"
PRAYER OF THE POOR.
From the French of Lamartine.
O Thou who dost thine ear incline
Unto the lowly sparrow's nest,
And hear'st the sighs of flowers that pine
For dews upon the mountain's crest!
Divine Consoler of our woes!
Thou dost the hidden hand perceive
That on the poor a coin bestows
To buy the bread by which they live.
Thou givest, as Thou deemest best
To mortals, wealth or poverty,
That, springing from their union blest,
Justice might live and charity.
To know the hearts, be this Thy care,
Who thus their kindly gifts dispense,
That in the treasures they may share
Of Thy all-bounteous providence.
We know not those for whom we pray,
They are beheld of Thee alone;
Their right hand's gifts from day to day,
Are ever to their left unknown.
* * * * *
The plan to unite Paris and London with pneumatic tubes has been
reported on favorably by French engineers, and submitted to the
Government. It is proposed that two pneumatic tubes be laid, following
the line of the Northern Railroad from Paris to Calais, thence across
the channel to Dover, and following the line of the South-Eastern
Railroad to London. Letters could thus be transmitted between the two
capitals in one hour. Wagonets like those now used to transport
telegrams from Paris are used, weighing ten kilograms and capable of
carrying five kilograms weight of mail matter. Twenty pneumatic trains
are to be started every hour.
Erin on Columbia's Shore.
BRIGHT INCIDENTS OF CORRELATIVE IRISH HISTORY.
That history repeats itself in many and sometimes mysterious ways, is
rather interestingly illustrated in a talk with Mr. Denis McGillicuddy,
of Medford. This gentleman emigrated from Ireland to America about forty
years ago, and in the meantime has been a prominent builder and
contractor. His works include the construction of nineteen Catholic
Churches, among them in 1870-1, St. Augustine's Church of South Boston,
and also the mansion of Archbishop Williams and his priests near the
Cathedral in this city. His story links two countries together in its
detail, though centuries and three thousand miles of ocean divide them,
and the incidents he related yesterday to the writer, as follows:
"When I read the account of the truly Christian celebration of Christmas
in St. Augustine's Church, South Boston, it brought to my mind an
incident in connection with the building of that beautiful and
elaborately finished edifice and its worthy pastor, Rev. Father
O'Callaghan, which I should think might very well interest the general
reader; but it certainly ought to be interesting to those who
familiarize themselves with comparisons in history. Among the artisans
employed on St. Augustine's, when in process of erection, were four men
bearing the historic names of O'Keefe, O'Sullivan, O'Falvey and
O'Connell. Now, sir, in the Annals of Ireland, by the Four Masters, we
find that Ceallachan (Callaghan), a celebrated warrior of the Erigenian
race, was King of Cashel in the tenth century, and having defeated the
Danes in several battles, Sitric, who was then chief of the Danes, in
Dublin, made proposals of peace to the King of Munster. Ceallachan went
to Dublin on that mission accompanied only by his body-guard, and one or
two friends. On his arrival there, his party was treacherously attacked,
and Ceallachan was taken prisoner,--the entire proceedings, on the part
of the barbarians being a conspiracy to get Ceallachan, their formidable
opponent, into their power. The Munster (South of Ireland) chiefs, in
order to release their king from captivity, collected a powerful force,
numbering over twelve thousand troops commanded by Denis O'Keefe, Prince
of Fermoy, and O'Sullivan, Prince of Beara. They also organized a large
naval force, consisting of one hundred and twenty ships commanded by an
O'Falvey and an O'Connell.
"The army marched northwest through Connaught, and thence through Ulster
to Armagh, which city was then in possession of the Danes, and whither
the latter had brought Ceallachan to transport him captive to Denmark.
The Irish attacked Armagh, applied scaling ladders to the walls, and the
Danes under Sitric and his brothers, Tor and Magnus, were defeated with
great slaughter. The Danes fled in the night to the protection of their
ships at Dundalk, and carrying Ceallachan, they embarked on board their
vessels in that bay. Warrior O'Keefe followed, and from its shores sent
a flag of truce demanding of Sitric that he deliver to him the person
of King Ceallachan. But Sitric refused the demand unless an eric, a sum
of money, was first paid for every Dane who fell in the fifteen
different battles with King Ceallachan and his forces. Sitric then
ordered Ceallachan to be tied to one of the masts of his ship, and he
was thus exposed in full view of the whole Munster army. The Irish were
terribly enraged at this outrage on their chief, but had not then any
means of attacking the enemy. Shortly after, however, O'Falvey, the
Irish admiral, hove in sight and drew up his ships in line for attack on
the Danish fleet. A desperate engagement ensued; the Irish commanders
gave orders to grapple with the enemy's vessels. O'Falvey succeeded in
releasing Ceallachan, and, giving him a sword, asked him to assume
command. The Irish, at seeing their king at liberty, fought with renewed
valor; but the valiant O'Falvey fell pierced with many wounds.
O'Connell, who was second in command, seized Sitric, the Danish
chieftain, in sudden grasp and plunged overboard with him. Both were
drowned. It is also related that Fingal, and many other Irish chiefs,
grasped other Danish chiefs in similar fashion in their arms, and leaped
with them in like manner into the sea. At length, the Danish forces were
defeated, and their fleet totally destroyed. Almost all the Irish chiefs
and a great many of the men engaged in that hard contest were slain. The
consternation of General O'Keefe and his army, being unable to render
any assistance to their countrymen on the water, may be imagined. After
the naval combat Ceallachan landed in Dundalk, where he was most
joyfully received by the people, and soon after resumed in peaceful
sway, the government of the Munster province."
"This great sea fight took place," said the narrator, "in the Bay of
Dundalk, in the year 944. The account is given in an ancient Irish MS.
with the title of '_Toruigheachd Cheallachain chaisil_,'--signifying the
pursuit for the rescue of Ceallachan Cashel."
"Well what are your deductions, Mr. Mc.," queried the writer.
"The coincidence to my mind is this," said Mr. McGillicuddy, as his face
brightened; "and it is a singular one I think, that here in this
glorious and enlightened Republic, one thousand years later, the kinsman
of this Munster prince, Rev. Denis O'Callaghan, when erecting his
church, now all paid for, had in his employ the kinsmen of the four
chiefs highest in command on that memorable occasion--viz: O'Keefe,
O'Sullivan, O'Falvey and O'Connell, all professing the identical
Christian creed their forefathers professed and practised. There are no
barbarians here now, thank God, to hinder Christians from kneeling at
their own shrine, and all as they chose, no matter how else they may
differ on material and worldly questions. Here the kinsmen of these
brave soldiers of the tenth century build temples to the Lord of Hosts,
and are not called upon to defend them with their life's blood from the
fire and sword of barbaric legions. Thus let us pray that with pure
Christian foundations, the beloved union of States,--the Republic--may
be in the quotation of Henry Grattan, '_esto perpetua_.'"
The Ursuline Convent of Tenos.
Twenty-three years ago there started from France four Ursuline nuns with
the intention of founding a convent of their order in the island of
Tenos, in the Greek Archipelago. The first idea had been to found this
establishment in Syra, the chief commercial town of the Cyclades; but
insuperable difficulties turned their hopes to Tenos, known to the
ancient Greeks as the island of Serpents. Nothing could be more
picturesque and lovely than the island, nothing less civilized. These
four ladies, of high courage and energy, left the shores of the most
civilized country in the world with the small sum of six hundred francs,
upon which they resolved to start a school of Catholic education and
charity in an island which had ceased to be universally Catholic from
the time of Venetian rule. Having gone over the ground and realized
(only dimly) their enormous difficulties, the complete sacrifice they
were compelled to make of all bodily comforts, and the unendurable
conditions of existence they bravely faced, I can only compare their
courage with that which formed the annals of the earliest stages of
Christianity. Becalmed upon a whimsical sea, they arrived at Tenos a
little before eight in the evening. Tenos was the spot selected, or
rather its village, Lutra, because the bishop had consented to the
erection of a convent in his diocese. To readers accustomed to the
resources of civilized travelling the hour of arrival is an inconsequent
detail. Not so even to-day in Tenos. Judge, then, what it must have been
twenty-three years ago! Four delicately nurtured women had to face a
dark, rocky road, more of the nature of a sheer precipice than a road,
late at night upon mules. I made the same journey at mid-day and felt
more dead than alive after it. There is positively not a vestige of
roadway up the whole steep mountain pass, nothing but large rocks and
broken marbles, though the traveller in search of the picturesque is
amply repaid the discomfort of the ride. But compared with the village
of Lutra, which was the destination of the nuns, this wild and
dangerous-looking path is a kind of preliminary paradise. No
word-painting of the most realistic school could do justice to the
horror of Lutra to-day--and what must it have been there before the
refining influence of those nuns touched it? This dirty stone-built and
tumble-down village the four nuns entered at eight o'clock, when
darkness covered its ugliness, but greatly increased its dangers. The
first entrance winds under an intricate line of narrow stone arches, the
pavement uneven, the mingling of odors unimaginable. Through this
unearthly awfulness they bravely struggled and reached their destination
at last. A Father from the neighboring community had heard of their
expected arrival, and was already superintending the rough and hurried
details of their reception. I saw the house which stands just as it was
when the Ursuline nuns first made it their residence. A mud cabin
containing two rooms: kitchen and dining-room, bedroom and chapel. The
roof is made of stones thrown loosely over wooden beams placed far
apart, the two rooms separated by a whitewashed arch instead of a door.
There are no windows; but spaces are cut in the walls which served to
let in the light and air, and at night were covered by shutters. Hail,
rain, or snow, it was necessary to keep these spaces open by day in
order to see, and it is not surprising that one of the nuns was soon
prostrated by a dangerous fever. The beds were mattresses stuffed with
something remarkably like potatoes, and laid on the mud floor at night,
upon which the nuns slept a short, ascetic sleep.
Here they remained for some time, going among the villagers and
soliciting that the poor would send their children to be taught. This
the poor did, and gradually the children began to fill the kitchen of
the mud cabin. If it rained during class umbrellas had to be put up as a
protection under a nominal roof, just as the nuns had to sleep under
umbrellas in wet weather. Indeed, sometimes it rained so hard that they
were obliged to take up their mattresses at night, and seek a more
sheltered spot elsewhere. At last the number of their charity pupils
increased; and the bishop, as poor as they were almost, offered them the
only asylum in his power, his own paternal home, also a mud cabin; but
instead of two miserable rooms it contained four. This was an immense
improvement, and the nuns felt like exchanging a cottage for a palace.
But here the protection of umbrellas was still necessary, as the roof
was also made of loosely set stones and beams. In time other nuns joined
them from France, until they formed a community of eleven, with eighty
village school children and one boarder. It grew daily more and more
necessary that something should be done to raise money to build a
convent. Their couches had been slowly raised from a mud floor to
tables, upon which they slept the sleep of Trappists; but a proper
establishment was now indispensable to the work they had laid themselves
out to do. With this object, two nuns set out on a supplicating mission
round the Levant. They were less successful than they had perhaps
anticipated, for they returned after their arduous task only enriched by
eight thousand francs. With this sum they were enabled to build a small
portion of the present establishment; but building in a Greek island is
slow and costly work. Each stone has to be carried up the long mountain
pass from the quarries; the way is difficult, the men unaccustomed to
prompt work.
However, in due time the nuns were enabled to leave the bishop's homely
roof, where their chapel was a tiny closet separated from the class and
dining-room by a curtain, and the beds the tables used during the day
with umbrellas for a roof.
Two nuns later made the tour of France in search of funds, and were
rewarded for their unpleasant undertaking by the sum of twenty-five
thousand francs, which added something more to the building already
commenced, and smaller sums, together with pupils, came afterwards. Now
they have between fifty and sixty pupils who are paid for, and almost as
large a number of charity children and orphans who are supported at the
expense of the convent. These children are all Greeks or Levantines; but
as the language of the Order is French, they speak French fluently.
So much for a general idea of the immense difficulties in the way of
foundation, and for an outline of the personal sacrifices and admirable
courage which has carried it through. I will now try to give an outline
of what has been done. To begin with the island of Tenos, although
extremely picturesque, with its marble rocks, its clear, bare hills
shadowed lightly by purple thyme and gray olives and torrent beds in dry
weather forming zigzag lines of pink-blossomed oleanders, fig-trees,
mulberries, tall, feathery-headed reeds and orange and lemon trees, is
as devoid of all the necessary adjuncts of modern existence as it is
possible to imagine any place. As you approach it, it lies upon the
deep, blue Mediterranean, a stretch of dimpled brown hills, curve laid
inextricably upon curve, its apparent barrenness softened in the beauty
of shape, as the morning sea mist, which has rested upon its base like a
fine white veil, gradually lifts itself into the clouds. From an
æsthetic point of view, the picture is admirable; but the least
fastidious of travellers must at once recognize the almost impossibility
of raising upon it anything like a comfortable European home. Yet,
nevertheless, this gigantic feat is what the nuns, by a peculiar genius,
patient perseverance, and severe economy, have accomplished. The
two-roomed mud cabin of twenty-three years ago is now a tradition, and
they have made themselves a lovely centre above the dirty village of
Lutra. They have cultivated the stony, impoverished soil till their
gardens are thickly foliaged by lemons, oranges, figs, pomegranates,
cactuses, oleanders, oaks, olives, apples, pears, and apricots. These
fruits are consumed in the convent partly, and the surplus is sold in
Syra for a mere song, which, if they could export to England would yield
them a profitable interest. Their gardens are arranged with great taste,
French and English flowers blooming side by side with the luxuriant
growths of the country. Nothing more lovely than the site upon which
their mountain home is built can be imagined. The hills roll one above
the other in different colors, and the valleys, with their stains of
verdure and dusky foliages upon the red soil and marble rocks, are
unfolded like a perpetual panorama. If you mount the terrace or the
castra higher up--once a Venetian fortress--you will see the dreamy
Mediterranean, responsive to the slightest emotions of the Eastern sky,
and you will be surrounded by soft, blue touches of land breaking above
its waves of intenser color--the Grecian Isles, Syra, with its white
town half hidden by the cloud-shadowed hills, Syphona, a misty margin of
gray upon the clear horizon, ancient Delos, so dim as to appear neither
wholly sky nor land; desert Delos, with darker, fuller curves of land
upon a silver edge of water, and nearest Mycono, a blending of the
purest blues, with the famous Naxos behind washing which, whatever its
mood in general, the Mediterranean is sure to take its own distinctive
color--sapphire.
The convent is built in the shape of the letter S, with the new building
recently added for the pupils--a long line of class-rooms and music
closets below and the dormitories above admirably arranged so that each
girl is enclosed in a kind of cell, or cabin, numbered on the door
outside, with a general ceiling. It is original and much better than the
old system, by which twenty or thirty girls felt themselves in a general
bedroom. This building has proved the most expensive of all, and the
undertaking leaves the community considerably in debt and if any of my
readers feel sufficiently impressed by the endurance, courage, and
self-sacrifice I have indicated in this short sketch to desire to be of
any help in a most deserving cause, donations to enable the convent to
pay off its debt will be very gratefully received by the superior. Their
charities and hospitalities are necessarily great, and their isolated
position precludes them from the enjoyment of those resources and
assistances which the communities in Catholic countries may justly rely
upon.
The features of the island of Tenos gather beauty with familiarity, and
the inhabitants are as simple and pure and primitive as the old ideal of
Arcadia without, however, the picturesque shepherd costume and crook.
They have the greatest respect for the French nuns, teach their little
brown-faced babies to salute them by kissing their hand, and with the
untutored courtesy of their peasant race are willing and anxious to
render the sisters whatever service lies within their power. They wonder
greatly at the taste and artistic beauty of the convent grounds; at the
perfect neatness and cleanliness of all the domestic details, and those
who have come under the personal influence of the nuns are already
endeavoring to beautify their own homes. A servant man who had worked in
the convent has gradually turned his pig-sty home into a charming little
cottage, with a neat terrace covered with trellised vines, the poles
which support it wreathed in fragrant basilica. He is quite proud when
you stop in the dirty village to admire the incongruous effect of his
pretty house, and tells you frankly that he owes his taste to "_la Mère
Assistante_."
The influence of these ladies throughout the primitive island is
remarkable, and by the simple-minded peasants who have benefited so
greatly by their charity and labors, are gratefully recognized as the
one oasis of civilization in their midst. Unfortunately they are not
rich enough to give any more practical evidence of gratitude than
sincere love and devotion.
HANNAH LYNCH.
* * * * *
It has been noticed that boiler explosions are especially frequent in
the morning. Take, for example, an engine which works during the day
with steam at six atmospheres. The workmen leave the factory at seven
o'clock P.M., and about six o'clock the fireman reduces his fires and
leaves the boiler with the gauge at four atmospheres. On returning the
next morning at half-past five, he generally finds the gauge at 1.5 or
two atmospheres, with a fine water level. He profits by the reserved
heat, which represents a certain expenditure of fuel; as an economist he
utilizes it, and drives his fires, to be ready for the return of the
workmen, without suspecting the dangers concealed in the water which has
been boiling all night. He does not feed his boilers, because they are
at a good level. In other words, he prepares, unconsciously, the
conditions which are most favorable to superheating, and a consequent
sudden and terrible explosion, which will be attributed to some
mysterious and unknown cause.
Southern Sketches.
XIX.
FROM HAVANA TO MATANZAS--THE VALLEY OF THE YUMURI.
There are two railways leading from Havana to Matanzas, one called the
via Baya (Bay line) runs along the sea coast through a mountainous and
romantic country. This is much shorter than the other route, which
passes through the interior, affording the traveller an excellent
opportunity of observing the rural tropical scenes of the island.
I decided to go the latter way by the train, which was to start from the
depot near the Campo de Marte at 2.40 P.M. The fare from Havana to
Matanzas either way, second-class, is $7.10 in Cuban currency. This
class is well patronized by respectable travellers. Negroes, Chinese and
the poorest Cubans take the third. The carriage in which I rode was
built and furnished somewhat like those in the United States, except
that the seats had no cushions, and the windows no glass. The train
started at the appointed time, and we soon found ourselves rushing
through narrow streets, past many colored buildings.
The Yanza, or Chinese quarter, presents an extremely wretched and filthy
appearance, thus contrasting wonderfully with the splendid attractions
of other parts of the city. The suburbs were soon reached, and the hot
and dusty town gave place to the clear, refreshing country. Hurrying
past the gardens of the captain-general, with their avenues of royal and
cocoa palms, their fountains, waterfalls and pyramids of flowers, we
beheld ahead verdant, green hills, beautiful mansions, and here and
there very ancient stone buildings, forts, cottages and gardens. All
kinds of vegetables and blossoming plants were seen growing down to the
railroad track. There were waving meadows through which streams of a
pale blue, transparent tint, wandered gracefully, bending bamboos,
slanting palms, and thousands of wild vines full of flowers grew on the
banks. As the train rushed by these silent Edens, the splendid paroquets
and other gorgeous birds, browsing goats, mules and cattle started at
the sound, paused in wonder as we passed, and then relapsed into their
previous occupations. Half-naked Chinese farm-hands carried water in
buckets suspended from yokes fixed on their shoulders. We saw fields of
corn and sugar-cane stretching away for miles. Here and there, out of
this bright, green sea arose an odd planter's mansion, painted sky-blue
with its pillars, railings, and towers of white and gold. One of these
houses stood a few hundred feet from the track. It was two stories high,
solid and Corinthian in its architecture, of a cream color, while its
lofty colonnades were painted in delicate crimson and blue. Large,
costly vases, full of flowers, decorated the entrance, and this was
reached through an antique gateway that was covered with roses. Now we
swept by large banana groves whose trees were loaded with fruit. We
rushed by rocks, dells and fields adorned with grasses as glossy as
satin and of every color. We saw fruit trees of all kinds, stone fences
covered with century plants, cacti and other flowers; enchanting vales,
fields of shrubbery, and avenues of royal palms over fifty feet high,
ever stately and beautiful whether in groups or alone.
The soil of the island is of a deep red color, and contrasts splendidly
with the rich green of the trees. The cattle looked fat and large, and
numerous queer-looking domestic fowl were seen in the fields. The
"Ingenio" or sugar plantation, was readily recognized, whether rising
above the cane fields or partly shaded by trees. It consisted of a group
of buildings generally painted white, out of which arose a very tall
furnace chimney. Negroes and Chinese were seen steering oxen with carts
full of cane from the fields to the mill.
The chief agricultural industry of the island consists in the
cultivation of this product. Cane fields almost boundless in extent
appeared here and there in the luxuriant landscape. The railroad
stations at the villages where we stopped were crowded with hogsheads of
sugar and molasses, ready to be sent to Havana, and shipped from there
to foreign seaports. Black and white coolies were noticed cutting the
cane and often greedily devouring it, while the rich juice ran down
their naked chests. This could be had for almost nothing at the depots
from the dealers who also sold oranges, pineapples, tamarinds,
caimetoes, cocoanuts and other luscious fruit. I stepped out of the cars
at Guines, where the train was to stop for a few minutes, and bought for
a couple of cents two cocoanuts, each as large as an ordinary sized
mushmelon. The rind was perfectly green, soft and easily broken, the
juice fresh and delicious, and the pulp was tender and sweet, much
richer in flavor than that which one eats in the North. On the journey I
often noticed the tall and handsome ceiba tree, with its smooth trunk
and gracefully-spreading limbs and branches full of verdant leaves. Now
we passed by the house of the _montero_, or sporting peasant. It was a
rather rude-looking dwelling thatched with palm leaves, and open at the
sides to the mild, pure air. This _montero_ usually possesses but a few
acres, which yield him fruit, cane and vegetables enough to make his
life easy and contented. The streams give him lots of fish, and the
sunny blue skies look down with favor upon him, as he languidly reclines
on the grass and eats his melting bananas. The sisal hemp fields look
very attractive, and as the train rushes on, we catch glimpses of
laughing children, who are playing amid a wilderness of roses. We soon
reached the town of Catalina. It looked wonderfully charming, with its
handsome church and houses, surrounded by groves of bananas and oranges.
We saw pine apples growing in the gardens. The colored leaves of these
plants were conspicuous for their variety and beauty. The motion of the
train developed a steady breeze, and this, laden with the odors of
millions of blossoms and fruits, afforded us the greatest delight. The
eye could never tire of the beauty of these tropical scenes. When it
withdrew from immediate objects, it wandered away to rest with delight
on the softly lit-up mountains, crowned with palms. How splendid those
mountains looked, covered to their summits with verdure, and now as the
sun was sinking, becoming enveloped in purple and crimson mists. The
glory of the rosy sunset on field and wood was brought into deeper
relief by the shadows of the trees and hills. On getting on the rear of
the train, I was enabled to take in the receding landscape and the views
to the right and left. The whole seemed a poetic reality, a region of
luxurious delight. The heavens assumed most exquisite hues, forms and
colors peculiar to tropical skies. Clouds lately gorgeous, passed into
shapes still brighter, and their softness, delicacy and glory seemed to
illumine the landscapes. The grand, royal palms which carried one's
thoughts to the Holy Land and the time of our Saviour, the mountains
tipped with the moving mists, the peaceful valleys where droves of fat
cattle feasted, the gaps in the hills, the groves of fruit trees and the
flowing streams--all rested tranquilly and brightly under the belts of
gold in seas of blue and green, the tongues of fire, rivers of light,
silvery hills, purple and crimson isles, castles, vases, columns and
thrones that were traced in the clouds. No language can sufficiently
describe the beauty of this tropical region; it must be seen to be
adequately appreciated.
Night was just falling, when we arrived at Matanzas. The drive to the
Hotel de St. Francis, where I determined to stay while in the city, led
through a number of narrow and hilly streets, lined on both sides by
low, jail-like stone houses, painted as at Havana, in every imaginable
color. In the course of about twenty minutes I arrived at the hotel
which stands on the Calzada De Tirry, the principal street near the bay.
The host, Signor Juan Gonzalez, with a Scotch interpreter who knew
Spanish well, received me very heartily at the door. After passing
several refreshment saloons and reaching the office, I requested to be
shown to my room. I found that it opened, like all the others, on a
courtyard, and being the best that could be had, I agreed to remain a
guest at the house for $2.50 per day, in gold. Dinner being the next on
the programme, I soon found myself at the head of a large table, on both
sides of which a number of swarthy, black-eyed, dark-haired coolies and
Spaniards were seated. Recognizing me as a _padre cure_, all bowed and
ceased talking as I entered, exchanged courtesies and then resumed an
exciting conversation. The meal consisted of a variety of courses. The
meats were ingeniously spiced, but rather redolent of garlic. Tropical
fruits and vegetables, cooked in all manners of ways, were served up in
abundance, and each guest was treated to a bottle of Catalonian wine,
which is a very pure and favorite claret in Cuba. This wine is imported
from Spain, and a _pipe_ containing one hundred and twenty-five gallons
costs about fifty dollars in gold. When dinner was over I retired to my
room to find it containing two windows without glass, enclosed by heavy
green shutters. The plainest kind of furniture was visible in the
apartment. The bed, scantily supplied with clothing, was adorned by a
large mosquito net. Anticipating colder evenings in Matanzas than I
supposed were peculiar to Havana, owing to the former's situation on so
many hills, I requested the waiter to bring me a blanket. This article
(being rather unusually used at the Hotel de St. Francis) it took him a
long time to find. At last he procured me a peculiar specimen of one,
so, resolving to make a virtue of necessity, I placed myself under the
protection of heaven and retired to rest. After a sound sleep I was
awoke before dawn by the hopping and cooing of numerous doves, whose
cots were established not far from my bedroom. The morning soon followed
their waking, and eager to gaze on the city and its environs, I made
haste to dress and go abroad. The view which greeted my eyes the moment
I stood on the balcony outside my door, seemed to me very strange and
delightful. The sun was just rising in the east, and in such a soft and
lovely sky as the tropics only know. Its calm, golden light fell on the
city before me, and on the emerald mountains behind, giving to the
villas and gardens that sat on the hills an aspect of unearthly beauty.
The doves, finding their society invaded, flocked together and flew over
a grassy square, in the midst of which stood immense stores for sugar
and molasses. I walked down to the courtyard, admired its fountain,
gold-fish, peacock, and tame flamingo. All in the hotel were up before I
rose from bed. Cubans take advantage of the early morning, as it is much
cooler, and consequently pleasanter to work then than later on in the
day. Each guest enjoys a cup of coffee after getting up and takes
breakfast about ten o'clock. The coffee in Cuba is well made, and has a
most delicious aroma. After taking a cup I went out and saw the street
alive with Chinese laborers, who were employed by the city in making
extensive repairs. I sauntered towards the Church de San Carlos to hear
Mass. On crossing the bridge that spans the San Juan River, which shone
in the sunlight as it flowed into the sea, I observed curious-shaped
boats, lighters and other craft moving on it, all occupied by
queerly-dressed, bronzed, bustling men. Numerous drays and strings of
packed mules, carrying heavily laden panniers, raised clouds of dust,
from which I was glad to escape on entering the narrow streets near the
church. Over the doors of the stores were the customary fancy signs and
names. There seemed to be no end to the picturesque street-venders even
at this early hour of the morning. A Chinaman, dressed in loose, blue
shirt and yellow trousers, passed with a long, flat box on his head,
striking it loudly with a short, thick stick, and crying out, "dulces,
dulces,"--"sweet meats, sweet meats." A _panadero_ (baker) balanced on
his cranium a big basket full of rolls, and carried on each arm also a
palm-leaved bag full of bread. A tall negress turned a corner, holding a
weighty basket, and shouting out at the top of her voice, "Naranges,
dulces, naranges, dulces," "sweet oranges, sweet oranges." Soldiers,
lottery-ticket venders, and an occasional negro _calasero_ dressed in
gorgeous blue jacket, fringed with gold, jack boots reaching to the
hips, high silk hat and silver-plated spurs, lent variety to the scene.
I soon saw the church of San Carlos, a large building of dark stone,
with two lofty towers, one of which had a splendid chime of bells. The
edifice within was long and high; its gigantic pillars and great marble
altar looked very imposing. When the service was over I returned to my
hotel, intending to visit the priests after breakfast. When the meal was
despatched, eleven o'clock found me in the presence of Father Francisco
de P. Barnada, Cura Vicario Parroco Ecclesiastico, and Phro Jose Saenz,
one of his assistants. Being a stranger, the pastor had some slight
suspicions about my orthodoxy; but these were soon dispelled when he
read my letters of introduction. I could see at once that, though
strict, he was a very cheerful, hospitable gentleman. His bright and
pleasing features indicated the presence of a brilliant mind and a
tender heart. Father Jose Saenz was the life and soul of cheerfulness
and kindness. I found myself at home immediately with these excellent
priests, and we chatted together very pleasantly for about an hour, on a
variety of subjects. Bits of Latin, English and Spanish were our
channels of expression. The quarters of the priests were simple, but
comfortable, and communicated directly with the church.
On suggesting that I would like to see the famous valley of the Yumuri,
Father Barnada had me introduced to an engaging and intelligent young
Cuban named Signor Joaquin Mariano, who volunteered at once to accompany
me on my ramble.
The most interesting though longest way to the valley is to walk along
the banks of the Yumuri River from a point a little above the beautiful
bridge near that part of the town called Versailles. Here the costly and
grand church of St. Peter's can be seen rising, with its beautiful
spires, above every other building. On our way to the valley we were at
first obliged to pass objects not very inviting, such as city rubbish,
luxuriant weeds, yelping dogs, grunting pigs, tanneries and dilapidated
houses; but these soon yielded to grassy lanes, charmingly picturesque
little dwellings perched on rocks in regular staircase position, and
gardens full of exquisite fruit trees and flowers. The road is now
perfectly clean and level, edged on one side by the bright, placid
river, and on the other by steep rocks and quarries, in the cool nooks
of which large, lovely ferns, air plants, and numerous wild flowers
bloom. Here we noticed a handsome private residence, fronted by a stone
wall crowned with cacti, and guarded at the rear by stupendous cliffs.
Sago and date palms grew near the narrow road. We saw tremendous
openings in the bare-ribbed mountains on the other edge of the stream.
Pieces of rock overhead looked down like dead sea-lions and quarters of
beef. Blossoms of every hue peeped out through the old black rocks
beside us; millions of insects rushed pell-mell out of the crevices of
the shining stone, and while we looked, the breeze from the rippling
river shook millions of neighboring flowers, scattered their perfumes
broadcast, and thus afforded us an exquisite treat away from the heat,
dust, and noise of the city. Gazing up, we saw birds' nests in the limbs
of trees, naked roots of large bushes and vines clinging like net-work
to their rocky bed, and century plants growing in profusion where they
could scarcely get an inch of soil. These cliffs must have been two
hundred feet high, and on looking up one would imagine that the almost
disjointed masses of hanging rock would fall down at any moment and
crush us to pieces. Turkey buzzards, with their black bodies and pink
bills, were screaming overhead on the tops of big limbs, and anxiously
looking out for prey. The fair blue sky above looked down on the lines
of green, wild shrubs that flourished amid beds of solid rock. Sun and
candelabra flowers, big as cups and orange in hue, with stalks like the
bananas or Indian corn, sprung out of the cliffs to the height of twenty
feet. Morning glories, rare lichens, violets, dresinas, and century
plants grew by their side, while the silky Spanish moss, suspended from
a higher point, threw a veil of beauty over all. A curve in the walk
brought us into the valley. On the other side of the river we saw
sand-hills crowned with emerald mountains and groves of palm. The plain,
as far as it could be seen, was one sheet of verdure, and the stream
widening at this point into a lake, was adorned with woody islands.
Birds, breezes and the echoes of the hammer's sound in the quarries
supplied natural music. As far as the eye could see, the valley was
surrounded by mountains. The lofty, rocky wall continued to the left,
exposing to our view its beautiful cream-colored layers of granite,
fringed with lichens and ferns, and surrounded by weirdly-carved roots
and branches of gray stone. All before us looked charming. The narrow
foot-path in the long grass, the wild flowers everywhere, the old kiln,
embraced by parasites, convolvulus and jasmines, the brushwood rustling
with little reptiles, the flying fish in the stream, an old negro
rolling a barrow full of leaves, the Indian mounds having figures of
lions and human heads carved out of the rock, the ever-royal palm with
its mistletoes and berries, its blood-red tassels on the smooth, hard
trunk, its long, feathery leaves, ever falling like ribbons or streamers
into various situations by the force of the breeze; all, all looked
beautiful. And to add to our delight the sounds of the Angelus from the
tower of the church of Monserrat, at the top of the mountain at hand
came down on our ears like music from heaven. The mountains around this
valley of peace seemed to echo the melodies of God. The cross on the
beautiful Corinthian Church, shone between the hills and the sky,
reminding us of Him who died for us, and who holds all creation in His
hands. All the lovely objects in this tropical vale seemed to murmur His
praises. The palms reminded us of His wanderings in the desert, when a
child, of His domestic life at Nazareth, and His latter years in and
around Jerusalem and Galilee.
Our course now led through winding walks under waving palms, by a house
in the rocks, past doves, ducks, chickens, arches, arbors, flowering
thickets, wild lime, sour orange and paw-paw trees. We inhaled the most
delicious fragrance at every step. On emerging from the glades into an
open field, we began to climb the hill to the church of Monserrat. As we
ascended, the view of the valley grew wider. Scenes, unobserved from the
level, now appeared enriching the picture. We crept rather than walked
up the great hill, at one time gazing upon gullies and wells, at
another, admiring big beautiful berries, but ever and anon pausing to
take in the view of the vale. When the summit of the Cumbre was gained,
I felt well rewarded for my toil, for never before did I see a landscape
so brimful of poetry and repose. There it lay extending in every
direction for miles, bounded on all sides by mountains with picturesque
gaps, spurs, peaks and openings; it seemed to me more like a scene in a
dream than a reality,--the character of the prospect was so ethereal, a
fit retreat for celestials,--lovelier than the most delightful panorama.
Still, it was a reality, and not a painting of indescribably happy
combinations of contrasts in color, vegetation, lights, shadows, and
forms, like the garden of Eden, and far fairer than the happy valley
described in Rasselas. The Yumuri River flowed through it looking like a
silver thread. Billowy fields of cane, rich pastures, clumps of
feathery palms and shrubs with golden flowers adorned the vale. It is
like a glimpse of Paradise to see it at sunset.
I turned with regret from this feast of nature, and walked with my
companion along the extensive plateau on which the church and other
buildings stood. A venerable, mild-looking old gentleman approached us.
He was Migael Darna, the sexton and bell-ringer of Monserrat, living
like a hermit on the top of the Cumbre. A handsome little boy with dark
eyes and coal-black hair accompanied him. This was his son, of whom he
seemed to be very fond. At a sign from Migael we entered the church. Its
interior, like the outside, was very pretty. Behind the altar and around
the side walls of the sanctuary stood a miniature mountain of cork, on
the top of which rested a statue of the Blessed Virgin resembling the
image supposed to be made by St. Luke, which graces the monastery of
Monserrat in Spain. Flowers and gifts of various kinds were attached to
the cork by faithful doners. On our way to the tower, I could see from
the clever manner in which young Darna played the organ, that on the
hills his father had not neglected his musical education.
After gaining the top we beheld a prospect, which, for grandeur and
extent, could scarcely be surpassed. The valley to the left looked even
more mysteriously enchanting than before, owing to its greater distance
and depth. On the right the glorious ocean burst upon us, its blue and
green waters in some places as smooth as glass, in others worked up into
angry billows. We saw the ships in the bay, the coral reefs washed by
the waves--the city with its sloping streets, quaint, gaudy buildings
and villas resting below us like lords looking down on the scene. In
front we observed brown, grassy, shrubby hills, cliffs, precipices and
vast fastnesses. Behind us flowed the San Juan River by low, rich
meadows, past numerous houses till it rested in the sea. Beyond appeared
a chain of mountains, whose dark-blue peaks were almost lost in the
clouds. The view of the country and city from the tower of this church
is certainly the finest in all Cuba, and it was with the greatest
reluctance that I turned from it to follow my companions down stairs.
Bidding good-by to Migael, Signor Mariano and myself descended to the
city over a grassy road, full of blue, white and yellow flowers. We
noticed on one of the lowest slopes of the Cumbre one of the handsomest
villas in Matanzas built in the midst of gardens, and surrounded by a
pretty stone wall. Numerous statues and fountains adorned the grounds.
Signor Mariano, being acquainted with the family, offered to introduce
me. We were received at the door of this fine stone villa by Signora
Torres who is regarded by the priests and people of Matanzas as the
foremost Catholic lady in the city. The recent death of her husband and
brother sorely afflicted her, but she endured this trial with Christian
fortitude, and an ever-present desire to please and do good could
readily be noticed even in the midst of her sorrow. As we moved through
the house, I admired the lofty ceilings, handsome stained-glass windows,
black and white marble floors, and splendid furniture that graced the
several apartments. Coolness and shade, so desirable in the tropics,
reigned here, and were rendered further agreeable by the sight of
occasional rosy beams, the odor of flowers and songs of birds. The rich
antique vases and fine old paintings on the the wall looked very
beautiful. The most precious woods of the island were seen in the
wainscoting and furniture. The chapel looked a rich and graceful little
temple. All the rarest valuables seemed to be reserved for here. When
the chaplain is home (as he generally is) Mass is celebrated in the
villa every morning.
After saying a little prayer, we walked out on the front piazza. This
had a fine tiled floor and several pretty iron seats and sofas. Its
numerous vases were full of flowers. Its balustrades were of stone, with
blue and gold, porcelain finish. Rustic baskets hung around it in
appropriate numbers and graceful order. It faced the city and the bay.
Down in the garden were all kinds of fruits and flowers. Oranges,
bananas, pomegranates, caimetoes, pineapples, oleanders, cacti, allspice
trees, enormous fuchsias, canicas, kaladiums, and numerous other
varieties, bloomed in abundance, each and all emitting a fragrance quite
irresistible. Prince Alexis of Russia, while on his visit to Matanzas,
spent a few weeks in this villa and garden. He could not have selected a
more charming spot in Cuba. As time was precious, we took our leave,
thanking the good Senora for her kindness, and pursued our journey down
the hill. On the right and left of us were high walls of calcareous
rock, over the tops of which hung thousands of brilliant, sweet-scented
flowers. The Casus de Benefecentia, a long, yellow stone building, with
great pillars and piers, rested on a hill a short distance away, and on
the edge of the street on which we walked, stood the handsome, sky-blue
dwelling of a _cure_, who was attached to a charitable institution
conducted by the sisters. I visited these buildings on an after
occasion, accompanied by two priests, and was greatly edified and
delighted with all I saw in them. Before we came to the Church of St.
Carlos, we passed through the Plaza de Armas, the most beautiful square
in Matanzas. A magnificent fountain ornamented the centre of a circular
row of palms. Numerous fragrant shrubs and flowers flourished near at
hand, and iron seats were provided for all who wished to rest. Beautiful
stores and private dwellings line the enclosure, which is surrounded by
gas lamps, sofas and wide-paved walks. The palace of the _comandant_, or
governor, of the department, is situated on the east side. The Licco, or
lyceum and club-house, stand on the north. The military band plays in
the Plaza on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings. Thither all classes
come then to hear the music, observe the fashions, form acquaintances,
and chat with friends. On our arrival at the priest's house, Padre
Barnada invited me to celebrate Mass, in the church, on the following
morning (Ash Wednesday). I cheerfully consented, and then took my leave,
intending to see more of the town. The attractions of Matanzas are
greatly marred by the clouds of dust that are almost constantly
drifting. As rain seldom falls the streets become very dry, and the
steady passing and repassing of mules and heavy ox-carts, laden with
sugar and molasses, cause the calcareous sand to rise and envelop
everything. The Chinaman occupies a conspicuous place in the life scenes
of Matanzas. He can be readily recognized whether attired in the long,
loose, shabby shirt of the laborer, or the citizen's dress of the
storekeeper. His peculiar gait, hair and countenance are very
characteristic. He associates familiarly with the negro, is zealous,
parsimonious, and so sensitive that he will even kill himself if he
becomes incapable of revenging an insult. Most of these people in Cuba
remain in a beastly state of degradation, while others of the race rise
in the ranks, own elegant stores, and other establishments. A certain
Chinaman in Havana owns the finest silk establishment in that city.
Another keeps a hotel in Matanzas, styled the "Flower of America." Their
diet chiefly consists of rice, fruit and vegetables. They are generally
vaccinated on the tip of the nose. Chinese free railroad hands receive
sixty dollars per month, in currency, and street laborers get twelve
reals a day.
REV. M. W. NEWMAN.
The Church and Modern Progress.
Vaticination, if we are to believe George Eliot, is only one of the
innumerable forms in which ignorance finds expression. In the olden time
prophecy for the most part assumed a sombre guise, denunciatory of woe
and wrath to come. In these latter days prophecy appears under the form
of _taffy_, which, perhaps, is indispensable for a generation whose
religious emotions find adequate musical expression in that popular
hymn, "The _Sweet_ Bye and Bye"--heaven being apparently a sort of
candy-shop on a large scale. Artemus Ward's famous advice, "Do not
prophesy until _after_ the event," is scarcely applicable to modern
prophets, inasmuch as the fulfilment of their predictions is not at all
necessary to their character and standing, unless, of course, they
should chance to be weather prophets.
The modern prophet dearly loves to take up some dominant idea of his
time, of such vastness and hazy indistinctness, as will afford ample
room and verge enough for his wildest speculations, and allow him to
disport at will within its undefined limits. An idea of this kind is
that which appertains to the progress of the species of humanity. With
this for his theme, the modern prophet, whether in the guise of a
popular lecturer, or masquerading as a writer in the current literature
of the day, rarely forgets, while weaving his rose-colored visions of
the future, to indulge in a fling at the Catholic Church as the
irreconcilable foe of progress in all its forms. Ask him what progress
means, in what respect the Catholic Church is opposed to it--the answer
will prove to be rather unsatisfactory. The constant cry of old
Aristotle--"Define, Define," is to him the voice of one calling in the
wilderness. If he ever read Cicero, it must have been in some expurgated
edition, "_Pueris Virginibusque_," in which the following passage found
no place: "_Omnis quæ ratione suscipitur de aliqua re institutio
debet a definitione proficisi, ut intelligatur quid sit id de quo
disputetur._" _De offic._, 1, 2. The prophet of progress has an
instinctive dread of the bull-dog grip of a definition, and will not
readily run the risk of being pinned to the ground, and perhaps rolled
over in the dust. And yet the chief cause of controversy, of the heat
with which it is carried on, and its customary lack of decisive results,
lies in the fact that the disputants do not attach a definite meaning to
words, and do not understand them in the same sense.
I.
Progress means "motion forward." This supposes a starting-point and a
definite end or goal. Without these two requisites there may be motion,
but no progress. Now there is such a thing as "progress" in the life of
individuals and of nations. Indeed, the magic of this word "progress,"
its power to sway the minds of men, goes to show that the conception
rests on some underlying basis of truth. A lie pure and simple has no
such power. It must clothe itself in the garb of truth if it would win
converts and adherents.
The very life that throbs within us impels to progress, for all life is
but a motion and a striving towards a destined end, and implies the
growth and development of all our faculties to the full perfection of
their being. Death alone is a resting and a standing still.
This visible nature around us pulsates with the spirit of life and
progress. The stars wheel onward in the courses marked out for them by
their Creator. The interior of the earth is heaving and palpitating with
a hidden life of its own, which is ever manifested in richer fulness and
strength, in higher and more perfect forms. Nay, the very stone that
seems so motionless, the inert metal in the bowels of the earth, comes
under the influence of this universal law of life and progress. And what
is this but the creative breath of God streaming through the universe,
and ever shaping it into new and diverse forms of life?
But this law of progress under which the physical universe lies, affects
man likewise in a manner worthy of him as the crowning masterpiece of
creation. So essentially is progress a law of our being that while
material things, in the process of their development, cannot overstep
the limits marked out for them, man is called upon to progress even
beyond the limits of his nature. God Himself, in all His greatness and
Holiness, is the exalted ideal towards which all our aspirations should
tend. "Be ye perfect as my Heavenly Father is perfect."
Nay, more: not alone is progress a law of man's being; it is a positive
duty and command which he is obliged to fulfil. And herein lies another
point of difference between the laws of progress, which are stamped into
the nature of man, and those we perceive operating in the visible world
around us. In nature no backward steps are possible. Every object in the
physical universe, in its growth and development, moves within the
fixed, unchanging limits of law which God has marked out for it. As a
consequence, there is no falling back in the world of nature from a
higher to a lower type of existence. The plant ever remains a plant; the
mineral ever remains a mineral. But in the case of man, he cannot stand
still--he can only retrograde, sink beneath his own level, if he does
not continually move forward, in order, by degrees, to reach the supreme
end and aim of his existence. Thus does the Catholic Church not alone
recognize progress as a great law of our being; she insists upon it, as
a divine duty which we are obliged to fulfil.
II.
From these preliminary remarks, it will be seen that those who charge
the Catholic Church with being opposed to progress, must mean _material_
progress; that is, a larger knowledge of the laws of the physical
universe, and a wider diffusion and application of the various arts and
contrivances which minister to the comforts and conveniences of man's
earthly existence, leaving out of account altogether the moral and
spiritual advancement of humanity.
To all such it will be enough to observe: the Catholic Church is not
opposed to progress in the material order of things. She places no
hindrance to the exercise of man's inventive faculties. But above and
beyond the highest material progress, above and beyond railroads and
telegraphs, steam-engines, and cannons and iron-clads, she places the
moral and spiritual progress of the human race. She will never cease to
maintain that though railroads and telegraphs girdle the earth a hundred
times over, and the telephones penetrate into every private dwelling;
though the sails of a nation's commerce whiten every sea, and the face
of the land be covered with the most varied and prosperous
industries--man will be none the happier, society none the more peaceful
and durable when not leavened by the spirit of Christian truth and
Christian morality. At every new invention men cry aloud in tones of
triumph: See how humanity is advancing; see what victories mind is daily
gaining over matter; and dazzled by the splendor of their progress in
the material order of things, come to think that therein lies the end of
their existence, the supreme aim of all human exertion. To all such the
church simply observes: Labor and strive to make what progress you can
in art and science, in commerce and industry, in every department of
human enterprise and activity: and when you have travelled over the
whole field, have exhausted all your resources, and reached the farthest
limits of your power, I say to you: You have not progressed far enough.
A far nobler and higher ideal is yours. You are born to be a child of
God, to bring out into utmost clearness and distinctness the likeness of
God that is stamped on your soul, and develop into the full-grown man,
"to the measure of the stature and the fulness of Christ." Thus, as
regards the higher order of progress, the Catholic Church is in advance
of her age. "Excelsior" is the motto emblazoned on her flag.
It is no difficult task for the mere theorist to sketch out, in the
domain of religion or politics, systems ideally perfect, serenely
ignoring in their application such disturbing elements as the vices and
frailties incident to a fallen humanity. But the practical man of
affairs who has to deal, not with abstractions, but with the concrete
realities of life, soon, alas! perceives that such a dazzling formula,
for example, as that of the French republicans, "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity," can be realized on earth by revolutionizing, not only
political institutions, but the very nature of man himself. Humanity is
a mere empty abstraction, except in so far as we conceive it as composed
of individuals. Society is a mere aggregate of individuals. Except to
your modern prophet, it is difficult to conceive how there can be
progress in society without progress among the individuals who go to
compose that society.
Each individual may be viewed, under a threefold aspect: in his
relations to himself, to the family, and to the society of which he is a
member. Now all progress which deserves the name must make for the
well-being and advancement of the individual in these threefold
relations of life.
This the Catholic Church claims to do. On the first page of the
catechism which she places in the hands of the little child is a
decisive, authoritative answer to the heart-piercing cry of modern
doubt: "Whence, and great heavens, whither?" She exhorts to the practice
of those virtues which alone beget true peace and contentment of
mind--to temperance, purity, honesty, self-control, love of God and our
neighbor. She claims, furthermore, to be the sole depository and
dispenser of these spiritual aids, without which the practice of these
virtues is impossible, and without which man can never attain the end of
his existence.
The church has blest and sanctified the family relation as the
fundamental element in the structure of human society. She is the only
institution now in the world which upholds the unity and indissolubility
of the marriage tie. She has uplifted woman from the mire of degradation
into which paganism had dragged her, has made her the equal, instead of
being the slave of man. She counsels mutual love, trust and fidelity, as
between husband and wife, and reminds them of their common
responsibility in training their offspring in the ways of truth and
virtue. She exhorts children to the duties of love, reverence, obedience
towards their parents.
She tells the citizen that he owes a strict, conscientious obedience to
the laws of the realm, a willing allegiance to the lawfully constituted
government under which he lives. She reminds rulers that they have no
power except in so far as it has been given to them from above; that
they are responsible to the Most High for the use they make of that
power; that their authority must be exercised in a spirit of justice,
moderation, and regard for the interests of those over whom they are
placed; and that, finally, in the sight of God, they are of no more
account than the lowliest of their subjects.
This doctrine of the equality of men before God is the fruitful
principle which flung forth into the seed-field of time has developed
into the kindred doctrine which asserts the equality of all men before
the law. The assertion and application of this principle it was which
enabled the Church to abolish slavery in Europe, not indeed by the
effusion of blood and treasure, but by the calm, winning influence of
her persuasiveness and her example. In truth, it may be said that the
history of the Catholic Church is the history of human progress on
earth. From the day when she stepped down from the little chamber in
Jerusalem into the public squares of the city, and took society by the
hand to lift it out of the corruption into which paganism had dragged
it, dates the first step in the true progress of human society.
III.
But, unhappily, in these latter days certain elements have been imported
into men's conceptions of progress, of which the Catholic Church is the
stern and uncompromising foe. In so far as the advocates of modern
progress aim at the destruction of those Christian principles of conduct
which should influence the individual man in his relations to himself,
to the family, and to the State, they may expect unceasing opposition
from the Catholic Church.
In some respects the Church does not consider modern progress,
so-called, as progress in the true sense of the word, but rather a
retrograde movement--a relapse into the moral corruption, the political
and social degradation of ancient paganism. When a man finds himself
moving forward at a rapid pace along a road which he discovers to be a
wrong one, he is only moving farther away from the end of his journey;
he cannot be said to be making progress. Or, when a man is sick of a
deadly disease, which is rapidly gaining ground, it cannot be said that
he is progressing, since such progress leads to death, not life.
In certain European countries at the present day, advocates of progress
insist that the Church should adapt herself to the spirit of the age,
and would fain transform her into a mere creature of the civil
government, a sort of moral police under its pay and control, or to use
the illustration of Cardinal Newman, employ her as a pet jackdaw, useful
for picking up the grubs and worms on its master's trim, smooth-shaven
lawn.
The Church, however, will not surrender her independence, nor will she
change her doctrines to suit the shifting, fallible opinions of men. Her
mission is to hold pure from all taint of error, and transmit unimpaired
to future generations the word of her master: "Guard that which is
entrusted to thee, turning away from the profane babblings and
oppositions of knowledge falsely so called."
The Church is opposed to modern progress in so far as it seeks to rob
Christian marriage of its sacramental character, and reduce it to the
level of a mere contract, which may be dissolved at the will of the
contracting parties.
She is opposed to the divorce of religion from education, holding that
the development of man's moral and intellectual nature, should go hand
in hand. Indeed, among ourselves of late, many serious-minded persons
seem to be coming round to the Church's way of thinking on this
important matter. They are exerting themselves to find some substitute
for religion in the moral training of children, and profess to have
discovered it in a knowledge of the elements of physiology. A text-book
of this science, which will clearly impress on the youthful mind the
dire fattening qualities of alcohol is the _unum necessarium_. It is
fondly hoped that the natural horror which one experiences at the
thought of an accumulation of adipose tissue in the intestines will be
quite sufficient to deter the rising generation from the use of
alcoholic stimulants.
This, however, is only taking a limited view of the matter, for humanity
may be conceived as divided into two classes, the fat and the lean.
This latter class constitutes a large percentage of the world's
population; and in their case the temptation is great of falling back on
alcohol as an excellent substitute for padding, forswearing thin
potations and addicting themselves to sack.
Furthermore men of science inform us that, owing to the conditions of
our environment, climatic and otherwise, there is a tendency among
Americans, after a few generations, to develop into a type of man,
similar to the Red Indian, tall, muscular, gaunt. If this is so, have we
not cause to apprehend the universal use of alcohol as a means of
counteracting such a deplorable tendency. We respectfully refer these
considerations to the serious attention of those who would place the
science of morals on a physiological basis.
Finally then, the only progress which the Catholic Church upholds is
that which rests on the foundations, everlasting and unchanging as
adamant, of Christian truth and Christian morality. A fair and goodly
tree, the higher it grows, the more widely it expands, the deeper must
it cast its roots into the ground, if it would not come toppling down
and cumber the earth. So must the roots of modern progress strike
themselves more and more deeply into the soil of the Christian virtues,
that its fine growth of material well-being may not drag down the fair
tree, and only serve to hasten its speedy disappearance in corruption
and death.
J. C.
Give Charity While You Live.
_Lake Shore Visitor_:--The many men and women who leave large bequests
to religion and to charity do in a certain sense some good. Their means
thus disposed of may feed the hungry and bring the erring to a sense of
duty. But generally speaking means thus left are not as well husbanded
as if they were spent by the testator himself. It is given in a bulk and
the legatee not having been put to the trouble and pains of earning the
legacy dollar for dollar soon lets the specie fly. It came easy and is
very apt to go the same way. It is not necessary for the charitably
inclined to wait until the message comes in order to perform an act of
charity. We are told that the "poor we always have with us." The orphan
may be found in every city and town, and orphanages and hospitals exist
in every city. To be really disinterested in our charity, we should give
while in health. While giving thus we are making a sacrifice, and
plainly proving that our hearts are not very strongly set on the goods
of this world. To give when that which we give is about to be snatched
away from us is certainly not giving with the hope of obtaining a very
great reward. Looking after our own donations would make them more
profitable to the cause of good, and giving when we are in health and
strength is making a sacrifice that without doubt will meet a reward.
Emmet's Rebellion.
[Illustration: ROBERT EMMET. Born March 4, 1780. Executed Sept. 20,
1803.]
At the time when the plans of the United Irishmen were slowly ripening
toward revolution, and when Wolfe Tone and Edward Fitzgerald still
believed in the immediate regeneration of their country, there were two
young men in Dublin University--close personal friends--who were
watching with peculiar interest the progress of events. Both were
exceptionally gifted young men, and both were destined to leave behind
them names that will live forever in the history of the Irish nation.
One was Thomas Moore; the other, his junior by a year and his senior by
one class in the University, was Robert Emmet.
It was especially natural that two such young men should take the
keenest interest in the national movement that was going on about them.
It was a movement calculated to attract all the generous and impassioned
impulses of youth. Both Moore and Emmet were profoundly ambitious for
their nation's welfare; both of them, we may well assume, felt conscious
of the possession of abilities beyond the average; and both were
animated by a desire to be of active service to their people. The
desire, however, which led Moore to become the poetical voice of
Ireland's aspirations and regrets, urged Emmet into directer and more
decided action. Emmet was a brother of Thomas Addis Emmet. He was,
therefore, closely in connection with the revolutionary movement, and
did all that lay in his power to advance it by his speeches in the
Debating Society and in the Historical Society of the College. Political
speeches were, of course, forbidden in such bodies as these two
societies; but Emmet always contrived to introduce into his utterances
upon any of the themes set down for debate some burning words which
those who listened to him, and loved him, could readily interpret into
justification of the United Irishmen, and encouragement of their
efforts.
Between the young orator and the young poet the closest friendship and
affection existed. The genius of Moore was naturally captivated by the
pure and lofty enthusiasm of Robert Emmet; and it is almost surprising
that under the circumstances Moore did not become more deeply involved
in the conspiracy that spread all around him. Moore had not, however,
the nature of the conspirator, or of the very active politician. He was
called upon to do other work in this world, and he did that work so
worthily that we may well forgive him for having been so little of a
rebel at a time when rebellion was the duty of every Irishman. Moore
tells a touching little story of himself and of his friend, which, in
itself, exemplifies the different natures of the two young men. Moore
had become possessed of that precious volume in which the labors of Mr.
Bunting had collected so much of the national music of Ireland; and he
delighted in passing long hours in playing over to himself the airs
which he was destined later on to make so famous by his verses. Emmet
often sat by him while he played, and Moore records how, one evening,
just as he finished playing that spirited tune called "The Red Fox,"
Emmet sprang up from a reverie, and exclaimed, "Oh, that I were at the
head of twenty thousand men marching to that air!" The air which
awakened in Emmet the gallant hope, which he was never destined to see
realized, had probably started in the brain of Moore dim memories of the
lost glories of Ireland; of the Knights of the Red Branch, of Malichi
with the gold torque, and of the buried city of Lough Neagh. The music
which Emmet had desired to hear as the marching song of victory is
familiar to every Irishman as "Let Erin Remember the Days of Old." "How
little did I think," said the poet, "that in one of the most touching of
the sweet airs I used to play to him, his own dying words would find an
interpreter so worthy of their sad but proud feelings; or that another
of those mournful strains would long be associated in the hearts of his
countrymen with the memory of her who shared with Ireland his last
blessing and prayer." Ninety-eight had come and gone like a dream. The
leaders of the United Irishmen were dead, in exile, or hiding from the
law. The Irish parliament had passed from existence, and the hated union
with England had become an accomplished fact. The promises of the
British minister, which had done so much to facilitate the passing of
the Act of Union, had, of course, been shamefully violated.
* * * * *
There were desperate riots in Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary in the
year of the union--smouldering embers of the revolution of '98, which
were destined still to break out into one final, fitful conflagration.
Robert Emmet saw the sufferings of his country with indignation, but not
with despair. He conceived the possibility of reviving the spirit of
'98. In his eyes revolution was not dead, but only asleep; and he
proudly fancied that he might be the voice to wake rebellion from its
trance, and lead it to its triumph. He had some personal fortune of his
own, which he unselfishly devoted to the purpose he had in view.
Gradually he began to gather around him a cluster of the
disaffected--survivors of '98 who had escaped the grave, the gibbet, or
exile--men like the heroic Myles Byrne, of Wexford, who had evaded the
clutch of the law, and was lying _perdu_ in Dublin, as assistant in a
timber yard, and waiting for fortune. In Myles Byrne, Emmet found a
ready and a daring colleague, and each found others no less ready, no
less daring, and no less devoted to their country, to aid in the new
revolutionary movement. Like the United Irishmen, Emmet was willing to
avail himself of French arms; but he trusted France less than the United
Irishmen had done. He had been in Paris; he had had interviews with
Napoleon; he had distrusted the First Consul, and, as we know from his
dying speech, he never for a moment entertained the slightest idea of
exchanging the dominion of England for the dominion of France. His
scheme was desperate, but it was by no means hopeless. Large stores of
arms and gunpowder were accumulated in the various depots in Dublin.
Thousands of men were pledged to the cause and were prepared to lose
their lives for it. The means of establishing a provisional government
had been carefully thought out, and had been given effect to in an
elaborate document, in which vast information was printed, ready to be
sown broadcast through the city and the county as soon as the green flag
floated over Dublin Castle. That was Emmet's chief purpose. Once master
of the castle, and Dublin would be practically in his power; and Dublin
once in the hands of rebellion, why, then, rebellion would spread
through the country like fire in a jungle, and Ireland might indeed be
free.
* * * * *
It is scarcely necessary to recapitulate the events of that memorable
evening of July 23, 1803. At 10 o'clock a rocket sent up from Thomas
Street blazed for a moment, the meteor of insurrection, in the unwonted
darkness of that summer night. But the signal that was to have been the
herald of freedom was only the herald of failure. A small mob of men
hurried to the malt house in Mass lane, which was the principal store of
arms. There pikes were hurriedly handed out to the crowd, and then
Emmet, who had hoped to head an army, found himself the centre of an
undisciplined rabble. His hopes must have sunk low as he stood there in
the dim and dismal street, in his glittering uniform of green and gold;
but his heart did not fail him for a moment. He turned towards the
castle at the head of his turbulent horde as composedly as if he had
been marshalling the largest army in Europe. But the crowd lacked
cohesion, lacked purpose, lacked determination. It fell away from its
leader loosely, even aimlessly. Some rushed wildly at the castle;
others, at the moment when unity and concentration were of the utmost
importance, hurried off in another direction to sack a debtor's prison
and set the inmates free. While the disorganized crowd was still in
Thomas Street, while Emmet was vainly trying to rally his forces and
accomplish something, a carriage came slowly down the street--the
carriage of Lord Kilwarden, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
Inside the carriage were Lord Kilwarden, his daughter, and his nephew,
the Rev. Mr. Wolfe. The mob surrounded the carriage; Lord Kilwarden and
his nephew were dragged from the carriage, and killed with innumerable
pike-thrusts. The girl was left untouched; was, it is said, carried out
of danger by Robert Emmet himself, who had vainly attempted to stop the
purposeless slaughter. Before the Chief Justice was quite dead Major
Sirr and a large body of his soldiers made their appearance, and the mob
vanished almost without resistance, leaving several prisoners in the
hands of the military.
Emmet had disappeared, no one knew where--no one, that is, except some
dozen of his followers and some farmers in the Wicklow Mountains, whose
hospitality and protection were extended to the fugitive patriot. Emmet
might easily have escaped to France if he had chosen, but he delayed
till too late. Emmet was a young man, and Emmet was in love. "The idol
of his heart," as he calls her in his dying speech, was Sarah Curran,
the daughter of John Philpot Curran, the great orator who had played so
important a part in defending the State prisoners of '98. Emmet was
determined to see her before he went. He placed his life upon the stake
and lost it. He returned to Dublin, and was hiding at Harold's Cross,
when his place of refuge was betrayed, and he was arrested by Major
Sirr, the same who had brought Fitzgerald to his death, and who now,
strangely enough, occupies a corner of the same graveyard with the
"gallant and seditious Geraldine."
Curran very bitterly opposed Emmet's love for Sarah, and the voice which
had been raised so often and so eloquently in defence of the other
heroes and martyrs of Irish revolution was not lifted up in defence of
Emmet. Curran has been often and severely censured for not undertaking
Emmet's defence, and he has been accused, in consequence, of being, at
least indirectly, the cause of his death. But we may safely assume that
no advocacy either of men or of angels could by any possibility have
stirred the hearts of those in authority, and saved the life of the man
who was presumptuous enough to rebel against the Union. The trial was
hurried through. Every Irish schoolboy knows the impassioned and
eloquent address which Emmet delivered--an address which even the tragic
circumstances could not save from the brutal interruption of Lord
Norbury. On the altar of truth and liberty, Emmet had extinguished the
torch of friendship, had offered up the idol of his soul, and the object
of his affections. With the shadow of death upon him, the doomed patriot
addressed his countrymen in words of wellnigh prophetic import,
forbidding them to write his epitaph until his country had taken her
place among the nations of the earth. The words did not pass his lips
long before his death. He was found guilty late in the night of the 19th
of September, and he was hanged the next morning in Thomas Street, on
the spot where the gloomy church of St. Catherine looks down Bridgefoot
Street, where his principal stores of arms had been found.
* * * * *
Such was the fate of Robert Emmet. His dying request has been faithfully
obeyed by his countrymen; and it is but fitting that no spot should bear
his name, no statue should typify his memory, until the time comes for
which he hoped, and for which he suffered. His old friend, the companion
of his youth, the poet who had loved him, has honored his memory with
two of his noblest lyrics, and has devoted a third to the girl whom
Emmet's love has made immortal. Curran never forgave his daughter for
having given her affections to Emmet; he practically disowned her, and
did not, it is said, even extend his forgiveness to her at the hour of
her death some years later. It is melancholy to have to record the fact
that the betrothed wife of Robert Emmet was not entirely faithful to his
memory. She married, at the instance, it is said, of her friends, and
did not long survive her marriage.
JUSTIN HUNTLEY M'CARTHY in _United Ireland_.
* * * * *
No workman engaged in the copper mines or in the manufacture of copper
was ever known to have cholera. Science has demonstrated the fact that
cholera has raged the least where the presence of electricity in the air
was most positive.
The Annunciation:--March 25th.
How pure and frail and white
The snowdrops shine!
Gather a garland bright
For Mary's shrine.
For, born of winter snows,
These fragile flowers
Are gifts to our frail Queen
From spring's first hours.
For on this blessed day
She knelt at prayer;
When, lo, before her shone
An Angel Fair.
"Hail, Mary!" thus he cried
With reverent fear;
She, with sweet, wondering eyes
Marvelled to hear.
Be still, ye clouds of heaven!
Be silent, earth!
And hear an angel tell
Of Jesus' birth.
While she, whom Gabriel hails
As full of grace,
Listens with humble faith
In her sweet face.
Be still, Pride, War and Pomp,
Vain Hopes, vain Fear,
For now an angel speaks
And Mary hears.
"Hail, Mary!" lo, it rings
Through ages on;
"Hail, Mary!" it shall sound
Till time is done.
"Hail, Mary!" infant lips
Lisp it to-day;
"Hail, Mary!" with faint smile,
The dying say.
"Hail, Mary!" many a heart
Broken with grief
In that angelic prayer
Has found relief.
And many a half lost soul
When turned at bay,
With those triumphant words
Has won the day.
"Hail, Mary, Queen of Heaven!"
Let us repeat,
And place our snow-drop wreath
Here at her feet.
ADELAIDE PROCTOR.
Much-a-Wanted.
The sun of an Italian September was shining in broad, yellow splendor on
Ancona--shining on the city, on its tawny background of hills, and on
the shimmering spread of the Adriatic at its feet. But for all the
sunshine, the city was not cheerful. The narrow streets were deserted by
ordinary wayfarers, shops were shut, sometimes a wan face peeped
furtively from a half-opened casement. The churches were turned from
their normal purposes to those of hospitals. Sant' Agostino, near the
Piazza del Teatro, was assigned to one set of patients; even the
transepts and aisles of the Duomo, on the top of the Monte Ciriaco, were
converted into wards and lined with rows of beds.
It was not that a pestilence brooded over the place, but something
worse, much worse.
Unfortunate Ancona, the scene of so many pages of strife written by
Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, by the troops of Barbarossa and of
others, was undergoing its latest bombardment on this September day of
1860. Since the opening of the century it had changed its masters four
times: now it was about to change them anew.
An army-corps, commanded by the Sardinian general, Cialdini, was
encamped outside the advanced works, and had planted batteries which
sent projectiles hissing and screaming not only over the ramparts and
citadel, but into the heart of the thickly peopled city; and the fleet
of the Sardinian admiral, Persano, was steaming to and fro outside the
harbor, and occasionally joining in the work of destruction by pitching
a heavy missile into the Lazaretto (occupied as barracks), or against
the masonry of the Mole. De la Moricière, the general to whom
Abd-el-Kader had surrendered, and who had driven the Red Republicans of
Paris from the left bank of the Seine in the June of 1848, was "holding
the fort" for Pio Nono. He had escaped but a few days previously from
the disaster of Castelfidardo with a troop of light dragoons, and was
battling stubbornly against odds which forbade the chance of success. He
had not much faith in his Swiss--they were purely and simply
mercenaries; the Italians at his disposal were neither unquestionably
loyal nor of the stuff of which heroes are made; the only men he had
beyond his own small ring of French Legitimists--his personal followers
so to speak--on whose courage and fidelity he could depend were the
Irish and the Austrians. The former, the Battaglione di San Patrizio,
were in the citadel and the environing entrenched camp; the latter,
being more seasoned and better armed, were assigned to the approaches of
the beleaguered stronghold. The inhabitants of Ancona were by no means
all well affected; but the one sentiment in which they were unanimous
was the hope that it might soon end--for all were in a mortal fright.
The roar of artillery, the bursting of shells, the collapse of shattered
walls, bugle-blasts, drum-beats, the tramp of armed men, the crepitation
of the hoofs of cantering chargers on the hard pavements, were frequent,
and now and again rose a shriek of terror, or an alarm of fire. But the
inhabitants took care to keep away these sounds as much as possible;
they cowered in dark cellars, and prayed and cursed, and played _mora_,
and helped to make each other uncomfortable by the contagion of an
abject poltroonery.
On the spacious sloping piazza in front of the Cathedral, where the
market used to be held, the main-guard was posted, and a pair of
_jägers_ paced backward and forward with the stolidity of Germans
between their sentry-boxes. Suddenly they halted, raised a cry, the
meaning of which I could not grasp, and the guard turned out. I could
see no visiting officer, and was lost in conjecture when I noticed an
ambulance party with a stretcher moving slowly downwards by the road
leading from the citadel. A blue great coat outlined a figure on the
stretcher; one of the legs cased in red trousers was lumpy with
bandages, through which the blood oozed, but the face of the sufferer
was screened from observation and from the fierce noon glare of the sun
by a strip of linen. The party came to a standstill opposite the post of
the sentries; the guard presented arms, the officer lowered his sword,
the bugle blew thrice a weird melancholy wail of notes, and the
stretcher-bearers resumed their careful, slow march.
This, I heard, was a usage borrowed from chivalrous times, and was
intended as a compliment; but I could not help thinking it a cruelty to
the poor wounded wretch whose recovery the delay of a minute might
imperil.
I went up to the party and asked who was the last victim of the war they
were carrying.
"A countryman of yours," was the answer.
I gently lifted the strip of linen, and recognized in the sufferer a
youngster from Sligo, of some nineteen years, the only son of his
mother, who had joined the Papal service through motives of the most
sincere faith and devotedness. To his aged parent, in her humble
Connaught cabin, he had sent the twenty _scudi_ he had received as
bounty. Andy was his Christian name--I never heard that of his family;
but he usually went by the nickname of "Much-a-Wanted." This originated
from a habit he had of using the phrase on all occasions, suitable and
unsuitable. If it came on to rain, Andy would say, "much-a-wanted;" if
macaroni, which the Irishmen unaccountably disliked, were served up from
the dinner-boiler, he met it with the same exclamation; if he got a
newspaper from home, or won a _mezzo-baioccho_ at pitch-and-toss, it was
alike. All were "much-a-wanted." Verily, I believe if he had been sent
to the cells on a false charge, the philosophic Andy would have consoled
himself with the cheery reflection that it was "much-a-wanted."
On inquiry I discovered he had come in for his fate characteristically.
While they had been preparing the mid-day meal for his company, the cook
complained of a scarcity of water. The path to the draw-well was in the
direct line of a terrible fire; it was positively furrowed with ripping
segments of shell. Instead of ordering the men on fatigue duty (whose
actual business it was) to go, volunteers were asked for, and Andy and a
comrade stepped forward and undertook to fetch a bucket. Hardly had they
started into the open on their hazardous errand, when a shell exploded
almost at their feet, knocking them over like ninepins, and sending the
fragments of the bucket whizzing in splintered chips far asunder. Andy's
comrade was hit on the sole of the foot, and broke into a bellow of
pain. It was no want of fortitude; the torment must have been
insupportable. The net-work of sinew and muscles in that most delicately
formed portion of the human framework was torn through, and the dirty
leather of the shoe was forced into the flesh, and there was an ugly
circle of jagged spokes around like the star-fractures made by a stone
flung through a pane of glass. Andy's right leg was shattered a few
inches above the knee, and hung on by a shred of skin; the shock must
have deprived him of sensation, and the rapid gush of blood caused a
merciful swoon. The hemorrhage was stopped by a surgeon on the spot, and
a dose of brandy poured down his throat. As he recovered his speech he
murmured in a dazed way his old catch-words "much-a-wanted."
While I was learning these particulars, the pathetic little procession
was climbing towards the hospital of St. John of God, where the most
accomplished of our staff of surgeons were in waiting to perform serious
operations, and the zealous brothers of the institution--a sort of
anticipatory Red Cross order--were on the constant watch to supply all
that science, good nursing and the beautiful compassion of religion
could suggest for the benefit of the afflicted.
On the ground floor the operating-room was situated, and thither the
party bore their pale-faced, perspiring, still burden. I followed,
thinking I might be of use as I understood Italian; and, in any case,
when the sufferer returned to consciousness it might be some comfort to
him to have the face of one he knew by his pallet. It was promptly
decided that the leg should be amputated at the thigh, and as the
surgeons, with workmanlike coolness, proceeded with their grim
preliminaries, the pain awoke Andy to his situation. And yet not quite.
By the wild unrest of his eyes and the working of his features, it was
plain that he was in the throes of acute agony; he felt it, but he could
not tell why or wherefore it was. He knew too keenly where the seat of
pain was, but he could not divine the exact injury he had sustained, and
strove almost frantically to rise so as to obtain a view of his lower
extremities. He caught sight of me, and besought me to lift him. I laid
my hand on his forehead and tried to pacify him, but in vain. He sank
back with a moan that went to my very marrow. While he lay thus, as if
in the coma of prostration, I asked quietly if they did not propose to
administer chloroform, but they shook their heads and said they had none
to spare except for officers. I insisted that the boy would die under
the knife unless he had something to numb his sensibility, and at the
moment he opened wide his eyes, and, with a look of pleading which I can
never forget, gasped--
"Gracious God! How I burn. Take me out and shoot me."
Then, in a sharp shout of entreaty as if wrung by a stronger spasm than
before--
"If you're friends, if you're men, you'll put me out of pain."
The surgeon-major at last relented and nodded to an aide, who
administered the chloroform. Quickly and skilfully the operation was
performed, and when the patient came back to things of the world he lay
in a ward on the same floor, a cradle over the stump to avert the risk
of hemorrhage from the dressings being disturbed. He was very feeble and
languid, and spoke like one in a trance.
"Do you feel better after your sleep, Andy?"
"Yes, thank you; 'twas much-a-wanted. But my feet are very cold."
His feet! Then he knew nothing of what had occurred; that he was no
longer as others, but maimed in his youth, destined to go through life a
cripple--if he ever rose from his bed.
"Put more covers over me," he besought.
He got a stimulating cordial from one of the brothers who specially
charged himself with his guardianship, and I passed through some of the
remaining wards on my way out. Those who were the least querulous
appeared to be the very men who were most grievously wounded, perhaps
they were too spent to sigh; those who were loudest in their yells of
anguish--there is no other word--were a number of unfortunates who had
their flesh scorched and shrivelled by the blow-up of a magazine. It is
as trying to hear a strong man yell with anguish as to see a strong man
shed tears. Here and there a lighted taper was placed at the foot of a
bed, and the white sheet drawn over the mute and motionless occupant
told its own story.
The next forenoon I visited Andy. He was weak but sprightly, and still
unconscious of his great loss. He asked me how we were getting on, and
when we should have the enemy beaten, for he could distinctly hear the
whistling of shells and the repercussion of the booming of the big guns.
On the following day there was a change in him for the worse. There were
two reasons to explain it; a shell had fallen on the roof of the
hospital and crashed into one of the wards of the upper story where it
burst. This naturally caused a fearful commotion, and fevered and
mutilated patients had started from their beds in panic and crouched in
the corridors and on the staircases. But, to my thinking, the alteration
in Andy's condition was to be traced rather to another accident. He had
learned the extent of his misfortune. A rough, good-natured comrade who
had snatched time for a friendly call had blurted it out.
"Keep up your spirits, my hearty; you won't be the first lad to hobble
through life on a timber-peg."
The poor fellow turned a ghastly white, gazed around him in a scared,
vacant manner--so the brother told me--and asked with dry, tremulous
lips for a drink of water. Afterwards he had dozed into a delirious
slumber. In his ravings he fancied he was on a lone and dangerous post
in advance of our lines, and that his officer had forgotten him.
"I'm perishin' wid the cowld," he peevishly muttered, "and no sign o'
the relief. Ten hours on sentry; I give them ten minutes more. If they
don't come, I'll go."
Then there must have been a struggle in his harassed brain between duty
and the sense that he had been neglected.
"No," he continued. "Desertion before the inamy--disgrace! Can't do
that. As I'm here, I'll see it out. I wish the relief would come."
And then the poor crazed youth went through the motions of slapping his
hands across his breast to quicken the circulation, and began humming
the air of "The Pretty Maid Milking her Cow."
By degrees the motion of his hands slackened, his voice grew fainter, he
turned his head on one side, and dropped into a deep, calm sleep.
Duty took me elsewhere, but I returned in a few hours. As I stole up to
the bedside the patient was awake and looked brighter and better than
before. It was the blazing of the wick before the candle expires.
"He has had a lucid interval," whispered the brother, "and was so meek
and patient that it made me weep. But he is delirious again--still
yearning for that relief."
At that instant the sunset flame shooting through a window burnished the
sufferer's face until it looked like that of some waxen image with a
halo; by a powerful effort he propped the upper portion of his body on
his left elbow, raised his right arm in salute, and cried--
"Hurrah! I saw the sunlight on yer bay'nets, boys. Andy wouldn't lave
his post. But whisper, sargent, ye were much-a-wanted, much-a-wanted!"
And with a glad laugh the boy-soldier fell back.
There was a thin crimson streak upon the pillow. The relief had, indeed,
come at last.
JOHN AUGUSTUS O'SHEA, in _Merry England_.
Mixed Marriages.
Marriage is so intimate a union between man and wife that the hearts of
both should ever beat in full and unalloyed sympathy and accord. Above
all, the religious convictions of both ought to be in perfect harmony.
If there is not in the family a common faith and a common form of divine
worship, the consequences are disastrous to home comfort, to religious
training, and to faith itself. Show me a family that forms an exception,
and you either show a strengthening of the rule, or you show a family
that is happy only in appearance. For, even then you will find that the
Catholic party has to do a thousand things unknown to the other, and to
beg of the children to keep matters secret. There is woe following the
telling of the secret. Suffice it to know that the wisdom of the
Catholic Church is opposed to these unions; that if the Catholic party
die, the children, as a rule, are lost; and that even in the best cases
religious indifference is the ordinary consequence.
How often do we meet such an instance as this, nor shall I overdraw it.
A young Catholic lady tells her confessor that she intends to marry a
Protestant young man. The confessor remonstrates. It is useless. Her
mind is made up on the matter. He is a good young man, with no prejudice
against her faith, and is satisfied to be married by the priest. Very
well; they get married; and six months afterward the bell is rung at the
priest's door. A thickly veiled female comes in, and she has a sad story
to tell. She has been abused, called names in which her religion was not
complimented; and, oh, worst of all, this very day he has thrust her out
of doors. Yes; called Papist and thrown down the stoop by the "splendid
young man" on whose arm she hung so proudly in the heyday of her foolish
fascination!
Some of our young ladies may be educated a little too high for our
average young man. And too many of them look down on honest labor--on
the young mechanic or tradesman--and cast their eyes on some banker's
clerk or broker's accountant, who, with ten or twelve dollars a week,
studies the manners of the millionnaire, frequents the opera, and may
not be above forging his employers' name. Better to cast her lot with
the honest young Catholic tradesman, who attends to his religious
duties, is temperate and steady, forgetting altogether that he neither
dresses like a fop nor poses like a Chesterfield.
If the man be the Catholic, the case is worse. The mother has most
influence with the children. The father worries, drinks, loses his
position, and perhaps dies a victim of intemperate habits.
Farewell, My Home.
Though sunshine dances merrily
On wave and stream and trembling leaf,
Though wild birds wake their minstrelsy,
My heart is full of grief.
No sunshine there; 'tis sad and lone;
No echo to the wild bird's lay;
One only thought--the dear hearth-stone
I loved is quenched to-day.
My heart will break; I cannot bear
To part with scenes so loved, so blest.
My heart will break; I cannot tear
Me from this home of rest.
Yet, though I say farewell, my home,
'Tis but the lips that speak their part;
Believe, wherever I may roam,
I leave with thee my heart.
Broken, yet clinging still to thee,
My home, as to a mother's breast;
Broken, yet loving tenderly
My home, my heart's first rest.
Farewell, my home, farewell, farewell;
One last, one lingering look I take
On each dear scene of hill and dell,
Of mountain bold and silver lake.
Farewell, I leave my bleeding heart
Within thy loved retreats to roam;
Farewell, farewell, too soon we part;
My home, my childhood's home.
Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, Ireland. ULIDIA
* * * * *
ARBITRATION.--The question of arbitration received quite an impetus at
Braddock, Penn., by the selection of Rev. Father Hickey, the well-known
pastor of St. Thomas' church, at that place, as an arbitrator. The
Bessemer Steel Works, an institution employing _six thousand men_, was
shut down on account of the strike. Father Hickey was selected by both
parties, and succeeded in satisfactorily settling the difficulties.
The "Ten-Commandment" Theory.
Sir Wilfred Lawson, writing to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ (a London paper),
says:--"In a recent article on Home Rule, you declared: 'We are all for
Home Rule plus the Ten Commandments. But if the Irish seek Home Rule
expressly to violate the Ten Commandments with impunity, then they shall
not have Home Rule, let them demand it ever so loudly.' I have my doubts
whether it is possible to 'violate the Ten Commandments with impunity,'
but we will not stop to argue that point. But what I want to know is,
how far you intend to carry this 'Ten-Commandment' theory? Is it
applicable to all nations or only to the Irish? If the former, how shall
we stand in England? The Ten Commandments forbid among other things,
murder, stealing and coveting our neighbors' possessions.
"Do we reverence the command, 'Thou shalt do no murder?' Let the
thousands of Zulus, Afghans, Egyptians and Arabs whom we have
slaughtered during the last few years give dumb evidence on that point.
The slaughter of these unfortunate men, whose crime is that they are
worse armed than we are, is duly hailed with public acclamation and with
ecclesiastical thanksgiving!
"Stealing is equally popular. At this very moment the press gushes with
rapturous delight because Lord Dufferin has succeeded in stealing the
territory of the Burmese.
"As to lying, I need say nothing, as we are all fresh from the general
election.
"The Irish will be very ingenuous if they can contrive to violate the
Ten Commandments more successfully than we do in very many of our public
proceedings. The crimes for which we are responsible are, however,
mainly committed against feeble foes who have no means of stating their
case to the world. But the violation of the Eighth Commandment, which is
what you really fear will be endorsed in Ireland, will be committed
against the body of Irish landlords, who, up to a recent period, have
had their own way in that country. The fear is that the tenants will
steal the property of the landlords. In former times the landlords have
stolen the property of the tenants. In either case stealing is most
deplorable, but I do not know whether, in a moral point of view, the
latter is worse than the former. Honest men must hope that both may be
put a stop to. Sir, I hold by the Ten Commandments, and I heartily wish
that all nations and all individuals would pay them practical deference.
All that I maintain at present is, that the fear that the Irish may, on
one point, adopt a different course is not enough to justify us in
refusing them the benefit of self-government. If we are to wait until we
have guarantees for the observance of the Ten Commandments before we
grant political rights to nations, we shall have, I fear, to wait until
doomsday, or, at the very least, until the millennium is upon us.
However, the position taken up in your article may be the right one; but
even in that case we shall speak to our Irish brethren with much more
effect if we can show that we ourselves are observing the precepts which
we are so anxious to enforce upon them."
Bay State Faugh-a-Ballaghs.
IV.
In the last number of the MAGAZINE we left the patriotic Irishmen of the
Twenty-Eighth Regiment in their Camp Cameron, at Cambridge, dreaming of
the heroic deeds of their race on foreign fields; of the proud
chronicles of the valor of the European Irish Brigade at Fontenoy and
Ramillies that illumine the pages of French history; of the saving of
Cremona by the Irish regiments under Count Dillon and Col. Burke; of
Lord Clare's dragoons at Blenheim, which, although victorious to the
arms of John Churchill (great Marlborough), and his Teutonic allies the
defeat of Marchal Tallard, commanding the French and Bavarians, was
relieved of some of its ignominy by the capture of two standards from
the British by these dashing Irish troopers; of the fields of Staffardo
under the exiled Lord Mount Cashel, and many other inspiring military
achievements and successes of these Irishmen who vowed by Erin's
Sunburst:
"That never! No! never! while God gave them life
And they had an arm and a sword for the strife,
That never! No! never! that banner should yield
As long as the heart of a Celt was its shield;
While the hand of a Celt had a weapon to wield,
And his last drop of blood was unshed on the field."
The Twenty-Eighth Regiment was formally mustered into the United States
service December 13th, 1861, with Col. William Monteith commanding. Col.
Murphy, it seems, only assisted in the recruiting of the regiment.
Christmas Day found the command not yet ordered forward, still at duty
in the Cambridge camp. The day was duly honored with religious services
and social interchanges. The boys were provided by loving friends with
the wherewithal to make merry and to toast the sweethearts not yet made
exactly of the class of "The girl I left behind me," although in the
expression of the conviviality of the hour that and kindred airs were
jovially rendered by the rollicking blades who were bound to make the
great festival as merry as possible. In the "privates" as well as the
officers' quarters during the evening, innocent revels were made up of
feasting, the witty jest and repartee, playful jokes, songs and stories
until "taps" reminded all through the orders of the officer of the day,
that the night of Christmas Day had a new significance for these Irish
volunteers. Before another return of it, how many of these fine fellows
were food for powder and worms. A touching and very natural little
incident in one of the tents will not only illustrate the genuineness of
the soldier's heart, but also may be set down as a sample of the kindred
feelings of many comrades who shouldered a musket for the preservation
of the country. When the lights were put out as ordered by the "taps"
patrolling guard, a fine young fellow, who had during the evening been
merriest of the merry, was seated near the opening of the tent, bowed
down in thought, while the fitful flickering of the expiring camp-fire
shone through the handsome, glossy hair that drooped over his temples.
His suppressed sighs brought an older and much attached comrade to him,
who, putting his arms kindly around the youth's manly shoulders said, in
lowered tones:
"Arrah, Jim, ma bouchal, what's the matter with you, at all, at all? Has
all the fun gone out of you?"
"No, no, friend Tim! But this night last year I was with my poor old
mother. I'm all that's left to her now, and when she hears I am in the
war, her poor heart will break, and if it is ever my luck to return to
Ireland it will, I'm afraid, be to visit her grave in Kilmurry
church-yard."
"Oh, the _wirrasthru_, and that's the pity av it, Jim. But don't you be
thinking of these things and be sad, or faix's, you'll make a fool of a
soldier of me with thinking of my sweet Kitty and the two childer.
They'll be safe, at any rate for awhile, until we can put in a few good
blows for the glorious country that has given us freedom and a home.
Jim, me boy, our enemy, England, is at the bottom of this bad business.
You know the ould song, 'She comes to divide, to dishonor;' but a tyrant
she'll never reign here while we have a hand to lift and"--(Tim just
then kindly slapping his chum on the back) "a heart to dare her!--and"--
The fervor of Tim aroused comrades in the tent, who gave signs of
approval.
"And, perhaps when we have finished this business, as Secretary Seward
says, in three months we'll have a nice training to go across the ocean
with our arms, and wollop John Bull out of the dear old land."
"Good boy, Tim! good boy;" were the tokens of approval that came
vociferously from all parts of the tent, while at the same time the
double quick tread of the patrol guard, preceded by the flash of the
corporal's lantern was hastily bearing down on the devoted quarters to
stop this untimely ebullition of patriotic fervor, and noticing which
Bill and Tim grasped hands fervently, but hastily, in approval of the
sentiments of the latter. When the corporal looked into the tent the
dozen soldiers it contained were all rolled up snugly in their blankets
and sound asleep, apparently. 'Twas to the noise, not to the patriotism
to which the corporal objected, fearing censure or worse from his
superiors. Had he been off duty, no man likely would have more heartily
re-echoed Tim H----'s patriotic expressions.
Days and weeks passed. In the meantime the officers and men, through
military routine, were perfecting themselves; but for heavier work than
was anticipated.
At last the call came, and amid heart-breaking farewells from wives,
sweethearts and children, and the cheers of the throngs assembled to bid
the gallant fellows good-by, the Twenty-Eighth Regiment left Boston,
January 11, 1862, and went to Fort Columbus, New York harbor, from which
place on February 14, it was sent to Hilton Head, South Carolina. The
regiment was at a place called Darofusky Island when Col. Monteith was
ordered off with the right wing to duty, on Tybee Island, Georgia. It
was here that Col. Monteith did his last service with the Twenty-Eighth.
The whole command was subsequently transferred to James Island, at which
place in an attack on Fort Johnson, the regiment lost fourteen killed
and fifty-two wounded. Gen. Benham, U. S. A., paid a high compliment to
the command for the handsome manner in which they joined in the assault
on the fort June 16. On July 20, the regiment was assigned to Gen.
Burnside's Ninth Corps, and after being a while at Newport News,
Virginia, landed at Aquia Creek, on the Potomac River, August 6th, to
participate in the campaign of Gen. John Pope, "headquarters in the
saddle," on the line of the Rappahannock, and which terminated so
disastrously to our arms at the second Bull Run battle. Major Geo. W.
Cartwright commanded the regiment in this severe engagement and was
wounded. Eighteen men were killed and one hundred and nine wounded, with
eight missing. This was August 30th. On September 1st at Chantilly,
memorable by the death of that daring soldier, Gen. Phil Kearney, the
Faugh-a-Ballaghs lost fifteen killed, with eighty-four wounded, and
casualties. We find the regiment under heavy fire at South Mountain, and
at Antietam's great battle, it crossed the creek at the stone bridge,
charged the enemy's right, located in a most advantageous position, and
drove them, sustaining a loss of twelve killed and thirty-six wounded.
About one month after this, Col. Richard Byrnes,[1] on October 18,
assumed command of the Twenty-Eighth at Nolan's Ferry, and on the 23d of
November, it was transferred to the Second Corps and assigned to
Meagher's Irish Brigade, which was in the division commanded by that
much lamented and knightly soldier, Winfield Scott Hancock. At the close
of the year 1862, some two weeks after fateful Fredericksburg, the
reckoning showed that the Faugh-a-Ballaghs lost five hundred and twenty
in killed, wounded and missing. The second Christmas Day for the boys of
the Twenty-Eighth brought many sad reminders. Poor Kitty H---- and her
babies had to mourn the loss of her brave Tim, the Irish patriot of Camp
Cameron, and the poor heart-broken mother of his young chum drooped and
pined in Ireland for the son who was the solace of her hope and heart.
She had the premonition of his death, at the battle of Chantilly, so
weirdly given in Gerald Griffin's "wake." She saw the blood-red cloud in
the west far out on the Atlantic's tide and while--
"Her door flings wide, loud moans the gale;
Wild fear her bosom fills;
It is, it is the Banshee's wail
Over the darkened hills!
Ululah! Ululah!
A youth to Kiffiehera's taken
That never will return again."
The Christmas of 1862 in the camps of the Union Army on the left bank of
the Rappahannock, confronting Fredericksburg, was rather wanting in good
cheer, although so near the Potomac, and it was only until Gen. Hooker
superseded Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac, that rations
of potatoes could be had to serve out to the half-famished troops. What
a delightful supplement to a soldier's mess is even one good potato and
a piece of onion, when for weeks his only change has been from hard tack
with fat pork to pork (fat) and hard tack! The regiment performed the
usual duties of beleaguers when St. Patrick's Day got round to them in
the camps of the Irish brigade at Falmouth, Va. If not very active
participants with their New York fellow soldiers in the sports of the
steeple chase, race-course, and other parts of the programme, yet the
boys of the Twenty-Eighth could not have failed to enjoy with enthusiasm
the hilarity and frolics of that occasion. At least ten thousand had
assembled from the camps cantoned in winter quarters for miles between
the Potomac and along the Rappahannock Rivers. The grand stand contained
the commander-in-chief and other distinguished generals and officers,
and a number of ladies. Besides Hooker, the commander, there were
conspicuously present Generals Slocum, Hancock, Charles Griffin,
Sedgwick, Franklin and others. Together with the races of the
thoroughbreds, there were also long prize lists, programmes of
amusements, such as catching a soaped pig, and competing for money, and
mastery at dancing Irish jigs, reels and hornpipes. An idea may be had
of the provision made for the entertainment of the invited guests from
the following summary of the bill of fare which the quartermaster of the
brigade brought with him from Washington for the occasion: The side of
an ox roasted, thirty-five hams, a whole pig stuffed with boiled
turkeys, and "an unlimited number of chickens, ducks and small game. The
drinking materials comprised eight baskets of champagne, ten gallons of
rum and twenty-two of whiskey." Thus sayeth the record. All of this was
served inside a beautiful bower capable of containing several hundred
persons. The festivities were duly preceded with the religious
ceremonies of the great holyday of St. Patrick's feast, and closed by a
grand entertainment at night, which included theatricals, recitations
and olios of song and sentiment.
It is needless to add that the visiting generals, whose duties admitted
of their remaining, entered into the humor of the hour, and toasts went
freely round, intermingled with flowing bumpers and loving glances at
the fair visitors, who graced the occasion by their presence.
We afterwards trace the heroic work of our Massachusetts
Faugh-a-Ballaghs in their valiant services at Chancellorsville; at famed
Gettysburg, where the regiment lost nearly one-half its force in killed
and casualties; at Mine Run, the Wilderness, Po River, Spottsylvania,
Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Deep Bottom, and at Reams' Station, the latter
part of August, 1864.
The offices and men whose term did not expire with that of their
regiment in December, 1864, were consolidated into a battalion under the
command of Major James Fleming (of North End, Boston), and at the close
of hostilities were mustered out with the remnant of the Irish brigade.
The originals were ordered to Boston, December 20, to be mustered out,
and numbered only twenty-one enlisted men and one officer, Col.
Cartwright. No better close can be made to this article than to quote
from "Conyngham's Concise History," printed in 1867, the record of this
famous Irish-American regiment:--
"The aggregate number joined for duty since the organization was about
1,703; the list of killed and casualties numbered 1,133, a fearfully
heavy proportion. During the Wilderness campaign, but one officer
escaped unhurt in the fearful havoc. Who shall say, in view of this
record of the devotion of Irishmen to the cause of freedom in this their
adopted country, that they are not entitled to the sympathy, aid and
support of this nation, in the endeavor to free their own beloved,
down-trodden land?"
America should never forget it.
STUDENT.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The scope of this article does not admit of much extension on
account of the great demand on the space of the MAGAZINE, but inasmuch
as Col. Byrnes was the most conspicuous officer of any who had to do
with this gallant regiment, a few words concerning his personal career
must seem appropriate. Richard Byrnes had served fifteen years in the
regular army, reaching the commission of first lieutenant in the
cavalry, when he was appointed to the command of the Twenty-Eighth
Massachusetts Volunteers. He was assigned to it by orders in October,
1862. He perfected its discipline with soldierly skill, led it in battle
with the valor of a true Irish-American hero, and commanded the respect
and admiration of his troops. While in command of the Irish brigade at
the battle of Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864, he was mortally wounded and
died at Washington, June 12. His wife soothed his dying moments. He was
interred with due military honors in a cemetery near his home in Jersey
City. The likeness of Col. Byrnes, published in the March number of this
MAGAZINE, is pronounced a most excellent one. The copy was procured from
Col. Jeremiah W. Coveney, of Cambridge, who served with distinction and
honor in the Faugh-a-Ballaghs with the regular army hero.
Drunkenness in Old Times.
The offence of drunkenness was a source of great perplexity to the
ancients, who tried every possible way of dealing with it. If none
succeeded, it was probably because they did not begin early enough by
intercepting some of the ways and means by which the insidious vice is
incited and propagated. Severe treatment was often tried to little
effect. The Locrians, under Zaleucus, made it a capital offence to drink
wine if it was not mixed with water; even an invalid was not exempted
from punishment, unless by the order of a physician. Pittacus, of
Mitylene, made a law that he who when drunk, committed any offence,
would suffer double the punishment which he would do if sober; and
Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch applauded this as the height of wisdom.
The Roman censors could expel a Senator for being drunk and take away
his horse; Mahomet ordered drunkards to be bastinadoed with eighty
blows. Other nations thought of limiting the quantity to be drunk at one
time or at one sitting. The Egyptians put some limit, though what is not
stated. The Spartans, also had some limit. The Arabians fixed the
quantity at twelve glasses a man; but the size of the glass was,
unfortunately, not clearly defined by the historians. The Anglo-Saxons
went no further than to order silver nails to be fixed on the side of
the drinking cups, so that each might know the proper measure. And it is
said that this was done by King Edgar after noticing the drunken habits
of the Danes. Lycurgus, of Thrace, went to the root of the matter by
ordering the vines to be cut down. His conduct was imitated in 704 by
Terbulus of Bulgaria. The Suevi prohibited wine to be imported. And the
Spartans tried to turn the vice into contempt by systematically making
their slaves drunk once a year to show their children how foolish and
contemptible men looked in that state. Drunkenness was deemed much more
vicious in some classes of persons than in others. The ancient Indians
held it lawful to kill a king when he was drunk. The Athenians made it a
capital offence for a magistrate to be drunk, and Charlemagne imitated
this by a law that judges on the bench and pleaders should do their
business fasting. The Carthagenians prohibited magistrates, governors,
soldiers and servants, from any drinking. The Scots, in the second
century, made it a capital offence for magistrates to be drunk: and
Constantine II. of Scotland, 1761, extended a like punishment to young
people. Again, some laws have absolutely prohibited wine from being
drunk by women; the Massillians so decreed. The Romans did the same, and
extended the prohibition to young men under thirty. And the husband and
the wife's relations could scourge the wife for offending, and the
husband himself might scourge her to death.
The Paschal Candle.
From the French of Rev. Michael Romanet, Augustinian, by Th. Xr. K.
From Septuagesima to Holy Saturday, everything in the liturgy breathes a
profound sadness. During those seventy days, like the captives of
Babylon, the sacred spouse clad in mourning garments, no longer sings
her glad canticles; she, too, has hung her harp on the willows beside
the brook. The song of the angels is heard no more at Mass except on the
festivals of the saints, instead of that loud cry of gladness, the
divine _Alleluia_, there is naught but a severe and _dragging_ melody;
and, on Sunday, the night office loses its magnificent Ambrosian hymn.
The closer the day of her spouse's death approaches, the deeper the
Church is plunged in grief.
On Good Friday, violet does not suffice for her moaning: she covers
herself with vestments of black.
But, behold, suddenly, on Saturday morning, while the Christ is still in
the tomb, she seems to forget her mourning. The aspect of grief of the
eve is gone. See the deacon after the blessing of the new fire. He comes
forward, wearing the white dalmatic, the garb of joy, with a triangular
candle in his hand, the image of the Trinity, and sings three times,
"Lumen Christi"--a triple proclamation of the divinity of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He then goes towards the _Paschal Candle_.
Why, then, these emblems of joy in presence of this torch? What are the
memories it brings to the heart of the Spouse thus to make gladness take
the place of grief? Let us ask the author of the blessing of the
Paschal Candle, St. Ambrose, for the explanation of this mysterious
symbol. Let us question, too, the faith of the Middle Ages. Let us
listen to the symbolic language so familiar to our fathers, and with
which we are so little acquainted. Perhaps, even, we have sometimes
surprised a smile on our lips at the sight of that candle, and of
certain other exterior practices of worship, whose significance we did
not understand; for, in our days, how great, generally, is the ignorance
of the faithful in the matter of liturgy and symbolism. Now, we see how
magnificent is the meaning of that ceremony of the blessing of the
Paschal Candle which was extended by St. Zozimus in the middle of the
fifth century to the other churches of the city of Rome, although
baptism was conferred only at the baptistery of Lutran, and later on by
other popes to all the churches, even to those which have no baptismal
fonts: so holy and salutary did the sovereign pontiffs consider the
impressions which this great rite should produce.
In this candle, superior in weight and in size to the candles which are
generally lighted on other solemnities, in this unique candle, the
princes of liturgy show us the image of Jesus Christ, a precious symbol
which is impressed on it by the virtue of the blessing.
This blessing is reserved for the deacon. To him belongs this
prerogative when the priest, and even when the bishop is present. This
is because the deacon represents on this occasion the holy women, who,
notwithstanding the inferiority of their sex, were commissioned by the
Saviour to announce His resurrection to His Apostles, and that, by a
disposition of Providence, woman, in the first days of the world, sent
by the demon to man, brought him death; woman was to be sent by the
risen Christ to man to proclaim life to him. The Apostles were still in
tears, when, in transports of gladness, Mary Magdalene and her
companions announced to them the mystery of the resurrection. The priest
and the bishop, too, still wear the color of mourning, when, clothed in
white, the deacon freely and loudly chants the beautiful prayers of the
blessing, and is thus the herald of the resurrection's joys.
In consequence of the deacon's blessing, the candle then becomes the
symbol of Christ. "Before it is lighted," says Dom Guéranger, summing up
on this point the interpretations of the olden liturgists, "its type is
in the pillar of cloud which covered the departure of the Hebrews as
they went forth from Egypt; under this first form, it is a figure of
Christ in the tomb, inanimate, lifeless. When it will have received the
flame, we shall see in it the pillar of fire which gave light to the
holy people's feet, and also the figure of Christ, all radiant with the
splendors of His resurrection."
This majestic symbolism is demonstrated by the prayers of the blessing.
And first those cries of gladness, those outbursts of joy, and that
lavishness of praise on the part of the deacon, as he stands before that
waxen pillar, we now understand, knowing that _He_ whom the candle
represents, the Divine Light, is the one to whom they are addressed.
The deacon begins with a lyric exordium. Let those who understand Latin
read in the text itself that magnificent prayer of the _Exultet_; the
translation cannot entirely reproduce its beauties:
"Let now the heavenly troop of angels rejoice; let the divine mysteries
be joyfully celebrated, and let the sacred trumpet proclaim the victory
of so great a king. Let the earth rejoice, illumined with such
resplendent rays, and let the whole world feel that the darkness is
driven from it by the splendor of the Eternal King. Let the church, our
mother, also rejoice, being adorned by the rays of so great a light, and
let this temple resound with the joyful acclamations of the people.
Wherefore, most beloved brethren, who are now present at the admirable
brightness of this holy light, I beseech you to invoke with me the mercy
of the Almighty God. That He, who hath been pleased without merit of
mine, to admit me into the number of the Levites will, by an infusion of
His light upon me enable me to celebrate worthily the praise of this
taper."
No, this candle would not merit as much praise if it did not represent
the Christ. The Son alone, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, is
deserving of praise.
"It is truly meet and just to proclaim with all the affections of our
heart and soul, and with the sound of our voice, the invisible God the
Father Almighty, and His only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who
paid for us to His eternal Father the debt of Adam, and by His own blood
cancelled the guilt contracted by original sin."
As though to give a reason for his songs of glory, the deacon hastens to
proclaim aloud the coming of Easter: "For this is the Paschal solemnity
in which the true Lamb is slain, by whose blood the doors of the
faithful are consecrated." The Hebrews celebrated the ancient Pasch at
night. Standing, with loins girded and staves in their hands, they
awaited the passing of the Lord. This expectation at night the faithful
renew on Holy Saturday. St. Jerome tells us in fact that it was an
Apostolic custom maintained by the Christians of his day to remain
united in prayer until midnight, awaiting the coming of Christ. But
another mystery is included in that night, and, in its mute language,
the candle unites with the deacon in reminding us that in the Old
Testament there was another night and another pillar. The Lord, it is
said in Exodus, went before the sons of Israel, when they went forth
from Egypt, by day in a pillar of cloud, to show them the way, and
during the night in a pillar of fire, to be their guide both day and
night. Now, this pillar of cloud like the pillar of wax still unlighted,
is the humanity of Christ, the cloud in which Divine wisdom has placed
its throne: _thronus meus_ in _columna nubis_ (Eccl. xxiv.). But this
candle will soon be lighted by contact with the new fire, as the
humanity of Jesus Christ will recover life by the approach of the fire
of the Divinity. Then, indeed, is this a night of exultation for the
Church when she sees coming to her, triumphant over death, the Divine
Spouse whom she bewailed but recently, buried in the darkness of the
tomb. So with what complacency does not the deacon celebrate this
thousand-fold happy night. He hails it as the dawn of the glorious
mystery of the Resurrection:
"This is the night in which Thou formerly broughtest forth our
forefathers, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, leading them dry-foot
through the Red Sea. This, then, is the night which dissipated the
darkness of sin by the light of the pillar. This is the night which now
delivers all over the world those that believe in Christ from the vices
of the world and the darkness of sin, restores them to grace, and
clothes them with sanctity." This is the night in which Christ broke the
chains of death, and ascended conqueror from hell. Naught would it have
profited us to be born, if we were not redeemed.
"O how admirable is Thy goodness towards us! O how inestimable is Thy
excess of love! To redeem the slave, Thou hast given up the Son. O truly
necessary sin of Adam, which the death of Christ has blotted out! O
happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer!
"O truly blessed night! which alone deserved to know the time and hour
when Christ rose again from hell. This is the night of which it is
written: And the night shall be as light as day; and the night shineth
upon me in my pleasures. Therefore the sanctification of this night
blots out crimes, washes away sins, and restores innocence to the
fallen, and joy to the sorrowful. It banishes enmities, produces
concord, and humbles empires."
The deacon then fixes in the candle, in the form of a cross, the five
grains of incense which were previously blessed at the same time as the
new fire, a visible image of the five wounds made in the flesh of the
Crucified. Liturgists also show us in this incense the perfumes and
spices which Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome
bought to embalm Jesus (St. Mark xvi. 1).
"Receive, O holy Father, receive on this night the evening sacrifice
which Thy holy Church, by the hands of her ministers, presents to Thee,
in this solemn oblation of this wax candle, made out of the labor of
bees."
The Passion was truly the evening sacrifice, according to David's
prophetic word, _Elevatio manuum mearum sacrificium vespertinum_ (Ps.
cxl. 3), because it was in the evening of the world, as at the decline
of the day, that the Divine Victim expired, uttering a loud cry to
heaven, after having declared that all was consummated!
It was in the evening, too, _ad auram post meridiem_ (Gen. iii. 8), at
the hour when a gentle wind arises, when through the earthly paradise
resounded the voice of the Lord: "Adam, where art thou?" At the very
hour when He found Adam guilty of disobedience, four thousand years
afterwards the Father called His Son to Him and found the new Adam
obedient, and obedient even to the death of the cross.
"_Sed jam nunc columnæ hujus præconia novimus_," the deacon continues to
sing. "And now we know the excellence of this pillar, which the
sparkling fire lights for the honor of God."
The sacred minister then lights the Paschal Candle. He lights it with
the fire which was recently struck from the stone, that is, from Christ,
the Corner-Stone who, beaten by the rods of the scourging, produced in
us the divine spark of love pre-eminent of the Holy Ghost. This is the
fire which the Son came to bring upon the earth with the desire to see
it enkindle the world. Lighted and fed by the wood of the cross, its
divine flame is fanned by the breath of the Holy Ghost. This new fire
is also the new doctrine of the Saviour, the _mandatum novum_ of which
St. John speaks.
The candle thus lighted is thenceforth the figure of the risen Saviour,
as we have said. The humanity of Christ lay, too, extinguished in the
shades of death; but, behold, beneath the burning breath of the
divinity, it has suddenly recovered life, and Jesus emerges from the
night of the tomb all resplendent with light.
The image of the Son is now revealed to us more completely in the
symbolism of the candle. According to the interpretations of the
liturgists, the three elements of the candle are not without meaning.
The wax formed from the juice of the flowers by the bees, which
antiquity always regarded as the type of virginity, signifies the
virginal flesh of the Incarnate Word. Mary, without ceasing to be a
virgin, Mary, the industrious bee, says the Abbot Rupert, has brought us
forth a God in the flesh, like honey in wax: _Maria nobis puerum in
carne quasi mel in cera protulit_.[2] St. Anselm teaches us to behold in
the wick, which is in the inside of the candle, the soul of Jesus
Christ, and His Divinity in the light which burns in the upper portion.
If the candle is the image of the Word made flesh, it was with reason
that on it was inscribed the current year counting from the Incarnation.
This inscription, of which the ancient liturgists tell, indicates that
Christ is like the ancient year, the great year, the year full of days,
of which the twelve apostles are the months; the elect, the days; and
the neophytes, the hours. We see in the Abbot Rupert that this
inscription was engraved in the wax itself in the form of a cross, and
Durand of Mende speaks of a tablet which was fastened against the candle
as Pilate's inscription was placed on the cross: _Jesus Nazarenus Rex
Judæorum_.
The Paschal Candle will serve to light the neophytes to the holy waters
of baptism, as the pillar of fire guided the Hebrews on their
going-forth from Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea to the Promised
Land; a twofold light, which is for us the emblem of "that light which
enlighteneth every man coming into this world," of Him who is the way,
the truth, and the life, and who, after having delivered them from the
bondage of Satan, after having led them through the waters of baptism,
guides His people to the land of the living, the true Promised Land.
An ancient author remarks that it was not at the first or at the second
stopping-place of the Hebrews, but at the third, that the pillar went
before them, and he applies this triple encampment of Ramatha, Segor,
and Ethan to the three days of the Passion, the sepulture, and the
resurrection. Ramatha (_commotio tineæ_) well represents the day of the
Passion, when the Jews, after having torn the flesh of Jesus, like the
moth, attack His garments, His seamless tunic, endeavoring to rend the
unity of the Church. But death was the road by which He passed from
Ramatha to Segor (_tabernaculum_), that is, into the tent of the tomb.
The tent is for the soldier: like an indomitable warrior, Christ in the
tomb despoils His vanquished foe. Finally, the day of the resurrection
was the day of arrival in Ethan (_firmum vel signa ejus_), because,
thenceforth, death has no sting for Him, _mors ultra non dominabitur
illi_, and also because it was as a sign for the Apostles when He
appeared to them radiant after the night of the tomb, illumining them
like the pillar of fire.
But let us return to the deacon's prayers. He thus continues the chant
which he had broken off to light the candle:--
"This fire, though now divided, suffers no loss from the communication
of its light, because it is fed by the melted wax, produced by the bee,
to make this precious taper."
Then the lamps hanging in the church are lighted. This lighting takes
place only some time after that of the Paschal Candle, because the
knowledge of the resurrection was diffused only successively. Finally,
the deacon concludes the blessing in these words:
"O truly blessed light! which plundered the Egyptians and enriched the
Hebrews. A night in which heaven is united to earth, and the Divine to
the human! We beseech Thee, therefore, O Lord, let this candle,
consecrated to the honor of Thy name, continue burning to dissipate the
darkness of this night, and, being accepted as a sweet odor, be united
with the celestial lights. Let the morning-star find it burning. That
Morning-star, I mean, which never sets; which, being returned from hell,
shone with brightness on mankind."
By the mouth of the deacon, therefore, the Church praises in the Paschal
Candle the Christ-light. Borne before the catechumens, this candle
denotes that it is by Christ Jesus their darkness is dispelled. So, too,
it is from the divine torch of His doctrine that we all must get light.
We are invited to it by that other ceremony in use in certain churches,
according to the testimony of many ancient liturgists. Durand of Mende
and the Abbot Rupert tell us that a second candle was lighted from the
Paschal Candle, and from it all the others were lighted. Christ is the
light above all others; but He projects His rays upon the Apostles to
reflect from them upon the whole Church. St. Augustine tells us of that
twofold lighting of the Church by Christ and the Apostles when he
explains to Januarius why the faithful should receive communion fasting,
although the Apostles received after the Last Supper or evening meal:
_Namque Salvator, quo vehementius commendarit mysterii illius
altitudinem, ultimum hoc infigeri voluit cordibus et memoriæ
discipulorum a quibus ad passionem digressurus erat; et ideo non
præcipit quo deinceps ordine sumeretur, ut apostoli per quos ecclesias
dispositurus erat servarent hunc locum_. The Saviour, the more to fill
the minds and hearts of His disciples with the greatness of this
sacrament, would have it the last act which he was to perform with them
before separating from them for His Passion. He Himself did not arrange
the order thenceforth to be followed in the reception of that sacrament.
Why? _In order to leave that question to the Apostles._ Hence he calls
them the light of the world, as He calls Himself: _Ego sum lux mundi.
Vos estis lux mundi_.
Finally to the right and the left of these two candles were sometimes
placed two others lighted from the Paschal Candle. Let us here admire
the saints of the Old and the New Testament. They all, in fact, received
the divine irradiations of the Sun of Justice, the former through the
doctrine of the Prophets, the latter through that of the Apostles.
Such is the significance of the blessing of the Paschal Candle, in which
the Church delights to display all the pomp of her inspired language!
What a lesson in this ceremony! a lesson at which some, perhaps, will be
greatly astonished, because they do not know that the ceremonies of the
liturgy are a continual preaching.
_Jam columnæ hujus præconia novimus_, yes, we now know what that pillar
of wax, itself the image of the pillar of old, denotes: it is Jesus
Christ, Jesus Christ everywhere. He is the true pillar, a pillar of
cloud when, through the Holy Ghost, He protects us with His shadow
against the devouring fire of the passions, and, at the same time, a
pillar of fire, because His doctrine is the light which enlightens us
through the darkness of the light of this world.
Now, for the true Catholic, Jesus Christ lives in the Roman Pontiff. Our
Holy Father the Pope is the depositary of the light of truth. Never must
we lose sight of that bright beacon; but above all in the hour of storm,
when only fitful gleams are seen, it is for every Catholic a strict duty
to turn towards Him, under penalty of sinking in the darkness without
being able to find the haven.
This lesson, especially in this Paschal time, may be applied to all,
although in degrees proportioned to the condition of each. And who has
not more or less need of approaching God? Woe to him who will not have
the beneficent shadows and the salutary lights of the Christ! he will
perish in his infirmity. Thinking that he can see far from the light, he
will remain in darkness, while by drawing nigh to Him the blind will
recover sight. _Cur non ergo et nobis Christus columna?_ let us say with
St. Augustine, _Quia et rectus et firmus, et fulciens infirmitatem
nostram per noctem lucens, et per diem non lucens, et ut qui non vident
videant, et qui vident cæcci fiant!_ (S. Aug., in libro contra Faustum,
xii.)
[This will be followed by the translation of an article on
the Agnus Dei, made from the wax of the Paschal Candle.]
* * * * *
Mgr. Ridel, the holy missionary bishop of Corea, lately gone to receive
the reward of long privation and cruel sufferings endured for the faith,
was indebted to his pious mother for his vocation as a missionary. One
day, whilst he was yet a mere child playing at her knee, he saw on the
table a beautiful blue book,--a volume of the "Annals of the Propagation
of the Faith."--"Mamma," said the child, "are there any stories in that
book?"--"Yes, my child: it is full of stories about missionaries."--"What
are missionaries, mamma?"--"Missionaries are priests who go to far-off
countries, amongst savage races, to teach them how to save their
souls."--"Then I am going to be a missionary, too, and tell them how to
get to heaven with us."
FOOTNOTE:
[2] _Ruperti abbatis, Duitiensis, de divinis officiis._ (L. C. VI., c.
29.)
Our New Cardinal.
[Illustration: CARDINAL GIBBONS.]
The _Catholic Review_:--The Archbishop of New York, on Wednesday
morning, February 10th, received a cablegram from Rome, announcing that
most Rev. James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, would be created
Cardinal at the next Consistory. The _biglietto_, or official letter,
from the Cardinal Secretary of State announcing the creation of his
Eminence, was mailed to him on February 8th. This cablegram, although
not official, is authentic. It is not unexpected. It certainly is no
surprise to those who were privileged to hear the graceful address in
which the senior of the American hierarchy, the venerable Archbishop
Kenrick, of St. Louis, thanked Archbishop Gibbons for the courtesy,
patience and industry with which, as Apostolic-Delegate, he conducted
and brought to a close the affairs of the Plenary Council at Baltimore.
In chosen and significant words, such as one in Archbishop Kenrick's
position might use in anticipating an expected act of the Supreme
Pontiff, he predicted the future and increased honors of the
Apostolic-Delegate, and in such a way as to indicate that they would be
most grateful to his brothers and associates. Nor are they less a matter
of pride and congratulation to the entire body of the faithful. No doubt
we are all anxious to see many of the other great cities of America
honored, as are smaller and less vigorous dioceses in Europe; and with
increasing years, most likely these honors will come. No doubt the
captious are sometimes found to say that Baltimore, first in years, is
very far behind in works, in the great race of Catholic American
progress. But there has never been found one so unjust as to deny to the
gentle, zealous and apostolic Archbishop of Baltimore all the virtues
that bring honor to the chief priesthood of the Church. One little work
of his, "The Faith of Our Fathers," will perpetuate his apostolate as
long as Protestantism exists. His has been indeed a democratic
promotion. From the humblest and least important of the missionary
vicariates of the Church in America, he has steadily moved onward,
growing with every step in mental, moral and ecclesiastical grandeur,
until he stood at the head of the episcopate of America. His
stepping-stone was, always and only, his unquestionable merit and
services. Can any sect show as fair a field for merit as the new
Cardinal's career proves is to be found in the Church of Christ? It
opens and keeps open to intellect and virtue the path to its highest
honors. The transcendent honor of the Roman Cardinalate, which thus
comes once more to an American Archbishop, will be prized by his
Eminence's countrymen of all religious faiths, as giving them a share in
the glories of a Council that has never been more illustrious than in
those days, when Leo XIII. has opened its doors to the first and leading
minds of the Universal Church, without consideration of distance, race
or continent.
His Birth, Education, etc.
Most Reverend James Gibbons was born in Baltimore, in 1836. His parents
were Irish, and, when a boy, he was taken to Ireland, where he remained
several years. At the age of seventeen he returned to America, and soon
after entered St. Charles' College, near Ellicott City, Md., to commence
his studies for the priesthood. Here he remained four years, and was
then transferred to St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, to pursue the study
of theology and philosophy. He was ordained in 1860, his first mission
being the obscure parish of St. Bridget's, Baltimore. Archbishop
Spalding soon discovered his merits, and he transferred him to the
Cathedral and made him his secretary. His rise was rapid and brilliant.
In 1868 he was made Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina, with the rank of
bishop, and in a few years he was elected to the See of Richmond. When
Archbishop Bayley died, in 1875, Right Rev. Dr. Gibbons was appointed
his successor in the See of Baltimore. Thus, at the early age of forty
he had attained the highest ecclesiastical position in the United
States, for Baltimore is the oldest, and, therefore, the primary
American See. To it belongs the highest dignity in the American
Catholic Church. The archbishops of Baltimore have always been men of
distinguished ability. The immediate predecessor of Archbishop Gibbons
was James Roosevelt Bayley, a member of a prominent New York family. He
was the nephew of Mother Seton, the founder of the Order of Sisters of
Charity in the United States. His predecessor was the learned Spalding,
whose elegant voice was conspicuous in the great Council of the Vatican.
Some Incidents of His Life.
While Archbishop Gibbons presided over the small country parish of
Elkridge, near Baltimore, an incident occurred which gave him a large
measure of local fame. Small-pox broke out in the village, and a general
exodus immediately followed. An old negro man at the point of death was
deserted by his family, who left him neither food nor medicines. Fr.
Gibbons heard of the case, hastened to the bedside of the dying man and
remained with him to the last. Nor was this all. No one could be
procured to carry the corpse to the grave. Fr. Gibbons, seeing no other
alternative, determined to act as undertaker as well as minister; so,
having obtained a coffin, he placed the body therein, dragged it as well
as he could to the grave, performed the funeral rites and buried it. His
career as vicar of North Carolina was filled with occurrences equally as
noteworthy, but of a humorous rather than pathetic nature. He still
talks with zest of his all-day rides on horseback through the North
Carolina pines; of nights spent in the flea-covered log cabins of the
negroes, whose best accommodations consisted of a corn-husk bed, meals
spread out on the floor and gourds for drinking cups; of savory dinners
of fat bacon and hoe cakes, and of other accompaniments of missionary
life among the negroes of that region.
There is one incident in the primate's life which he seldom touches on,
but which caused immense amusement at the time it occurred. While Bishop
of Richmond, he was the defendant in a suit relating to some church
property. When he was called to the witness stand, the plaintiff's
lawyer, a distinguished legal luminary, who still shines in Richmond,
after vain endeavors to involve the witness in contradictions, struck on
a plan which he thought would annoy the bishop. He thereupon questioned
Mr. Gibbons' right to the title of bishop of Richmond, and called on him
to prove his claim to the office. The defendant's lawyer, of course,
objected to this as irrelevant; but the bishop, with a quiet smile, said
he would comply with the request if allowed a half-hour to produce the
necessary papers. This was allowed. The bishop left the court room and
returned in twenty minutes with a document which he proceeded to read
with great solemnity, all the more solemn as the paper was all in Latin.
The plaintiff's lawyer pretended to take notes industriously, bowing his
head once in a while as if in acquiescence, and seeming perfectly
convinced at the end. When the reading was finished, he announced that
the Papal Bulls just read were entirely satisfactory, at the same time
apologizing for his expressed doubts. The next day it leaked out that
the bishop, unable to find the Papal Bulls at his residence, had
brought to court and read a Latin essay on Pope Leo the Great, written
by one of the ecclesiastical students, and forwarded by the president of
the college as a specimen of the young man's skill in Latin composition.
That smart lawyer has not heard the last of it yet.
As an Author and Orator.
Archbishop Gibbons is the author of one volume, "The Faith of Our
Fathers," which has met with a larger sale than any Catholic book
published in America. More than one hundred thousand copies have been
sold since its publication in 1877. The work is made up chiefly of
simple sermons on the doctrines of Catholicity, delivered while on the
mission in North Carolina.
As a pulpit orator, the primate has many superiors in the hierarchy. He
has neither an impressive presence nor a good voice. He seldom attempts
elaborate discourses. He is at his best in simple appeals to the heart,
and to this fact is due his missionary success. Some of his
fellow-bishops may have greater power to convince the intellect, but
none can touch the feelings more deeply.
The Irish as Conspirators.
In a recent issue of the _Nineteenth Century_, a magazine published in
London, is an article by Mr. Arnold Forster, in which the following
statement was used:
"Irishmen were at the bottom of the Mollie Maguire conspiracy in
Pennsylvania; Irishmen plotted against the officials and the Chinese in
San Francisco; the Tammany ring was largely supported by Irish citizens,
and even the Boston police were tampered with by Irish politicians of
that city." To controvert this view, and particularly the reflection
upon the Boston police, the _Republic_ newspaper of Boston sent a
circular letter to a number of prominent men, requesting such denials as
they might see fit to furnish. Governor Robinson writes: "I have already
taken occasion to contradict emphatically an assertion said to have been
recently made in England that the act to establish a board of police for
the city of Boston, passed by the legislature of Massachusetts in 1885,
was necessitated by the threatening and disorderly character and conduct
of the Irish people in Boston. In all the conferences, arguments and
declarations about that act, before its introduction, or while it was
under consideration in the legislature, no intimation of that kind ever
reached me, and I do not believe it to be true. Nor is there, in my
opinion, any more foundation for the statement to which you call my
attention. Sharp political controversies arise; but happily no question
of race or nationality aggravates the differences among our people upon
public matters."
Charles A. Dana, editor of _New York Sun_, says: "I cannot now recall
the name of a single citizen of Irish birth who was known as a supporter
of the Tammany ring; and it is notorious that the head of it, the late
William M. Tweed, was a full-blooded American. At the same time, one of
the most conspicuous of its adversaries, the late Charles O'Conor,
though born in this country, was thoroughly Irish in heart and sympathy.
Another distinguished enemy of Mr. Tweed's ring was his successor as the
leader of Tammany Hall, the present Mr. John Kelly, a man of Irish
descent, and a more determined foe of every kind of corruption and of
public dishonesty has never lived."
Gen. Butler thus replies: "I can certainly give you the most thorough
denial of the slanders upon the Irishmen by the article of the
_Nineteenth Century_. I have known the Irish-Americans intimately ever
since my boyhood, and they are as good, loyal people as any in the
world, and as soldiers among the very best."
Congressman Curtin, of Pennsylvania, speaks relative to the Mollie
Maguire conspiracy as follows: "I can speak relative to the Mollie
Maguire conspiracy in Pennsylvania. Some of the men engaged in it were
Irishmen; some were not. The race to which the criminals belonged had
nothing to do with the crime or its punishment; nor should the fact of
the existence of the Mollie Maguire conspiracy, which was a crime
perpetrated by citizens of Pennsylvania against the good order of that
Commonwealth and punished by its officers, have any effect on the
aspirations of the Irish people, who were innocent of participation in
it, and who had no sympathy with it."
Ex-Mayor Palmer, of Boston, thus defends our police force: "Mr. Forster
accuses the Boston police of being corrupted by Irish politicians. It is
sufficient to say of this that no Bostonian charges it, or believes it.
Boston is proud of her police force, and boasts of it too strongly and
too frequently, our neighbors think, for good taste. But whatever may be
thought of our egotism in this respect, it is well known and understood
by our sister cities that Boston claims to have the best police force in
the world. The Irish-American in Boston is a loyal citizen, proud of the
city, proud of the State, and proud of the whole country; and his
heart's desire and prayer to God is, that his motherland may become as
free and prosperous and happy as these United States. The trouble with
Mr. Forster, as he shows himself in the _Nineteenth Century_, is that
Parnell is on top, and Forster is afraid he will stay there. Gladstone
wants to give Ireland land reform and home government. Herein he
believes is true statesmanship. In this way he knows that every interest
of the empire, even its integrity, would be best subserved. But the
Queen and the Tories oppose him and may defeat him. Let us hope that the
hypocritical lament of Arnold Forster in the _Nineteenth Century_ is the
last wail of a lost cause. Or will he tell us next that ten thousand
howling Englishmen in Trafalgar Square is another Irish conspiracy?"
Congressman Lovering writes: "The wholesale charges against Irishmen in
America will fall flat here as an exaggeration, and a distortion of
facts, in a vain attempt to charge against the Irish race the misdoings
of individuals, who may have chanced to have been Irishmen, and the
effort is entitled to all the contempt it deserves."
Police Commissioner Osborne says: "Knowing very little about the force
before I became a member of the board of police, I can only speak of the
time during service, and will say most emphatically that no
interference, or tampering, with our force by politicians of _any_
nationality has come to my knowledge. And from what I have seen and know
I firmly believe that our force is equal to, if not superior to, the
police force in any city in the United States." To which Chairman
Whiting of the board adds: "I am happy to say that I have no knowledge
whatever of any tampering with the Boston police, as stated in said
clipping or otherwise."
_New York Irish-American_: In eliciting such valuable expressions of
opinion, _The Republic_ has done a very good work; though, at this
period of their connection with the United States, our people, as a
component element of the population, do not need to produce certificates
of character before any tribunal to which an honest appeal may be made.
They have wrought out an excellent and enduring character for themselves
by their purity of life in private, and their labors and sacrifices in
every field of public duty, and stamped it so indelibly on the history
of the Republic, that no hostile or malign influence can ever erase its
strong and well-defined impression. To connect this work, however, with
the refutation of such a paltry scribbler as this Arnold Forster,
appears to us a waste of labor,--like crushing a _ciaróg_ with a
battering-ram. The Englishman was only following his low, natural
instincts when he ambitiously engaged in the task to which so many of
his countrymen before him, like Froude, have devoted themselves, since
the time of that arch-falsifier of history, "Giraldus Cambrensis," and,
as his original stock of knowledge of our people (especially here in the
United States), must have been practically _nil_, he was compelled to
draw on the store of old, worn-out libels against us, that have so often
been refuted both by historical facts and direct evidence; but which are
as persistently revamped and repeated by every scribbler who desires to
vent his spleen, and exhibit his ignorance with regard to a race, that
all fair-minded students of humanity admit has held its own with any
other on earth, through centuries of adverse circumstances. The fellow
is even worse than a libeller, for he began his attacks on the Irish
people as an anonymous letter-writer in the columns of the English Whig
and Tory organs, professing to give statements with regard to events in
America that were within his own knowledge. The trained professional
acumen of the leaders of the Irish Party quickly fixed the identity of
the hidden assailant; and about the same time that "Buckshot" Forster
himself was cowering before the assembled Commons of England, under the
scorching invective of Parnell, this same Arnold Forster--his putative
son and secretary--was being dragged into the light of public criticism,
and exposed in his true character as a base defamer of men whose shoes
he is not worthy to touch. In revenge for this double punishment he has
since collected the slanders he first peddled at retail, and in this
_Nineteenth Century_ brochure has flung them, _in globo_, at his
chastisers. But he is not worthy of notice; his plane of thought and
idea is too low for even contempt to reach him; and argument with him
would be wasted. _Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle_--"The game is not
worth the candle."
_Boston Daily Globe_:--It was in some respects a fortunate thing that
Mr. Arnold Forster uttered his recent malicious slander upon the Irish
race. It has given opportunity for banishing, by the production of
undeniable facts refuting some of Mr. Forster's specific statements, the
vague innuendoes ever and anon set afloat by those who imagine that all
who oppose British oppression must be wrong, because "it's English, you
know."
Rev. Father Cronan, editor of the _Buffalo Catholic Union_, among
others, vigorously replies to Mr. Forster, and in a vein somewhat
different from any we have yet noticed in connection with the
discussion. Says Father Cronan in the _Union_:
"Mr. Arnold Forster told more truth than he suspected, and
paid a compliment he never intended, when he wrote in the
_Century_ that Irishmen were 'born conspirators.' Divesting
the expression of the stupid sting and insult intended by its
misuse, it simply means that Irishmen are born _inspired_
with a love of justice, and that this inspiration, being
brutally thwarted by seven centuries of English misrule,
becomes a _conspiration_ (that is the true word, Mr. Forster)
of all Irishmen to effect the ends of freedom and
self-preservation. Show us a born bondsman and we will show
you 'a born conspirator,' or, a born fool, if he be not a
conspirator, in the sense we have explained. Let the nations
who rule by might instead of right learn at last that they
are the creators and perpetuators of conspiracy. If there is
shame in the sound, it is their shame. If ruin and riot in
the result, it is their handiwork. The day has gone by, long
ago, when suffering peoples are to be awed into silence and
submission to injustice by the silly outcries of salaried
soothsayers. There is no reason on earth, or in heaven, why
people should submit to be slaves. If they cannot boldly
burst the bonds that encircle them, they will triturate them
to dust by friction against the granite hearts of their
masters."
Americans who revere the memory of Jefferson and Adams and Patrick Henry
and their fellow "conspirators" will agree with Father Cronan, that
"conspiracy" by Irishmen for the freedom of their native land is a noble
thing. Mr. Forster belongs to the class which considered Sam Adams the
arch-conspirator of his day. Every attempt to bribe him or to frighten
him was met with disdain. Because he could not be bought, England
applied to him the meanest of epithets. So, to-day, England slanders the
Irish leaders and the Irish race because they cannot be coaxed or driven
into desertion of their country's cause.
But England found that misrepresenting the character of the Americans
was a costly proceeding. She made them the more determined and at the
same time deceived herself. A like effect will be caused by this latest
attack upon the Irish race.
* * * * *
A pompous fellow was dining with a country family, when the lady of the
house desired the servant to take away the dish containing the fowl,
which word she pronounced fool, as is not uncommon in Scotland. "I
presume, madam, you mean the fowl," said the prig, in a reproving tone.
"Very well," said the lady, a little nettled, "be it so. Take away the
fowl, and let the fool remain."
Orders of Knighthood.
We owe to the _Westfalische Merkur_ some interesting remarks on the
Order of Christ recently conferred by Leo XIII. on Prince Bismarck.
Although there is no strictly fixed precedence among European Orders of
Knighthood, yet by common consent there is a kind of relative rank among
these numerous honorary distinctions. Thus the first place is generally
conceded to the Golden Fleece, nowadays conferred by both the Emperor of
Austria and the King of Spain, and the above-mentioned Papal Order of
Christ. Next may be said to rank the Garter of England; the Black Eagle
of Prussia; the Order of Maria Theresa, Austria; and that of St. Hubert,
Bavaria. As, however, the Order of Christ is given almost exclusively to
sovereigns, and only in most exceptional cases to distinguished
subjects, the conferring of the same on the Iron Chancellor is a most
unusual honor.
The history of the Order is a curious one. Its origin is to be sought in
one of the Mediæval Militant Orders of Knights, founded in 1317 by
Denis, King of Portugal, upon the ruins of the Great Order of the
Templars--suppressed in 1312--in order to defend the empires of the
Algarves against the Moors. The Order, under the title of "Knights of
Jesus Christ," was confirmed by Pope John XXII. by a Bull of March 14th,
1319, which prescribed for them the rule of St. Benedict and the
statutes of the Cistercian Order, besides granting very extensive
privileges. The Abbot of Alcobaza was commissioned, in the Pope's name,
to receive the oath of the Grand Master. The Pope reserved to himself
also the right of admitting candidates to the Order, and extending its
privileges and insignia to others. The Knights had to take the three
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, till, in 1500, Pope Alexander
VI. released them from this obligation, for the old crusading zeal had
died out, and the Knights lived in the world like ordinary seculars.
Meanwhile, repeated victories over the Moors had rendered the Order very
rich. It possessed 450 commendatories, with a yearly income of over
1,500,000 livres. In 1550 Pope Julius III. attached the dignity of Grand
Master forever to the Portuguese Crown. In 1797, after several attempts
at reformation, the Portuguese Order was altogether secularized, and
became a simple civil Order of Knighthood reserved to nobles; in 1834
the greater part of the income of the Knights was confiscated. The
privilege reserved to the Holy See by John XXII., creating Knights of
the Order, was fully exercised by that Pope and his successors, for he
himself established a sister Order--_Ordine di Cristo_--in Italy, with
like privileges and customs; a broad white woollen mantle, and on the
breast a red cross with a small silver cross upon it. Pope Paul V. in
1605 gave the Papal Knights the rule of St. Augustine; but in course of
time the Order in Italy followed the course of the Portuguese branch,
and became the honorary distinction like all modern "Orders." The
Knights now wear a golden cross with red enamel, of which the ends run
out into two points.
The Holy See nowadays disposes of five honorary Orders of Knighthood:
that of Christ, referred to above, and consisting of only one class,
"Cavalieri;" that of St. Gregory the Great, founded by Gregory XVI., in
1831, and containing three classes: those of Grand Cross, Commander and
Knight; the Golden Spur, created by Pius IV. in 1559, also known as the
Order of St. Sylvester, and in two grades: Commanders and Knights,
styled _auratæ militiæ equites_; the Order of Pius, established by the
late Pontiff, with two classes; and, lastly, the Holy Sepulchre,
conferred by the Patriarch of Jerusalem by delegation of the Pope, but
also sometimes by the Holy Father himself.
Low-Necked Dresses.
[The venerable editor of the New York _Freeman's Journal_ has
the following article on "Vicious Customs and Costumes,"
which we recommend to some ladies who appear partially
dressed at some of our balls, "sociables," etc. The remarks
are as applicable to fashionable society in Boston, and
elsewhere, as they are in New York and other cities.]
The hours for social pleasures were never so late as at present. People
do not think of showing themselves at any "evening" entertainment until
midnight. The strain of this kind of thing on young people who have
necessary duties to perform the next day, tends to lower vitality and
shorten life. In London--from which city nearly all the fashions
unsuitable to our climate and life come--there is a large "leisure
class" who can sleep into the afternoon without shirking any urgent
demands. Here, where even the richest men have to work, these late hours
are preposterous. But they are English--and, rather than not be English,
the young man of to-day prefers listless days and a frequent resort to
brandy and soda--English, too!--and other stimulants, to keep him up to
his work.
Another fashion, which has become so rampant as to need a general and
continued objection to it, is that of wearing low-necked gowns. A little
more firmness in defying the demands of fashion would, perhaps, save
some woman's life. But it is very hard for a woman to be firm on a
question of fashion. Queen Victoria insists on low-necked gowns;
therefore all the American world of fashion insists that the Queen's
mandate shall be followed. At a dinner or dance, the sight is sometimes
appalling; for what can be more shocking than the apparent attempt of
decent women, old and young, lean and fat, to show their shoulder
blades? Like _Katisha_, in the "Mikado," they seem to think that the
possession of a "beautiful left shoulder blade" will atone for all other
defects. The boxes at the opera, and all the places where fashionable
people sit, offer a startling picture of how immodest modest women can
be when fashion demands it. A writer in a recent New York _Evening
Telegram_ says:
"When one goes to the opera and sweeps the tiers of boxes
with an opera-glass for a moment, the question comes: Is it
proper to look? Upon careful examination and scientific
computation, it is pretty certain that of the ladies at the
opera in any five boxes adjoining one another, not less than
one out of every three is three-quarters naked above the
waist--that is, of the square inches of surface, from the
waist up, three-quarters are exposed to the view and to the
air. While this is true of opera-goers, of those who go to
balls it is far worse. The percentage of semi-nude figures
increases until fully ninety-five per cent. is reached."
This picture is not exaggerated. The other night, at the opera of
"Lohengrin," given by the American Opera Company, the dresses on the
stage are described as modesty itself, compared with those in the
audience. The "lady" who appears half undressed at a fashionable
assembly, goes to church the next morning demurely and modestly, to
think gently during the sermon of the vices of her neighbors, without
once reproaching herself for an immodesty which is worse than Pagan, and
which, when attempted by other than respectable women, is regarded as a
shameless incentive to evil thoughts and evil deeds.
Probably, if there were any women in New York of sufficient firmness and
social influence to stop this ape-like imitation of usages which, aside
from their grave evils, are out of keeping with the habits of life made
necessary in a climate which is not at all English, the custom might be
relinquished. But there is none such; and the only pause that can be
given to a whirl of fashion which perilously touches hell will be number
of other deaths from late hours, mental and physical lassitude, and
consequent heart and lung afflictions.
What is good in English usages may be imitated with advantage. But
Americans will never be thoroughly independent of England until they
arrange their habits to suit a climate whose caprices are so sudden and
unexpected as to deal death to the unwary.
It is regrettable that the craze for low-necked dresses should be
allowed to sweep away women who are bound by their "social duties" to
appear in a costume which must have been invented by one of those
females whose name is unmentionable here--from whom the women who
imitate them turn in horror.
Columbus and Ireland.
One of the speakers at the dinner of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in
this city referred to the Irish missionaries in Iceland and to the
member of the crew of the Pinta[3]--ship in which Columbus sailed from
Palos--who was born in Ireland. This is astounding information.
Thirty-three years ago the learned Digby wrote in his "Road of
Travelers," Compitum., Book I, page 380, as follows: "When the Northmen
first landed in Iceland they found there Irish books, Mass-bells and
other objects which had been left behind by earlier visitors, called
Papas. These Papæ, fathers, were the Clerici of Dicuil, the Irish Monk,
who wrote in the year 823, a treatise, 'De Mensura Orbis Teriæ.'"
The late Dr. O'Callaghan of New York, called attention to the native of
Ireland, being among the crew of the Pinta, about fifteen years ago. The
book referred to by him is entitled, "Collecion de los Viages y des
Cumplimientos, Madrid, la imprenta real ano de 1825." (Collection of
Voyages and Duties Discharged, Madrid, royal printing office, year of
1825.)
The crew list of the Pinta la tripulacion can be seen at Madrid, bearing
the ancient Connaught patronymic of Eyre, as follows:--
"Guillermo Ires, natural de Galway, Irelanda," no "de" or "en" before
the word Irelanda.
Eyre Court is not far from famed Ballinasloe, in the County Galway, and
Eyre Square, visitors to the capital of the west of Ireland know, is the
principal one in the town of Galway.
The Eyre family is "as old as the hills of Connaught," and were as
intimate with Spain as we are with Cuba to-day, before Columbus was
born. Up to and after the death of Elizabeth of England all the Catholic
gentry of the "ould stock" were educated in Spain and Portugal.
Yours, etc.,
NEW YORK, March 19. R. F. FARRELL
FOOTNOTE:
[3] The flagship, if I may use such an expression, of the little fleet,
was the Santa Maria. Of course, it was on board of this that the
illustrious navigator took his departure in person. The Pinta, on board
of which was William Eyre, "the man from Galway," accompanied her, vide
_Catholic Telegraph_, August 14, 1879.
R. F. F.
NEW YORK, March 22, 1884.
Miss Mulholland's Poems: "Vagrant Verses."
Rosa Mulholland is a name well known to the readers of Catholic fiction.
She is one of the most graceful, pure and tender writers we have.
Hundreds of thousands of Catholic young people owe her some of the most
pleasant hours that brighten happy youth. Her sweet fancy has revelled
in the sunshine of melodious poesy, as well as in the green fields of
fresh and charming prose. Her new book, "Vagrant Verses," is a real
bosom companion, a jewel of dear books. Its prevailing tone is soothing
tenderness, touched, as is usual with Irish singers, with sadness--but
this is not the despairing sadness so prevalent to-day among those
beyond the fold of Peter. What has been said of her splendid sister of
song, Kate Tynan, may be as truly said of Miss Mulholland,--she cannot
be all _sad_. In her darkest hour you have always a streak of dawn in
the east. Her poetry is more domestic and tranquil than that of the
"Thrush of Glenna Smoil," whose magnificent strains in "Louise," "Joan,"
"Vivia Perpetua," and so many others, recall to our minds those words of
the immortal lay:
"Binn sin, a toin Dhaire an Chairn!
Ni chualas, an árd 's an m-bith,
Ceol budh binne na dho guth,
Acas thu fa bun do nid."
"Sweet thy song, blackbird of th' oak grove of Charn!
Heard I never in all the vast wide world
Song than thine more sweet--voice of song supreme!
Sitting thy nest beneath, singing thy song divine."
It is a great blessing to Erin in these hard, wrangling times, when so
much that is good and sweet threatens to disappear, to have two such
noble singers raising their melodious voices to appease the angry
passions of men. Nor should he be forgotten, who has been the maccenas
of these gifted and noble daughters of holy church--Rev. Fr. Matthew
Russell, S. J., himself a sweet and true poet. Nor can I close this
short notice without the feeble tribute of a word to one so dear to
these three, and so dear to us all, Rev. Joseph Farrell, now with
God--whose sweet wisdom is fertile in many hearts.
J. KEEGAN.
Seeing the Old Year Out: A True Story.
Scene, four young fellows were seated together in the dining-room
drinking "the old year out" in a punch of Patrick Hallahan's best brew.
"Well, here's to the good old year of '82," said Patrick, raising his
glass high above his head, "may the incoming year be as kind to us."
"Amen to that," said Phil, his brother.
"And so say all of us," chimed in Denis Walker and Arthur Floyd.
Up went the clouds of smoke in fanciful, weird wreathes to the white
ceiling; up went the glasses with the "nectar of the gods!" to the
healthy lips of these four friends, tried and true, again and again,
until the huge, lanky-legged clock in the hall chaunted in deep monotone
the hour of twelve.
The four rose as one man, and joined hands across the table.
"A happy new year," they said, in one and the same breath, and they
ushered the poor, innocent yearling in to the tune of "For he's a jolly
good fellow--for he's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us."
"Stop," said Patrick, "what's that?"
The dining-room was but a pace from the hall door, and Patrick had heard
quite distinctly a thud, as of something heavy falling down.
In a second he was out into the darkness, and nearly stumbled over an
inert mass of humanity. It was a man--or the remains of one.
"He looks bad, Phil," said Patrick, "run for Dr. Naughten while I put
him on the sofa." Phil threw his warm Inverness cape about him and
seized his hat and was off in a trice; meanwhile the three men, left
with the unconscious fourth, laid their burden down upon the sofa,
loosened his neckerchief and collar, but no sign of life was there.
"Drink," said Arthur, "that cursed drink." The other men shook their
heads in silent acquiescence. It seemed an age before the doctor, who
lived only a few doors off, came upon the scene, not in the best of
humors either, for he, too, had been making the night merry after the
fashion of these four friends.
The doctor felt his pulse. "I'm no use here," said he. "The fellow's
been dead this half-hour."
"Dead?" echoed the friends. "Dead?"
"Yes."
"But," said Patrick, "we heard the fall only a few minutes ago."
"Likely enough," said the doctor, "he had got as far as your door,
propped himself up against the corner, and then went completely off into
his last long sleep."
"Impossible!" they all exclaimed. "A man to die standing up!"
"Possible," retorted the doctor, "and in this case, as you say you heard
the fall, most certain. Good evening, gentlemen, there is nothing more
for me to do," and the doctor hurried away.
So this poor wretch of a fellow-man had been "seeing the old year out,"
but the old year was made of tougher stuff than he, and had seen him
out.
They went for the police, who came with the stretcher (ah! what tales
that rough canvas bed could tell, if it had the gift of tongue!), the
body was taken away, and the four friends sat around the table again,
but they raised the glass no more to their lips, though the punch-bowl
was steaming still--their eyes turned fearfully to the sofa where death
so lately lay in state, and for a few minutes a dreadful silence
reigned.
"Oh! that awful drink, what harm it is working. I'll not taste another
drop these six months." This from Patrick Hallahan.
"Nor I," said Phil.
"Nor I," said Denis.
"Nor I," said Arthur.
"Agreed," they all said, "and let us see if we cannot keep our word."
"And now let's break up, for I'm feeling sick at heart," were Patrick's
words, and they separated.
* * * * *
They met six months after at the same place, and they had kept their
word, though they never spoke of it to each other. They had been out to
dinner parties, to "at homes," to balls and routs, for they were
well-to-do, wealthy men of business, but they succumbed never once. They
simply said, "No, thank you," when the wine was passed on, the grog went
round. They still entertained, as was their wont, and gave their guests
the best of their wine cellar, but they abstained themselves. One of
them employed more than one hundred workmen. These men noticed a change
in their master; he was more gentle with them in a way, quite as severe
in the matter of time-keeping and of hard work, but he took an interest
in their welfare, asked after their homes. One of them who brought him
his luncheon from an eating-house near at hand, remarked that "the
master never used the corkscrew now," and that "the bottom of his
master's tumbler was never stained." The ninety-nine other men knew this
ninety-nine seconds after. "If the governor, who works harder than any
of us, can do without his liquor, dang it all, I can." Jack Furniss gave
this forth to two pals, and these three entered quietly into a compact,
upon fine of 1 d., to take no beer for a week; they took no beer for
four weeks, for six months. Men are after all like sheep who follow
their superior, the shepherd's dog; the dog leads this way or that way,
and the flock follows. The dog (Jack Furniss was foreman to his master,
a kind of shepherd's dog to the rest) led the way to pure spring water,
and the whole flock--save the traditional black sheep--followed, not all
at once, but little by little.
* * * * *
Now let us back to the shepherd and his three friends, who are met
together six months after that awful death. The cloth is laid for four;
sherry and claret shine upon the table, the champagne is underneath the
sideboard in an iced pail--lemon, sugar, the silver ladle in the family
punch-bowl.
They sat down, and after the soup, when the fish was put on the table,
Patrick Hallahan passed the sherry to Arthur, Arthur passed it to Phil,
and Phil handed it to Denis. Curiously, yet true enough, the decanter
came back in the same state as it started.
Then these four plain men of business rose like one man, and joined
hands across the table. Not a word was spoken, but that grip of the hand
spoke all they had to say to one another.
It is said they were satisfied with themselves and with one another, so
satisfied that they had no wish to go from their word, even though the
time of keeping it had gone by.
Afterwards they acknowledged one to the other over their cigars--for if
they drank nothing strong they smoked very strong, and, be it said, very
good tobacco--they acknowledged that their life had been brighter,
lighter than before, their mental vision clearer, their home happier;
and many a fellow-creature round about them could have added that
_their_ lives had been made brighter and lighter, and their mental
vision clearer, and their homes happier, by the example and kindness of
these four friends.
* * * * *
There is an anecdote told of a certain priest who once happened to be
riding a spirited young horse along a road in Ireland. His reverence
whilst thus engaged was met by two gentlemen who had lately been raised
to the magistracy of the county, and being in a good humor, they thought
they would amuse themselves by quizzing him. "How comes it, good
Father," said one of them, "that you are mounted on such a fine horse?
Your predecessors, the Apostles, I understand, always performed their
journeys on asses."--"That's easily explained," answered his reverence;
"the fact is, that the Government has of late been making magistrates of
the asses, and therefore I should not consider it respectful to travel
about on the back of one of the fraternity."
Juvenile Department.
THE FLOWERS' ELECTION.
An election is now being held,
For the flowers are all mad for a queen;
The "speeching" and voting go on,
And cause a most terrible scene.
One tulip, a smart little flirt,
Screams loudly and long for the rose;
But a wee, giddy, columbine bud
Does flippantly interpose.
Nextly a cauliflower speaks,
For his cousin the cabbage he votes;
At which e'en a butterfly grins
As onwardly he lazily floats.
A full-blown and strong-minded flower
Votes loud for republic and peace!
Or else for a strawberry plant,
Who's her grandmother's brother's aunt's niece.
Next marigold speaks to the crowd,
Who is known to be forward and pert;
But a nettle makes stinging remarks,
Till the speaker declares himself hurt!
And then to rampage they begin;
Sweet William is scragging a rose;
Sweet-pea in a neighborly way,
Is pulling young marigold's nose!
Such a noise and confusion ensues
That a snail faints away on the wall;
And never as yet have I heard
What the end of it was after all.
MAUD EGERTON HINE, a child of less than eight years old.
* * * * *
"Doing anything now, Bill?" "Oh, yes, I'm busy all the time."--"Ah! Glad
to hear it. What are you doing?"--"Looking for a job."
* * * * *
THE LITTLE FRENCH GIRL OF ST. SULPICE.
When I was in Paris, a year or two before the terrible war broke out, I
often went to the church of St. Sulpice. A grand old place is St.
Sulpice, not so majestic outwardly as Notre Dame, but far more
interesting to me. Its painted chapels, its noble altar with the royal
seat in front, its chairs full of kneeling people, from the splendid
dame to the bonnetless peasant, its gorgeously dressed priests, its
magnificent organ,--everything about it charmed and interested me.
One day I saw a little girl asleep at the foot of a statue. The calm,
white, marble face seemed to look down in pity on the child, whose
beauty startled me. Her white cape-bonnet had fallen from her head, and
curls, lustrous as gold, and quite as yellow, fell over neck and cheeks.
What long, dark lashes she had! Her complexion seemed blended roses and
lilies. But her dress was very shabby. The most beautiful feet will get
soiled if they go shoeless, and this child seemed one of the very
poorest of the poor.
There came a grand burst of organ music, with which a thousand voices
joined, and the child awoke. She lifted her head, and the great brown
eyes seemed to drink in the melody. Then, seeing that we were watching
her, she held out a little palm. The mute appeal was not resisted; I
gave her my last franc.
She followed us out of the church. On the stone steps we could see the
fountains playing. Omnibuses decorated with gay little flags, horses
decked out with ribbons, merry groups passing, the red sunshine, the
distant beauty of the green park, with its gravelled walks and flowery
borders, made a picture that I shall never forget. The child touched my
dress.
"I must sing for you, madame," she said, holding up the franc.
Then she stood back a little, let her pretty arms drop, and sang in a
sweet contralto, a little French air. Her voice was charming.
"Why do you beg?" I asked.
"I do not beg, madame, I sing;" and her cheek flushed.
"Where do you live, my dear?"
"Rue St. Père."
"Near Hôtel St. Père?"
"Not far from that, madame. My father makes wooden images; perhaps you
pass his window. At least I call him my father."
I had often passed his window, filled with a melancholy collection of
well-carved animals, boxes, heads, quite yellow by exposure. Nothing
seemed ever to be sold.
One day I went in to ask the price of a stag's head. The poor man,
broken down by sickness, sat whittling in the corner. His face was like
saffron, while his thin hair was black as jet. A heavy curtain was hung
across the shop. Presently the rings that supported it rattled a little;
the curtain opened midway, revealing a bit of French home life. A cradle
of an antique pattern, a woman ironing at a table, a tiny stove, two
windows full of flowers, everything poverty-stricken but clean. As I
was paying for the stag's head in came my little one of St. Sulpice. She
knew me, but with only a nod and a smile passed into the other part of
the room.
"That is your little girl, I suppose," I said.
"Oh, no; I care for her; that is all. Her mother is dead; she is no kin
to me, but one cannot see a little one suffer. Besides, she does very
well with her voice; she will work her way in the world. We do not
suffer; we have bread." Nevertheless I knew by his voice and the aspect
of things that they did suffer sometimes, so I often made little
expeditions that way, and spent for carved wood every franc I could
spare.
Now comes the wonderful part of my story. I had been at home six months
when the French war broke out. While reading the dreadful tidings, and
seeing with my mind's eye those fairy-like palaces, over which I had
wandered so often, sacked and destroyed, I thought of the little girl of
St. Sulpice, and wondered what had become of her. Where were the wooden
hounds with their life-like eyes, the stags' heads so beautifully
carved, the long, French faces with the dust lying in their grotesque
goatees? Where were the sick old man, the tidy little mother, the large,
rosy baby?
One day, only a very few weeks ago, while walking down Pennsylvania
Avenue, in Washington, a splendid carriage drove past, and I caught a
glimpse of a face that set my heart beating. I turned to look, and,
strange to tell, the child was also turning to look at me. Could this be
the little French girl of St. Sulpice? Impossible.
On the following day I was called into my sitting-room to see some one
who wanted a donation.
"They're always a beggin', Miss Alice," said my maid. "There was three
men with papers yesterday, and now come these flipflappers."
The "flipflappers" were two Sisters of Charity. One of them, the
youngest, with large, loving, dark eyes, and one of the finest faces I
ever saw, won me at sight. She was soliciting money she said for an Old
Folks' Home. "You are not an American," I said.
"Oh, no; I am only five months from Paris. This is my sister, who can
talk only French."
An hour passed during which I had told all about my St. Sulpice child.
The women looked at each other.
"It seems like Marie," said one.
"It certainly _does_ seem like Marie," responded the other.
"And who was Marie?"
"Marie was with a wood-carver. Marie's mamma was an Englishwoman. Her
husband brought her to Paris. They both died when Marie was a little
one. Marie used to sing, and she lived in rue St. Père."
"It must be my St. Sulpice girl!" I said, excitedly.
"During the troubles," continued the woman, "the old wood-carver died.
His wife, whose sister was a nun, went to one of the charity homes. She,
alas! was shot, and soon after her baby pined and died. The sisters took
care of Marie for awhile, she was so beautiful. No, madame, it is not
to be denied that they would have liked it if Marie could have grown up
in their midst, and become one of the holy order, but the war forbade
that. Some of the sisters escaped to England, and Marie went with them.
In London, Marie sang a little now and then, for we were much reduced.
"One day she was listened to by a lady living in some villa. She had the
child brought in, and kept saying to herself, 'It is a wonderful
likeness!' Then she called her husband and all the family, and they each
one said that it was a wonderful likeness.
"Well, madame, they found the child was one of them, the child of a
sister who had married imprudently and gone off, and after that we had
little to do with Marie. But we came over to America in the same ship,
and the little lady was very kind to us. Her friends have given largely
to this fund since she has been here. Will madame contribute?"
On condition that they found where the child lived, I gave them what I
could spare, and they went away grateful.
Only the next day a grand equipage stopped at my door. There were two
men in splendid livery on the box, and a tiger behind, who sat with his
arms folded like a statue of ebony.
Ah, but there was my sweet little St. Sulpice girl, with her nurse, or
companion. How lovely she was! Her white hat and blue feather, beautiful
blue silk, trimmed with costly white lace, her buttoned gloves, and
dainty parasol, spoke most eloquently of the change in her
circumstances. But to me she seemed just the same.
"Then you have not forgotten St. Sulpice," I said.
She shook her head and her lips trembled a little.
"It was so awful before we came away!" she said, with a shudder. "They
took St. Sulpice for the soldiers, and they killed the nuns and shot the
good priests, and, it seemed as if everybody was dead or dying. Oh, how
we did fly for our lives!"
"But you are very happy now?"
"Yes; I have a governess, and I am studying English; but I shall always
love my dear, dear France, and I would go there again, but poor Père and
Mère Bouve are gone, and their little child. If they could only have
come to England with me!"
"And does your aunt stay in America long?"
"Till the next September. Oh, how I felt when I saw you on the street! I
knew it was you. To-morrow we go to Cape May, and I shall never see you
again."
"Oh, yes, you will. I shall come over to England next summer."
The child's eyes brightened.
"Will you?" and she threw her arms round my neck in true French style,
and declared that she loved me.
I hope I shall see my little one of St. Sulpice again. If anybody meets
an English family at Cape May, with one of the loveliest little girls in
the world, I have no doubt she will answer to the name of Marie.
THE DONKEY.
Mine is not a common donkey at all, living upon thistles and weeds, or
any rubbish he can pick up on the roadside; he is an aristocratic
donkey, and eats, and sleeps, too, sometimes, in a lordly dining-hall,
where kings and princes have dined. And where does he live? you will
ask. In a beautiful old ruined castle in the Isle of Wight--Carisbrook
Castle, the place of imprisonment of poor King Charles I., and the scene
of his gentle daughter Elizabeth's early death. Within the ruined walls
of that grand old castle does my friend, the donkey, live.
Many must have heard of the wonderful well at Carisbrook, which is so
deep no one can draw the water up, so that they are obliged to have a
donkey to do it. And it is done in this way: there is an enormous wheel,
with steps inside, and the donkey goes in, and by walking continually up
the steps turns the wheel, and so draws up the water. And this was the
work Jacob, for that is the donkey's name, had to do for many years. But
he has long since retired from public life, being very old, and his
place has been supplied by a younger donkey; Jacob having nothing to do
now but eat, sleep, and amuse himself.
We were having a little picnic at Carisbrook, the children and I, not
long ago, and Jacob took an immense interest in all our proceedings. The
children were greatly delighted with his friendly way of receiving us,
and fed him with biscuits and buns, which he seemed to enjoy very much.
He even drank some tea out of a saucer, and ate up all the pieces of
bread we left. In fact, Jacob's and our own appetites were so good that
there was nothing left of our feast, excepting half of a large pat of
butter, which we never supposed Jacob would touch, and were much amused
on looking round to see him quietly eating up that, too, and licking the
plate well afterwards so as not to lose a bit.
He is a very fat little creature, and his hair has grown quite long and
soft, like a young donkey's. Evidently his lazy life agrees with him,
though, I have no doubt, he has done his fair share of work, and quite
deserves to pass a peaceful, happy old age.
As I am on the subject of donkeys, I must tell about a very clever one I
heard of a few days ago. She lives somewhere in Ireland, and she and her
little foal were turned into a field where a very deep ditch had been
dug. And one day some men who were at work in the next field saw Viva,
the mother donkey, come toward them in a great hurry. She came close up
to the hedge, braying loudly, and seeming much distressed. At first they
took no notice of her, but she would not go away, and continued to bray
until one of the men went to her, and then she started off in the
direction of the ditch, and there he found the poor little foal, which
had tumbled in. Fortunately it was not hurt; but if the mother had not
been so sensible, it must have died, for it could not possibly have got
out.
It is the fashion to consider donkeys stupid, ill-tempered, and
obstinate, which I do not think quite just. They are often obstinate,
certainly, but they are generally made so by constant ill-treatment.
How often one sees a poor little donkey staggering along with a load a
great deal too heavy for him, and being beaten and abused the whole time
because he can scarcely draw it! Donkeys after a time get so accustomed
to being incessantly beaten that it has no effect, excepting to make
them turn obstinate and sulky. And I do not believe they are either by
nature; for a donkey that is really well brought up, and has always been
kindly treated, is not at all obstinate. He will trot or canter when he
is required to do so, just like a pony, is good-tempered and gentle, and
altogether a different animal from his unfortunate poor relation, who
has been kicked and beaten and dragged at from his babyhood upwards.
And to say that donkeys are _stupid_ is quite a mistake, for many are
extremely clever. I knew an old one--I think he must have been thirty at
least--that could never by any means be kept _in_ any field or _out_ of
any garden that he chose to enter. And as he much preferred nice green
vegetables to his legitimate food, he was constantly trespassing, and
his owners were continually in trouble about him. He would always find
some means of either opening a gate or getting over the hedge. The only
place he could be kept in was the village pound, to which he often paid
a visit. He was, as may be fancied, quite a nuisance in the village, and
every one was truly thankful when he was found dead one morning. It was
said he died of old age; but as he had made many enemies by his numerous
depredations, I should not wonder if some of them had to do with his
sudden end.
HOUNDS.
Two hounds belonged to a gentleman in Lancashire, and he, wishing to
make them a present to a friend, sent them to Kilkenny, the place where
he lived in Ireland. But the hounds apparently did not like their new
quarters, and, no doubt, missed their old master; for after a few days
they disappeared, and could not be found or heard of, until at last
their master got a letter from their former owner in Lancashire to say
that the hounds had returned to him. It was afterwards discovered that
they had gone to the North Vale in Dublin, jumped on board a steamboat,
which fortunately was going to England, and had found their way to their
old home.
Some dogs take offence very easily. I know one absurd, diminutive
creature, who has the greatest dislike to being talked about, and
directly he hears any one mention his name even, he gets up and walks
out of the room in the most dignified way possible, looking round all
the time, as much as to say, "How dare you talk about me?"
Another dog belonging to a friend took great offence because he could
not have his own way. He is a nice old dog, very old and quite blind,
and has always lived with the same master, to whom he is quite devoted,
accompanying him everywhere, and at night keeping guard on the mat at
his bedroom door. A short time ago his master went on a visit to a
house about sixty miles distant from his own home, and as usual his old
favorite went with him. When night came, the old dog, having found out
his master's room, posted himself, as he had always been accustomed to
do, at his door. But the servants of the house, not knowing his ways,
drove him downstairs. The next day the dog was gone; but was heard of
soon afterwards, having returned to his own home. He had taken offence
at not being allowed to sleep where he liked, and had found his way
back, in spite of the distance and his blindness.
THE CALIFORNIA ROADRUNNER. (_Geococcyx Californianus._)
A very singular and yet a very little known bird is the roadrunner
chaparral cock, or, as it is known in Mexico and the Spanish sections of
the United States, the paisano.
[Illustration]
It belongs to the cuckoo family, but has none of the bad habits by which
the European cuckoo is best known. It is a shy bird, but is not by any
means an unfamiliar object in the south-western portions of the United
States and in Mexico. Sometimes it wanders up into middle California,
but not often, seeming to prefer the more deserted, hotter, and sandier
parts of southern California, and from there stretching its habitat as
far east as middle Texas.
It is not by any means a brilliantly colored bird, although some of its
hues are very beautiful. The prevailing color of the roadrunner is olive
green, which is marked with brown and white. The top of the head is blue
black, and is furnished with an erectile crest. The eyes are surrounded
by a line of bare skin.
It is not a large bird, being seldom twenty-four inches long, with a
tail taking more than half of that length. The tail, indeed, is the most
striking feature of the bird, being not only so very long, but seemingly
endowed with the gift of perpetual motion, since it is never still, but
bobs up and down, and sidewise, too, into every possible angle, and
almost incessantly.
But while its tail is most striking, its legs are most remarkable, being
not only long and stout, but wonderfully muscular, how muscular nobody
would be able to imagine who had not put them to the test.
A traveller in Mexico tells of going out with his ranchero host to hunt
hares with a brace of very fine hounds. Going over a long stretch of
sandy plain, relieved only by pillars and clusters of cactus, the
Mexican called the attention of his guest to an alert, comical-looking
bird, some distance from them.
With the remark that the gentleman should see some rare coursing, the
Mexican slipped the leashes of the straining hounds, which sprang off as
if used to the sport, and darted after the bird. For a moment it seemed
to the stranger a very poor use to put the dogs to, but he was not long
in changing his mind.
Instead of taking wing, the bird tilted its long tail straight up into
the air in a saucily defiant way, and started off on a run in a direct
line ahead. It seemed an incredible thing that the slender dogs, with
their space devouring bounds, should not at once overtake the little
bird; but so it was. The legs of the paisano moved with marvellous
rapidity, and enabled it to keep the hounds at their distance for a very
long time, being finally overtaken only after one of the gamest races
ever witnessed by the visiting sportsman.
The roadrunner, however, serves a better purpose in life than being run
down by hounds. Cassin mentions a most singular circumstance among the
peculiarities of the bird. It seems to have a mortal hatred of
rattlesnakes, and no sooner sees one of those reptiles than it sets
about in what, to the snake, might well seem a most diabolical way of
compassing its death. Finding the snake asleep, it at once seeks out the
spiniest of the small cacti, the prickly pear, and, with infinite pains
and quietness, carries the leaves, which it breaks off, and puts them in
a circle around the slumbering snake. When it has made a sufficient wall
about the object of all this care, it rouses its victim with a sudden
peck of its sharp beak, and then quickly retires to let the snake work
out its own destruction, a thing it eventually does in a way that ought
to gratify the roadrunner, if it has any sense of humor. Any one
watching it would say it was expressing the liveliest emotion with its
constantly and grotesquely moving tail.
The first impulse and act of the assaulted snake is to coil for a dart;
its next to move away. It quickly realizes that it is hemmed in, in a
circle, and finally makes a rash attempt to glide over the obstruction.
The myriad of tiny needles prick it and drive it back. The angry snake,
with small wisdom, attempts to retaliate by fastening its fangs into the
offending cactus. The spines fill its mouth.
Angrier still, it again and again assaults the prickly wall, until,
quite beside itself with rage, it seems to lose its wits completely, and
writhing and twisting horribly, buries its envenomed fangs into its own
body, dying finally from its self-inflicted wounds. After the
catastrophe, the roadrunner indulges in a few gratified flirts of its
long tail and goes off, perchance to find its reward in being run down
by hounds set on by men.
JOHN R. CORYELL, in _Scientific American_.
* * * * *
Man is hard to satisfy. Poverty is the only thing he can get enough of.
* * * * *
POWER OF THE "LORD'S PRAYER" AND THE "HAIL MARY."
In 1836, while connected with the Church of St. Roque, I was for a long
time engaged in giving catechetical instruction to the children; not
only the ordinary catechism, but what we called, and what is still
called, catechism of perseverance, at which young persons of both sexes
attended until their marriage.
One day I was called upon to solemnize the marriage of one of these
young persons, who was very pious; she had most assiduously followed our
instructions until the hour of this great engagement; her betrothed was
a practical Catholic, so that it was one of those marriages which we can
bless with hope and consolation.
Ordinarily an exhortation is given on these occasions; I said a few
words according to the custom, and I still remember that while speaking
I had a distraction; it was caused by a tall man, at least six foot
high, who stood erect while every one else was seated, looking at me
with a fixed, intense gaze, and, as he was one of the first witnesses at
the ceremony, he stood scarcely three steps from me. This proximity, his
great height, his original manner, and his fixed look, had, as you may
readily understand, attracted my attention, for a moment, and then I
cast the impression aside. After the ceremony all retired, and I thought
all was finished; far from it. At five o'clock the next morning my bell
was rung by the bridegroom, who came in great haste to summon me to a
dying man, his uncle, the same tall man who had so singularly distracted
me the previous evening. He was quite aged, seventy-four years old; he
had taken cold at the wedding ceremony, and the physician declared he
could not live. I started immediately, and as we went along the street,
I asked, "Was your uncle a good Christian?"--"He was a good man; but we
fear that he neglected his religious duties."--"Has he any idea of his
dangerous condition?"--"Yes, he is fully sensible of it."--"Does he wish
to see me?"--"Yes, when we saw that he was struck by death, we asked him
if he would not like to see a priest, and he did not refuse. After a
moment he said 'bring me the one I heard yesterday; he pleased me, and
he will arrange my affairs.'"
The bridegroom informed me that his uncle had come from the country to
attend his wedding, and he was then at a hotel in a cross street. (I
have never since passed that hotel without emotion.) We entered, and I
was left alone with him. Before me lay this poor old man dying. I
approached, and he immediately held out his hand. There was something
very frank and noble in his manner. "I am going to die," he said, "and I
wish to do whatever is done at such a time. I am seventy-four years old,
and for sixty years I have not been to confession. At fourteen I
enlisted; I have been in all the wars of the Revolution and the empire;
I have never thought of God during all the time, and I know not why. I
now feel that I ought not to leave the world before being reconciled to
Him, just as if I had always known Him." Touched by his frankness and
his extraordinary sincere expression, I replied, "I will aid you to know
Him, and God will aid us; such things are easy for those of an upright,
candid heart." But it was not so very easy, after all, and you will
readily perceive. When, by the assistance of many questions, I had
finished his confession for him, "Now," I said, "I'll give you a
penance."--"What is that? I have not the least idea of it." And, in
truth, he had not the first idea of religion, of the Sacrament of
Penance, or any other Sacrament.... A poor, dying man, whose hairs were
bleached by the snows of fourscore winters, was passing from earth
without having a single idea of Christianity; merely an instinct
prompted him to wish for a reconciliation with God before his death.
I explained the meaning of penance and said: "You suffer very much;
offer your sufferings to our Blessed Lord, and that will enable me to
give you an easy penance; you need only say the 'Our Father' and the
'Hail Mary.'" He looked at me for a moment with the most intent and
piercing gaze, for, although so exhausted by age and sickness, he had a
most extraordinary energy in his eye, and said "'Our Father,' 'Hail
Mary!' What do they mean? I have never heard anything about them." Yes,
this was the state which the poor miserable man had reached;
seventy-four years old and he had forgotten even the prayers that
infants in their mothers' arms lisp in childish accents. Religion was
utterly obliterated from his soul! There remained nothing, nothing! I
cast a look toward heaven, and I felt that a miracle was needed to bring
back the pastor to enlighten his darkened soul.
"You ought to know, that those prayers are the most beautiful in
religion. I will assist you; I will say them myself; you will say them
afterward with me, and then you will find all you have lost."
Kneeling down by his bedside, and holding his hand in both of mine, I
commenced. He let me say the two or three first invocations of the "Our
Father," but when I said, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them
who trespass against us," he suddenly pressed my hand, and as one
arousing from a long sleep he exclaimed, "Oh! I remember that. Yes! I
think when I was a little boy my mother taught me something like that.
Will you please commence it again?" I recommenced it and then
instantaneously, from the depths of his soul, across his darkened mind,
and from far away in his early childhood--across seventy-four
years--across all those wars and all those battle-fields which had
passed over his life and effaced from his soul all ideas of religion,
came back to this old soldier the remembrance of his mother, and the
prayers she had taught him when a little boy, and he commenced unaided
to recall the words. One by one I saw them leave his soul, as if they
had all been engulfed, and were now rising to the surface. At each
sentence he interrupted himself: "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I remember--'Our
Father who art in heaven'--yes, indeed, that is it--'Hallowed be Thy
name'--that is it again!--I remember it all now!--'Thy Kingdom
come.'--Yes, yes, I remember I used to say all that--oh! isn't that
prayer beautiful!" And when he came to the words "Forgive us our
trespasses,"--"Ah," he cried, "above all the rest, I remember
that--those are the words that brought all the rest back to me; my
mother used to make me say that whenever I did anything wrong." And in
this manner he finished the "Our Father;" then he asked to say it with
me, and seemed never weary in repeating it over and over.
"But," he exclaimed, "is there not another? Oh! yes, now I remember, my
mother said there was a Blessed Virgin--stop--I must find that prayer
also! But it won't come back. Say it to me so that I can remember, all
about it." And when I repeated the first words, he interrupted me with a
joyful cry, "Oh! yes, that is it, 'Hail Mary!'" And then, without
waiting for me to take the lead, he continued, "full of grace, the Lord
is with thee," and all the words seemed to flow miraculously from his
soul, and with tears flowing down his cheeks, he repeated, "Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us poor sinners, now and the hour of our death."
Behold in this old man the power of the prayers which a pious mother had
taught him in his childhood! Precious germs deposited in his soul, and a
long time deposited there--but, thank God, they were there--and at the
supreme moment, under a favorable ray of Divine grace, they burst forth
to support him in his last hours, and to open for him the gates of a
happy eternity! He never wearied in saying them, but continued
constantly repeating them.
Finally, seeing that he was fatigued, I left him promising to return as
soon as he had taken some repose. And I did return very soon, for I was
most anxious to give him Holy Communion. He received the Viaticum with
the most lively faith: all had been revealed with those two prayers. I
had nothing more to teach him.
BISHOP DOUPANLOUP
* * * * *
"In this world there is nothing dearer to God Himself than the soul of a
little child made to His own likeness and to His own image, born again
and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Innocent, those little ones are the
nearest to Him of His servants upon earth, numbered among His saints.
And they are the most exposed to all manner of peril in this loud and
lordly world that passes them by, and accounts them to be cyphers in its
reckoning, and legislates for them as if they were flocks in a field, or
chattels, or property. Precious in God's sight, little barefooted,
bareheaded children that pass through the streets have each an Angel
Guardian, and yet they are surrounded by all the perils that prowl and
make havoc in the cities where we dwell. The offspring of all the
animals of the lower creation, almost as soon as they come into this
world, are able to care for themselves; but man, who is the highest, and
noblest, and like a god himself, is the most helpless. And, therefore,
in that helpless infancy and tender childhood, those who cannot care for
themselves, are committed to our guardianship."--_Cardinal Manning._
* * * * *
Uneasy rests the foot that wears a corn.
Lenten Pastorals.
In Dublin, on Sunday, March 7, Archbishop Walsh said: With singular
unanimity the leaders of all parties in the State have come at length to
recognize the pressing need of a substantial construction of that system
of government under which we at present live. So much is certain; but
beyond this all is shrouded from our view in the uncertainty of the
future. The minds of many among us are agitated. All around us are heard
expressions of anxiety, and the fears and hopes of those who speculate
as to what the next few weeks may bring forth. Amid all this uncertainty
it is our special duty to turn to the throne of the Almighty and
all-wise ruler of the universe in earnest supplication, that the light
of the heavenly wisdom, by which kings reign and lawgivers decree just
things, may not be wanting to those statesmen and public men by whom the
momentous issues now raised will have to be decided, and on whose
prudence in council, or action, in the public Senate of the empire
provision to be made for the future protection of so many and such vital
interests in spiritual, no less than in temporal, order must so largely
depend.
From Galway it is learned that the pastoral read there contained this
expression: "Let us ask that wretched tenants who find it impossible to
meet their engagements at the present, and who are threatened with
eviction from their humble homes, may be allowed at least a few months'
respite until they can profit by the legislation which just and
enlightened statesmanship will devise for their relief, and for the
lasting peace and prosperity of Ireland."
Speaking at Lismore, Archbishop Croke said, that when he next had the
pleasure of passing through the town, he hoped that the Irish cause
would have wonderfully progressed, and that the great statesman, Mr.
Gladstone, would have not only permanently and satisfactorily settled
the land question, put an end to evictions and restored the Irish soil
to the Irish people, but would have also carried through Parliament the
changes now at hand, which would lead to the restoration of an Irish
Parliament.
* * * * *
THE WORKING MEN.--_New York Sun_: "Never before in the history of labor
in this country was it so united, and, consequently, so powerful. Its
cohesion and unity of action are unexampled in the annals of trade
organizations. Therefore, at this, of all moments, we say beware! Be
moderate and be temperate. The true interests of the employer, if he be
wise, are identical with your interests, and see to it now that no
misuse of victory lead you to change places with the oppressor."
DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE.
BOSTON, APRIL, 1886.
NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
THE LARGEST DONATION YET.--Fifteen thousand people attended two concerts
given by Patrick S. Gilmore at Madison Square Gardens in aid of the
Parliamentary fund. The two concerts netted $6,000. This beats all the
Irish millionnaires of New York City.
_Springfield Republican_: No Irish patriotic movement before has
approached the present one for unity and constancy of purpose, and it
has been due to Parnell's cold temper and iron resolution, sustained by
his steady success in his own clear-headed plan of advance.
OUR CARDINAL.--_Lake Shore Visitor_: The question of the Cardinalate is
settled. If now some of the papers don't openly assert that there is a
mistake somewhere the matter will very likely die out. In the meantime
everybody seems to be satisfied. Cardinal Gibbons will be an ornament to
the Church as its American Cardinal.
PARNELL.--_Dublin Freeman's Journal_: If there ever was a time in the
history of this country when a leader of the people was entitled to all
the confidence that it is possible for the people to repose in him, that
time is the present. Confidence in Mr. Parnell has never been misplaced
by the inhabitants of this country. He has not only never led them
wrong, but he has, on the contrary, surpassed all former Irish leaders
in soundness of judgment and accuracy of prevision. The Irish people
recognize the fact, and place full confidence in Mr. Parnell. The Galway
incident affords a proof of this, of which the partisan press of England
should make a note.
THE IRISH BISHOPS TO GLADSTONE.--The bishops met, on the 18th inst., in
Archbishop Walsh's residence in Dublin, and drew up a statement of their
views on the Irish question, which they sent to Mr. Gladstone. The
bishops say to the Premier that they consider that the result of the
elections has answered Mr. Gladstone's appeal to the Irish people to
"speak out." They add that the bishops believe that Home Rule would not
affect the union or the supremacy of the Crown, and urge the suspension
of evictions until the land question has been settled.
The Mayor of New York lectured for the benefit of the Carney Hospital,
on Sunday evening, February 21. The theatre was crowded, and the Mayor
delivered a very interesting lecture. The hospital will probably realize
some fifteen hundred dollars from the lecture. _New York Sun_: His Honor
Mayor Grace has been to Boston and has had a magnificent boom there. He
made several speeches and impressed the Bostonians. We have never had a
civic magistrate who could beat Mayor Grace in speaking. Boston always
wakes up when a powerful New Yorker goes over there.
At the Recent Meeting of Englishmen and Scotchmen in London to form a
"Home Rule Association," to assist the cause of Irish Home Rule, Lord
Ashburnham took the chair. Lord Clifton, the son of the Earl of Darnley,
spoke of "that great statesman, whom I am proud to call a near relation,
my cousin, Mr. Parnell." The Irish leader is a cousin of Lord Darnley
and Lord Clifton. The latter's words are remarkable at a time like the
present.
Messrs. M. A. Ring & Sons, dealers in paper stock, Boston, who failed
two years ago, compromised with their creditors in full, for twenty
cents on the dollar, and continued their business without serious
interruption. Meeting with fair success, the firm have voluntarily paid
all their merchandise creditors the other eighty cents, with one
exception, and that will be paid in full at an early date. It is seldom
that so honorable a course of action is adopted after parties are
released from all legal obligations, and it reflects credit on the
honesty and energy of the young men composing the firm.
* * * * *
FIVE-DOLLAR PARLIAMENTARY FUND.
Address to the Liberty-Loving People of New England.
To the men and women of Boston and New England who love the cause of
Liberty: At a meeting held in Union Hall, Boston, on the evening of
February 16, the undersigned were appointed an executive committee and
empowered to issue an address to the liberty-loving men and women of New
England, in aid of the five-dollar parliamentary fund voted to be raised
at the above meeting to uphold the constitutional efforts of Charles
Stewart Parnell and his patriotic coadjutors in the British House of
Commons, and their grand struggle for home rule for Ireland.
To the native and adopted citizen alike we appeal, and earnestly request
that in every town and city of New England immediate action be taken to
make this fund a success, and that the proceeds be sent through one
common channel to Mr. Parnell. We hope the fund thus created will prove
worthy of New England, whose people are largely composed of the Celtic
race, and that free New England's tribute to struggling old Ireland will
be such that its example will be followed in other sections of the
country.
Let us make the five-dollar subscription list of New England to the
Irish parliamentary fund famous in the history of this struggle of the
Irish race.
We request that all who sympathize will add their names to the patriotic
list, and that committees similar to that of Boston be formed in every
town. Asa P. Potter, president of the Maverick National Bank, Col.
Charles H. Taylor, editor of the _Boston Globe_, and J. B. Hand, Esq.,
have been appointed trustees of the fund, and we request that all
moneys collected be sent to Mr. Parnell through them. We further ask
that all newspapers in New England in sympathy with this movement kindly
copy this address, and that those who wish to subscribe shall send their
five dollars to the trustees or to either of the undersigned.
HUGH O'BRIEN,
_Mayor of Boston_,
EDWARD RILEY,
JOHN E. FITZGERALD,
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY,
DOMINICK TOY,
T. M. BRADLEY,
PATRICK MAGUIRE,
JOHN R. MURPHY,
JOHN MILLER,
W. W. DOHERTY,
_Executive Committee_.
T. J. MURPHY, } _Secretaries._
WILLIAM FERGUSON, }
* * * * *
GRADUALLY FALLING INTO OUR HANDS.--There is not a diocese in the Union
which has not profited by sheriff's sales of Protestant educational
property. The great seminary at Troy was once a Methodist college. Last
month Archbishop Ryan bought out a Protestant college building and gave
it over to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. For thirty-five years it
had been the _Alma Mater_ of a local Protestant body. The Baptist
College at Chicago will soon have a cross upon it. So the story
goes--Protestantism receding and the Church making progress on every
side. Next? Many of the school houses.
The Misses Drexel, the three daughters of the late F. A. Drexel, the
Philadelphia banker, have purchased two hundred acres near Bristol upon
which they will establish an industrial home and school for orphan boys
to be placed under the care of the Christian Brothers.
Another proof has been given, if proof were wanting, of the influence
which the Freemasons possess in ministerial circles in Italy, by the
appointment of the Cavaliere Sisca to the post of Secretary of the
Commission for Ecclesiastical Property. This Sisca is an apostate
priest, who has gone through the form of a civil marriage. The
appointment, therefore, is one more deliberate insult to the bishops and
clergy of Italy, and is, in fact, one thoroughly worthy in all respects
of the usurping government which has made it.
The restriction as to the days of the week (Monday and Tuesday) on which
priests could heretofore celebrate the two weekly Requiem Masses allowed
them, has been abrogated, and they are now free to suit their
convenience as to the days they may prefer to select.
The charter of Brown University, Providence, R. I., requires that the
president of that institution "must forever be of the denomination
called Baptists." Forever! There won't be a live Baptist a hundred years
hence. Then what will become of that charter, asks the _Catholic Union_
and _Times_.
During the darkest hours of the Revolutionary War, when the finances of
the Colonies were at the lowest ebb--when the Continental troops were
actually suffering from the want of necessary food and clothing--the
merchants of Philadelphia displayed one of the noblest acts of
patriotism recorded in the annals of American history. In June, 1780,
ninety-three of them subscribed three hundred thousand pounds "to
support the credit of a bank to be established for furnishing a supply
of provisions for the armies of the United States," and of these
ninety-three subscribers, twenty-seven were members of the Friendly Sons
of St. Patrick, and these twenty-seven sons of Ireland contributed one
hundred and three thousand pounds--more than one-third of the total
amount. Among the records of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick (now in
possession of their successor, the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia),
is subscribed to its By-Laws the autograph signature of Geo. Washington,
an adopted member of the society.
THE ONLY MEN WANTED WEST.--Mr. F. A. Carle, the managing editor of the
St. Paul _Pioneer Press_, said of the prospects of a young man in the
West: "There is money for the young man who will go out there and
'hustle.' Those who don't want to do that can get along just as well in
the East. If you go West with energy and perseverance and make up your
mind to take what comes during the first few years without making a
face at it, you will do well--much better than here. Those are the only
kind of people that we want out here."
A NOBLE WORK.--The Catholics of Pittsburgh, Penn., have begun a good
work which should be taken up and developed all over the country. They
have instituted a "Catholic Prisoners' Reform Association," the objects
of which are to instruct the convicts during their imprisonment, provide
them with good books, and to assist them to a new start in life when
discharged. Bishop Phelan gives his countenance to the new society, and
promises it a chaplain.
The Catholic total abstinence societies are not only doing a good work
for the Irish in America, but they are not wanting in forwarding the
welfare of the Irish in Ireland. The Catholic total abstinence societies
of Philadelphia have just raised $8,500 for the Irish Parliamentary
fund.
* * * * *
A GREAT UNIVERSITY.--According to the annual statistics just issued, the
Catholic University of Louvain had a much higher number of students
during the academical year just closed (1884-85) than ever before--the
inscriptions reaching a total of 1,638, as against 1,555 in the
preceding year. Some idea of the rapid growth of the _Alma Mater_ may be
obtained from the following figures, showing the number of students
registered:
1834-35 (first year) 86
1844-45 " 777
1854-55 " 600
1864-65 " 764
1874-75 " 1,160
1884-85 " 1,638
Again, to show the influence which the University has had upon the
ecclesiastical and professional life of Belgium, we may remark that,
since its establishment in 1834, no less than 3,942 candidates have
passed through the faculty of theology; 10,746 through that of law;
9,563 through that of medicine; 7,406 through that of science; and 5,762
through that of philosophy and letters (our "arts"). Again, during last
year, the _Alma Mater_ gave to Belgium 49 _avocats_, 15 notaries, 44
medical practitioners, and 39 engineers. Nearly all civilized countries
are represented among the students; among the rest three English and one
Irish.
* * * * *
A Protestant Clergyman, formerly American Consul at Amsterdam, says:
"During the last thirty years the Roman Catholic Church has been
extending its influence in Holland, until to-day the Romanists command
nearly one-half of the population, and have, to a great extent, the
control of the public schools and of popular elections."
The Perils and sufferings of missionaries in Manitoba are probably not
greater anywhere else in the world. They undergo almost incredible
hardships in following the Indians from place to place (the only way of
gaining a lasting influence over them); travelling in dog-sleighs or on
foot, their food often consisting of only dried fish unsalted. In past
years two were drowned while crossing ice; their dog train also
perished. Another missionary was drowned by the upsetting of a skiff in
a squall whilst trying to save an Indian boy, who was his guide. Three
priests were also frozen to death in a blizzard on the prairies.
CATHOLIC CONGRESS.--An interesting Congress is to mark next year. The
recent Catholic Congress of Normandy appointed a section for Christian
Apologetics, and this section has just decided to summon for 1887 a
great "International Congress of Catholic Savants," to be held in Paris.
The organizing committee, nominated at Rouen, met for the first time in
Paris on December 28th, under the Presidency of Mgr. de Hulst, Rector of
the Catholic Faculty of that city. The committee now consists of
twenty-seven members resident in Paris, and twenty-eight in the
provinces or abroad. Among these we may mention the eminent Bollandist
and historian, Père de Smedt, S. J.; Professors Gilbert and de Harlez,
of the University of Louvain; Kurth, of Liège; de Lapporent and
Duchesne, of Paris, de Margerie, of Lille; Valson, of Lyons; Duilhé de
St. Projet, of Toulouse; de Nadaillac, de Beaucourt, de l'Epinois, Paul
Allard, and many other names illustrious in science, history,
literature, and other departments of learning. The work of the Congress
will fall into three divisions: 1. Philosophical and Social Sciences; 2.
Exact and Natural Sciences; 3. Historical Sciences; and each division
will comprehend five sections. The President will shortly issue a
circular describing in detail the organization and plan of work, and
inviting all the Catholic savants of Europe to participate in the
preliminary labors, principally by the drawing up of memoirs, and fixing
the actual state of science in regard to the various questions affecting
Christian Faith.
HIGH AND LOW LICENSE.--City Collector Onahan, of Chicago, in connection
with his annual report to the city council, has prepared an analytical
table showing the amount of revenue derived from licenses of all
descriptions from 1879 to 1885 inclusive. The increase is something
extraordinary being over one and one-half million dollars for the six
years; the exact figures being, for 1879, $214,218; and for 1885,
$1,916,820. A careful examination of the table shows that this immense
increase is due entirely to the increase in the saloon license rate of
Chicago, which is now $500. In 1883, with low license, there were 3,777
saloons in the city, and the revenue derived from them amounted to only
$385,864; while with high license in 1885 there are only 3,075 saloons,
yielding $1,721,474 annually. This report of Collector Onahan's is one
of the most forcible arguments in favor of high license that it is
possible to make, and deserves the earnest attention of all thoughtful
citizens.
The Corsicans are not contented with the glory of having given the world
one great man, Napoleon; they are now claiming--and according to the
_Figaro_, have established their claim--no less a personage than
Christopher Columbus. Abate Casanova had already endeavored to prove
that the Father of the New World was born at Calvi, in the northwest
corner of the island; and only last year a hot controversy raged on the
subject. The Corsicans believe they have carried their point, and Calvi
intends to celebrate with unusual solemnity the fourth centenary of her
illustrious son's first voyage (1492).
TIGHT LACING.--The great naturalist, Cuvier, was walking one day with a
young lady, who was a victim of tight lacing, in a public garden in
Paris. A lovely blossom upon an elegant plant drew from her an
expression of admiration. Looking at her pale, thin face, Cuvier said:
"You were like this flower once: to-morrow it will be as you are now."
Next day he led her to the same spot and the beautiful flower was
dying. She asked the cause. "This plant," replied Cuvier, "is an image
of yourself. I will show you what is the matter with it." He pointed to
a cord bound tightly around the stem and said: "You are fading away
exactly in the same manner under the compression of your corsets, and
you are losing by degrees all your youthful charms, just because you
have not the courage to resist this dangerous fashion."
* * * * *
The Christian Brothers have opened a school at Portland, Oregon. The
Brothers are to take charge of St. Michael's College in that city.
Reverend Brother Aldrich of Mary, of Sacred Heart College, has been
appointed Director; Rev. Brother Bertram, of St. Joseph's Academy,
Oakland, Sub-Director; and Rev. Brother Yvasian Michael, of Martinez,
Assistant.
Thank God, the light of Christian education is spreading! The aggregate
number of pupils under direction of the Brothers on the Pacific coast,
including those at St. Mary's and the Sacred Heart colleges, and St.
Peter's Day School, in San Francisco, St. Joseph's Academy and three
parochial schools in Oakland, and the Sacramento Institute, at the
capital, is 1,965. The number at St. Michael's college will add nearly
two hundred more to this phalanx of Catholic youth.
* * * * *
O'GLADSTONE.--_Philadelphia Press_: If the Grand Old Man keeps on his
present course a little while longer, we shall insist upon being
permitted to call him Mr. O'Gladstone.
FATHER TOM.--The mother of the late Fr. Burke did not spare the rod in
the management of her son. Mrs. Burke, before applying her cane, recited
a particular prayer, and it is perhaps venial to recur to it, at least
once, in writing the life of a man who himself in after life continually
harped upon it. This collect--better known as "Prevent, O Lord"--entered
into some prayers which Dominicans repeat before Mass. Father Burke said
at Tallaght, with his usual humor, that he never heard it recited
without feeling a cold thrill between his shoulders. Mrs. Burke would
kneel down and command Nicholas to repeat after her the words of this
collect.... He would even smile through his tears like a sunbeam in
showers, and while Mrs. Burke sonorously repeated, "Prevent, O Lord, we
beseech Thee all our actions," he would pray in another sense, "Prevent,
O Lord;" but as he often told his brother priests, "it never did
prevent," and the lash continued to fall.
* * * * *
Parliamentary Fund.
A grand scheme was inaugurated at a recent meeting of the friends of
Ireland in Boston. It is to raise several hundred thousand dollars by a
popular subscription of five dollars each. This amount will not distress
any friend of the good cause, and it will enable Mr. Parnell to carry on
the work of the redemption of Ireland to final success. So far, the
fives are pouring into the committee. Several hundreds have already been
received. Mr. Donahoe will cheerfully hand in any subscriptions
intrusted to him to the treasurer. The subscription is not confined to
any part of the country, but friends of Ireland everywhere are asked to
contribute. Now is the time to strengthen the hands of Parnell and his
patriotic band of lieutenants.
* * * * *
THE JUBILEE FAST.--On account of the difficulty in preparing food in
accordance with the rules of the black fast prescribed by the Jubilee,
the Holy Father, by a decree of January 15th, 1886, empowers Ordinaries
to dispense the faithful in the aforesaid fast, so that they may use
eggs and white meats, though bound to observe in all else the laws of
fasting. When this dispensation is granted by the bishop of any diocese,
the use of flesh meat is forbidden; but butter, milk, eggs, cheese, may
be used on the days on which the fast is made to gain the indulgence of
the Jubilee.
* * * * *
Welsh Lying.
At Bangor County Court recently, the Judge, during the hearing of an
action, said:--"I must observe that there is hardly a single case heard
in this court in which there is not deliberate perjury committed. Look
at the last case--look at this frightful lying. I do not meet with such
a state of things out of Wales. Other people have said this thing
before, but hitherto I have kept quiet. During my whole life I have
heard nothing to approach what it is in this part of the world. There is
not a case heard in which people do not think it necessary to lie. It
is most demoralizing. I do not think it is in human nature to stand many
years of it. I have had my turn of it. I appeal to every disinterested
person to give his opinion as to what the feature of the country is. I
can try in Cheshire ten cases while I try one here, because in Cheshire
they do not lie." It is worth while to remark that Wales is the most
inveterately dissenting place in Great Britain, and the most difficult
to convert. Evidently history must be rewritten bit by bit. We always
thought it was only Papists and Irishmen who did not know there was any
obligation to speak the truth.
* * * * *
The High License Bill, now pending in the New York Legislature, provides
a fee of $1,000 for distilled spirits in cities of 200,000 people or
over, and a fee of $500 for beer.
The Total Population of Canada is 4,324,810. Of this 1,299,161 are
French, 957,403 Irish, making together 2,256,564, and there are of
English, Scotch and Welsh, 1,592,604. The whole purely English
population amounts to only about 882,894. Indians, Germans and other
nationalities make up 475,000. It is thus seen that the Irish and French
combined are in a clear majority over all other races. They are apt to
maintain this lead. The Catholic population of Canada is 2,168,748, or a
little more than a majority.
Some one once spoke of Col. Burke as Father Tom's cousin. "He is no
relation of mine," said the friar. "My people had no military title
beyond corporal. My father was a well 'bread' man and had the civil
title of 'master of the roll.'"
NO OLD MAIDS.--One never hears of "an old maid" in Mexico, and to remain
forever unmarried entails upon the luckless spinster no such stigma of
reproach as the epithet so common in our country; but if her lonely
condition is alluded to at all, they good-naturedly say of her that she
is "hard to please." The aged are universally treated with the greatest
respect and every mark of deference. It is considered more courteous to
address even elderly married ladies as Senorita (Miss) instead of Senora
(Mrs.) and the lady of the house is always affectionately called by her
servants _la nina_ (the little girl), though she may have attained the
mature age of 80. Beggars upon the streets and venders in the market
places address all ladies, young and old, as _ninas_--children; or, when
particularly importunate, by the more respectful and endearing term,
_ninita_--dear little girl.
THE MAN FOR GALWAY.--Capt. William O'Shea, selected by Mr. Parnell as
the Home Rule candidate for Galway City, was triumphantly elected.
O'Shea contested one of the Liverpool divisions as a Liberal at the
general election. He was supported by Gladstone and also by Parnell, but
was defeated by a majority of ninety. He has somewhat of a history. He
is said to be a strikingly handsome man. When an army captain he married
one of the daughters of Lord Hatherly, a former Lord Chancellor of
England. He made some indiscreet financial investments and lost his
fortune, and lately has figured as promoter of colonial and insurance
companies. It was he that negotiated the famous "Kilmainham treaty"
between Parnell and Gladstone. He is a very useful man at this time, no
doubt. His usefulness will be enhanced by his having a seat in
Parliament. He will be the diplomat of the Irish party.
* * * * *
Active Parnellites.
The Irish party will hold a meeting at the Cannon Street Hotel, London,
on St. Patrick's Day. Mr. Parnell will preside. The object of the
meeting will be to issue to England the ultimatum of the Irish
concerning Home Rule. As the date selected for this event precedes by
but five days the 22d of March, the date set by Mr. Gladstone for the
commencement of the government's work on Irish legislation, it is
believed that the Nationalist leader means to force a crisis on the Home
Rule question. Mr. Parnell has also arranged to have his party hold
fifty meetings throughout Ireland simultaneously with the one he will
preside over. The ultimatum will also be announced at these meetings.
* * * * *
Gen. W. T. McMahon, of New York City, will lecture in Tremont Temple on
the evening of St. Patrick's Day, for the benefit of Father Roche's
Working Boys' Home, now drawing to completion in Bennett Street.
WHAT TWO JUDGES SAY.--Worth noting at the present moment are the
addresses delivered by two County Court Judges, Judge Waters in
Waterford, and Judge Darley in Wexford. In the latter place Judge Darley
told the Grand Jury that Wexford was the last of six towns he had
presided in, and in every one of them the list of criminal cases was the
lightest he ever remembered; while Judge Waters stated that for the
entire county of Waterford there had been during the past six months
only seven criminal cases. He added:--I also administer the criminal law
in Cavan and in Leitrim. In Cavan, which is more populous than
Waterford, there was at the recent sessions only one case of rescue,
which should not have been sent forward at all. In all Leitrim I had
only three cases, two of petty larceny, and the third a trivial assault
arising out of a dispute between two boys over a game. That was the
amount of crime I had to dispose of in these counties in three different
provinces representing a population of about three hundred and thirty
thousand souls. On the face of the globe, I may safely say, I do not
think that there is any country that could show a record similar to that
I have just laid before you, which is, as I have said, in every way a
remarkable one.
THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR.--The Knights of Labor do themselves great credit
in refusing to draw the color line in their organizations. The negroes
in the employ of the Mallory Steamship Company, who were opposed by the
Texas knights, might, it would seem, have become knights if they had
wished. The only disqualifications for membership in the Knights of
Labor are those laid down in article I, section 3 of their
constitution--a clause which is so interesting that we give it
entire:--No person who either sells or makes a living, or any part of
it, by the sale of intoxicating drink, either as manufacturer, dealer or
agent, or through any member of his family, can be admitted to
membership in the order; and no lawyer, banker, professional gambler or
stock broker can be admitted.
A REBELLION INCIDENT.--During the Rebellion Major Burke of New Orleans
was in command of a detachment that captured a part of the Sixth
Massachusetts Regiment. He treated the prisoners as kindly as the
circumstances would permit, and parted from many of them with
expressions of courtesy and regret. Years passed and he heard not a word
from any of them. But at the time of the great flood, when the whole of
Southern Louisiana lay prostrate and helpless under the sweep of
turbulent waters, Major Burke, as chairman of the Relief Committee,
received one day a dispatch from Boston authorizing him to draw at sight
for $10,000. This was one of the earliest responses to the pitiful cry
that had gone up from a stricken community for help, and it touched and
encouraged the Major and his associates. Two hours later came another
dispatch from Boston authorizing the committee to draw for another
$10,000, and in a few hours came a third dispatch donating another
$10,000. With these dispatches, or in some way to connect the statement
with them, came the flash from Boston, "The Sixth Massachusetts
remembers the kindness of Major Burke."
OUR COLORED BRETHREN.--Congressman O'Hara, of North Carolina, is a
member of the coterie of educated colored men in Washington; but
singularly enough he and his wife are Catholics and attend St.
Augustine's Church. Mrs. O'Hara is one of the loveliest ladies in
Washington, and were it not for the slight trace of negro blood in her
veins she would be a leader in white society. Like Mrs. Bruce, who is
also beautiful, she is a highly educated and accomplished woman, speaks
French, plays Beethoven, paints pictures, and is up in art and
literature to a degree that would make some of her white sisters blush
for envy. Both Mrs. Bruce and Mrs. O'Hara are very nearly white, and it
would be difficult for a stranger to detect their relation to the
African race. Mrs. O'Hara has a white governess for her children, and
intends that they shall be as accomplished as herself. These people have
their own society, give balls, dinner parties, receptions and other
entertainments.
PARLIAMENTARY FUND.--At the meeting of the Irish Parliamentary
Association at the Hoffman House, New York, Banker Eugene Kelly stated
that the fund was in need of no more money at present. When the books
are all in, it is expected that the fund will amount to about seventy
thousand dollars. Mr. Kelly stated that while the association had all
the money it needed now, the time might come when its services would
again be required. The association, after winding up its present
affairs, will not be dissolved, but will simply adjourn to meet at the
call of the chairman.
THE CENTENARY OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.--Corsica is preparing to
celebrate on a grand scale the fourth centenary of the death of
Christopher Columbus. It was at Calvi, in Corsica, that the illustrious
navigator was born in 1441, as has been proved by the Abbé Cuzanova,
after considerable research. The Genoese governor at Calvi, he says,
struck with the precocious intellect of the child, sent him to Genoa. At
fourteen, he evinced a decided taste for a sea-faring life. He was
accordingly sent to the University of Pavia, where he learned geography,
cosmography, geometry, astronomy, and the nautical sciences. In 1470, we
find him at Lisbon; in 1477 in Iceland; five years later he embarked at
Palos, on the celebrated voyage which ended in the discovery of America.
The great navigator, we are told, spoke of Corsica, which he called his
native island, in the narratives of his adventures at sea, and to which
he made some touching allusions.
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.--Two-thirds of the money necessary to start the
Catholic University has already been raised.
SOCIALISM.--Mr. Hyndman, the guiding spirit of the Social Democratic
Federation, has hitherto had a considerable amount of public attention
paid to the theories he has advanced. No matter how jejune and
impracticable his views might have been when closely examined, he has
endeavored to explain them with some show of reason, and accordingly
influential politicians have treated him as a man who might be led by
the force of logic to abandon Utopian schemes. Mr. Hyndman, so far from
being convinced that he has been treading a dangerous path, has taken a
further stride in the direction to which it tends. Within the course of
some days past two meetings of the unemployed, largely promoted by the
Social Democratic Federation, have been held in London, and at each the
doctrine of force was freely spoken of as the only remedy for the
poverty-stricken. Mr. Hyndman, at the first gathering, gave the keynote
to his associates and followers. "All we see," said he, "is the
employer and the employed, the wealthy and the destitute, the robber and
the robbed." He openly proclaimed himself the advocate of a revolution,
for which he urged the unemployed to prepare quickly.
The bishops of Australia have petitioned the Holy See to declare St.
Patrick's Day a holyday of obligation.
* * * * *
The Orangemen in 1798.
The Orangemen were now on hand to follow up the vanquished, whom they
valiantly slaughtered without mercy--this being always their well chosen
avocation in war, for the grim fraternity were never soldiers to fight
on equal terms. A regiment of them raised from Bandon Orangemen, and
known as the North Cork, became notorious for the ingenious tortures
they inflicted on those who fell into their hands. This regiment was in
Castlebar when the few Frenchmen that landed under Gen. Humbert advanced
on that town. There were six thousand British troops in Castlebar at the
time, including the North Cork, when, according to the historian
Plowden, Humbert attacked it with nine hundred Frenchmen and fifteen
hundred of the Mayo peasantry, making twenty-four hundred in all; and
these, it is an historic fact, drove the six thousand out of the town
like so many sheep. The North Cork, true to their fighting qualities,
gallantly ran away, never halting till they reached Tuam, forty miles
from the scene of action, and yet, for further safety, started for
Athlone. This incident is still remembered as the "Castlebar races."
These runaways were part of the army that Gen. Abercrombie declared
"dangerous to everybody but an armed foe;" and well they proved the
truth of this saying.
* * * * *
PRESIDENT EGAN.--At the National Convention of the Irish National League
of America, in Boston, a resolution was unanimously passed directing
that a sum of $3,000 shall be annually appropriated out of the funds of
the League to indemnify the President of the League for his time and
services in the interest of the cause. Mr. Egan, when elected President,
informed the committee of his intention not to accept any compensation
for his services; but notwithstanding this the National Executive
Committee of the League, at their recent meeting in Chicago, insisted
on voting the $3,000 due under the resolution up to August last, and
directed the Treasurer to remit the same to the President. The check for
the amount reached Mr. Egan on the 12th inst., and he at once indorsed
it back to Rev. Dr. O'Reilly, the Treasurer, as his personal
contribution to the League funds.
* * * * *
Parnell and Healy.
_Milwaukee Catholic Citizen_:--The English press for some time has been
holding up T. M. Healy as a rival to Parnell. The English are quick to
sow seeds of dissension and to hammer in wedges of discord wherever
there is opportunity. This was done in Davitt's case, but it availed
nothing. The Irish ranks remained unbroken.
The Galway episode, where Messrs. Healy and Biggar, with the support of
a dozen Irish members, sought to defeat Capt. O'Shea, Parnell's nominee
for a vacant seat, indicates that the English scent for _divida et
impera_ has been keen. The episode ended happily by the withdrawal of
Mr. Lynch, the contra-Parnell candidate, but it leaves an unpleasant
impression.
The "old guard" are with Parnell, Biggar alone (and strangely) excepted.
Healy seems to have regretted his course when across the Rubicon. So far
as leadership goes, he merely furnished an occasion for Parnell to
demonstrate his superior qualities of management in a brilliant manner.
Healy is too serviceable a man to lose from the Irish ranks, yet his
retention at the price of disunion is not to be contemplated.
* * * * *
Great Temperance Gathering.
There was a great demonstration of the Catholic Total Abstinence
Societies of Suffolk County (Boston) at Tremont Temple, on the evening
of January 15, to hear the Rev. Joseph B. Cotter, of Minnesota, who has
been appointed Union lecturer by the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of
America. Mr. P. J. Guerin presented as the presiding officer of the
evening the Rev. E. V. Boursaud, S. J., President of Boston College, who
congratulated the societies represented upon the large numbers present
and the brilliant outlook for the temperance cause as thus indicated. He
spoke of the vice of intemperance as one to kill both body and soul. The
temperance cause was one of the highest that commanded the attention
and interest of men.
Father Cotter received an ovation of applause. He delivered an eloquent
address on temperance, and said that the great apostle of temperance in
America, Bishop Ireland, of St. Paul, was likely soon to speak in
Boston. The lecture was able and argumentative as well as pathetic, and
strongly patriotic. At the conclusion the pledge was given to a great
number of people.
Father Cotter is in excellent health and may well be styled the Apostle
of Temperance in America. Since September last Rev. J. B. Cotter has
administered the pledge to nine thousand persons. Bishop Ireland was
recently asked, "What was the Pope's action on the temperance decrees of
the Plenary Council?"--"They were indorsed entirely," replied the
bishop. "The Church from this time places itself on the highest ground
on the temperance question. The council took an extremely strong stand
on the closing of saloons on Sunday, indirectly putting the ban on the
whole liquor traffic by stating, in these words, that 'Catholics engaged
in it should seek a more honorable mode of gaining a livelihood.' It
condemned selling liquor to minors and habitual drunkards, and proclaims
against blasphemy and improper language in saloons. It forbids the sale
of liquor, beer, and wine in any connection with the interests of the
Church. It solemnly approves of total abstinence societies, and requests
pastors to encourage them."
* * * * *
PAULISTS IN SOUTH AMERICA.--Rev. Edmund Hill, now associated with the
Rev. Father Fidelis (Dr. Kent Stone) in the Passionist monastery at
Buenos Ayres, had the happiness of seeing his brother, Percival G. Hill,
received into the Church in that city. Father Hill was formerly a member
of the Paulist community in New York city. Recently the Passionists
Fathers opened their new monastery in Calle Cariaod, Buenos Ayres. They
have now in South America a retreat which will stand comparison with the
houses of their North American province, and is worthy to be numbered
with those they possess in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, England and
Ireland.
Rev. James Keegan, of St. Louis, Mo., in a late article in the _Western
Watchman_, says of the peasant dwellers among the hills of Connaught:
"They have a higher civilization than perhaps any Teutonic people can
ever attain. Yet they live in mud-wall, clay floor cabins, and many of
them even out of doors--being evicted. How is their civilization higher?
They live continually in the presence of God, realizing this fact as no
other people do; so they enjoy the best of company; they act up to the
spirit of Catholicity better than any other people, and so have the best
code of manners in the world; they are a most polite and chivalrous
people, never offending strangers by word or deed, if the strangers
behave properly. They have a most beautiful and refined national music
and poetry, which all know and thoroughly appreciate; they are all
poets, inasmuch as they perceive and enjoy the poetry of nature as no
other people but the old Athenians ever did."
* * * * *
Mothers and Daughters.
The _London Tablet_ has a lengthy review of Most Rev. Archbishop
O'Brien's book, "After Weary Hours," from which we make the following
extract: After describing St. Agnes, and her short but brilliant career,
he sets her before us as a model worthy of our imitation, though he
expresses some doubt as to whether her example will be likely to excite
much emulation among young ladies of these days. Among modern young
ladies whose sense of womanly delicacy is not startled by being
frequently, and for long hours, alone with "that most useless and
uninteresting of the human species, a moon-struck lover.... Young ladies
who have had day dreams of matrimony while yet in short clothes." While
on this topic we may as well give the reader the benefit of the
following remarks, which the Archbishop makes a little further on, and
which, we regret to say, are almost as applicable in England as in
America. "How many young Catholic girls and boys hang entranced over a
filthy tale--love tale. They experience no sense of shame in reading
vile books, or in flaunting in a ball-room where youthful charms are as
really prostituted as in any den of iniquity, and where even aged women
expose their scraggy necks and freckled shoulders to the unspeakable
disgust of all right-thinking men.... It is true that custom may excuse
certain modes of dress not openly immodest; but no custom can excuse
certain ball-room toilets; and no girl ever appeared for the first time
in one of these diabolically suggested dresses without experiencing a
thrill of shame, and showing a conscious flush of outraged modesty." Let
Catholic mothers take these words to heart, and when bringing out their
daughters or chaperoning them to balls and parties, let them show an
example more worthy of that Virgin Immaculate whom they profess to
imitate then at present contains.
* * * * *
Mgr. Healey, Bishop of Portland, Me., was received in private audience
by his Holiness the Pope, recently.
Padre Protasi, S. J., is dead. His name is well known in Piedmont. When
the Jesuits were attacked in 1848, and in 1860, he was cast into prison.
Cavour sought him, and asked him to reveal the secrets of Jesuitism. He
replied that the "Spiritual Exercises" contained all their secrets. In
1866 he was again arrested, and exiled to Elba. His end was tranquil,
and amidst his brethren he passed away.
* * * * *
New Carpet Warehouse.
Messrs. Thomas O'Callaghan and Lucius Howard, both of whom were recently
connected with one of the largest carpet houses in the city, composing
the firm of Thomas O'Callaghan & Co., are showing a very fine line of
carpetings, rugs, mats, etc., at their store, 601 Washington Street.
Since their opening day, the store has been visited by a large crowd of
buyers, attracted by the bargains offered and the novelty of their
carpet designs. In moquettes and draperies they are carrying a large
line of entirely new patterns, designed expressly for them. Among the
things sought by the purchasers are a fine lot of Smyrna rugs, reduced
from $5 and $6 to $2.90. Several hundred of these were sold on the
opening day. Linoleum floor matting, manufactured from cork shavings and
other materials, and destined to be widely used when its merits become
more generally known, is kept in stock. It is very soft, and comfortable
for the feet, but very durable. The firm also shows a large and
desirable line of oil cloths. It is proposed by Mr. O'Callaghan to
extend his quarters to the store adjoining, now occupied by a crockery
firm, as soon as their lease expires, thus making very large and
convenient warerooms. Give the new firm an early call.
* * * * *
Pope Leo XIII. celebrated the seventy-sixth anniversary of his birthday
and the eighth of his coronation on the 2d of March, by an address to
the members of the Sacred Congregation.
The late Dr. Hyndman left behind him the best mixture for coughs, colds,
and consumption, to be had in the country. Dr. P. Morris is the only
sure manufacturer of the article in this city. All others are spurious.
The doctor can be found opposite the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
* * * * *
Gen. Hancock and the Irish Brigade.
In our next issue we will give an article on the late Gen. Hancock and
his relations with the Irish Brigade.
* * * * *
RIEL.--In his annual report on Indian affairs, Sir John Macdonald
asserts that the recent uprising in the Northwest was due to specious
inducements held out to the Indians by Riel, and argues that the
half-breed leader was responsible for the whole trouble. The
expenditures in the field and for transport services were nearly
$4,000,000.
* * * * *
Montgomery Light Guard Veteran Association.
This spirited organization celebrated its twenty-first anniversary on
the 25th of February, at the Quincy House. It was one of the most
enjoyable banquets that we have attended for a long time. Capt. Thomas
F. Doherty presided, and performed the duties of the chair to the
satisfaction of all. The association numbers one hundred and fifty of as
fine fellows as ever handled a knife and fork. Speeches, songs, etc.,
occupied the attention of the evening to a late hour. A uniform is being
prepared for the members, and we may expect a parade of this Veteran
Association the coming season.
* * * * *
RETURNS TO HIS FIRST LOVE.--The good tidings have been received of the
return to the faith of Professor Benedict Pollio, of Naples, who, for
the past thirteen years, has been one of the pillars of the Italian
Evangelical Methodist sect, and has become notorious as the author of a
blasphemous pamphlet against our Blessed Lady. He now publicly abjures
and retracts his errors and writings, and humbly craves re-admission
into the Church.
* * * * *
MUSIC.
_From White, Smith & Co._
_Vocal_: "Peasant's Wooing," Song, by Koschat. "Love's Dream is Past,"
Duet, words by F. N. Scott, melody by Ascher. "Only a Face in the
Moonlight," by Chas. H. Gabriel. "Moonlight on the Rhine," Duettino,
words by Eleanor Darby, music by W. Newland. "No Home Like a Mother's,"
by Jno. F. Leonard. "Evening Bells," trio for female voices by Gabriel.
"How Long Wilt Thou Forget Me, O Lord," Quartette and Chorus by Carl
Pflueger. "Consider the Lilies," Solo and Chorus, by W. A. Springer.
_Instrumental_: "Sleep, my Angel," Nocturne by Wachtmann. "Sang Froid,"
by Beaumont. "Romance," for pianoforte by Helen Hopekirk. "Angelo
Waltzes," by A. Czibulka. "La Bella Amazone," by Lolschorn. "Movement a
la Pavane," by Calixa Lavallee. "Gavotte in G. Minor," by Bach. No. 1,
"Valse de Salon," by Calixa Lavallee. "Whitsuntide in Florence,"
Potpourri by C. D. Blake. "Valse Brilliante," by Lysberg. "Mandolin et
Castagnettes," "Valse Mexicaine," by L. Meyer. "Hearts First Love," by
Eilenberge. "Nightfall in the Forest," Fantasia de Concert, by A. W.
Holt. "Chole," Danse Africaine, by Geo. C. Dobson. "Mystere," for piano,
by Byron C. Tapley. "Alpine Horn," Transcription by H. Schirmer.
"Whitsuntide in Florence," by A. Czibulka. Piano score of opera.
_R. A. Saalfield, 12 Bible House, N. Y._
"Little Ah Sid," Chinese song and dance, by J. P. Skelly. "Mikado
Waltz," by Bucalossi. "Mary, Darling, Must you Leave Me," words by J. B.
Ferguson, music by H. P. Danks.
* * * * *
Archbishop Gibbons of Baltimore was in Washington lately, and went over
the grounds that have been selected as the site of the National Catholic
University, which the recent Plenary Council decided to establish. It is
still uncertain when the work on the building will be begun; but there
is a general understanding as to some of the persons who will compose
the faculty. It is practically settled that Bishop Spalding, of Peoria,
Ill., will be the rector, and it was long ago decided that Dr. Chapelle,
pastor of St. Matthew's Church in that city, should be professor of
history.
PERSONAL.
The Marquis of Ripon and Mr. Russell, Q. C., are the first Catholics who
have held the posts of First Lord of the Admiralty and of
Attorney-General.
Charles Russell, Esq., Attorney-General for Ireland, is the brother of
the Rev. Mathew Russell, S. J., editor of that excellent and popular
magazine, the _Irish Monthly_, and is married to a sister of Rosa
Mulholland, the gifted Irish poet and novelist.
Right Rev. Thomas A. Becker, Bishop of the diocese of Wilmington, Del.,
has been transferred to the vacant See of Savannah, Ga. Bishop Becker
was consecrated on August 16, 1868, having previously taught in the
College of Mount St. Mary's, at Emmittsburg, Md. He is distinguished for
his skill as a linguist, being a master of more than half the modern
languages of Europe. He is about 50 years of age.
President Cleveland has expressed himself emphatically in favor of the
enforcement of the eight-hour law in the government departments. He is
reported to have said, with reference to the subject, that it ill became
a government to evade the spirit and the letter of its own enactments.
The Right Rev. Stephen V. Ryan, Bishop of Buffalo, has gone on a health
visit to Florida. There is not, probably, in the whole United States, a
more beloved bishop, than this modest, hard working and most
heavenly-minded spiritual father. Despite the heavy cares of an
extensive diocese, Bishop Ryan has found time to make some valuable
contributions to doctrinal and ascetic literature. His great work, "The
Apostolic Succession," which has gone through several editions, is a
standard authority on that important question. Bishop Ryan is a
Pennsylvanian (Canadian by birth), of direct Irish descent; of a family
whose very name is a synonym of piety and patriotism. Before he was made
bishop, he was a prominent member of the Congregation of the
Vincentians, better known in America as the Lazarist Fathers.
The Venerable Rector of the Irish College at Rome, celebrated, on New
Year's Day, his 86th birthday. High Mass was pontificated in the Church
of St. Agatha, attached to the college, by the Archbishop of
Cincinnati, U. S. A., after which Bishop Kirby entertained at dinner
Cardinal Howard, the Archbishop of Cincinnati, the Bishops of Galloway,
Argyll and the Isles, and Davenport, U. S. A., Mgr. Stonor, Abbot Smith,
O. S. B., the Rectors of the Foreign Colleges, the Priors of the
National Institutes, the Very Rev. Father Lockhart, Mgr. O'Bryen, and
several other dignitaries. The Holy Father sent his congratulations and
apostolic benediction, in honor of this anniversary of his old and
highly valued friend.
The veteran leader of the Centre Party in Germany, Dr. Windthorst, has
completed his seventy-fourth year. Like so many aged Ministers and
leaders of political parties, the "little excellency" is as full of
energy and strength as the youngest of his followers. We heartily join
our fellow Catholics in Germany in wishing their distinguished chief
many years of health and strength in which to continue to labor for the
good cause.
The Rev. Dr. Ullathorne, Lord Bishop of Birmingham, England, will enter
his eightieth year on the 7th of May next, and we find it suggested in a
Sydney contemporary that his work as a pioneer Australian priest should
be commemorated on that occasion by a presentation from the Catholics of
Australia. In an address his Eminence Cardinal Moran describes his
Lordship as "the living link of the present with the past."
The Rev. James Keegan, of St. Louis, Mo., is a contributor of graceful
poems and interesting prose sketches to DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE, _The
Current_ and other publications. He is also an enthusiast in the
movement for the study of the Irish language, and is well versed in the
ancient literature of Ireland. At a late meeting of the council of the
Gaelic Union, in Dublin, Mr. John Fleming, editor of the _Gaelic
Journal_, presiding, a letter from Father Keegan was read, in which he
remitted $5, and promised to contribute the same sum monthly, and
challenged all Irish clergymen, lawyers and other professional men, who
take any interest in their native country, to contribute towards the
journal fund initiated by him.
NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
_Thomas B. Noonan & Co., Boston._
CATHOLIC DIRECTORY FOR THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON, AND THE
ORDER OF THE FORTY HOURS DEVOTION, A. D. 1886.
This little book gives the churches, churches building, chapels and
stations, secular and regular priests, students in philosophy and
theology, seminaries, colleges, etc. The number of scholars in Catholic
schools is stated to be 20,000. The population is put down at 350,000.
_P. O'Shea, New York._
TALES OF TRUTH AND TRUST. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. Price,
75 cents.
ROSEMARY: A TALE OF THE FIRE IN LONDON. By Lady Georgiana
Fullerton. Price 75 cents.
Everything from the pen of Lady Fullerton is sure to find readers. Those
who have not read these books should furnish their libraries with copies
of them.
_Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Ia._,
THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI. By Charles Warren Stoddard. Price, 10
cents.
Those who wish to read the history of the poor creatures afflicted with
the dread disease of leprosy should get this book. The author
graphically describes the terrible scenes as enacted in this
lazor-house. It is sad and yet not sad to state that the Rev. Father
Damien, the self-sacrificing priest, who, for more than twelve years
past, has ministered to the unfortunate lepers in the solitary island of
Molokai--their pastor, companion, and friend--has at last fallen a
victim to the most dreadful of all scourges. A death awaits him as
fearful to contemplate as that which every day confronts those stricken
outcasts of the Kingdom of Hawaii. He fears it not, but there is a touch
of pathos in the request with which he closes a letter announcing his
fate: "Pray for your afflicted friend, and recommend him and his unhappy
flock to all servants of our Lord."
All of the above books may be obtained of Messrs. Noonan & Co., as well
as of the publishers.
* * * * *
MISCELLANEOUS.
POPE LEO XIII. TO THE REV. DR. MORIARTY.--The following letter from
Rome, written by order of the Holy Father, Pope Leo XII., has been
received by the Rev. Dr. J. J. Moriarty, pastor of St. John the
Evangelist's church of Syracuse, N. Y.:
ROME, Feb. 7, 1886.
_Dear and Reverend Father_:
I had a long audience with the Holy Father last evening. He was
delighted to hear of your zeal and your works. He accepted with the
greatest benevolence your latest work, "The Keys of the Kingdom,"
several pages of which I translated for him, while he held in his hands
your beautiful presentation copy. You may imagine the good impression it
made upon him. Whilst admiring your beautiful book, he charged me to
tell you how highly he appreciates your gift and that he blesses, with
the most ample benediction, you, your flock, your societies and your
works, encouraging you to continue your labors so useful to the church.
You may publish this benediction with the words as related.
Yours most affectionately,
GRASSELI, _Archbishop of Golossi_.
To the Rev. J. J. Moriarty, doctor of laws and pastor of St.
John the Evangelist's church, Syracuse, N. Y.
* * * * *
VIENT DE PARAITRE.--Approuve par Mgr. l'evêque de Rochester et Mgr.
l'archevêque de Baltimore, et publie avec l'Imprimatur de Mgr.
l'archevêque de New York. Un Catechisme de doctrine Chretienne. Prepare
et ordonne par le Troisième Concile Generale de Baltimore. Traduit et'
publie par l'autorite ecclesiastique. Par 100, $3.00. Un Abrege du
Catechisme de Doctrine Chretienne. Prepare et ordonne par le Troisième
Concile Generale de Baltimore. Par 100, $2.00. Benziger Brothers, New
York, Cincinnati and St. Louis.
* * * * *
ROBERT EMMET.--The 108th anniversary of the birth of Robert Emmet was
appropriately observed in various parts of the country. In Boston and
vicinity meetings were held in commemoration of the event. In Faneuil
Hall, Mayor O'Brien presided at a very enthusiastic gathering.
OBITUARY.
"After life's fitful fever they sleep well."
CARDINAL.
THE LATE CARDINAL M'CABE.--The first anniversary of the interment of his
eminence Cardinal M'Cabe (who died in Dublin on the 11th of February,
1885), an Office and Pontifical High Mass were solemnized for the repose
of the soul of the deceased Prince of the Church at the Cathedral,
Marlborough Street. The Most Rev. Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, a
large number of other dignitaries, and over two hundred priests,
assisted at the solemnities.
A cablegram from Rome, date of the 2d, announces the death that day of
Cardinal Jacobini. The deceased dignitary was born April 25, 1825, and
was created cardinal Nov. 10, 1884. He should not be confounded with
Cardinal Luigi Jacobini, papal secretary of state.
* * * * *
BISHOP.
Rt. Rev. Peter Joseph Baltes, second Bishop of Alton, Ill., died on
Monday morning, February 15th. The deceased prelate had been ill for
some time from congestion and inflammation of the liver. Bishop Baltes
was born at Ensheim, Bavaria, April 7, 1827, came to the United States
in 1833, was ordained, March 21, 1853, and consecrated, January 23,
1870. May he rest in peace.
* * * * *
PRIESTS.
We regret to announce the death of the Abbé Henri de Ségrave, which took
place at Nemours, in France, on January 25th. Father de Ségrave, who was
the last member of the branch of the old Irish family of the Ségraves of
Cabra, near Dublin, was cure of Nemours and canon of Sens in the diocese
of Meaux. His grandfather had emigrated to France during the last
century, was naturalized in that country, and rose to the rank of
Colonel in the Guard of the unfortunate Louis XVI. The abbé was born at
Fontainbleau, but, though his mother was French, he was always very
proud of his Irish descent. He was a devoted priest, and spent his life
and fortune in the service of his ministry. The church at Nemours was
beautifully restored by him, and he repurchased the property belonging
to it which had been confiscated during the revolution.
Rev. J. B. McNally, late Rector of Chattanooga, Tenn., died at his old
home in Ireland. He resigned his charge early last summer, and went to
Ireland to endeavor to recruit his health, but, alas! he was doomed
never to return to his first mission. He was a native of County
Londonderry, and made his ecclesiastical studies in the Missionary
College of All Hallows, Dublin, where he was ordained in 1876 for the
diocese of Nashville. On the death of the lamented Rev. P. Ragan, during
the yellow fever of 1878, Father McNally was appointed to succeed him.
He served in Chattanooga until his health failed, when, as it seems, he
went home to die. He was a well-read, genial, and very efficient priest,
and acted as temporary Administrator of Nashville after Rt. Rev. Bp.
Feehan's promotion to Chicago.
Rev. Father Tabaret, principal of the Ottawa University, Canada, died
suddenly Feb. 28, immediately after having said grace, while dining with
the faculty. He was one of the oldest theologians of the Church, and
recently received from the Pope the pallium and degree of doctor of
divinity.
The Rev. Joseph F. S. Gallagher, pastor of the Church of the Holy Name,
Cleveland, Ohio, and for twenty-one years one of the most prominent
priests of that diocese, died of pneumonia at the age of forty-nine
years, on January 30.
Rev. Joseph Keller, S. J., assistant for the English-speaking Jesuits,
died at Fiesoli, Italy, on February 4th. Father Keller was a prelate of
great talent and well known in the United States. He was formerly
Provincial of the Jesuit Order for the Province of Maryland. He held the
position of Rector of the great Woodstock Seminary, where he displayed
marked talent. He also filled the position of Rector of the St. Louis
University, Mo., was sent to Rome as deputy at the election of the
General of the Order, which resulted in the unanimous choice of Very
Rev. Anthony Anderledy as General Superior of the Society of Jesus, with
headquarters at Fiesoli. Here Father Keller was elected to the
responsible position of Adjutant-General for the English-speaking
Provinces.
The Rev. James B. Donegan, pastor of the Church of the Immaculate
Conception, Marlboro, Mass., died on February 26. Father Donegan was one
of the best known priests in New England. He was born in County
Longford, Ireland, about forty-eight years ago. He received his clerical
education at All Hallows' College, Dublin. He came to America some
twenty years ago, and had served as curate in Taunton, and in the
Cathedral and St. James Church, Boston. Deceased went to Marlboro in
April, 1876, and he had resided there ever since, having served on the
Board of School Committee for about nine years, filling this position at
the time of his death. Father Donegan was a zealous priest, and was
beloved by all who knew him. He was an ardent advocate of the cause of
Ireland. The funeral services were held on Monday, March 1, at his late
pastorate in Marlboro, and were attended by the archbishop, large
numbers of the Rev. clergy, and by a large congregation. The remains
were interred in the cemetery at Marlboro. May he rest in peace!
* * * * *
BROTHERS.
On Tuesday, February 23d, there passed through Philadelphia, _en route_
for Montreal, Canada, the body of the Rev. Brother Stanislaus, who died
at the Christian Brothers' Normal School, Ammendale, Md., on the 18th of
February. Although but thirty-three years of age, Brother Stanislaus had
filled into this small compass the deeds of a long life. Born in
Montreal, he possessed the characteristic activity and intellectual
grasp of the Northern mind. Much mental labor shattered his never
overstrong constitution. Brother Stanislaus was quite an adept in the
field of literature; as a teacher he had no compeer in Canada; he was,
in addition to these, an expert geologist, having made a thorough study
of the science while directing the scientific department of the
Brothers' Academy, Quebec. He is a great loss to the Canadian Province,
as he filled for the last three years the position of Inspector-General
of the Schools.
Benoit Robert, or Brother Facile, the founder of the Christian Brothers'
schools in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, and
other cities in this country, died in Marseilles on April 2, 1877. He
desired to be buried in the land in which he had labored so long and
well. After the lapse of nine years his desire is to be complied with.
His body will arrive on the next French steamer, and a permit for its
transfer to Amawalk, Westchester County, New York State, has been
obtained. Brother Facile lacked but a fortnight of being seventy-seven
years of age when he died. He was born in Cublize, France, and became a
Brother before he attained his majority. He came to America in 1848. He
was a friend and assistant of Archbishop Hughes.
Brother John Augustine Grace, who died at the Christian Brothers'
Novitiate, Marino, Clontarf, Ire., on January 25th, in his 86th year and
the sixty-third of his religious profession, was one of the foremost
educators of the century. He entered the congregation of the Christian
Brothers, founded in Ireland by his eminent countryman, Edmund Ignatius
Rice, at Waterford, in 1823. Thenceforth, throughout his long life, he
filled many important positions in the various Houses of the Brotherhood
in Ireland and England, everywhere inculcating in the minds of his young
charges an unswerving devotion to the cause of Ireland and the Church.
Among his eminent friends may be named Daniel O'Connell, Father Mathew,
G. Griffin, Lord O'Hagan, Dr. Murray, Dr. MacHale, the two Irish
Cardinals, as well as the most gifted of the patriotic spirits that gave
our country so great a name from 1843 to 1848.
* * * * *
SISTER.
The first member of the Community of the Sisters of the Holy Family of
San Francisco, Cal., has gone to her reward. Sister Mary Magdalen Javett
died at the Day Home on Hayes Street, on the 28th ult., of consumption,
to which she had been a martyr for many months. The deceased Religious
was a native of Ireland, and came from a family notable for its
practical Catholic faith. From her earliest years she was always deeply
devoted to her religious duties, and was among the first five novices
received into the Order by Very Rev. J. Prendergast, its founder.
* * * * *
LAY PEOPLE.
We regret to have to announce the death, at Sydney, New South Wales, of
Mr. William Dargan Gray, M. D., brother of Mr. E. Dwyer Gray, M. P.
We regret to announce the death of Mr. Hubert Sarsfield Burke, which
occurred on Wednesday. Mr. Burke was a frequent contributor to the
_Dublin Review_ and _Catholic World_, and is well known as the author of
"The Women of the Reformation" and "Historical portraits of the Tudor
Dynasty," works which brought him more honor than profit, as readers of
Father Bannin's recent letters in our columns are aware. At the time of
his death he was engaged in sketching the lives of the Irish viceroys,
with the view of showing the inutility of that high post.
John B. Johnston, the animal painter of this city, died at his home, in
Dorchester, on Sunday, February 14, of pneumonia, after a short illness.
He was a little over forty years of age, and belonged to a family of
artists, his father, D. C. Johnston, having been a famous caricaturist
in his day, his brother Thomas a very talented figure painter, and his
sister, Miss S. J. F. Johnston, who survives him, is also an artist. His
death causes a shock to the artistic fraternity of Boston such as has
not been experienced since George Fuller passed away, for he was a great
favorite among all who knew him. As an animal painter, Johnston was very
strong in color and characterization, and it would be difficult to find
his equal in this specialty among American artists. He produced but few
pictures, working slowly and with great care, most of his time during
the past few years having been devoted to teaching. He was a pupil of
the late William M. Hunt, and afterwards studied in Paris. He was of an
amiable and cheerful disposition, full of vigor and liveliness, and was
always exceedingly loyal to his friends and to his convictions. His
frank and hearty manner and blunt honesty were prominent traits in a
character which contained no guile. The funeral took place from the
Church of the Immaculate Conception. The members of the Paint and Clay
Club, in which he always took a great interest, attended the funeral in
a body. No man could be more sincerely mourned by his associates in art
than "Johnny" Johnston, as his friends affectionately called him.
An Irishman, brilliant and useful in his day, Dr. R. R. Madden, has
passed away from among us at the age of eighty-seven. Though best known
in Ireland as the author of the "Lives of the United Irishmen" and the
"History of Irish Periodical Literature," Dr. Madden was author of many
valuable works of travel, etc., and that which some consider his best,
the "Life and Martyrdom of Savonarola." Apart from his authorship, Dr.
Madden led a busy and useful life, having spent some years as special
magistrate in Jamaica, and worked in concert with Wilberforce, Buxton
and Clarkson, for the abolition of slavery. He also, later, held
successively the posts of Superintendent of Liberated Africans at
Havana, under the British Colonial office, and of Acting Judge Advocate
in the Mixed Commission Court, under the Foreign Office. In 1841 he was
chosen by Lord John Russell a Commissioner of Inquiry on the Western
Coast of Africa, and in 1847 was appointed to the Colonial Secretaryship
of Western Australia. In a memoir of Dr. Madden's life and labors,
published in the _Dublin University Magazine_ for March, 1876, the
author remarks: If Dr. Madden had never written a line, his services in
connection with the abolition of the slave trade would entitle him to
public gratitude. If in the fearless discharge of his duty Dr. Madden
excited the enmity of the slave interest, he also won golden opinions
from those who were really the negro's friends. Not only abroad, but in
his own country, men of the very highest eminence were foremost in
recognizing his signal abilities and services. It is seldom that a man
succeeds in winning the unreserved approbation of such men as Lords
Glenelg, Palmerston, Russell, Derby and Normanby, as well as eliciting
admiration of such members of his own profession as Gregory, Cooper,
Brodie, Johnson, Crampton, Kirby and O'Reilly. But perhaps the most
valuable tribute came from the lips of Buxton and Clarkson, two of the
finest champions ever furnished by humanity to the oppressed colored
race. With these men, as also with William Wilberforce, must be linked
the name of our countrymen.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious spelling and punctuation errors were repaired, but unusual
spellings and grammatical uses were retained (vender, millionnaire, both
indorse and endorse, academical, clock times using periods rather than
colons, etc.). Both prophecy and prophesy, snowdrops and snow-drop,
traveller and traveler, were used in this text.
Double quote marks within quote marks were standardized to single quote
marks. Hyphenations were standardized.
Beginning P. 385, "Notes on Current Topics" through the end of the text,
the original placed minor (shorter) thought breaks between each separate
entry, including single paragraph entries. Transcriber has retained only
the major thought breaks, and thought breaks indicating the beginning
and end of multi-paragraph entries.
P. 368, "will be number of other deaths" is faithful to the original.
The following changes from the original were made:
P. 315, "McGuillicuddy" to "McGillicuddy."
P. 328, "irreconciliable foe" to "irreconcilable foe."
P. 341, "maccaroni" to "macaroni."
P. 343, "lucid internal" to "lucid interval."
P. 391, "Engene" to "Eugene."
P. 397, "Hawii" to "Hawaii."
P. 397, first use of "Troisième" was originally "Troisieme."
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Donahoe's Magazine, Vol. XV, No. 4,
April, 1886, by Various
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