I
AMERICAN
Catholic Quarterly
REVIEW
Under the Direction of
MOST REV. PATRICK JOHN RYAN, D. D.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS, RT. REV. MGR. J. iF. iLOUGHLIN D. D., REV. JAMES P.
TURNER AND MR. JOHN J. O'SHEA.
Bonum est homini ut eum Veritas vlncat volentem, quia malum est homini ut eum Veritas
vincat invitum. Nam ipsa vincat necesse est, sive negantem sive confitentem.
S. AUG. EPIST. ccxxxvili. AD PASCENT.
VOLUME XXV.
From January to October, 1900.
PHILADELPHIA:
211 SOUTH Sixth Street.
Entered according to Act of Congress,
in the year 1899,
By Benjamin H. Whittaker,
In the Office of the lyibrarian of Congress, at
Washington, D. C
'JAN 3 1962
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Alexander VL, The Election of — Right Rev. Mgr. J. F. Lough-
lin, D. D 252
Anglican Convents, On — I. S 47
Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress — B. J. Clinch 723
Arbitration, Industrial — Rev. Rene Holaind, S. J 109
Barrett, O. S. B., Dom M. The Story of the Scottish Reforma-
tion 350, 584, 738
Besant, S. J., Rev. J. F. The Sacrifice of Masses 548
Ca«ipbell, D. D., Right Rev. Mgr. J. A. The Year of Jubilee . . 240
Campbell, D. D., Right Rev. Mgr. J. A. Virgins Consecrated
to God in Rome During the First Centuries 766
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere — Right Rev. Mgr. J. F. Lough-
Hn, D. D I3g
Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress, The —
Rev. R. F. Clarke, S. J 791
Catholic Church in Ontario, The — Thomas O'Hagan, Ph. D. . 15
Catholic Progress, Anglo-Saxonism and — B. J. Clinch 723
Century of Irish Immigration, A — H. J. Desmond. 518
Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba, The —
J. I. Rodriquez 366
Church, Penitential Discipline in the Early — Very Rev. J.
Hogan, S. S., D. D 417
Clarke, S. J., Rev. R. F. The Catholic Church in Its Relation
to Material Progress 791
Clinch, Bryan J. Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress. . . . 723
Clinch, Bryan J. Imperialism in the Philippines 209
Commission on the Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century,
A— Right Rev. Abbot F. A. Gasquet, O. S. B 625
Constitutio de lubilsei Indulgentiis 169
Council of Ten System in Irish National Education, The — J. J.
O'Shea 565
Cuba, The Church and the Church Property in the Island of —
J. I. Rodriquez 366
Cuthbert, O. S. F. C, Rev. F. St. Francis of Assisi and the
Religious Revival in the Thirteenth Century 657
De La Salle, Rise of the Christian Schools — C. M. Graham 456
Desmond, H. J. A Century of Irish Immigration 518
Dickinson, Edward. The Modern Musical Mass 264
iv Table of Contents.
PAGE
Ecclesiastical Studies, On— Leo XIII 5^
Education, The Council of Ten System in Irish National— J. J.
O'Shea • • • 5^5
Education of Catholic Indian Youth, Government Seculariza-
tion of the— R. R. Elliott 148
Election of Alexander VI., The— Right Rev. Mgr. J. F. Lough-
lin, D. D 252
Elliott, R. R. Government Secularization of the Education of
Catholic Indian Youth 148
Essay in Physiological Psychology, An— J. J. Walsh, M. D 497
Faith, Imagination and — Rev. Vincent McNabb, O. P 106
Fate of Historical Falsification, The— Rev. H. G. Ganss 72
Francis of Assisi and the Religious Revival in the Thirteenth
Century, St.— Rev. F. Cuthbert, O. S. F. C 657
Ganss, Rev. H. G. Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of
Heretics 531
Ganss, Rev. H. G. The Fate of Historical Falsification 72
Gasquet, O. S. B., Right Rev. Abbot F. A. A Commission on
the Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century 625
Gildea, D. D., Very Rev. W. L. Canon. The Religion of
Shakespeare 229
Government Secularization of the Education of Catholic Indian
Youth— R. R. Elliott 148
Graham, C. M. Rise of the Christian Schools : De La Salle . . . 456
Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century, A Commission on
the— Right Rev. Abbot F. A. Gasquet, O. S. B 625
Heretics, Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of — Rev. H.
G. Ganss 531
Heterodoxies and Inconsistencies of Russian Orthodoxy, Some
—Rev. R. Parsons, D. D 675
Hogan, S. S., D. D., Very Rev. John. Penitential Discipline in
the Early Church 417
Holaind, S. J., Rev. Rene. Industrial Arbitration 109
Imagination and Faith— Rev. Vincent McNabb, O. P 106
Immigration. A Century of Irish— H. J. Desmond 518
Imperialism in the Philippines — B. J. Clinch 209
- Indian Youth, Government Secularization of the Education of
Catholic— R. R. Elliott 148
Indulgences, Suspension of 176
Industrial Arbitration— Rev. Rene Holaind, S. J 109
Table of Contents. v
PAGE
Irish Immigration, A Century of — H. J. Desmond 518
Irish National Education, The Council of Ten System in — J. J.
O'Shea 5^5
Jubilee, The Year of — Right Rev. Mgr. J. A. Campbell, D. D . . 240
Kenricks: Their Early Environment, The Two — J. J. O'Shea. . 697
Kublai Khan ; or, The Popes and the Tartars — L. J. Markoe. . . i
Lee, C. S. Sp., Rev. George. Tennyson's ReHgion 1 19
Loughlin, D. D., Right Rev. Mgr. J. F. Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere 133
Loughlin, D. D., Right Rev. Mgr. J. F. The Election of Alex-
ander VI 252
Making of Religion, The — Rev. Joseph V. Tracey 30
Markoe, L. J. Kublai Khan i
Masses, The Sacrifice of — Rev. J. F. Besant, S. J 548
McDermott, C. S. P., Rev. George. Lord Russell of Killowen. 636
McNabb, O. P., Rev. Vincent. Imagination and Faith 106
Modern Musical Mass, The — Edward Dickinson 264
More, Sir Thomas and the Persecution of Heretics — Rev. H. G.
Ganss 531
Negro Demoralization, Race War and — Rev. T. F. Price 89
O'Donovan, S. T. L., Rev. L. Was St. Paul in Spain? 391
O'Hagan, Ph. D., Thomas. The Catholic Church in Ontario. . 15
Ontario, The Catholic Church in — Thomas O'Hagan, Ph. D. . . 15
Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century, A Commission on the
Greek— Right Rev. Abbot F. A. Gasquet, O. S. B 625
O'Shea, J. J. The Council of Ten System in Irish National Ed-
ucation 565
O'Shea, J. J. The Two Kenricks : Their Early Environment. . 697
O'Shea, J. J. University and School in the late Spanish Colo-
nies 329
O'Sullivan, D. Proposed Reformation of the Calendar by the
Russian Astronomers 757
O'Sullivan, S. J., Rev. D. T. Scientific Chronicle. . . .394, 604, 812
Parsons, D. D., Rev. R. Some Heterodoxies and Inconsisten-
cies of Russian Orthodoxy 675
Paul in Spain? Was St.— Rev. L. O'Donovan, S. T. L 391
vi Table of Contents.
PAGE
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church— Very Rev. J.
Hogan, S. S., D. D 417
Persecution of Heretics, Sir Thomas More and the — Rev. H.
G. Ganss 53i
Philippines, Imperialism in the — B. J. Clinch 209
Physiological Psychology, An Essay in— J. J. Walsh, M. D 497
Popes and the Tartars, Kublai Khan ; or, The— L. J. Markoe. . i
Price, Rev. T. F. Race War and Negro Demoralization 89
Proposed Reformation of the Calendar by the Russian Astrono-
mers—D. O'Sullivan 757
Psychology, An Essay in Physiological — J. J. Walsh, M. D 497
Race War and Negro Demoralization — Rev. T. F. Price 89
Reformation, The Story of the Scottish — Dom. M. Barrett, O.
S. B 350, 584, 738
Religion, The Making of — Rev. Joseph V. Tracey 30
Religion of Shakespeare, The — Very Rev. W. L. Canon Gil-
dea, D. D 229
Rickaby, S. J., Rev. J. Ritual in the Reign of Maximin 437
Rise of the Christian Schools : De La Salle — C. M. Graham. . . . 456
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin — Rev. J; Rickaby, S. J 437
Rodriquez, J. I. The Church and the Church Property in the
Island of Cuba 366
Rome During the First Centuries, Virgins Consecrated to God
in— Right Rev. Mgr. J. A. Campbell, D. D 766
Rovere, Cardinal Giuliano della — Right Rev. Mgr. J. F. Lough-
lin, D. D 133
Russell of Killowen, Lord — Rev. George McDermott, C. S. P. . 636
Russian Orthodoxy, Some Heterodoxies and Inconsistencies of
—Rev. R. Parsons, D. D 675
Sacrifice of Masses, The — Rev. J. F. Besant, S.J 548
Scientific Chronicle 184, 394, 604, 812
Shakespeare, The Religion of — Very Rev. W. L. Canon Gil-
dea, D. D 229
Sicily, A Summer in — A. E. P. R. Dowling 477
Story of the Scottish Reformation, The — Dom M. Barrett, O.
S- B 350, 584, 738
Summer in Sicily, A — A. E. P. R. Dowling 477
Suspension of Indulgences 176
Taunton, Rev. E. L. Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop
of York 289
Tennyson's Religion — Rev. George Lee, C. S. Sp 119
Table of Contents. vii
PAGE
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York — Rev. E. L.
Taunton 289
Tracey, Rev. Joseph V. The Making of ReHgion 30
Two Kenricks : Their Early Environment, The — ^J. J. O'Shea. . 697
University and School in the late Spanish Colonies — J. J.
O'Shea 329
Virgins Consecrated to God in Rome During the First Cen-
turies— Right Rev. Mgr. J. A. Campbell, D. D 766
Walsh, M. D., James J. An Essay in Physiological Psychology 497
Was St. Paul in Spain?— Rev. L. O'Donovan, S. T. L 391
Wolsey, Thomas Cardinal, Archbishop of York — Rev. E. L.
Taunton 289
Year of Jubilee, The— Right Rev. Mgr. J. A. Campbell, D. D . . 240
BOOKS REVIEWED.
PA6B
Altchristlichen Kunst und Liturgie in Italien — Beissel 412
Autobiography of St. Ignatius — O'Conor 619
Biblical Treasury of the Catechism — Cox 622
Biblische Studien — Bardenhewer 624
Brownson's Middle Life — Brownson 415
Carmel in England — Zimmerman 206
Catechism Explained, The — Spirago 200
Catholic Church in the New England States, The 620
Christian Philosophy : God — Driscoll 621
Codification des Canonischen Rechts — Laemmer 623
Compendium Juris Canonici — Meehan 623
Daily Thoughts for Priests — ^Hogan 201
Dante Allighieri, The Life and Works of — Hogan 204
Dawn of a New Era — Carus 192
Ecclesiastical Dictionary — Thein 617
Enarratio in Canticum Canticorum — D. Dionysius Cartusianus 203
Eve of the Reformation — Gasquet 409, 820
viii Table of Contents.
PAGE
Father Anthony — Buchanan 828
Forschungen zur Christlichen Litteratur — Ehrhard 614
Francis of Sales, St. — DeMargerie 618
Geschichte der WeltHteratur — Baumgartner 831
History of Modern Philosophy in France — Levy-Bruhl 192
History of the Devil — Cams 830
Holy Bible, The 207
Jesuit Relations, The 415, 616
Julien I'Apostat — Allard 615
Kirchen Lexicon — Wetzer & Welte 623
Leaves from St. Augustine — Allies 411
Life of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi — Isoleri 831
My New Curate — Sheehan 414
New Footsteps in Well-Trodden Ways — Conway 414
Oxford and Cambridge Conferences — Rickaby 413
Peter in Rome, St. — Barnes 830
Sacerdos Rite Institutus — Petit 202
Savonarola, Fra Girolamo — Lucas 199
Science and Faith — Topinard 192
Sibylline Oracles, The — Terry 205
Studies in Church History — Parsons 613
Studies in Literature — Egan 207
Souvenir of Loretto Centenary 412
Testament of Ignatius Loyola, The 619
Theologia Moralis — Sporer 622
Tractatus de Rubricis Missalis — Van der Stappen 207
Via Crucis — Crawford 405
Was Savonarola Really Excommunicated? — O'Neil 407
What is Liberalism ? — Fallen 205
THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC
QUARTERLY REVIEW
VOL. XXV.— JANUARY, 1900.— No. 97.
KUBLAI KHAN: OR, THE POPES AND THE TARTARS.
FROM the nineteenth century back to the thirteenth is de-
cidedly a long leap to take, covering a distance of six hun-
dred years. In the eyes of many of us, in these latter days
of enlightenment, it is a step backwards from an age of progress and
refinement to a time of darkness, ignorance and barbarism. Many,
even amongst Catholics, carried away by history falsely so-called,
consider the thirteenth century as suffering from an effete eccle-
siasticism, and lacking that vigor, civilizing energy and spirit of
advancement which are said to characterize our own glorious times.
For the benefit of all such persons, as well as for our own consola-
tion and encouragement, and in the interests of truth and justice,
we propose to give a brief, though necessarily very superficial,
sketch of the remarkable reign of a Tartar chief of the thirteenth
century, and of his relations with the Popes who reigned succes-
sively during his own long occupation of the imperial throne in his
vast Asiatic empire.
We have all heard, in a general way, of the Tartar hordes of Asia,
and have a somewhat vague idea of their savagery and cruelty to-
wards any who dared to oppose their progress or to dispute their
despotic sway. These strange people may be said to have reached
the zenith of their power and the utmost extent of their conquests
during Kublai Khan's long reign of thirty-five years. They ^ will,
therefore, be seen at their best, and in all the flush of triumph during
that period.
On the other hand, the Papal power was then recognized amongst
Christians as supreme in Western Christendom, and in the Second
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1899, by Benjamin H. Whittaker, in the
Office of the I^ibrarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
2 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Council of Lyons it was again acknowledged by the Greek Chris-
tians of the Orient, thus reuniting all Christendom under one cen-
tral authority as a grand Christian Commonwealth. This Common-
wealth was threatened on one side by the Saracens, under the sway
of Mahometanism ; on the other by the Tartars, composed of a
strange medley of all religions or of none.
Kublai Khan, or Chi Tsou, as he is called in China, was born in
the year 1216 of the Christian era. In the year 1251 Mangu Khan,
whose father was the fourth son of the great Genghis Khan, was
proclaimed Grand Khan, or Emperor, of all the Tartars. He gave
the general command of Oriental Tartary and of those provinces
of China which were already conquered by the Tartars to Kublai,
who was his brother; the territory from the river Gihon, or Oxus,
to China he entrusted to another chieftain named Ilwadi and a son
of the latter named Massoud, and to Argoun Aga he gave command
of Khorasan, Hindostan, Persia and all the provinces which the
Tartars had already wrested from the grasp of the Mahometans,
extending to Syria and Asia Minor. This distribution of territory
gives us some insight into the vast extent of the Tartar Empire at
this time. We shall find it still further extended under the ap-
proaching reign of Kublai Khan. In the same year Mangu Khan
sent a general named Holotai to subjugate Thibet. This country
was devastated with fire and sword, and its cities and strongholds
were razed to the ground.
In 1253 the King of Armenia, whose people had just been recon-
ciled to the Holy See, came to Mangu's court and acknowledged
the latter's suzerainty over his kingdom, securing for the churches
of Armenia exemption from taxation by the Tartars. Whilst at
the Tartar court the Armenian King submitted certain plans for
conquering various countries and especially the Mahometans.
Mangu Khan was generally reported to be himself a Christian, but
the truth of this report could never be definitely ascertained. But,
however this may be, he entered zealously into the enterprise of
subjugating or exterminating the Mahometans, and, in pursuance
of this purpose, he decided to organize simultaneously three great
armies: one to be sent against Corea, another into Hindostan by
way of Cashmere and the third against the Ismaelians or Assassins
of Persia and the Caliph of Bagdad. We will confine ourselves
chiefly to the fortunes of the Great Khan's brother, Kublai.
Having, as stated, been named by his brother as Governor of the
eastern portion of the immense Tartar Empire, Kublai entered
Northern China, penetrated into the province of Tse Chuen, sub-
jugated the kingdom of Tali in the province of Yun Nan and com-
Kublai Khan: or, The Popes and the Tartars. 3
pleted the conquest of Thibet. Having successfully accomplished
this herculean task, he now set himself to the achievement of a far
more difficult undertaking, namely, the civilizing and refining of his
own people, the Tartars or Mongols. He became imbued with a
great desire to arouse and cultivate in them a taste for the sciences
and, as we shall see presently, to turn their minds to literature and
commerce. In this undertaking he had almost insuperable obsta-
cles to overcome. Up to this time these hordes had merely made
transitory and predatory incursions into China. Lack of subsis-
tence and scarcity of military strongholds rendered their existence
there still precarious. With characteristic energy and foresight the
great general set himself to work to overcome these immense diffi-
culties in the way of accomplishing his noble scheme.
This would seem to have been in line with the policy of Mangu
Khan, Kublai's superior, who sought to consolidate his conquests
in China and to attach the conquered people to hirnself. With this
object in view, Mangu had caused large stores of provisions to be
established in the conquered territory and rebuilt several of their
cities which had been destroyed during the war of conquest. He
had forbidden his troops to ravage the country, paid damages for
the devastations which had already been committed and pushed his
severity so far as to punish with death some of his higher officers
who had transgressed his orders in this respect, and chastised one
of his own sons who had crossed over some cultivated fields. Mean-
while he became impatient for the completion of the conquest of
China, and, after regulating his affairs at home, he set out for that
country in person. Having heard certain reports which made him
suspicious of his brother Kublai, who had made himself loved and
respected by the Chinese, he deposed him from the Governorship.
Acting on the wise counsel of his Minister, Kublai came to meet
his brother alone and without protection, cast himself at his feet and
offered him his wives, his children, all his possessions, and his life it-
self. Mangu was moved to tears by this scene, raised up his brother
and embraced him weeping, restored to him his entire confidence and
instructed him to go forth with a yet stronger army to make further
conquests. Not long afterwards, as Mangu was himself advancing
with three army corps, he was killed in an assault upon a city on
the loth of August, 1259, at the age of fifty-two and in the ninth
year of his reign.
In the following year, 1260, Kublai was solemnly proclaimed
Emperor in a general assembly of the Tartars, thus succeeding his
brother in the highest office at the disposal of his people. Mangu
had founded in 1256 the new city of Kai-ping-fou, peopled with,
4 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Chinese and Tartars or Mongols, which was nearer to China and
more conveniently situated for holding the general assemblies and
for hunting and fishing.
The Tartars were now masters of Pekin, which they had con-
quered from the King dynasty — other Eastern Tartars whom the
Mantchus of the present day acknowledge as their ancestors. These
people had already driven the Song dynasty across the Kiang or
Blue river, where they had now taken refuge. Kublai, far from
yielding to a natural ambition to conquer the remainder of China,
of which he already ruled more than one-half, made peace proposals
to these people, who had established their court at Nankin. But,
after several ineffectual attempts to induce them to acknowledge
his suzerainty by the payment of a light tribute, one of his ambas-
sadors having been imprisoned and another assassinated, he finally
resolved upon the destruction of the Song dynasty and the con-
quest of all China.
In 1267 his generals crossed the Kiang river. The war that was
thus begun lasted for twelve years, the Tartars constantly gaining
ground and the Chinese resisting with a determination and valor
that have won for them the highest encomiums from historians of
that epoch. But finally their Emperor — a child of only seven years —
and his mother, who was regent of the Empire, with the entire court,
were captured and brought in triumph to Pekin, where Kublai
treated them with all the honors and consideration due to their
rank. Two brothers of the defeated Emperor, who had made their
escape, held out for some time longer, but finally died miserable
deaths. This brought to an end the Song dynasty, which histo-
rians tell us had governed China for 319 years under eighteen em-
perors, and had been celebrated for its protection of and taste for
the arts and sciences.
Kublai was now master of all China. He took the name of Chi
Tsou, and, Hke Alexander of old, began to seek for new territory to
conquer. He first turned his attention to Japan. He prepared a
fleet to transport thither one hundred thousand men. His fleet
became the sport of the winds and waves, and its remnants were
set upon by the men of the Japanese fleet, who massacred or took
prisoners a prodigious number of Mongols and Chinese. Kublai
seems never to have renewed his efforts in that direction. His gen-
erals brought under his dominion the kingdom of Pegu, and his
fleets sought out and subjugated ten islands in the seas south of
China, which were dignified with the title of kingdoms and amongst
which was the large island of Sumatra.
As a result of all these conquests Kublai now found himself the
Kublai Khan: or, The Popes and the Tartars. 5
direct ruler of China and Chinese Tartary, Pegu, Thibet, Tong King
and Cochin China. Other kingdoms to the west and south of
China and Leaotong and Corea to the north furnished tribute and
troops. Furthermore, all the members of his family who reigned
in Persia, Assyria, Turkestan, Great and Little Tartary, from the
Dnieper to the Sea of Japan, and from the Indies to the frozen sea
in the North, were his lieutenants and vassals and paid him annual
tribute as the Emperor of the Mongols. A glance at the map will
help us to form some adequate idea of this immense empire. No
prince in history ever ruled over so vast a monarchy or governed
so large a population. His empire exceeded in extent that of Alex-
ander, of Rome, or of Genghis Khan himself.
But still more wonderful is the use that Kublai seems to have
made of this great power. He resumed his design of civilizing
and advancing his people. His generals had sold thirty thousand
captives into slavery. He ransomed them. He devoted himself
to the books of the Chinese, drawing thence wise maxims of govern-
ment. He welcomed the learned, regardless of nationality or reli-
gion. He adopted the manners of the Chinese, which he found far
superior to the barbarism and rough manners of his own people.
Chinese historians speak disparagingly of him, but the historians
of his own people sound his praises without stint.
He desired that the learned and men of science should be exempt
from taxes and subsidies, and bestowed special honors upon them.
He established the college of the Hanlin, the first literary tribunal
of China. He spread abroad a taste for mathematics and encour-
aged the development of a new astronomy which was very superior
to the system then in vogue amongst the Chinese. He established
public schools in the principal cities of the Empire, and caused to
be translated for the use and instruction of the public all the good
Chinese books and a quantity of foreign works of India, Persia and
Thibet.
He gave similar encouragement to agriculture. Two hundred
Niutches or Oriental Tartars came to ofifer him the fish of their
country. Fishing was their only occupation. He received them
with kindness, but urged them to cultivate the soil, allotted lands
to them and supplied them with oxen and all the necessary agricul-
tural implements. He further ordered a commission to return with
them to their own country and to furnish the same assistance to
their fellow-countrymen.
Manufactures and commerce received from him a like patronage.
Canals were dug in all the provinces. A multitude of vessels and
sailing craft issued from the dockyards. He opened his ports to
6 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
foreigners and established free trade, and merchants from Arabia,
Persia and India carried on in the ports of Fo-Kien an extensive
commerce with all China. And finally Kublai crowned all these
great benefits by establishing for the Chinese a new code of laws
far more humane and wise than they had been subjected to under
other Tartars who had governed them.
Let us now look into the condition of Christianity amongst these
people and study for a few moments the relations existing between
these Tartar chiefs and the Holy See. The territory assigned by
Mangu in 1251 to Ilwadi for conquest was intended eventually for
his other brother, Hublagu, also, of course, a brother of Kublai.
Hulagu's principal wife was a granddaughter of Wang Khan, more
commonly known in Europe as Prester John. Better still, she was
herself a Christian. Under her husband Hulagu the Christians en-
joyed great consideration at court; their churches and monasteries
were exempt from tribute or taxes, and they even had chapels and
oratories in the camps of the Mongol prince. This prince anni-
hilated the Assassins of Persia, sparing neither age nor sex. He
in like manner destroyed the caliphate of Bagdad, sparing no one,
his soldiers being gorged with blood and committing the most hor-
rible atrocities in the conquered city. Thus perished on February
10, 1258, the last of the successors of Mahomet, six hundred and
fifty-six years after this false prophet had begun his great seduction.
About the year 1263 Hulagu received a new patent of investure
from his brother Kublai, who had succeeded Mangu as Grand Khan
of all the Tartars. In 1264 he held a general assembly at Tauris,
at which were present the Mongol princes and generals and many
Musselman and Christian princes — the two Davids, Kings of
Georgia; Haton, King of Armenia; Bohemond VI., prince of An-
tioch, who was under the domination of the Mongols, and a large
number of Georgian and Armenian princes. Hulagu died at the
age of forty-eight years, in the month of January, 1265. He was
succeeded by his eldest son, Abaka, who figures conspicuously
in subsequent dealings with the Holy See. At the time of Hulagu's
death, the natural daughter of Michael Paleologus, the Greek Em-
peror, was on her way to become his bride. The Tartars compelled
her to remain and Abaka the son took her to wife.
The Tartars were now threatening Europe itself. Poland and
Hungary seemed about to fall victims to their conquering spirit.
Pope Alexander IV. wrote to the Christian princes and prelates
urging a crusade against these hordes. Urban IV. urged on the
same crusade in defense of Hungary and all Europe. Clement IV.
pursued the same course. Preparations were begun for holding
Kublai Khan: or. The Popes and the Tartars. 7
an oecumenical council to bring about a reunion with the Greeks,
to press forward the crusade and, amongst other things, to protect
Europe from the incursions of the Tartars who were threatening her
borders.
During this time two Venetian merchants, the Polo brothers, had
arrived in the dominions of Kublai. They were well received by
the Emperor himself and resided in his dominions for seventeen
years. Here we find the strange fact recorded in history that this
great monarch, with the advice of his princes, selected these Vene-
tian merchants and a lord of the Chinese Empire named Gogak to
be sent on a special embassy to Clement IV., with instructions to
ask that Pontiff to send to Kublai one hundred men learned and
well instructed in the Christian religion, who could demonstrate
that the faith of the Christians was to be preferred to all the diverse
sects, that it is the only way of salvation and that the gods of the
Tartars were demons who imposed upon the Orientals. For the
Emperor, having heard much said of the Catholic faith, but seeing
with what boldness the learned men of Tartary and China upheld
their belief, knew not to which side to lean, nor which path to em-
brace as the true one. He requested, moreover, the ambassadors
to bring back to him a little of the oil from the lamp that burned at
Jerusalem before the Lord, persuaded that it would be not a little
useful to him if Christ was the Saviour of the world.
After three years spent in the journey, the Tartar lord having
remained on the way on account of illness, the other two ambassa-
dors arrived at St. John d'Acre. Clement IV. having died mean-
while, they applied to Theobald, Archdeacon of Liege, who was then
Apostolic Internuncio in Palestine. Acting upon his advice to
await the election of a new Pope, they returned to Venice, their
native city, where they waited for two years more, and then returned
to St. John d*Acre, to Theobald the Archdeacon, who gave them
letters for the Emperor, together with an exposition of the Chris-
tian faith.
Thus armed they set out upon their return to Kublai, but were
immediately recalled with the information that Archdeacon Theo-
bald had just been elected Pope under the title of Gregory X. The
new Pope gave them other letters for the Emperor of the Tartars,
and also added to their number two friars preachers, Nicholas and
William Tripoli. The friars had instructions to enlighten the Tar-
tars as to the truth of the Gospel. Marco Polo, son of one of the
Polo brothers, states that their embassy was received with extreme
benevolence by the Emperor, to whom they presented the Pope's
letters and also the oil from the lamp of the Holy Sepulchre, which
he caused to be kept in an honorable place.
8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
One of the earliest acts of Gregory X. upon his arrival in Rome
was to issue a circular letter convoking an oecumenical council, to
be held in the city of Lyons, in France. The Holy Father arranged
the objects of this council under three general heads, viz.: the
Greek schism, the evil condition of the Holy Land, of which he
himself had been an eye witness, and the vices and errors that were
multiplying within the true fold.
The first session of the Second Council of Lyons was held on
May 7, 1274. Between the third and fourth sessions our old ac-
quaintances the Tartars again appeared upon the scene. It had
been said of them by an eminent writer shortly before the opening
of the council that they now persecuted only Hungary of all the
Christian nations, and that they were aiding the Christians against
the Saracens. Prince Edward of England had been led to rely
upon their assistance in the Holy Land, and his return to England
was in part due to their failure to furnish the expected help.
But now, on July 4, 1274, sixteen ambassadors from the Tartar
chief Abaka, great-grandson of Genghis Khan, arrived to attend
the council. Gregory X., desiring to show them special honors,
directed the attendants of the Cardinals and prelates to go forth to
meet them, and they were thus conducted into the presence of the
Pope and the Cardinals in an apartment where they had assembled
to discuss the affairs of the council. This embassy was sent to urge
the old project of an alliance with the Christians against the
Mahometans. The Khan's letter was read to the council at its
fourth session, and later the Pope replied that he would send legates
into Tartary to treat with the Khan, not only concerning the pro-
positions that he had submitted to the council, but also other mat-
ters affecting his welfare.
The fourth session of the council presented a striking spectacle.
The Pope was seated on his throne on a raised tribune, attended
by a Cardinal as assistant priest, one as deacon, four other Cardinal
Deacons and several chaplains in surplices. Near the Pope, upon
the same tribune, was seated James, King of Aragon. In the nave
of the church, in the centre upon raised seats, were two Latin
patriarchs, Pantaleon of Constantinople and Opizon of Antioch;
beside them the Cardinal Bishops, amongst whom was St. Bona-
venture, and on the other side the Cardinal priests ; then came the
primates, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors and other prelates
in large numbers. Lower down were William, Master of the Hos-
pital ; Robert, Master of the Temple, with several brothers of their
orders; the ambassadors of the Kings of France, Germany, Eng-
land, Sicily and of several other princes. And last of all came the
Kublai Khan: or, The Popes and the Tartars. 9
deputies of the chapters and churches. This had been the regular
order in all the sessions. But on this occasion the Greek ambas-
sadors were placed to the right of the Pope, beyond the Cardinals,
and facing him were the Tartars composing the embassy sent by
Abaka.
Here we behold the whole earth represented at the States-Gen-
eral of Christendom; the Holy Father seated amongst the repre-
sentatives of the Christian Commonwealth as arbitrator of all their
differences and common father of all, regardless of color or nation-
ality. In vain has our boasted nineteenth century sought to pro-
duce such a scene as this. In our day we behold the scattered and
warring remnants of this once united republic seeking in vain for
some common arbiter acceptable to all and trusted by all. A lame
attempt at something of the sort was recently made in the peace
congress at The Hague, but from its sessions was carefully excluded
the only person who was ever successful as arbiter of the world, the
venerated Bishop of Rome, representative on earth of the Prince of
Peace! Could we have a more striking and startling illustration
of our deterioration as a family of States supposed to be united in
a common brotherhood since the days of the so-called Dark Ages ?
Still another strikingly picturesque scene was to mark the period
of this council. One of the Khan's ambassadors and two other
Tartars, perhaps moved by this wonderful spectacle of Christian
unity, embraced the true faith, and on the i6th of July, 1274, the
day of the fifth session of the council, they were solemnly baptized
by the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia in the presence of the assembled
prelates. The Holy Father caused the newly converted Tartars to
be clothed in scarlet, after the manner of the Latins. After the
close of the council the Pope dismissed the Tartar ambassadors
with letters for the Khan. The Protestant historian Sismondi tells
us that there were present at this council five hundred bishops,
seventy mitred abbots and a thousand other religious and theo-
logians.
Rohrbacher thus alludes to this great council: "The Second
General Council of Lyons offered a spectacle unknown to profane
antiquity: a great and holy Pontiff presiding over the States-Gen-
eral of the Christian race, to sanctify it within and to defend it with-
out; around him his counsellors, superiors of the princes, equals
of the kings ; at his feet before him, to the number of more than a
thousand, the ambassadors, the deputies of emperors, kings and
princes and of the churches of God. Franks, Burgundians, Huns,
Vandals, Goths, Herules, Lombards, Sarmatians, English, Normans,
Slavs, the Barbarians and Scythians of other times are seated at the
10 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
feet of the same father and Pontiff, with the descendants of the
Gauls, Romans and Greeks as sheep and lambs reposing at the feet
of the same shepherd; the Greeks come to abjure their spirit of
division and to sing with all the world the same creed in the same
words ; the Tartars, masters of Asia, from Persia to China and Corea,
are there represented by their ambassadors, one of whom by his
example announces their future but distant conversion
Before, during and after the council the holy Pope Gregory X.
labors to reconcile amongst themselves peoples and kings in Italy,
in Spain, in France, in Germany, and everywhere hearts yield them-
selves to his gentle firmness, and he himself prepares to conduct
Europe in arms to the assistance of the Christians of the Orient and
to await heaven in the Holy Land, but heaven claims him in Italy
and much sooner."
But the relations of the Popes with the Tartars did not end with
the death of this saintly Pontiff. His successor, John XXI., had
also a great desire to liberate the Holy Land from the yoke of the
infidels. To urge on this project he sent nuncios all over the world,
amongst others to the great Khan of the Tartars. Several Popes
were elected and died in rapid succession after Gregory X. One
of these, Nicholas III., during a short reign of about two years and
eight months, manifested a deep and fatherly interest in the peoples
of Europe, the Greeks and even the Tartars. Honorius IV. also
had special relations with them. Finally, Nicholas IV. continued
the chain of friendly intercourse that had been fostered under each
succeeding Pontiff. Let us note in their proper order a few of the
most important of these events.
Soon after the Second Council of Lyons, Abaka, Khan of Persia,
sent a second delegation to the Holy See. They found John XXI.
then reigning, by whom they were received in Rome. They passed
into France in 1276, and finding Philip the Bold had taken the cross
in the crusade, they promised him the assistance of the Tartars in
the rescue of the Holy Land, if he would lead an expedition into
Syria against the Saracens. But these ambassadors were not them-
selves Tartars, but Christians of Georgia, a country known to be
subject to the Tartars, and for this reason the French seemed
divided in opinion as to whether these men were real ambassadors
or spies. They assured the Holy Father in the name of Abaka that
he was inclined to receive baptism, and that his uncle, Kublai, was
already baptized.
In consequence of this the next Pope, Nicholas III., sent five
Friars Minor—Gerard of Prato, Antony of Parma, John of St.
Agatha, Andrew of Florence and Matthew of Arezzo — to whom
Kublai Khan: or, The Popes and the Tartars. ii
he gave special powers, principally for raising censures and grant-
ing absolutions and dispensations. They were the bearers of two let-
ters— one of April i, 1278, to King Abaka, whom the Pope ex-
horts to follow the example of his uncle, Kublai, in abandoning the
worship of idols to embrace the Christian faith. He thanks him
for his offers of assistance against the Saracens and earnestly com-
mends to him his nuncios.
The second letter, dated from St. Peter's, but on April 12, bears
the inscription: "To our very dear son in Jesus Christ, Kublai,
Great Khan, Emperor and Moderator of all the Tartars, health and
the apostolic benediction." Supposing the ambassador's story to
be true and that he was a Christian, the Holy Father instructs him
in the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption, and upon
the mission and divine authority of St. Peter and his successors to
govern the universal Church and to lead into it all the peoples of the
earth. He praises him — if the account of his conversion be true —
for his excellence and wisdom as a leader of his people, and urges
him to cherish and cause to fructify in himself the wonderful grace
thus received from on high. In conclusion, he recommends to him
the five missionaries whom he sends in compliance with his request
to instruct him more deeply in the Christian religion.
All these remarkable facts of history would seem to place beyond
question the kindly feelings of Kublai towards the Christians ; but
it is not so clearly established that he was himself baptized. And
even in his letter to Kublai, Nicholas III. is careful to preface his
eulogiums with the words "if it be true," or "if this be so," seeming
to imply that he is not certain of the truth of the report, but rather
hopes that it may indeed be true.
But this favorable disposition upon the part of the great Khan
and his subordinates towards the Holy See afforded an excellent
opportunity for zealous missionaries to penetrate into the immense
camps of the warlike Tartars, and their labors bore abundant fruits
in conversions to the faith. Other Franciscan missionaries con-
verted so large a number of the Tartars upon the frontiers of Hun-
gary that Nicholas III. ordered Philip, Bishop of Fermo, his Apos-
tolic Legate in that portion of the North, to establish a bishop upon
those frontiers in order to care properly for these newly converted
people.
In 1285 Kublai and Argoun, Khan of Persia and son of Abaka,
again sent ambassadors with new letters to Honorius IV. and to
the Kings of France and Sicily to press upon them their favorite
project of a concerted attack upon the Mahometans. Here let us
go back a little.
12 American Catholic Quatterly Review.
Abaka, who had sent the sixteen ambassadors to present this
scheme before the Council of Lyons, had been defeated in 1277 by
the Sultan Bibars. In 1282 Abaka suffered another defeat before
Edessa, which place he had besieged. He then retired to Ram-
adan (Ecbatana), where he celebrated the feast of Easter with the
Christians. He died the following day, March 30, after a repast
to which he had been invited. His vizier was suspected of having
poisoned him. He left two sons, Argoun and Kandgiatu.
A brother of Abaka, Nikoudar, succeeded to the throne, to the
exclusion of his two nephews just mentioned. He had been bap-
tized in childhood by the name of Nicholas. Upon his accession
to the throne he embraced Mahomedanism and took the name of
Ahmed Khan. He worked zealously for the utter extermination
of Christianity in his domains, destroying churches and exiling the
Christians. His own relatives, however, even though not them-
selves Christians, held his apostasy in horror. In 1288 his nephew,
Argoun, whom he had superseded upon the throne, rose in rebel-
lion. He was defeated and placed in a close prison. In 1284 an
emir named Bogha, who was sent to kill him, liberated him out of
hatred to Ahmed, whose excesses had brought upon him the exe-
cration of his own subjects. Argoun again took the field with an
army of determined men, defeated his uncle, made him a prisoner
and delivered him to his mother-in-law, who caused him to be put
to death.
Argoun now applied to Kublai for his investiture as King of Per-
sia. Kublai granted the request promptly and seems to have been
delighted to hear of the complete downfall of the apostate Ahmed.
The new Khan treated the Christians with marked honor and re-
paired the churches which Ahmed had destroyed. The Kings of
Armenia and Georgia, seeing him thus well disposed towards the
Christians, prayed him to aid them in the recovery of the Holy
Land. Argoun graciously replied that he would gladly do all in
his power for the honor of God and the Christian religion. From
that time he sought to establish an alliance with his neighbors for
the accomplishment of this purpose.
It is stated that Argoun was chiefly indebted to the Christians for
his triumph over Ahmed ; that he had even decorated his standards
and his arms with the cross, and that he had issued coin having on
one side the Holy Sepulchre and on the other the words: "In
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
It was thus it came about that the great and powerful Emperor of all
the Tartars and his grandnephew, Argoun of Persia, wrote to Hon-
orius IV. and to the Christian princes again urging an alliance
Kuhlai Khan: or, The Popes and the Tartars. 13
against the Mahometans : the Tartars to make the attack by way of
Syria, while the Franks were to descend upon them simultaneously
by way of Egypt.
Seemingly all things were now ready for the realization of the
long-cherished project of the Holy See for the rescue of the Holy
Land. How long does the reader suppose that the Saracens would
have withstood the combined attacks of the terrible Tartars on the
one side and the brave Franks on the other? The whole world
seemed united for one grand triumph of Christianity. How, then,
did it happen that this splendid design was never executed? Alas
for human calculations ! Just at this critical moment occurred those
horrible massacres known in history as "The Sicilian Vespers,"
secretly instigated by the double-dealing Greeks in order to save
their own prestige by dividing the Latins amongst themselves and
setting Christian against Christian. And too well the infamous
design was accomplished ! Charles of Sicily was at once too busily
occupied in counteracting the mischief thus done in his dominions
to think further of a crusade in the Holy Land ; Michael Paleologus,
the perfidious Greek, plainly could not be counted on for support;
all Christendom was for the moment disrupted and thrown into divi-
sion, and once again the patient efforts of the Holy See so long con-
tinued were rendered null and fruitless.
In the following year Kublai had a revolution of his own to deal
with. An uncle of the Emperor, only thirty years of age, who was
intrusted by him with great power and a vast dominion, revolted,
and sought to supersede Kublai himself in the general command.
Marco Polo tells us that Nayam, the rebellious uncle, professed
Christianity, but did not lead a Christian life. He had, however,
adopted the cross as his standard and had drawn quite a goodly
number of Christians into his revolt. He was promptly attacked
by Kublai, who, after a stubborn resistance lasting from morning
until noon, utterly defeated Nayam, took him prisoner and had him
put to death by suffocation. Upon the death of their leader, the
rebellious Christians and others submitted to Kublai Khan, who
thus added four more provinces to his own immediate do-
minions.
The Jews and the Saracens in Kublai's army were not slow to turn
the rebellion of a portion of his Christian subjects to account. They
loaded them with reproaches and declared that Christ, whose em-
blem had been placed on Nayam's standards, had proved power-
less to succor them. This continued from day to day, until the
Christians deemed it unworthy of their religion to maintain silence,
and they boldly appealed to the Emperor for protection. Kublai,
14 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
having assembled the Jews, Saracens and Christians, said to the
latter: "Your God and His cross have not wished to assist Nayam;
but be not ashamed of that fact, for a good and just God would
never protect injustice and iniquity. Nayam betrayed his master
and excited a rebellion, contrary to all equity. In his malice he
implored the assistance of your God, but being a good and just
God, He was unwilling to favor his crimes." Kublai then forbade
the Jews, Saracens and all others ever again to utter a blasphemy
against the God of the Christians or His cross.
Two years later, in 1288, Pope Nicholas IV. made use of both the
Franciscans and Dominicans to carry the light of the Gospel to the
most distant nations, and amongst the long list of those to whom
he sent letters and missionaries we find the Tartars, the Christians
held as captives amongst the Tartars and many countries which
acknowledged the suzerainty of Kublai Khan. We find at this time
pious men, especially among the Friars Minor, working zealously
and with much success amongst the Oriental Tartars.
But space forbids us to follow this fascinating study any further.
Many other interesting facts could be cited to show the prosperous
condition of Christianity amongst the Tartars. And in all this we
make full allowance for the existence and influence of the Nesto-
rians, who were counted in immense numbers throughout their
territory. We speak only of those Christians who were in commu-
nion with the Holy See. Nor have we time to speak at length of
the good work accomplished in protecting and propagating the true
faith amongst these warlike people by prominent laymen such as
the Polos, John Bonakias, who devoted his wealth and influence to
advancing the cause of religion, and the interpreters of the Emperor,
who used their position and influence for the same purpose. Two
Tartar Queens were numbered amongst the really fervent converts.
Of the ambassadors who were sent to the Holy See, Sabadin
Arkaon, a man of great nobility amongst the Tartars, embraced
the true faith. Nor can we dwell upon the good effected by Julius,
a noble Pisan, who penetrated amongst the Tartars and devoted
his wealth to the spread of Christianity.
Argoun's wife was a very pious Christian. His son Carbagand
was baptized, receiving the name of Nicholas. Kublai sent still
other embassies to the Holy See for various purposes. Letters
were written at different times by the Pope to Tagharsar, general
of the Tartar army ; John of Bonestra ; Xanctus, prefect of the pre-
torium of Persia; Suffrid, Argoun's physician; the Pisan Ozolius
and others to congratulate them upon their zeal for the conversion
of the Tartars and to encourage them to continue their efforts.
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 15
Nor can we speak at length of John of Monte Corvino, the cour-
ageous and indomitable Franciscan, who penetrated to the very
court of Kublai, was sent back on a special embassy to the Pope,
returned again with several companions and whom we find at last
mstalled as Archbishop of Pekin, with seven suffragan bishops, car-
ing zealously for the great Christian community then established
amongst the Tartars. But meanwhile Kublai, the great conqueror,
had succumbed to the cold touch of death and departed this life in
the year 1294, being 79 years of age and having reigned as Great
Khan of all the Tartars thirty-four years.
This brief glance at the reign of one of the greatest Emperors that
China ever possessed may aid us to feel a yet deeper interest in the
welcome news that has recently reached this country of the imperial
decree that has been issued by the present Chinese Emperor, without
solicitation, extending his especial protection to the Catholics
throughout his dominions. Verily the Church, like her Blessed
Founder, is *'the same yesterday, to-day and forever ;" but the Chris-
tendom that could assemble such a parliament of the nations as
made up the Second General Council of Lyons can certainly com-
pare favorably, to say the least, with the Christendom of the nine-
teenth century. Lorenzo J. Markoe.
White Bear, Minnesota.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ONTARIO.
THE most marvelous fact in the history of the province of
Ontario during the past half century is the wonderful
growth and development of the Catholic Church. Fifty
years ago it was but a mustard seed ; to-day it is a great cedar of
Lebanon. Fifty years ago there were but three dioceses in
Ontario; to-day there are eight, three of which are metropolitan
sees. Fifty years ago there were not more than sixty priests scat-
tered throughout the province from Sandwich to Ottawa and from
Lake Erie to the Manitoulin Islands to minister to the spiritual
needs of about one hundred and thirty thousand Catholics. To-dav
there are four hundred and fifty priests who have spiritual charge of
four hundred thousand Catholics ; yet these facts constitute but a
segment in the great circle of progress which marks the history of
the Catholic Church in Ontario during the past fifty years. What
shall be said of the multiplication of churches, of colleges, of con-
i6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
vents, of hospitals which tell of Catholic faith, Catholic toil. Catholic
generosity ? The Irish Catholic immigrant who came to this coun-
try, as the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee says, "with much poverty,
great faith and willing hands," not only felled the forests, built
bridges and constructed railroads and canals, but reared temples
to God which bear testimony to his faith in tower, and turret, and
spire, and cross melting away into immortal light.
The first two Catholic settlements in Ontario (Upper Canada)
were at Sandwich, on the Detroit river, and St. Raphaels, in the
county of Glengarry, in the eastern part of the province. The set-
tlement at Sandwich was French and was, together with Maiden
(now Amherstburg), an offshoot of the old Detroit mission founded
by the Jesuits in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The
Glengarry settlement was made up of Highlanders — some of them
descendants of the clans who fatefully escaped the terrible massacre
of Glencoe. These stalwart Celts brought with them a robust faith
and were most loyally attached to the British Crown. They came
to Glengarry from Orange (Albany), N. Y., about the year 1776.
The earliest name found in connection with the Niagara mission
is that of Vicar General Burke, who afterwards became Vicar
Apostolic of Nova Scotia. This great pioneer missionary was sta-
tioned at historic Niagara from 1796 to 1798. Father Burke and
Father McKenna, it appears, were the pioneer Irish priests in
Ontario. Of course, during the French regime there was a chapel
and a Recollect Father in charge at Niagara as early as the year
1720.
In 1804 Bishop Plessis, of Quebec, confided the spiritual care of
the province of Ontario to the Rev. Alexander MacDonell, who
had one assistant, and these two did all the missionary work be-
tween Glengarry and Sandwich. By the year 1816 the number of
priests had increased to six, stationed as follows: Fathers Alex-
ander MacDonell and John MacDonell, at St. Raphael's, in Glen-
garry ; Father Delamothe, at Perth ; Father Perenault, at Kingston,
and Fathers Marchand and Crevier, at Sandwich.
In 1819 the Diocese of Quebec was erected into an archdiocese,
and the following year Father Alexander MacDonell was conse-
crated Vicar Apostolic of Upper Canada. Kingston was named as
the episcopal see, and in the year 1826 it was erected into a diocese.
This is said to be the first diocese established in a British colony
since the so-called Reformation.
The first Catholic church in the city of Toronto (called York till
1834) was St. Paul's, and was erected in 1826. Father Crowley
appears to have been the first resident priest in Toronto, having
received his appointment to this mission in 1825. There is little
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 17
doubt but that for many years previous to this French priests from
the Sandwich mission were accustomed to celebrate Mass in
Toronto while on their way to and from Kingston and Glengarry.
Father John Macdonald was the first resident priest in the Perth
mission. Father Macdonald was a remarkable man, considered
either physically or mentally. Here is a pen picture of him by a
writer who had visited him not long before his death : "The great
object of interest, love and pride of all classes throughout the coun-
try was the Vicar,' old Father John Macdonald, who had held their
spiritual rule for over half a century and was still living, hale and
hearty, in a pleasant cottage in Glengarry. . . . This fine old
priest was without exception the most venerable and patriarchal
figure the writer ever looked upon. He was nearing his hundredth
year of age. His massive head and trunk were unbent by years
and sound in every function. Only the limbs that had traveled so
many a weary mile in days when the whole country was but an
untracked wilderness had yielded to time and fatigue and could
not longer bear up the colossal frame. Wallace himself had not
passed through more bold adventures than this old highland chief.
. . . The reverence and love that centred in him in his old age
gave proof of his benign and salutary use of his mighty sway."
The years 1828 and 1829 were marked by the rise of parishes in
Peterborough, Belleville, Prescott and By town (Ottawa), the parish
of Richmond, on the Ottawa, of which Father Patrick Haran was
pastor from 1826 to 1830, being amalgamated with Bytown in 1830.
The first church in Kingston was the old French church built in
1808, the Rev. Angus Macdonald, V. G., being in charge. When
Bishop Plessis paid his pastoral visit to Kingston in his itinerary of
Upper Canada in 18 16 the Catholic population was said to number
seventy-five families, of which more than two-thirds were French
Canadians.
The first resident priest at Belleville was Father Michael Brennan,
and the first resident pastor of Prescott Father Timothy O'Meara.
Father Crowley appears to have been the first pastor of Peterbor-
ough, having been transferred to this parish from Toronto (York)
in the year 1828.
Bytown, which in those early days was little more than a hamlet,
but destined one day, under the name of Ottawa, to become the
capital of the Dominion and the seat of an archbishopric, had for its
first pastor Father Angus Macdonell, who remained until about
183 1 or 1832, when he was succeeded by Father John Cullen.
The years 1833 and 1834 were marked by the rise of parishes at
Cobourg, Port Hope, Dundas, Guelph, St. Thomas, London and
St. Catharines. Father Dempsey was given charge of Cobourg
i8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
and Port Hope, Father John Cassidy of Dundas and Guelph, while
Father Daniel Downie looked after St. Thomas and London.
The first church built in London was on the corner of Richmond
street and Maple avenue. It was a primitive structure of logs, with
an earthen floor, and was dedicated by Father Downie in 1834.
The fortunes of London continued to be bound up with St. Thomas
until 1845, when Father Mills, formerly at St. Thomas, was placed
in charge of the townships of London and Westminster. The
Catholics of St. Catharines were also dependent upon the priest at
Niagara for the consolations of religion till 1838, when Father J. M.
Burke took up his residence among them.
The years 1835 and 1836 saw the organization of a number of
new parishes or missions at Waterloo, Cornwall, Raleigh, on Lake
Erie, and Penetanguishene. Father J. B. Wirriats became first
pastor of Waterloo and Father J. B. Proulx the first resident priest
at Penetanguishene. Father Proulx was for many years one of
the most stalwart and conspicuous figures in the priesthood of
Toronto diocese. Well does the writer of this sketch remember,
when a boy at school back in the seventies, Father Proulx's visits
to St. Michael's College, Toronto. The great and simple-hearted
monsignor — ^for he had been created a domestic prelate — would
mingle with the boys on the playground and entertain them by
giving them the Indian warwhoop, which this self-sacrificing and
zealous missionary had so often heard when he lived among the
Indians of the Manitoulin Islands.
When the Honorable and Right Rev. Alexander MacDonell,.
Bishop of Kingston (the title honorable because the Bishop was a
member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada), left on a trip
to Europe in 1839 there were in all thirty-four priests in the prov-
ince ministering to the spiritual wants of the Catholic people from
the Ottawa river to the Detroit.
It had long been the cherished desire of Bishop MacDonell to
found and endow a seminary for the education of his clergy. The
college which the Bishop had largely maintained for many years at
his own expense at St. Raphael's, in Glengarry, had indeed been a
nursery of priests, and from its humble class rooms had graduated
such zealous, pious and efficient missionaries as Father George
Hay, Father Michael Brennan and Father Edward Gordon ; but the
growing needs of the Catholic Church in Ontario demanded a
larger and better equipped seminary of learning. Accordingly the
corner-stone of Regiopolis College, in Kingston, was laid on June
II, 1838, Bishop Macdonell officiating, assisted by his coadjutor,
Mgr. Gaulin, Vicar General Angus Macdonald and others of the
clergy.
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 19
Bishop Macdonell sailed for Europe in the summer of 1839, and
in due time landed at Liverpool, whence he went to London, where
he communicated with the Colonial Office regarding emigration
and other matters. From England he crossed over to Ireland,
where he visited several of the Irish prelates. While in the west of
Ireland he was stricken down with an attack of inflammation of the
lungs, but rallied sufficiently to set out for Scotland to visit his
friend, Father William Reid, parish priest at Dumfries. Here the
Bishop had a second attack of inflammation, and after having re-
ceived the last rites of the Church passed quietly away on the morn-
ing of the 14th of January, 1840. His funeral took place in St.
Mary's Cathedral, in Edinburgh, and was attended by Bishop Gillis,
coadjutor to the eastern district of Scotland; Bishops Carruthers,
of Edinburgh ; Murdoch, of Glasgow, and Scott, of Greenock, and
a large number of priests. In 1861 the remains of the dead prelate
were brought to Canada and placed in the vaults of Notre Dame
Church, Montreal, where they remained for a short time, when they
were transferred to Kingston.
Bishop MacDonell was the pioneer Bishop of Ontario, a prelate
of wonderful force of character — unquestionably one of the greatest
and most commanding figures in the history of the Catholic Church
in Canada.
In 1 841, at the representation of Mgr. Gaulin, who had succeeded
Bishop MacDonell, the western portion of Kingston Diocese was
erected into a new diocese, with the city of Toronto as the seat of
the new episcopal see. Very Rev. Michael Power, vicar general of
the Diocese of Montreal, was chosen as Bishop of the newly erected
diocese. The limits of the new diocese were officially defined as
follows : West of Newcastle, from Lake Ontario to Lake Muskoka ;
from thence by a line directed northwest through Lakes Moon and
Muskoka, to western branch of two rivers emptying into the
Ottawa ; all west of that, including Lake Superior districts.
Bishop Power had in his new and extensive diocese nineteen
priests, sixteen of whom attended his first diocesan synod, which
met in the month of October in St. Paul's Church, Toronto.
Here are the priests and their respective charges: Very Rev.
W. P. Macdonald, V. G., Hamilton; Rev. M. R. Mills, Brantford,
Indiana and Dumfries ; James O'Flynn, Dundas, Oakville and Tra-
falgar; James Bennet, Tecumseth and Adjala; Edward Gordon,
Niagara and Niagara Falls; Patrick O'Dwyer, London and St.
Thomas; Eugene O'Reilly, Toronto and Albion; J. B. Proulx,
Manitoulin and the Upper Lakes ; Michael McDonnell, Maidstone
and Rochester; Thomas Gibney, Guelph and Stratford; Peter
Schneider, Waterloo, Wilmot and Goderich ; James Quinlan, New-
20 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
market and Barrie ; Amable Charest, Penetanguishene ; Very Rev.
-^neas Macdonell, V. G., Sandwich; Rev. J. B. Morin, Raleigh;
Rev. Augustine Vervais, Amherstburg, and Rev. W. P. McDonagh,
Stephen Fergus and J. J. Hay (secretary of the diocese), Toronto.
The work of Bishop Power during the seven years that he wore
the mitre in Toronto was full of goodly and pious fruitage. From
the very beginning of his episcopate Bishop Power felt the need of
a suitable Cathedral Church. He finally succeeded in purchasing
the block of land on Church street, on which the Cathedral Palace
and Loretto Convent now stand, and on May 8, 1845, the corner-
stone of St. Michael's Cathedral was laid by the Bishop in person,
assisted by Fathers Macdonald, V. G., McDonagh, Gordon,
O'Reilly, Timlin, Carroll, Hay, Quinlan and Nightingale.
Soon after Bishop Power's advent to the diocese he made formal
application to Very Rev. Father Roothaan, general of the Society of
Jesus, for priests of that society to aid him in the missions of his dio-
cese. His appeal to Father Roothaan met with a favorable re-
sponse. In 1843 two Jesuits, Fathers Peter Point and John Peter
Chone, came to the diocese and were placed in charge of the parish
of Assumption at Sandwich. The new church commenced by
Father Macdonell, V. G., was completed by them and dedicated in
1846, and some ten years later they founded the College of Assump-
tion. Besides the mission at Sandwich the Jesuit Fathers had at
one time charge also of Chatham and of Wilmot, in the county of
Waterloo. At present the Jesuit Fathers have charge of Guelph
and the Lake Superior and Georgian Bay missions.
The year 1847 will be forever marked for its blood and tear-
stained story of the Irish emigrants who, flying from persecution
and famine, contracted the deadly ship fever and died — some on
their way across the ocean, others at Grosse Isle, and still others
at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto. It was while min-
istering to a poor woman who lay dying at the immigrant sheds in
Toronto that Bishop Power contracted the dread malady, which
terminated his saintly and heroic career and plunged the citizens
of Toronto, irrespective of creed, into the most heartfelt and pro-
found grief. The British Colonist, the leading newspaper of the
day, referring to the sad event, said : "It is not for us to pronounce
his eulogy. The sorrow of his flock, the regret of the community,
the members of which have learned to appreciate his exertions to
promote peace and brotherly love among us, the tears that moisten
the cheeks of many persons not within the pale of his Church, to
whom we have spoken of his untimely decease, are the best evi-
dences of the loss sustained in his death. May it be our lot to see
a successor appointed to the episcopate whom all may learn to love
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 21
as well." Bishop Power lies entombed beneath the great Cathedral
which he planned, but did not live to see completed.
In 1847 the ancient see of Kingston — the pioneer diocese of
Ontario — was shorn of a portion of its eastern territory to consti-
tute a new diocese to be known as Ottawa. Right Rev. Bishop
Guigues became the first Bishop of this newly created diocese and
selected Ottawa as the seat of his episcopal see.
We have now touched, by way of introduction, the threshold of
the history of the Catholic Church in Ontario during the past fifty
years. Pope Pius IX. had just ascended the Papal Throne.
Europe had been rocked by the upheaval of 1848. Poor, unhappy
Ireland lay "like a corpse on a dissecting table." Canada had
lately passed through the throes of a rebellion and was now peace-
fully enjoying the fruits of responsible government. Irish Catholic
immigrants were hewing out homes for themselves in the wilder-
ness massed together in settlements in well nigh every county of
the province, while the pioneer priest, true to the spirit of his holy
calling, was piercing the virgin forests, fording angry streams,
threading impassable roads to minister to his scattered flock — to
strengthen them with the Bread of Life and prepare them for the
agony of death.
"It was," says a writer, "reserved for France, so closely con-
nected with the earlier history of this country and so renowned for
the missionary spirit of her children, to give Toronto its second
Bishop in the person of Armand Francis Marie, Comte de Char-
bonnel."
Dr. de Charbonnel was consecrated Bishop of Toronto by His
Holiness Pope Pius IX. in the Sistine Chapel on May 26, 1850, in
presence of a large assembly, amongst whom were the French Am-
bassador and the general of the French troops at Rome. As a
souvenir of consecration the Holy Father presented the Bishop
with a well filled purse and a chasuble of gold, upon which were
embroidered the Papal arms. In addition to these His Holiness
offered him his choice between a fine ciborium and a rich chalice.
His Lordship chose the ciborium; then, taking the chalice in the
other hand, he turned towards Pius IX., saying: "Quid retribuam
Domino pro omnibus qucB retribuit mihi/' and finishing the quotation
said: "Calicem salutaris accipiam et nomen Domini invocabo." ("I
shall take the chalice of salvation and call upon the name of the
Lord.") The Pope with a smile appreciated the ready answer, and
the Bishop withdrew, happy possessor of all three.
Bishop de Charbonnel, accompanied by Mgr. Prince, coadjutor
Bishop of Montreal, arrived in Toronto September 21, 1850, and
took formal possession of his see the following Sunday. To
22 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
liquidate the debt on the Cathedral, which amounted to about sixty
thousand dollars, was the first thought and care of the newly conse-
crated Bishop. For the purpose of raising funds His Lordship
visited every Catholic mission — nay, it is said, every Catholic family
— in his vast diocese. He also early turned his attention to the
needs of Catholic education and entered the arena of discussion as
an uncompromising champion of separate schools. Indeed, as a
well-known Catholic writer avers, "His whole episcopate was one
continual struggle against an autocratic Superintendent of Educa-
tion (Dr. Ryerson), against wily politicians and against popular
bigotry upon this vital subject." His battling was not without
good results. It taught bigotry that it cannot hold out against
justice — that the sacred right of educating the child is a matter of
conscience, and that no law framed in a commonwealth of freedom
should attempt to violate or clash with the sacred and inalienable
rights of the parent with respect to the education of the child.
Let us now for a moment glance at the beginning of Catholic
education in the city of Toronto. When Bishop Power visited
Europe in 1847 he made arrangements with the Loretto Community
to send a colony of their nuns to Toronto to assist in the work of
Catholic education. Accordingly in September five members of
the order arrived in the city and were joyfully received by the Cath-
olic people. This was the beginning of the Loretto foundations in
Ontario which have conferred such inestimable benefits upon our
people. On October 7, 185 1, Mother Delphine, of the Sisters of
St. Joseph, accompanied by Sister M. Martha, Sister M. Alphonsus
and Sister M. Bernard, arrived in Toronto. The Christian Broth-
ers came to Toronto the same year and were first introduced and
established there by Brother Patrick, who afterwards became one of
the assistants to the superior general of the whole order.
In 1848 there were thirty- two Catholic schools in the province,
and in 1850 this number had increased to forty-six. In 1852 there
were in the Catholic schools of Toronto seven hundred and six
pupils under the care of twelve teachers, of whom two were Sisters
of Loretto and five were Christian Brothers.
In August, 1852, four Basilians, with the Very Rev. Father
Soulerin as superior, came, at the invitation of Bishop de Char-
bonnel, to Toronto to found a Catholic college. This was the
origin and beginning of St. Michael's College. The next few years
saw a number of churches erected in Toronto — St. Mary's, in 185 1 ;
St. Basil's, in 1856, and St. Patrick's, about the year 1859.
In 1856, in accordance with representations made to Rome, Bulls
were issued dividing the Diocese of Toronto and establishing two
new sees — that of Hamilton and London. The Right Rev. John
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 23
Farrell, of Peterborough, was consecrated Bishop of Hamilton and
the Right Rev. Peter Adolphe Pinsonneaiilt, of Montreal, Bishop of
London. Thus within thirty-six years did the Catholic Church in
Ontario expand from a single diocese, with a handful of spiritual
workmen, into five dioceses.
The returns for 1859 give thirty-three priests in Toronto Diocese.
Amongst the new parishes recently organized were Barrie, Brock,
Orillia and Adjala. The late revered and beloved Archbishop
Walsh, of Toronto, was the first parish priest of Brock, and the
late Bishop Jamot, saintly and zealous, the first parish priest of
Barrie.
In 1859 Bishop de Charbonnel obtained a coadjutor in the person
of the Right Rev. John Joseph Lynch, president of the College of
Holy Angels, Niagara Falls, N. Y., whose name is inseparably con-
nected with the history of the Catholic Church in Ontario for nearly
thirty years. In April, i860. Bishop de Charbonnel resigned his
see and returned to France, where he became a Capuchin and died
a saintly death, venerable and beloved, at the ripe age of 89, on
Easter Sunday, March 29, 1891. The Catholic Church in Ontario
owes this great prelate much — it will assuredly hold his name for-
ever in benediction.
Meanwhile in the eastern part of the province the Catholic
Church was making rapid strides, too. Mgr. Gaulin, Bishop of
Kingston, having passed away, his coadjutor, Bishop Phelan, suc-
ceeded him, but survived him only a month. The fourth Bishop
of Kingston, the mother diocese of Ontario, was Right Rev. Dr.
Horan, for a number of years professor in Laval University,
Quebec. During Bishop Horan's episcopal reign the Catholic
Church in Kingston made great progress. His Lordship took a
deep interest in Catholic education, and the work in Regiopolis
College gained from His Lordship a new and fuller impetus. Mgr.
Horan was a great church builder, and under his guidance some of
the finest ecclesiastical structures in the diocese took shape and
form. ^ ,
In the Diocese of Ottawa, which had been set apart in 1847, the
Catholic Church, under the benign and saintly rule of its first
Bishop, Right Rev. J. E. Guigues, was attaining wonderful growth
and development. Mgr. Guigues, like Bishop de Charbonnel, saw
early the necessity of making provision for the establishing of a
Catholic college or seminary for the education and training of the
Catholic priesthood of his vast diocese, and accordingly, in 1848,
this good Bishop, aided by a number of gifted and zealous Oblate
Fathers, at the head of whom was Dr. Tabaret, established the Col-
lege of Ottawa, which from its modest beginning half a century ago
24 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
has grown into a great Catholic University that has attracted the at-
tention and won the commendation of the ablest scholars in the land.
Bishop Lynch, whose career as a Lazarist Father — whether in
missionary work upon the prairies of Texas or as president of the
College of Holy Angels — was one of marvelous activity, now en-
tered upon the performance of his episcopal duties with renewed
energy and ardor. The work of his busy crozier — large heart and
throbbing brain — is best summed up in the inscriptions on the
shields with which St. Michael's Cathedral was adorned on the occa-
sion of his silver jubilee in 1884 : "Loretto Convent, established in
1862 ; St. Joseph's Convent, established in 1863 ; St. Michael's tower
and spire, built in 1865; Loretto Abbey, Wellington Place, ex-
tended in 1867; St. Nicholas' Home, established in 1869; attended
Ecumenical Council in 1870; De La Salle Institute, established in
1871 ; consecrated Bishop O'Brien, Kingston, in 1873 ; consecrated
Bishop Crinnon, Hamilton, in 1874; consecrated Archbishop
Taschereau, Quebec, in 1874; Convent of the Precious Blood, es-
tablished in 1874; Magdalen Asylum, established in 1875 ; Convents
of St. Joseph established in St. Catharine's, Thorold, Barrie and
Oshawa; forty parish churches and thirty presbyteries estabhshed;
seventy priests ordained for the diocese and St. John's Grove and
House established." To these may be added the establishing of the
Carmelite Monastery at Niagara Falls, Ontario.
In 1870 Toronto was made an archiepiscopal see, with Mgr.
Lynch its first Archbishop and the sees of London and Hamilton
suffragans. In 1873 the northern part of Ontario was erected into,
a vicariate and Bishop Jamot appointed Vicar Apostolic. This was
afterwards merged in the Diocese of Peterborough, Mgr. Jamot
becoming its first Bishop. In 1874 Right Rev. Dr. O'Mahony was
appointed auxiliary Bishop of Toronto.
Bishop Farrell bore the crozier in Hamilton for seventeen years
— ^from 1856 till 1873. His rule was benign and fatherly. No
priest in his diocese toiled harder than the Bishop. He attended
sick calls, visited the poor and heard confessions every week and
every day when required.
During his episcopate churches multiplied in his diocese, while
there was a steady advancement along the lines of Catholic educa-
tion. It was under his fostering care and guidance, too, that the
beautiful Cathedral Church of the diocese rose and convents con-
ducted by the Sisters of Loretto established in Hamilton and
Guelph. Bishop Farrell was a man of imposing and courtly bear-
ing, standing six feet four inches in height and possessing a most
handsome countenance. He was the tallest and grandest looking
personage of all the Bishops and patriarchs assembled at the Vati-
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 25
can Council in Rome in 1870. Hamilton Diocese was bereft of its
good and zealous first Bishop in the autumn of 1873, when death
carried away Right Rev. John Farrell, one of the kindest, noblest
and most courteous of the prelates that have ever worn the mitre or
graced the sees of Ontario.
A venerable priest who did the work of a great apostle in the
Catholic pioneer days of Ontario and was for many years asso-
ciated with Bishop Farrell was Very Rev. Edward Gordon, V. G.
Father Gordon was a convert and was educated in St. Raphael's
Seminary, in Glengarry. Soon after his ordination, in 1830, he
began his mission work, the field of his labors extending from
Toronto to Niagara Falls, including Adjala, Trafalgar, Toronto,
Gore, Dundas and Niagara Falls. At Niagara he built the first
church, St. Vincent de Paul's, in 1835. Upon the division of the
Diocese of Kingston he remained in charge at Niagara and subse-
quently became vicar general of the Diocese of Toronto under
Bishop de Charbonnel and resided in Hamilton. When Bishop
Farrell took possession of the See of Hamilton he made Father
Gordon his vicar general, in the enjoyment of which dignity this
good and venerable priest continued till his death, which took place
early in the seventies.
The health of Mgr. Pinsonneault, Bishop of London, becoming
impaired, it was necessary to select a successor, and on November
10, 1867, Vicar General Walsh, who had been rector of St.
Michael's Cathedral for a number of years and was the present
pastor of St. Mary's Church, Toronto, was consecrated Bishop of
London, in succession to Dr. Pinsonneault. Bishop Walsh was
born in Kilkenny, Ireland, and received his education in the College
of Waterford and the Sulpitian Seminary in Montreal.
On taking up the crozier laid down by Bishop Pinsonneault in
his retirement from London, Dr. Walsh applied himself with zeal
to the episcopal duties of his diocese, carrying into his work the
same good judgment, prudence and tact which had so favorably
marked his priestly labors for so many years in the Diocese of
Toronto. He became endeared to his clergy at the very outset,
and this bond of affection and love remained intact during the two
and twenty years that he continued as chief pastor of the London
Diocese. When Bishop Walsh came to the diocese he found it
heavily encumbered with debt and sorely in the need of additional
convents, churches, schools and hospitals. When, in response to
the voice of Rome, he bade adieu to London — ^with all its tender
memories and associations — on November 27, 1889, to take up the
crozier in succession to Archbishop Lynch in Toronto, he left a
diocese well provided with churches, schools and hospitals and a
26 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
body of Catholic priests devoted and loyal — as faithful as could be
found in any diocese of Canada. Among the many beautiful ec-
clesiastical edifices erected in the diocese during his episcopal
regime St. Peter's Cathedral, in London, will ever remain a monu-
ment to the faith and zeal of this great and good Bishop.
Turning to the Diocese of Ottawa, we find that the progress of
Catholicity there has been in the meantime very marked. Bishop
Guigues having died in 1874, Right Rev. J. T. Duhamel was ap-
pointed his successor. Bishop Duhamel soon proved himself a
prelate of great executive ability — full of tact, wisdom and energy.
He is a true friend of Catholic education — ever encouraging, aiding
and directing it. In 1887 the Diocese of Ottawa was erected into
a metropolitan see. Dr. Duhamel becoming its first Archbishop.
The Catholic population in the archdiocese is 120,000 and the
number of priests 166. In 1882 the Vicariate of Pontiac was estab-
lished, with Right Rev. N. Z. Lorrain its Vicar Apostolic. This
year the vicariate has been erected into the Diocese of Pembroke,
with Dr. Lorrain as its first Bishop and suffragan of the metropoli-
tan of Ottawa. Mgr. Lorrain is a man of great zeal, piety, earnest-
ness and simplicity of character. In addition to administering suc-
cessfully the affairs of his large and scattered diocese he does an
amount of parochial work equal to that of any parish priest in
Ontario. Under his benign and watchful care the Catholic Church
has made marvelous progress in his vast diocese, which includes the
county of Renfrew, in Ontario, and the county of Pontiac, in
Quebec, the territory between 88 and y2 degrees, the height of land
at the south, Hudson's Bay, James' Bay and the Great Whale
river at the north. The Catholic population of the diocese is 36,171,
spiritually cared for by thirty-three priests.
Bishop O'Brien, who succeeded Right Rev. Dr. Horan as Bishop
of Kingston in 1875, wore the mitre for four years, and during that
time labored most assiduouly as chief pastor of the diocese. He
was a remarkable financier, and did much to liquidate the debt
which weighed upon the diocese. Dr. O'Brien dying in 1879,
Right Rev. James Vincent Cleary, of Waterford, Ireland, was ap-
pointed to the vacant see. The work of this great prelate is so well
and widely known that to chronicle his episcopal activities is but
to review what is already fresh in the mind of every Catholic in
Canada.
There is not a doubt but that Dr. Cleary was one of the most
scholarly, if not the most scholarly, prelate who ever wore the
mitre in the Catholic Church in America. He was indeed a man of
rare endowments — a most gifted and eloquent speaker — the Cicero
of the Catholic Church in Canada. He had a great mind, lofty
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 27
ideals and the fervor and zeal of the earliest apostleship of the
Church. The pastorals which he issued from time to time during
his episcopal rule were models — in the depth, clearness, fullness and
beauty of the thought which they embodied. If there was one
quality more than another which Dr. Cleary possessed it was
courage. He stood upon the ramparts of the Church of God, ask-
ing no quarter, giving no quarter, ready to defend its every right
and principle to the death.
During the seventeen years that this great and gifted prelate
ruled the Diocese of Kingston the progress of the Catholic Church
in the mother see of Ontario was most notable. A profound
scholar himself, Dr. Cleary lent his episcopal influence to the estab-
lishing of Catholic schools in every part of his diocese. He revived
Regiopolis College, which was obliged to close its doors through
financial embarrassment in 1869, and this institution to-day prom-
ises to do a great and good work. The Catholic population of the
diocese is 35,000, and the number of priests 44.
In 1889 Kingston was erected into a metropolitan see, with Mgr.
Cleary its first Archbishop. At the same time a new diocese was
created in the eastern part of the province, which in days gone by
had been the cradle of Catholic faith in Ontario. This new diocese,
whose Bishop is the Right Rev. Alex MacDonell, embraces the
counties of Stormont and Glengarry, and is known as the Diocese
of Alexandria. It has a Catholic population of 18,000, spiritually
attended by twelve priests. Mgr. MacDonell is a prudent and
zealous prelate worthy in every way of the distinguished name
which he bears.
The mitre worn with so much lustre for a period of seventeen
years in the mother see of Ontario by Most Rev. Dr. Cleary found
worthy succession in the person of Vicar General Gauthier, of
Brockville, who was consecrated Archbishop of Kingston in St.
Mary's Cathedral October 18, 1898.
Dr. Gauthier brings to his work great executive power, tact and
the burning zeal of the early apostleship. He has a precise knowl-
edge of the conditions and wants of his diocese and possesses the
prudence and wisdom to administer its affairs in the very best
interests of Holy Church.
Already is Dr. Gauthier's episcopal regime bearing goodly fruit.
Under his wise guidance Catholic education, which had been so
dear to the heart of his gifted predecessor, is breaking into richer
blossoms and gives promise of a return worthy of those who hold
it in sacred keeping.
Between 1873 and 1889 two Bishops ruled in succession the See
of Hamilton — Dr. Crinnon and Dr. Carberry. Bishop Crinnon had
28 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
been parish priest of Stratford, and he brought to the performance
of his episcopal duties a zeal and self-sacrifice which did not fail to
bear the richest fruit. Bishop Carberry, his successor, came from
Ireland, where he had been famed among his Dominican Brothers
for his culture and scholarship and his deep but unostentatious
piety. Both these good Bishops died martyrs to the toils entailed
in bearing the crozier.
The Diocese of Hamilton becoming widowed by the death of
Dr. Carberry in 1889, Right Rev. T. J. Dowling, who had suc-
ceeded Bishop Jamot in the See of Peterborough in 1887, was trans-
lated to fill the vacant see. During the ten years that Bishop
Dowling has borne the crozier the progress of the Catholic Church
in the Diocese of Hamilton has been most marked. Dr. Dowling
is possessed of an ability most practical and an untiring energy.
He thoroughly understands the needs of his diocese and is un-
wearied in his efforts to promote the spiritual and temporal welfare
of his people. During his spiritual regime as chief pastor of the
diocese new schools, new convents, new hospitals and new churches
have marked the years of his episcopal toil. The Catholic popula-
tion of Hamilton Diocese is 50,000 and the number of priests 55.
When Bishop Dowling was translated to Hamilton in 1889 Right
Rev. R. A. O'Connor was appointed to the vacant See of Peterbor-
ough. Bishop O'Connor had been for many years parish priest of
Barrie and was recognized as one of the most successful priests in
Ontario. His diocese is a very extensive one, comprising the coun-
ties of Durham, Northumberland, Peterboro, Victoria and the dis-
tricts of Algoma, Muskoka, Parry Sound and the western portion
of Nipissing. The Catholic population in the diocese is 36,500 and
the number of priests 48. Mgr. O'Connor is known as an emi-
nently prudent and practical Bishop, whose episcopal regime will
not likely be marked by many mistakes.
On Bishop Walsh's retirement from London to become Arch-
bishop of Toronto in 1889 Dr. O'Connor, president of Assumption
College, Sandwich, was chosen to succeed him. Bishop O'Con-
nor's episcopal rule in London bore happy spiritual fruit.
The sudden death of Most Rev. John Walsh, Archbishop of
Toronto, on the 31st of July, 1898, closed the life work and career of
one of the most beautiful characters, wise and gifted prelates that
have ever adorned the Catholic Church in Canada. His wise coun-
sel, gentle rule, warm sympathy and noble charity had blessed the
priests and people of Toronto for nine years — renewing the ardor
of faith in each heart and home, bringing consolation to the poor
and afflicted and giving spiritual health and joy where before had
reigned sorrow and suffering. His death has indeed been a blow
The Catholic Church in Ontario. 29
which the Catholic Church in Toronto has keenly felt. It may
be with surety said that no other prelate has filled such a place in
the Catholic Church in Canada, and it is now a well accepted fact
that had the great and beloved Archbishop of Toronto lived a few
weeks longer Rome would have honored him with an enrollment in
her College of Cardinals.
But the great Archdiocese of Toronto, with its 60,000 Catholics
and 79 priests, did not remain long widowed. The happy choice of
succession fell upon Dr. O'Connor, Bishop of London, whose de-
votedness to episcopal duties and ardent zeal for the Church of God
marked him out as a chief among the Catholic prelates of On-
tario.
On the translation of Mgr. O'Connor from London to Toronto
Right Rev. Monsignor F. P. McEvay, rector of St. Mary's
Cathedral, Hamilton, became Bishop of London. Mgr. McEvay
possesses great administrative gifts, and his advent to London has
been hailed with delight by its priests and people. London is per-
haps the richest diocese in Ontario and has a population of 60,000,
spiritually cared for by 71 priests.
In the annals of Catholic education in Ontario there are three
names which will be always held in grateful memory and benedic-
tion— that of Rev. Dr. Louis Funcken, founder of St. Jerome's Col-
lege, Berlin, Ontario ; that of Very Rev. Charles Vincent, late presi-
dent of St. Michael's College, Toronto, and that of Rev. Dr.
Tabaret, founder and for many years president of Ottawa Uni-
versity, Ottawa.
Among the venerable priests in Ontario still laboring in the vine-
yard of the Master who are nearing their golden jubilee and worthy
of our special love and esteem are Rev. Dr. Kilroy, of Stratford ;
Rev. Dr. Flannery, of Windsor ; Right Rev. Mgr. Heenan, of Dun-
das, and Right Rev. Mgr. Farrelly, of Belleville.
The following religious orders have houses in Ontario : Men —
Society of Jesus, Congregation of St. Basil, Congregation of the
Resurrection, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Order of Calced Car-
melites, Order of St. Francis, Order of Minor Capuchins, Con-
gregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Company of Mary and
Brothers of the Christian Schools. Women — Sisters of the Con-
gregation of Notre Dame, Religious Hospitalers of the Hotel Dieu,
Gray Nuns of the Cross, Ladies of Loretto, Sisters of the Congre-
gation of St. Joseph, Ursuline Nuns, Ladies of the Sacred Heart,
Sisters of the Holy Cross and Seven Dolors, Sisters of Charity,
Sisters of Our Lady of the Refuge, Sisters of the Holy Names of
Jesus and Mary, Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood, Daughters
of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, School Sisters of Notre Dame,
30 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Wisdom, Sisters of Mary and Faithful
Companions of Jesus.
Nor has Catholic literary thought and achievement been wanting
to those who have tended the altar fires of faith during the past fifty
years in Ontario. Such works as Father Northgraves' "Mistakes
of Modern Infidels," Rev. Dr. Harris' "History of the Early Mis-
sions in Western Canada" and "The Catholic Church in the
Niagara Peninsula" and the late Rev. Dr. Dawson's "Life of Pope
Pius the Ninth" have a permanent place and value not only in the
history of the Catholic Church, but in the history of our country.
Truly the garden of the Catholic Church in Ontario tilled by the
faithful spiritual laborer during the past half century has blossomed
and borne goodly increment which, may we not hope, the next fifty
years will increase and multiply a hundred fold !
Thomas O'Hagan, A. M., Ph. D.
Toronto. Out.
"THE MAKING OF RELIGION."— II.
THE book of Mr. Andrew Lang, published under the above
title, naturally falls, as noted in a previous article, into two
parts : the first weighs the current scientific explanation of
the origin of the idea of "soul" or "spirit," and finds this explana-
tion, to say the least, wanting ; this section of the book has already
been reviewed; the second part of the work examines the conclu-
sions Science promulgates in regard to the origin of the idea of
"gods" and "God," and with these chapters the present article
deals.
At the very outset of the book the author is careful to draw atten-
tion to the fact that his two theses are entirely independent the one
of the other. Thus he concedes that the position he maintains
upon the reality of such supernormal phenomena as clairvoyance,
fetichism, haunted houses, etc., and the bearing of this question upon
the origin of the idea of "spirit" may be regarded as fantastic, or im-
probable, or merely left on one side ; still, the strength of his second
position about the origin of the idea of "God," derived from evidence
of a different character, will not, therefore, be in any way impaired.
With the conclusion to which Science has come in this latter
instance, Mr. Lang can no more agree than with her solution of the
previous problem. "For whatever reasons, ma'am, I differed with
The Making of Religion. 31
you before," he may be interpreted as saying to Science, "for even
stronger ones I must part company with you now. It is easy enough
for you to theorize thus: 'Worshiping first the departed souls of
his kindred, man later extended the doctrine of spiritual beings in
many directions. Ghosts or other spiritual existences fashioned on
the same line prospered until they became gods. Finally, as the
result of a variety of processes, one of these gods became supreme,
and at last was regarded as the one only God;' it is easy enough
to say this, but an all important preliminary question is, do the facts
fit in with this very simple system ? They don't, ma'am ; emphati-
cally they do not, and therefore, out of devotion to your own cause
and fidelity to your methods, I am forced to expose the fallacy of
your argument and the unwarrantness of your conclusions," and
this the author does without mincing matters. He feels himself on
ground sure to appear more solid in the esteem of scientific men
than that he occupied in the defense of the reality of visions and the
acquisition of knowledge apparently not attainable through the nor-
mal channels of sense. His words, consequently, are more trench-
ant, his attack more direct and his own position stated with greater
positiveness. It is well worth while to follow him at his self-ap-
pointed task, though it be only to glean stray ears of the good
grain from the sheaves he carries.
The idea of "God," the origin of which Science undertakes to
elucidate, is this : "A primal eternal Being, the author of all things,
the Father and friend of man, the invisible, omniscient guardian of
morality." Science declares: First. That this idea is a compara-
tively recent acquisition in the history of human kind; it was born
of civilization; and as, from the scientific standpoint, civilization
betokens the maturity of a race and supposes rudimentary ages of
savagery, superstition and ignorance, it follows that during these
preliminary tirries there was no such notion of "God" as later gen-
erations have come to know. Second. The "civilized" idea of God,
although thus recent, still has its roots in those earlier days of dark-
ness— the "roots" are primitive ideas about "spirit," the practice
of "ancestor-worship," the analogy between living chiefs and "chiefs"
among the dead, the gradual acknowledgment of differing degrees
among the latter, some coming to be esteemed greater than
others and the final endowment of one dead chief with powers plac-
ing him above the rest, he thus becoming a "supreme being."
Third. Hence the essential differences between the present idea
33 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of "God" among us and that idea as held by our ancestors, or by
people at the present day in circumstances such as theirs.
"God" for them meant, and means, no more than an ancestral
"spirit" endowed with enlarged prerogatives of power or passion,
who falls under no law but the mood of his lawless whims, whose
service takes the form of sacrificial bribes to appease His anger or
buy His aid, and into whose religious code no ethical idea enters.
Fourth. Science goes a step farther and declares the really primor-
dial condition of man to have been absolutely godless, and finds
evidence of the fact in the like condition of certain savage tribes at
the present day.
Evidently this catena of statements leaves no room for an early
Revelation and knocks down like a child's house of cards the funda-
mental doctrines of Christianity.
And is this the last word of Science upon the origin of religion?
Is religion, as now understood among men, the latest evolutionary
form of a series of mistakes, fallacies and illusions? Is its germ
a blunder and its present form only the result of progressive but
unessential refinements on that blunder ? Is the inference this, that
religion is untrue, that nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis ?
"The inference," quietly observes Mr. Lang, granting for the nonce
its basis, "is not perhaps logical, for all our science itself is the
result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses originally erron-
eous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived. Yet our science is
true within its limits, though very far from being exhaustive of the
truth. In the same way, it might be argued, our religion, even
granting that it arose out of primitive fallacies and false hypotheses,
may yet have been refined, as science has been, through a multitude
of causes into an approximate truth." The shrewd comment is but
one of many passing remarks whose sharp points prick conclusions
arrived at injudiciously, even though the author grants the pre-
mises behind them a respect they do not deserve. Mr. Lang, how-
ever, goes at the premises themselves; one by one he tears them
open, exhibits the shoddiness of their texture and sets off
against it the well-woven material of actual fact and sound deduc-
tion.
In reviewing his work place is claimed for a suggestion not
without relevancy and moment. The word "science" is easy on
the author's pen to designate what in good sooth is, at its best, but
the teaching of a group of those who follow Science. True, this group
is one to conjure with ; the names of Huxley and Spencer alone are
in common belief an army by themselves. These men being of
the noble company of pioneers in modern methods of research and
The Making of Religion. 33
thought have, after the wont of pioneers, laid claim to excessively
large preserves. Mr. Huxley did indeed give years to developing,
and with success, biology, and therein much of his work will endure ;
but in the field of ethnology, not to speak of Biblical criticism, with
its essential philological apparatus, Mr. Huxley never completed
a course of even "first lessons," yet in both branches he has had
somewhat to say, and he has given to his views the authoritative
weight of a past master.
Mr. Herbert Spencer undertook to "civil engineer" the whole
domain of man and his institutions, civil, religious, social and moral,
carrying out the survey on the supposedly accurate lines of the new
method. Evolution. Evolution, however, is all too extensive to be
held in control, or exhausted by one or two men, or by a school
made up of their disciples and popularizers. If evolution be the new
"philosopher's stone," the universal solvent of Truth, then has it
office in every branch of Knowledge. But in each branch its appli-
cation, the methods and progress of the evolutionary process, is de-
termined by the facts of actual development in that branch with
which only the specialist can be acquainted. In view of the com-
parative recentness of the evolutionary hypothesis and of the tre-
mendous extent of its application, it follows that Mr. Spencer's
work must be, to speak with moderation, premature, largely sub-
jective, and wanting in that complete and exact exploration of sepa-
rate subjects which alone could justify its generalizations. Mr.
Huxley's work, on the same grounds, cannot be given weight from
the standpoint of the scientific evolutionists, except within that single
sphere of research which study and experimentation had made his
own ; and even his biological work is subject to the correction and
augmentation of other workers whose equipment and research
equal or will equal his. Although the great labors of these men
and their co-workers do give a dominant tone of materialism to
scientific thought at the present day, it is unfair to Science as long
as there are serious workers in her various branches whose views
are not materialistic to speak of the former set of teachers and their
results, no matter what their vogue, as "science" without any dis-
criminating or limiting term. You cannot thus exclude Mivart
and Pasteur or a hundred others whose work and views represent
evolutionary research just as truly as do the labors of Huxley or
Spencer.
A superficial view of Mr. Lang's phraseology might lead one to
think his use of the term "science" open to this objection ; the care-
ful reader, however, will rather believe his manner of expressing
himself intended to serve more effectively his own purpose by leav-
34 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ing the reader to infer for himself that the "popular" results of
"science," as well as the "popular" use of the term itself, are both
mistakes equally adverse to the best interests of Science in its true
sense. Yet all readers are not careful readers, and there is cer-
tainly room and reason to call attention to a distinction as real and
important as it is often overlooked.
It would be altogether too lengthy a process to take up statement
by statement the catena of scientific deductions expressed above and
offset each by the numerous facts and legitimate inferences which
take the supports from under them and leave naught but a tumbled
mass of surmise, assumption and illogical inference. It must suffice
to present some examples of savage beliefs in "God" and "Gods"
which contradict the elaborate thesis of Huxley, Spencer, Tylor and
others in all its essential elements.
II.
Example Number One: The Savages of Terra del Fuego. Admiral
Fitzroy, whose account of the visit made to this people by Her
Majesty's ship Beagle is our chief source of information, describes
their idea of the Deity thus : "A great black man is supposed to
be always wandering about the woods and mountains, who is certain
of knowing every word and action, who cannot be escaped and who
influences the weather according to men's conduct."
This Deity has the following "unscientific" characteristics : First.
He is a moral being who makes for righteousness and searches the
heart. "His morality is so much above the ordinary savage level
that he regards the slaying of a stranger and an enemy caught red-
handed in robbery as a sin. York's brother (York was a Fuegian
brought to England by Fitzroy) killed a 'wold man' who was stealing
his birds. 'Rain came down, snow came down, hail came down,
wind blow, blow, very much blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man
in the woods no like it ; He very much angry.' " Here be ethics
in savage religion. Second. "This big man is not a deified chief,
for the Fuegians have no superiority of one over another, but the
doctor wizard of each party has much influence. Mr. Spencer dis-
poses of this moral 'big man' of the Fuegians as 'evidently a de-
ceased weather-doctor.' But first there is no evidence that the being
is regarded as ever having died. Again, it is not shown that Fue-
gians are ancestor-worshipers. Lastly, were mere medicine men
such moralists? The worst spirits among the neighboring Pata-
gonians are those of dead medicine-men. As a rule everywhere
+he ghost of a 'doctor-wizard,' shaman or whatever he may be called.
The Making of Religion. 35
is the worst and wickedest of all ghosts. How, then, the Fuegians,
who are not proved to be ancestor-worshipers, evolved out of the
malignant ghost of an ancestor a being whose strong point is mor-
ality one does not easily conceive. The adjacent Chonos 'have great
faith in a good spirit, whom they call Yerri Yuppon, and consider to
be the author of all good; him they invoke in distress or danger.'
However starved, they do not touch food till a short prayer has
been muttered over each portion, 'the praying man looking upward.'
They have magicians, but no details are given as to spirits or ghosts.
If Fuegian and Chono religion is on this level, and if this be the
earliest, then the theology of many other higher savages (as of the
Zulus) is decidedly degenerate." It may strike the reader inexpe-
rienced in ethnological studies that the conception of God as a big,
black, non-natural man takes force out of this example ; so thought
Mathew Arnold in regard to another savage people: the Lippe-
land tribes, he wrote, "have no knowledge of God. They believe
the Creator was a gigantic black, living among the stars." Mr.
Lang effectively answers : "Mr. Mathew Arnold might as well have
said 'The British Philistine has no knowledge of God. He believes
that the Creator is a magnified, non-natural man, living in the sky.' "
However, at the foundation of the inexperienced reader's impres-
sion there lies a mistake, to which attention may well be called, for
it is also at the bottom of the "scientific" explanation of the origin
of the idea of "God." The reader finds fault with the savage's con-
ception because God is conceived of as a "magnified" human being
rather than a "spirit ;" and the scientist declares that out of the idea
of "spirit" developed the idea of "God." Now, as a matter of fact
savages had and have the idea of "God" before they had or have the
idea of His specific nature, and the only term by which they can
express this idea is one that implies the presence in it of what is
best in man raised to a still greater degree of perfection. Their lan-
guage is anthropomorphic: "God" is a "man," but an eternal,
omniscient, all-powerful, highly moral man, who punishes wrong-
doing. What more can be expected of them ? As for the scientist,
out of short-sighted devotion to a theory he has simply neglected
the evidence that goes to show how men in savage conditions
thought of a "God" long before they had come to think upon or
theorize about the nature of this being. "The question of 'spirit
or non-spirit' was not raised at all. We have indeed from child-
hood been taught that God is a 'spirit.' We now can only con-
ceive of an eternal being as a spirit. We have never remarked
that there is no reason why we should take it for granted that the
earliest deities of these earliest men were supposd by them to be
3^ Atnerican Catholic Quarterly Review.
'spirits' at all. These gods might be most judiciously spoken of
as 'undefined eternal beings.' To hs such a being is necessarily a
spirit, but he was by no means necessarily such to an early thinker.
The savage Supreme Being, with added power, omniscience and
morality, is the idealization of the savage, minus fleshly body (as a
rule) and minus Death." Death, anthropologists tell us, is unknown
to the savage as a universal ordinance. It came into the world by
a blunder, an accident, an error in ritual, a decision of a god who
was before death. So the savage god is not necessarily conceived
of as being a ghost or developing from one ; he was not originally
differentiated as "spirit" or "non-spirit." "When we call the Su-
preme Being of savages a 'spirit,' we introduce our own animistic
ideas into a conception where it may not have originally ex-
isted."
This subject is of importance and may be borne in mind with
advantage in considering what is to follow.
III.
Example Number Two: The Bushmen of Australia. "Of all the
races now extant the Australians are probably lowest in culture,
and, like the fauna of the continent, are nearest to the primitive
model. They have neither metals, bows, pottery, agriculture nor
fixed habitations, and no traces of higher culture have anywhere
been found above or in the soil of the continent." Among them,
if anywhere, popular "science" will find material in support of its
thesis ; hence their appearance in Mr. Huxley's bold statement that
"in its simplest condition such as may he met with among the Austra-
lian blacks, theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers and
dispositions (usually malignant) of ghost-like entities who may be
propitiated or scared away; but no cult can properly be said to
exist. And in this stage theology is wholly independent of ethics."
"Remarks more crudely in defiance of known facts," comments
Mr. Lang, "could not be made," and then he proceeds to give the
facts as they come from men who have lived among the Australians.
"The Australians assuredly believe in 'spirits,' often malicious
and probably in most cases regarded as ghosts of men; these aid
the wizard and occasionally inspire him. That these ghosts are
worshiped does not appear and is denied by Waitz. Again, in the
matter of cult 'there is none' in the way of sacrifice to higher Gods,"
as there should be according to "scientific" theory if these gods
were hungry ghosts. "The cult among the Australians is the wor-
The Making of Religion. 37
ship of the heart, expressed in moral teaching supposed to be in
conformity with the institutes of their God. Worship takes the
form, as at Eleusis, of tribal mysteries originally instituted, as at
Eleusis, by the God. The young men are initiated with many cere-
monies, some of which are cruel and farcical, but the initiation in-
cludes ethical instruction in conformity with the supposed com-
mands of a God who reads the heart. As among ourselves, the
ethical idea, with its theological sanction, is probably rather above
the moral standard of ordinary practice. What conclusion we
should draw from these facts is uncertain, but the facts at least
cannot be disputed, and precisely contradict the statement of Mr.
Huxley. He was wholly in the wrong when he said: The moral
code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction on
such dogmas.* "
One of the most reliable sources of information is a Mr. Howitt,
who lived in Australia and whose reports appear in the Journal of
the Anthropological Institute. This gentleman, as most "scientific"
investigators, starts into his work influenced by the accepted anthro-
pological bias. Hence when he finds a universal belief in a Su-
preme Being, especially if this belief views Him as a source of pun-
ishment, he is all too ready to infer that its origin may be found in
the ghost of a "defunct headman." Now, the traces of "headman-
ship," i. e., acknowledgment of a tribal leader, are extremely faint
among these races ; "even when found, no such headman rules large
areas of country, and so, even living, claims no service from a num-
ber of tribes ; nor is any such a one known to be worshiped after
death ; and Mr. Howitt's own statements illustrate not a 'malevolent
Being,' but one who punishes trespasses committed against tribal ordi-
nances and customs^ whose first institution is ascribed to Him;"
Darumulun is the native appellation of this Supreme Being. The ele-
ments of the religion as gathered from Mr. Howitt's experience
may be summed up as follows: "Darumulun 'watched the youths
from the sky, prompt to punish, by disease or death, the breach of
his ordinances,' moral or ritual. His name is too sacred to be
spoken except in whispers, and the anthropologist will observe
that the names of the human dead are also often tabooed. But the
divine name is not thus tabooed and sacred when the mere folklore
about him is narrated. The informants of Mr. Howitt instinc-
tively distinguished between the mythology and the religion of
Darumulun. This distinction, the secrecy about the religion, the
candor about the mythology, is essential, and accounts for our
ignorance about the inner religious beliefs of early races. Mr.
Howitt himself knew little till he was initiated. Mr. Howitt men-
38 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tions, among moral lessons divinely sanctioned, respect for old age,
abstinence from lawless love and avoidance of the sins so popular,
poetic, and sanctioned by the example of gods in classical Greece.
A representation is made of the Master, Biamban, and to make such
idols, except at the Mysteries, is forbidden 'under pain of death.'
Those which are made are destroyed as soon as the rites are ended.
The future life (apparently) is then illustrated by the burial of the
living elder, who rises from a grave. This may, however, symbolize
the 'new life' of the Mystae, 'Worse have I fled ; better have I found,'
as was sung in an Athenian rite. The whole result is, by what Mr.
Howitt calls 'a quasi-religious element,' to 'impress upon the mind
of the youth, in an indelible manner, those rules of conduct which
form the moral law of the tribe.'
"Many other authorities could be adduced for the religious sanc-
tion of morals in Australia. An all-knowing being observes and
rewards the conduct of men ; he is named with reverence, if named
at all; his abode is the heavens; he is the Maker and Lord of
things ; his lessons 'soften the heart.' "
Surely in presence of these facts there is excuse for the author's
quaint quotation :
" What wants this knave
That a God should have ?"
The effect of this outline of Australian religion is heightened by
the author's report that its mysteries are actually used "to counteract
the immoral character which natives acquire by associating with,
Anglo-Saxon Christians. Mr. Howitt gives an account of the
Jerseil, or Mysteries of the Kurnai. The old men deemed that
through intercourse with the whites 'the lads had become selfish
and no longer inclined to share that which they obtained by their
own exertions or had given them with their friends.' One need
not say that selflessness is the very essence of goodness and the
central moral doctrine of Christianity. So it is in the religious
Mysteries of the African Yao ; a selfish man, we shall see, is spoken
of as 'uninitiated.' So it is with the Australian Kurnai, whose
mysteries and ethical teaching are under the sanction of their Su-
preme Being. So much for the anthropological dogma that early
theology has no ethics."
After describing the ceremony Mr. Lang summarizes the pre-
cepts the young man is expected to observe :
"i. To obey the old. (Fifth Commandment.)
"2. To share with all their friends. (Do to others as you would
have others do to you.)
"3. To live peaceably with their friends.
The Making of Religion. 39
"4. Not to interfere with girls or married women. (Seventh Com-
mandment.)
"5. To obey the food restrictions. (Leviticus, passim.)"
Mr. Howitt conckides: "I venture to assert that it can no
longer be maintained that the Australians have no belief which can
be called religious^ that is, in the sense of beliefs which govern
tribal and individual morality under a supernatural sanction." On
this topic Mr. Howitt's opinion became more affirmative the more
deeply he was initiated.
Truly the religion of those most primitive savages, in which
morality and reverence are conspicuous elements, with no propitia-
tion of food or purely magical rites to remotely justify the idea that
their God was a ghost; with its prohibition of even making His
image except under most solemn circumstances, and then to serve
a temporary purpose ; truly this actual religion of the Bushmen is
out of joint with that which "science" accredits to them ; and surely
there is something wrong with "scientific" methods that permit Mr.
Spencer and Mr. Huxley to ignore facts which throw a light very
different from theirs on what they consider "the simplest condition
of theology." "In its highest aspect that 'simplest theology* of
Australia is free from the faults of popular theology in Greece. The
God discourages sin ; he does not set the example of sinning. He
is almost too sacred to be named (except in mythology), and far
too sacred to be represented by idols. He is not moved by sacri-
fice ; he has not the chance ; like Death in Greece, 'he only of all
Gods, loves not gifts.' Thus the status of theology does not cor-
respond to the status in material and intellectual culture. It would
scarcely be a paradox to say that the popular Zeus, or Ares, is
degenerate from Darumulun, or the Fuegian being who forbids the
slaying of an enemy, and almost literally 'marks the sparrow's
fall.' "
An explanation of the mistake fallen into by these scientists is
suggested by Mr. Lang, and as his remarks have a universal bear-
ing they deserve attentive consideration :
"If we knew all the mythology of Darumulun, we should prob-
ably find it (like much of the myth of Pundjel or Bunjil) on a very
different level from the theology. There are two currents, the
religious and the mythical, flowing together through religion. The
former current, religious, even among very low savages, is pure
from the magical ghost propitiating habit. The latter current,
mythological, is full of magic, mummery and scandalous legend.
Sometimes the latter stream quite pollutes the former, sometimes
they flow side by side, perfectly distinguishable, as in Aztec ethical
piety, compared with the bloody Aztec ritualism. Anthropology
40 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
has mainly kept her eyes fixed on the impure stream, the lusts,
mummeries, conjurings and frauds of priesthoods, while relatively,
or altogether, neglecting (as we have shown) what is honest and of
good report.
"The worse side of religion is the less sacred, and therefore the
more conspicuous. Both elements are found co-existing in almost
all races, and nobody, in our total lack of historical information
about the beginnings, can say which, if either, element is the
earlier, or which, if either, is derived from the other. To suppose
that propitiation of corpses and then of ghosts came first is agree-
able and seems logical to some writers who are not without a bias
against all religion as an unscientific superstition. But we know
so little ! The first missionaries in Greenland supposed that there
was not there a trace of belief in a Divine Being. 'But when they
came to understand their language better they found quite the
reverse to be true . . . and not only so, but they could plainlv
gather from a free dialogue they had with some perfectly wild
Greenlanders (avoiding any direct application to their hearts) that
their ancestors must have believed in a Supreme Being, and did
render Him some service, which their posterity neglected little by
little.' . . . Mr. Tylor does not refer to this as a trace of Chris-
tian Scandinavian influence on the Eskimo.
"That line, of course, may be taken. But an Eskimo said to a
missionary, Thou must not imagine that no Greenlander thinks
about these things' (theology). He then stated the argument from
design. 'Certainly there must be some Being who made all these
things. He must be very good, too. . . . Ah, did I but know
him, how I would love and honor him.' As St. Paul writes:
'That which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God
hath showed it unto them . . . being understood by the things
which are made . . . but they became vain in their imagina-
tions, and their foolish heart was darkened.' In fact7"mythology
submerged into religion." People, says St. Paul, "reached the
belief in a God from the Argument for Design. Science conceives
herself to have annihilated teleological ideas. But they are among
the probable origins of religion, and would lead to the belief in a
Creator whom the Greenlander thought beneficent, and after whom
he yearned. This is a very different initial step in religious develop-
ment, if initial it was, from the feeding of a corpse or a ghost.
From all this evidence it does not appear how non-polytheistic,
on-monarchical, non-Manes-worshipping savages evolved the
ea of a relatively supreme, moral and benevolent Creator, unborn,
ndying, omniscient and omnipresent. 'He can go everywhere
and do everything.' "
The Making of Religion. 41
IV.
Would you have another illustration of how completely the
actual condition of religion among savages belies the "scientific"
formulae ? 'The case of the Andaman Islanders may be especially
recommended to believers in the anthropological science of religion.
For long these natives were the joy of emancipated inquirers as the
'godless Andamanese.' They only supply Mr. Spencer's 'Ecclesi-
astical Institutions' with a few instances of the ghost belief. Yet
when the Andamanese are scientifically studied in situ by an edu-
cated Englishman, Mr. Man, who knows their language, has lived
with them for eleven years and presided over our benevolent efforts
*to reclaim them from their savage state,' the Andamanese turn out
to be quite embarrassingly rich in the higher elements of faith.
They have not only a profoundly philosophical religion, but an
excessively absurd mythology, like the Australian blacks, the
Greeks and other peoples. If, on the whole, the student of the
Andamanese despairs of the possibility of an ethnological theory
of religion, he is hardly to be blamed."
Once more an aspect of anthropological study of religion that
has hitherto been entirely overlooked is forced upon us. The
esoteric moral and religious teachings of ancient and savage beliefs
are nearly unknown to us, save in a few instances. "It is certain
that the mysteries of Greece were survivals of savage ceremonies,
because we know that they included specific savage rites, such as
the use of the rhombos to make a whirring noise, and the custom of
ritual daubing with dirt, and the sacred ballets d'action, in which,
as Lucian and Qing say, mystic facts are 'danced out.' But, while
Greece retained these relics of savagery, there was something
taught at Eleusis which filled minds like Plato's and Pindar's with
a happy religious awe. Now, similar 'softening of the heart' was
the result of the teaching in the Australian Bora : The Yao mys-
teries inculcate the victory over self; and, till we are admitted to
the secrets of all other savage mysteries throughout the world, we
cannot tell whether, among mummeries, frivolities and even license,
high ethical doctrines are not presented under the sanction of re-
ligion. The new life, and perhaps the future life, are undeniably
indicated in the Australian mysteries by the simulated resurrection.
"I would therefore no longer say, as in 1887, that the Hellenic
genius must have added to 'an old medicine dance' all that the
Eleusinian mysteries possessed of beauty, counsel and consolation.
These elements, as well as the barbaric factors in the rites, may have
been developed out of such savage doctrine as softens the hearts
of Australians and Yaos. That this kind of doctrine receives re-
42 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ligious sanction is certain, where we know the secret of savage
mysteries. It is therefore quite incorrect and strangely presumptu-
ous to deny, with almost all anthropologists, the alliance of ethics
with religion among the most backward races. We must always
remember their secrecy about their inner religion, their frankness
about their mythological tales. These we know : the inner religion
we ought to begin to recognize that we do not know."
Examples of uncouth peoples, in whose beliefs marked distinc-
tions are drawn between "gods" who were once men and "gods"
who were never in ordinary human conditions and could not have
been developed from "ghosts" are not wanting in Mr. Lang's book.
Neither may the scientist retort that "if savages did not invent gods
in consequence of a fallacious belief in spirit and soul, still, in some
other equally illogical way they came to indulge the hypothesis that
they had a Judge and Father in heaven. But, if the ghost theory
of the high gods is wrong, as it is conspicuously superfluous, that
does make some difference. It proves that a widely preached
scientific conclusion may be as spectral as Bathybius." And the
same conclusions must be arrived at in regard to each and all of the
other pronouncements with which "science" has cumbered investi-
gation and hindered accurate knowledge in a field of research,
where, if anywhere, there was eminent need of the utmost exact-
ness and conservatism in sifting premises and arriving at conclu-
sions.
Much as Mr. Lang's work deserves commendation from certain
points of view, it has withal its weaker aspects, and these may not
escape criticism.
The problem of "spirit" or "soul ;" its existence, the original idea
of it, etc. : this problem demands for anything like adequate treat-
ment an educational accoutrement superior to that exhibited by Mr.
Lang.
Adequate treatment is possible only to him who has exhausted
the resources of science in this field of study. What are these
resources ?
First. One should have a specialist's acquaintance with that body
of thought which first attempted an exact definition of the soul, its
nature, powers and manner of action, namely, the philosophy of
Greece, particularly the systems of Aristotle and Plato, and their
later development under the efforts of the scholastics. Through
this knowledge one becomes familiar with the philosophic idea of
soul and the essential qualities which are supposed to differentiate
it and its acts from matter and the various forms of material
activity.
Secondly. Having thus realized the conception of spirit, reached
The Making of Religion. 43
by the learned Past, the authoritative teacher of the Present should
know how the Past's conclusions have been upset, modified or con-
firmed by that sphere of psychological research, which approaches
the soul and its operations through its tenement or machine of clay,
the body ; he should, in other words, have served his apprenticeship
in the laboratory. He must have realized from personal observa-
tion and legitimate experiment how in the actual human compound
(in its various stages of growth, modification and metamorphosis,
through nerves and muscles, brain and blood) that which is in man,
mental and moral as well as physical, makes evident its action and
its complicated diversity of nature. Thus acquainted with the facts
of man's composition from its fleshly manifestation, the method and
course of the soul's operation through its material accompaniment
can be diagnosed, and that in human action which eludes the grip
of laboratory, experiment and explanation, can be entered in a
column by itself, thence to be taken into account when a statement
is prepared of just what Science and Metaphysics,, apart from Reve-
lation, can or cannot authoritatively state as to the existence and
nature of a two-fold element in man's constitution.
Thirdly. With the results achieved from this two-fold previous
investigation well in hand, another step can be taken. The au-
thenticated actual abnormal and preternormal manifestations of
the "spirit" element in man : second-sight, telepathy, crystal-gazing,
the facts of fetichism, spiritualism, demoniacal possession, etc. ; this
latest territory added to the scientific domain, psychical research,
can be explored ; rather the exploration may be inaugurated, for,
because of its vastness, it must remain for years in a rudimentary
stage. The new results thus gathered should be added to those
previously arrived at; and those previous ones corrected or inter-
preted, as the case may be, in the light of the additional knowledge
gleaned.
Fourthly. Before a categorical word can be said, defining the
origin and progress of the idea of "spirit" in the case of any primi-
tive people, the teacher who would speak with authority must pos-
sess an accurate and also a comprehensive acquaintance with the
general laws of philology, besides being familiar with one or two
of the languages of that section of the human family whose psychol-
ogy he professes to explain; this requirement is absolute, for as
words express thought, so a language is the record of thought's
development and change. You cannot know the primitive views of
a people, after scientific standards, about "soul," "God" or anything
else, without understanding by what analogies and through what
word formations these notions found abiding place among them.
Let it be added that a necessary element of this language study,
44 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
through which you get at a nation's thought-concept, is historical
appreciation of the conditions, environment and changes in which
the destiny of the people was, or is being, accompHshed.
A work characterized by a combination of the knowledge just
described, metaphysical, biological, psychical and historico-philo-
logical, with this knowledge carefully digested, judiciously arranged,
and kept entirely clear of prejudice, special pleading or misstate-
ment, such a work may be conceived of as an ideal of scientific at-
tainment, and one may, naturally and reasonably, expect it to be
characterized by a certain degree of categorical enunciation of
general law ; its conclusions, moreover, within the sphere it covers,
may not be lightly questioned. By so much, however, as a scien-
tific work lacks one or more of the elements of this essential and
varied information, by that much is its treatment of necessity in-
adequate and its authority doubtful.
Applying this test to the work of Mr. Lang, or if you will to that
of Huxley, Spencer, Tylor and their popular exponents, the limited
reliability of their results is apparent at a glance. Not one of them,
if true to the accepted principles of correct Science, had either right
or title to promulgate a final and categorical conclusion about the
origin and development of the idea of "spirit;" Science is not at
present in possession of the requisite facts ; it is a problem if she
ever will be.
Of Mr. Lang's work in particular it needs be said that its dicta
have been formulated without any special familiarity with either
biology, philology, or the history of the nations whose religions are
reviewed, and with only a superficial acquaintance with the systems
of philosophy whose methods are rather speculative than experi-
mental. The author is, indeed, a writer of rare finish, a past master
in literary criticism, gifted with that accomplishment of hard sense
and dialectic acuteness peculiarly characteristic of the Celt; withal
his ken of the methods and results of the Society for Psychical Re-
search plus a general course of reading in that restricted field of
ethnology covered by the reports and narratives of travelers, dis-
coverers and students of "primitive" peoples, do not constitute him
an authoritative guide in the "Science of Religion." He is fitted to
pick out, and this he has done effectually, some of the more evident
flaws in the efforts of others, but he is sure to make and overlook
his own. His work must be rated accordingly : that of a moderately
equipped amateur.
Illustrating Mr. Lang's shortcomings is his very unsatisfactory
treatment of "sacrifice." To his mind the fundamental notion of
sacrifice was to feed ravenous "spirits;" it originated with ancestor
or "ghost" worship ; came late into religion, and its application to
The Making of Religion. 45
the Supreme Being was a result of degeneration in the primal sav-
age concept of Him. If people had not come to getting the idea of
"spirit" mixed up with the idea of '*God," they would never have
thought of sacrifices to the latter.
What ground has he for the view he so positively iterates and re-
iterates ? No better than that the satisfactoriness of which in pre-
vious instances he unreservedly rejects.
1. He notes the omission of explicit testimony to sacrifice offer-
ings by savages to the Being they conceive of as Supreme, in the
imperfect accounts of some travelers; he accepts this omission as
tantamount to a proof that among these people there was no sacri-
ficial worship. "There are no traces of propitiation by food, or
sacrifice, or anything but conduct" in Admiral Fitzroy's account of
Fuegian religion ; therefore, concludes Mr. Lang, no such worship
exists in it. The conclusion is too big for the premises. Fitzroy's
limited knowledge of the Fuegian religion is one thing, the non-
existence of sacrifice in it another, and you may not logically con-
clude from the former to the latter. Fitzroy's knowledge of this
savage cult was certainly small and his logic in commenting upon
it unreliable. For example, he thought the Fuegians had no idea
of a future state, "because, among other reasons given, 'the evil
spirit torments them in this world, if they do wrong, by storms,
hail, snow, etc' " Because a man fears punishment for evil deeds
in this life, must it inexorably follow that he has no belief in a
future one ?
2. He limits the word sacrifice to suit his own thesis ; he assumes
that sacrifice means a food offering; yet investigators know that
among "primitive" peoples offerings are frequently made of things
that in nowise may be conceived of as "food;" for example, of
clippings of the hair, parings of the nails, etc.
3. Facts presented by Mr. Lang are against his theory. In cer-
tain instances Supreme Beings do receive sacrificial worship from
savages among whom no trace of ancestor worship is to be found.
"It is notable that in this religion," that of the Pawnees, "we hear
nothing of ancestor worship; we find the cult of an all-powerful
being, in whose ritual sacrifice is the only feature that suggests
ghost worship." You see the author's assumption : sacrifice must
suggest ghost worship ! In other heathen religions where a dis-
tinct line is drawn between "ghosts," souls of ancestors and "be-
ings" who never were in human flesh, sacrifice is offered to the
latter as well as to the former. This fact is exemplified among the
Banks Islanders and the Fijis. Mr. Lang's explanation is that the
worship originally given to the former was, in the course of time,
transferred to the latter; but he presents no historical evidence to
a6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
show either that sacrihce originated with the worship of ghosts or
that the transference assumed ever took place.
The author's general thesis would have been strengthened had he
adopted another view : one more in harmony with his premise main-
taining the degeneration of the original idea of God : the view that
not only did this latter idea degenerate, but also the concept of sacri-
Hce. He would thus have been brought more into harmony with
scholars who maintain that the basis of the sacrificial system was,
in some instances, a recognition of the Divine ownership of human
life, and in others an act of communion or union with the tribal
Divinity. Once and again, moreover, Mr. Lang harps on our
ignorance of the "mysteries" of barbarian beliefs. What a pity he
did not let this ignorance mitigate his positiveness about the
origin of sacrifice.
A like criticism applies to his views upon priesthood, the origin
and development of which he seems to attribute solely to greed and
craft. These instincts have, indeed, in too many instances played
sad havoc with priestly institutions ; but to attribute to them the
production of this universal characteristic of religious life is absurd.
The assumption makes little of the natural shrewdness of even
"primitive" races, and makes us ask why the men reputed to have
originated these institutions, men so keen in duping their fellows,
were not clever enough to cast the priest's life in pleasanter lines.
How comes it that in "primitive" beliefs the priest is quite generally
cut off from ordinary comforts, leads a life of hardship, endures
fasting and physical torture, and is, all in all, one of the saddest-
lived men, from a popular point of view, that you can well con-
ceive of ?
Other points, and not a few, in Mr. Lang's work would justify
further criticism and dissent. Thus he writes : "On the hypothe-
sis here offered to criticism there are two chief sources of Religion,
(i) the belief, how attained we know not, in a powerful, moral,
eternal, omniscient Father and Judge of men ; (2) the belief (proba-
bly developed out of experiences normal and supernormal) in some-
what of man which may survive the grave." Would it be unrea-
sonable to mention explicitly a third element, the possible direct
revelation of Himself by a Supreme Being? True, there is room
for such a supposition in explaining the given terms of the two
previous propositions; but in view of the fact that religions as a
general thing lay stress on such a revelation as explaining their
own origin, in view of this fact, would it not be more logical to make
the claim a subject of separate inquiry ?
And now we have done with this rather ambitious volume. All
in all the book, notwithstanding its burden of accurate information
On Anglican Convents. 47
and trenchant observation and comment, is one of such manifest
imperfection that its effect is apt to be neither deep nor lasting.
The name of the author will, no doubt, give it a vogue among some
who follow with interest his efforts in behalf of Psychical Research
and who admire his literary talent ; but for the mass of readers its
contents are too scientific, while for specialists it is not scientific
enough. In these pages it has served the useful purpose of bring-
ing to clerical attention aspects of theological problems infre-
quently dealt with at any length in text books of theology, but
which, more and more, are beginning to occupy the investigations
of serious and learned men. Besides, its study justifies, from a
natural point of view, the very helpful conclusion that "science"
as ordinarily understood is not near so sure of its apodictical utter-
ances as at first sight might appear ; and that, under Providence, the
times may dawn — and this not so remotely — when Religion will
begin to come into its own again.
Rev. Joseph V. Tracy.
Boston, Mass.
ON ANGLICAN CONVENTS.
THIS is written chiefly with a view to enable Catholics to
better understand, sympathize with, and if occasion offer,
help those who to the Catholic mind seem the strangest of
strange anomalies — Anglican sisters or nuns. Catholics frequently
think and say: ''When they have come so far, how can they be in
good faith where they are ? Obviously they are engaged in copying
our systems and adopting our methods ; why cannot they give up
imitation and seek the reality, which they so evidently admire? Why
do they attempt to graft shoots plucked from our living vine on
to their barren and lifeless branch, lopped off three centuries ago
from the parent stem? Can they expect these to bear good fruit
for God when separated from their source and life? What folly
it all seems, so illogical and inconsistent!"
Well, perhaps when it is considered that in nearly all cases the
Anglican "sister" has been born and bred in a system given to com-
promise, indefiniteness and a latitudinarianism which it styles
"comprehensiveness," they will cease to regard her as an illogical
sham, although her position is certainly of that nature. It is quite
another thing to see one's position clearly when one has been
48 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
brought up in it from seeing it from an outside and independent
quarter. In her eclecticism, spirit, belief and practice she is but
the legitimate and logical outcome of the human institution to which
she belongs.
Beginning in a very humble way about the middle of this cen-
tury, these sisterhooods rapidly increased in numbers and prosper-
ity until at this present day they form a very considerable and prom-
inent section of the Anglican body. Primarily the object of all of
them is the sanctification of the individual members ; and in nearly
all cases secondarily, the salvation and charitable aid of the poor,
the sinful and the suffering. They profess one principal intention
in all they do, and to use the very words of one of their handbooks,
it is this : "All for God ; His greater glory and more perfect love."
An intention which it would be impossible to improve upon.
Those who enter these sisterhoods are for the most part devout
women, taken from every class of society, ardently desirous of
serving and glorifying God through the sanctification of their own
souls and the benefaction of their neighbor. They have been nur-
tured in the distinct prejudices and vague beliefs and teachings of
Anglicanism, and, therefore, whilst they recoil with horror from
the thought of joining the church which all along the ages has pro-
vided her children with abundant means of holiness, and of serv-
ing God in evangelical perfection, they do not hesitate to borrow,
adopt and adapt the rules, customs and organization framed by
Catholic saints for the institutions and children of the Catholic
Church. And they do this in perfect good faith, thinking they are
choosing what is good from all and rejecting the "corruptions."
They do not even attempt to conceal that they are forever borrow-
ing from the church, their garb being one outward token of it, but
in the instructions given to their novices they take a singular pleas-
ure in relating how this part of their constitutions is taken from the
rule of this old Catholic order, and another part from that Catholic
congregation, and various customs chosen at random from many
scattered convents, wherever the wanderings of the particular
founder have led him. The result is, of course, somewhat incon-
gruous, but that is to them a mere detail, and by no means inter-
feres with their pleasure in carrying out their rule, which they con-
sider is bound to be very good, since it is taken from so many holy
sources. There are some few among the sisterhoods more original
than this, but they unfortunately are more distinguished in cus-
toms, dress, etc., for eccentricity than good sense.
Also the books put into the hands of novices to instruct them
in the life they are to lead — as far as our experience goes — are en-
On Anglican Convents. 49
tirely Catholic: the works — lives of Catholic saints — writings of
Jesuits, Benedictines, Franciscans, etc. The books of devotion used
by the higher Church Sisters are nearly all Catholic, or adaptations
of Catholic manuals. The offices, which most of them recite in
English, are translations (with some omissions) from the Church's
breviary, either according to the Sarum or Roman use. In some
of their chapels they have discarded the "communion service" of
the Anglican "Prayer Book" and have adopted the "Scotch office,"
as containing higher doctrine, and in a few instances even that does
not satisfy, so they use a translation of the beautiful Sarum rite.
One of the High-church convents has also been "trying and praying
for years to obtain the privilege of reservation of the Blessed Sacra-
ment in our chapel," as the "reverend prioress" writes ; whilst others,
more determined or perhaps diplomatic, have already had this (as
they believe) for many years. This, however, is kept as a sort of
open secret, and a curtain screens off the eastern chapel, where the
Sisters take it in turn to watch before it. Others, more openly re-
gardless of the powers that be, make no attempt at concealment,
burning the lamp before the tabernacle in full view of any one who
chooses to go in to look. In some points several of them even outdo
their model, as they reserve in both kinds, and not content with
using incense at "high celebrations," Lauds, Vespers and on festivals
at Solemn Matins, they also have it at Low Mass, offered by a server
during the elevation. Vestments, banners and processions in honor
of the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lady and the saints they have, too ;
confessionals and holy water, and in a few cases even holy oils.
There is hardly any outward point of Catholic practice that some
of them have not adopted.
It is true that the tenets of the whole Anglican body, as found
in the thirty-nine articles, and also the opinions of a large and in-
fluential section of its living members utterly condemn these prac-
tices, as well as the doctrines of which they are the outcome and
exponent. The Twenty-second Article pronounces the doctrines of
purgatory, invocation of saints, etc., to be "A fond thing, vainly in-
vented, with no warranty of Scripture;" the Twenty-fifth declares
that "The doctrine of seven sacraments is a corrupt following of
the Apostles ;" the Thirty-first asserts that "The Sacrifice of Masses
is a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit." Yet, marvelous
as it seems in the face of this, there are thousands of Anglicans who
daily pray for the dead and have Masses (as they imagine) said for
them ; who invoke the saints, believe in seven sacraments, offer the
holy sacrifice as they say and think and keep watch before their
God (as they fancy) in the Blessed Sacrament.
50 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
There is even an Anglican convent where it is customary for the
reverend mother to say: "Let us pray for our Holy Father" — if
any one present were so deluded as to imagine her filial devotion
to be meant for "Archbishop" Temple, she would be presently en-
lightened by the next exhortation: "My dear Sisters, let us try to
gain all the indulgences which our Holy Father has attached to
this devotion I" Then would follow the Rosary, or Stations of the
Cross.
If we have not experienced some such state of mind ourselves,
we shall probably say that it is morally impossible for people to
come so far towards Catholicism and yet be in good faith as Angli-
caMs. But those who have come through it know that it is often
so. It is true that as far as externals are concerned they are near,
but the whole inward principle of their belief and practice is totally
opposed to that of the Catholic. They believe certain Catholic doc-
trines, or almost all of them, as the case may be, because their indi-
vidual judgment has approved and chosen them as right and worthy
of belief; the Catholic by virtue of divine faith accepts all that the
mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost proposes to him for belief, because
he knows that God can neither deceive nor be deceived, since He
is truth essential and uncreate. With the Anglicans the habitual
effort to reconcile the mind's natural ideas of truth and unity with
the presence of a host of antagonistic doctrines and contrarieties of
practice, existing and tolerated side by side within the pale of Angli-
canism (to say nothing of the rank infidelity therein rife) produces
bewilderment, and gradually dulls the perceptions so that it is very
hard to see how untenable and inconsistent is the position. Angli-
can Sisters have been brought up to regard the State Establishment
as a "branch" or "continuation" of Christ's Church, and therefore
they feel bound as loyal children to whitewash its contradictions by
attributing them to its "comprehensiveness and Catholicity." But
they do not really feel satisfied with this excuse, and make further
efforts to resolve the discord into harmony by the theory that it is
the result of the indefinite teaching of the Broad and Low-church
parties so long in ascendency, and they imagine that in time their
teaching will counterbalance this evil. They do not and — unless
God show it them — they cannot see that this is equal to saying:
"God is a teacher of falsehood as well as truth, but we hope in time
to make truth prevail." Yet so obviously is this their proposition
that one lucid moment would suffice to show it them. Christ com-
mands us to hear His Church, saying : "He that heareth you, hear-
eth Me." God cannot err ; therefore, if we say : "The Church can
err," we make Him a liar, when He says to her : "He that heareth
you, heareth Me." In the office of teaching, God here by His al-
On Anglican Convents. 51
mighty word identifies Himself with His Church ; therefore, if wc
say the Church can and has erred, we make God a teacher of false
doctrine. Also, if the Church can err, God might just as well have
told us to "hear ourselves." These and other such blasphemies,
embodied in practice and masquerading in the garb and spoils of
Christ's Church, do not look quite so wolfish as they are, more espe-
cially to those who have been brought up to respect them. So,
generally speaking, these Anglican Sisters are not only in "good
faith," but we might even call it sublime faith, so high does it rise
above all the contradictions, inconsistencies and turmoils of this
city of confusion, and with perfect confidence they live on in a state
of waiting and watching for "everything to come right!" Yes,
these devout but mistaken souls expect that if they only pray and
have patience enough, chaos will miraculously resolve itself into
order, and the shifting sands of Anglicanism consolidate themselves
into the rock of the unity and Catholicism of Christ's visible Church.
They wait for it, they work for it, they expect it, and so they will
go on till the bitter end, unless, as happened to some of them, by
God's special mercy a ray of divine light pierce the mists of gloom
and confusion surrounding them and enable them to see how pre-
posterous is their position, and how hopeless, and direct them, as by
the Star of Bethlehem, to the one true fold. This ray is the gift
of faith, and this it is, and nothing else, that makes all the difference.
It is not given to some, so we can never judge those who remain
behind, as if they had rejected it. And those who have been vouch-
safed it do not receive it till a certain point or crisis in their soul's
life, when suddenly all things are seen in a new and supernatural
light, obscure, yet certain, so that they believe without any doubt
that the Catholic Church is the one only divine teacher of truth to
all nations, as appointed by Christ. This accepted, all, of course,
follows. Up to that moment all was vagueness and confusion; no
certitude to give security to belief, no point of rest on which to
stay the soul. Nothing but the endless torture of seeking for truth
and the awful responsibility of personally deciding for or against it.
But now, by God's infinite grace, what a change ! All gropings in
that horror of darkness over for ever. No more searching, doubt-
ing, questioning, comparing, deciding by each individual member
his own peculiar tenets, but only a simple, childlike acceptance of
creed and doctrine from the mouth of our Holy Mother the Church !
"Except ye become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter
therein." Why should the poor soul travail in birth with its creed
when our Mother has done it all for it already ? Has she not — this
ancient, glorious Mother — gravely, learnedly and, above all — oh,
joy to the poor storm-tossed soul ! — infallibly searched into, sifted and
52 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
taught the majestic truths of God for well nigh nineteen centuries?
At last it sees and knows that the keystone connecting and sustain-
ing the whole fabric of the arch of theology and doctrine is no other
than this divine infallibility. With it fitted in the centre all the
truths, dogmas and mysteries of faith form a beautiful and sym-
metrical arch ; without it, they fall to the ground a shapeless heap of
ruins.
To many, however, this wondrous gift and blessing is not granted,
and they toil on in their perplexities, hoping against hope for the
dawn of better things, until death comes along and hales them to
a different arena. It is sad to think of them ; but still many of them
have been in good faith, and now their day of enlightenment has
begun, though in a state where they can no longer merit by cor-
respondence with grace. Some of these souls have had reasonable
doubts of their religion, too, which they ought to have followed
up, only they foolishly consulted their blind leaders, who, of course,
said such doubts were plain temptations and delusions of the devil,
and so to be resisted and put down. Others (and there has been a
whole community in this case) have come far beyond doubts and
have actually reached the certitude of faith ; but, alas for them, their
chaplain and confessor remained still in the outer darkness and
would not permit them to follow their conscience. He was a good
man according to his light, and conscientiously did what he
thought to be right in hindering them from following that which
he believed to be a temptation. The Sisters considered themselves
bound to yield to his persuasion and authority, and gave up for the
time at least all thoughts of doing what they knew was their duty ;
and who knows if the moment of grace ever returned ? The Angli-
can labyrinth is indeed dark and full of windings and mazes, and
happy is he who, finding the clue, follows it straightway out into
the light of day.
The tendency of these Sisterhoods with regard to discipline and
works of penance is in most instances towards the side of austerity.
Confession is conducted in so rigid and inquisitorial a manner as to
become a perfect torture and a chief means of discouragement to
conscientious souls. What they pay most attention to is a minute
and laborious exactitude in noting down all the memory can gather
from an anxious and morbid self-introspection, the confessor adding
not a little to the poor soul's already strained scrupulosity by his
probings and zest for circumstantial detail. There are exceptions
to this, of course, as some men have naturally more wisdom than
others ; but what I have said is the prevailing tendency, as gathered
from our own experience and that of many others.
The enclosed convents only (and they are few) practice corporal
On Andican Convents. 53
austerities, and in one of them at least fasting is greatly overdone,
and, at the caprice of the superior, other penitential exercises also.
They obtain their instruments of penance from various — often Cath-
olic sources, and Pusey, talking of some he had procured from
abroad, calls them "Nice religious-looking things!" They have
rather curious ideas as to appropriate occasions for using them,
too. Some AngHcan nuns being once in a quandary as to where
they could get disciplines, sent one of their number out in quest
of them. In the course of her search she came to a large convent
belonging to one of the Catholic austere orders, and there she con-
fided to the portress with great simplicity that her convent's feast
fell on the morrow, and she had been sent out to seek for disci-
plines, because they were all going to take it in the morning during
"Mass!" It was perhaps as well she did not obtain her request
there, for Anglicans have not the wisdom and moderation of the
Church to guide them in the use of these things, nor yet the teaching
of experience to fall back upon, and then the modern constitution
is not made of iron.
The active Sisterhoods seek their mortifications chiefly in their
work, and certainly they find them there. The charitable works upon
which they are engaged are of all kinds and too many to be fully
enumerated here. Through these the constant and self-sacrificing
labors of the Sisters do much to alleviate the misery and degrada-
tion of multitudes of their fellow-creatures. They do these works,
as we have already stated, from the very highest motives, and not
as mere acts of philanthropy. And that they are unable to do
better still is their misfortune and not their fault. As they have
not the true faith themselves, of course they cannot successfully
instruct the ignorant in the way of life; but as any religion and
worship of God is better than none, they can do much to improve
the condition of many even in this respect. Apart from their mis-
sion school work — which is extensive — they have catechism classes
conducted by the Sisters for children of all ages from infants up-
wards. And they admit children of any creed, provided their
parents allow them to attend, so that in any places where indiflferent-
ism prevails, as amongst the poor Presbyterians of Scotland, the
Anglicans, or, what is the same thing, the Scotch Episcopalians
(so-called), make converts in wholesale numbers as soon as the
children they have taught arrive at a responsible age. This is a
very great boon to these poor neglected ones, as they have some
idea of religious duty impressed upon them; a high standard of
morality set up among them ; and their intercourse with these good
Sisters insensibly softens their roughness of character and manner
and, in short, generally civilizes them. Then they have homes for
54 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
girls who, having just left school, are beginning to work for them-
selves, and thus they get hold of them at the most dangerous ages—
from 14 to 21, and even older than this if there be any necessity.
There is an effort made to make these homes self-supporting, but
that is quite secondary to the main object, which is to prevent as
far as possible these young workers from yielding to the many
temptations that beset them in the factories, laundries and other
places of work in our large cities and manufacturing districts. If
it can be managed, they are required to come home for meals, the
Sister in charge seeing the employers about it if necessary to ar-
range it, and their evenings are made as bright and happy for them
as can be that they may have no reasonable excuse to s6ek amuse-
ment abroad. Every now and then some special pleasure is
planned for them. If it is a dance, each girl is allowed to ask some
respectable young man of her acquaintance ; the list of those to be
invited being inspected and approved by the Sister in charge, who,
through the knowledge of one of her Sisters in charge of the youths'
classes and amusements, knows very well whether they are admis-
sible or not.
For youths of the same ages they have halls where they hold
classes — Bible, church history or secular — for part of the evening,
and games, drill, gymnastics, fencing, boxing or what is very attrac-
tive to Scotch lads, dancing lessons, afterwards. Of course, the
aid of seculars has to be called in for these things, and in England
it is not so usual to have dancing for the lads, as English boys have
not the inborn love of that exercise that there is in the Scotch. The
great object in all that is done being to keep them ofi the streets
after work hours.
The youths' amusements are given gratuitously, but the girls
who live in the homes pay a small board in proportion to what they
earn, the young half-timers paying a merely nominal sum just to
teach them self-respect. The good Sisters are often in sore straits
to make ends meet ; but when the worst comes to the worst, they
beg for their work and always get enough to go on with.
The visiting of the poor in their own homes and in hospitals is
done for two ends. Firstly, to keep the people up to their religious
duties by showing a kindly interest in them and their welfare, and,
secondly, in order to relieve any cases of extreme suffering or misery
they may come across as far as may be by counsel, food, clothing,
medicine or money, according to the exigencies of the case. The
whole district in which they live is divided amongst the Sisters, and
each makes a regular round as often as she can, going daily only
to such as are sick or helpless. At regular intervals there is a dis-
trict meeting held, at which each Sister gives a report of her people
On Anglican Convents. 55
ill presence of the chaplain and his curates, who take note of any-
thing that requires looking into or attention from themselves.
Other Sisterhoods do rescue work, but we do not know their
methods, nor what measure of success attends them.
Others nurse in hospitals and try to utilize the time of sickness
to benefit the souls of the sick and sad, and then they send them off
to convalescent homes, maintained in connection with them, at some
country or seaside place.
Some of them have homes for incurables, where all sorts of
piteous and loathsome cases are brought to them by the poor, and
the good Sisters spend their lives in nursing, tending and teaching
these helpless creatures for the love of God.
Some have homes for poor children, who, having been taken be-
fpre the Magistrate for small delinquencies, are confided to their
care for some years. They have homes, too, for children whose
parents are cruel, and thus unfit to have charge of their offspring.
Others keep creches in poor districts for the babies and tiny
children of working people, and not infrequently have them left
on their hands, when after a time they are drafted off to one of
their orphanages and there brought up, taught and trained for
domestic service or other useful work.
In all these and other works their noble disinterestedness, self-
sacrifice and patience are beyond all praise. And what they accom-
plish in spite of discouragement, difficulties and failures, and without
the special aids and graces of the sacraments, is a noteworthy monu-
ment to the glory of the grace of God, which overflows so abun-
dantly His own appointed channels. They have so great a zeal for
God that, although it is not according to knowledge, the blessing
of our good God will surely rest on them for it and bring many of
them home to the fold of the true Church, where by divine faith He
will lead them into the green pastures of sound doctrine and by the
living waters of the true sacraments. Oh, dear, blood-bought sheep,
can there be any other than this one fold ? Did not God say, speak-
ing of His visible Church : "There shall be one fold and one Shep-
herd?" Did He not pray: "That they all may be one, as thou,
Father, in Me and I in Thee ; that they also may be one in us ; that
the world may believe that thou hast sent Me?" Shall He speak
and His word come to naught? Shall He pray and not effect?
God avert the thought. He has said, and it is done.
J. s.
50 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
LEO XIII. ON ECCLESIASTICAL STUDIES.
To Our Venerable Brothers the Archbishops, Bishops and Clergy of
France.
Venerable Brothers, Dearly Beloved Sons : Since the
day we were raised to the Pontifical Chair France has been ever the
object to us of a special solicitude and affection. For from her
God, in the unfathomable designs of His mercy over the world, has
in the course of ages by preference chosen Apostolic men destined
to preach the true faith to the limits of the globe, and to carry the
light of the Gospel to the nations yet plunged in the darkness of
paganism. He predestined her to be the defender of His Church
and the instrument of His great works : Gesta Dei per Francos.
Obviously this high mission entails duties many and grave. Wish-
ing, like our predecessors, to see France faithfully fulfil the glorious
mandate wherewith she has been entrusted, we have on several occa-
sions during our long pontificate addressed to her our advice, our
encouragement, our exhortations. This we did in a special way in
our Encyclical Letter of February 8, 1884, Nobilissima Gallorum
Gens, and in our letter of February 16, 1892, published in French
and beginning with the words : *'Au milieu des sollicitudes." Our
words were not without fruit, and we know from you. Venerable
Brothers, that a large portion of the French people ever holds in
honor the faith of their ancestors and faithfully observes the obliga-
tions it imposes. On the other hand, it could not escape us that
the enemies of this holy faith have not been idle and have succeeded
in banishing every religious principle from a large number of
families, which, in consequence, live in lamentable ignorance of
revealed truth, and in complete indifference to all that concerns their
spiritual interests and the salvation of their souls.
While therefore with good reason we congratulate France on
being a focus of apostolic work among nations destitute of the faith,
we are also bound to encourage the efforts of those of her sons who,
enrolled in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, are laboring to evangelize
their own people, to preserve them from the invasion of naturalism
and incredulity, with their fatal and inevitable consequences.
Called by the will of God to be the savour of the world, priests must
always, and above all things, remember that they are by the very
institution of Jesus Christ, "the salt of the earth,"^ and hence St.
Paul, writing to Timothy, justly concluded that "by their charity.
Matt, v., 13.
Leo XIIL on Ecclesiastical Studies. 57
their faith and their purity, they must be an example to the faithful
in their words and in their relations with their neighbors."^
That such is true of the French clergy, taken as a whole, has
always been a great consolation to us to learn, Venerable Brothers,
from the quadrennial reports you send us concerning the state of
your diocesesj conformably to the Constitution of Sixtus V., and
from the oral communications we receive from you whenever we
have the happiness of conversing with you and receiving your con-
fidences. Yes, dignity of life, ardor of faith, a spirit of devotedness
and sacrifice, a zeal characterized by enthusiasm and generosity, an
inexhaustible charity toward their neighbor, energy in all noble and
fruitful enterprises making for the glory of God, the salvation of
souls and the welfare of their country — these are the precious quali-
ties traditional among the French clergy, and we are happy to be
able here to render to them a public and fatherly testimony.
Still, precisely on account of the deep and tender afifection we
have for them, and at the same time to perform a duty of our Apos-
tolic ministry and respond to the keen desire we feel to see them
ever acting up to their great mission, we have resolved. Venerable
Brothers, to treat in this letter of certain points to which present
circumstances peremptorily call the conscientious attention of the
chief pastors of the French Church and of the priests who work
under their jurisdiction.
And in the first place it is clear that the more important, complex
and difficult an office is the longer and more careful should be the
preparation undergone by those who are called to fill it. But is
there on earth a dignity higher than that of the priesthood or a min-
istry imposing a heavier responsibility than that whose object is the
sanctification of all the free acts of man? Is it not of the govern-
ment of souls that the Fathers have rightly said that it is "the art of
arts ;" that is, the most important and most delicate of all tasks to
which a man may be applied for the benefit of his kind?— "^rj
artium regimen animarumr- Nothing must then be neglected to
prepare those whom a divine vocation calls to this mission in order
that they may fulfill it worthily and fruitfully.
To begin with, from among the young those are to be selected in
whom the Most High has sown the seeds of a vocation. We are
aware that, thanks to your wise recommendations, in many dioceses
of France the priests of the different parishes, especially in country
districts, apply themselves with a zeal and self-sacrifice which we
cannot sufficiently praise in guiding themselves the studies of chil-
dren in^om they have observed a marked tendency to piety and
' I- Tim. iv., 12. 2 St. Greg, the Gr. Wb. Regula Past, P. I., c. i.
58 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
an aptitude for intellectual work. The presbyteral schools are thus
the first step, as it were, of the stairs which from the junior to the
senior seminaries carry up to the priesthood those young men to
whom the Saviour repeats the appeal He addressed to Peter and
Andrew, to John and James, "Leave your nets ; follow Me, I will
make you fishers of men."^
With regard to the junior seminary, this very valuable institution
has been frequently and justly compared to the beds in which are
set apart such plants as call for the most particular and assiduous
care as the only way to make them bear fruit and produce a recom-
pense for the labors of their cultivation. On this subject, we renew
the recommendation addressed by our predecessor, Pius IX., to the
Bishops in his Encyclical of December 8, 1849. This is itself based
on one of the most important decisions of the Fathers of the Council
of Trent. To France belongs the glory of having held it in most
account during the present century, for of the ninety-four dioceses
in the country there is not one which is not endowed with one or
more junior seminaries.
We know, Venerable Brothers, the solicitude which you bestow
on these institutions so justly dear to your pastoral zeal, and we
congratulate you on it. The priests who labor, under your super-
intendence, for the formation of the youth called to enroll itself later
on in the ranks of the sacerdotal army, cannot too often meditate
before God on the exceptional importance of the mission with which
you entrust them. They have not simply to instruct their children
in the elements of letters and human science, like the general run of
masters — that is the least part of their task. Their attention, zeal
and devotion must be ever on the watch and active, in order, on the
one hand, to study continually, under the eye and in the light of
God, the souls of the children and the indications of their vocation
to the service of the altar, and, on the other, to help the inexperience
and feebleness of their young disciples in order to protect the pre-
cious grace of the Divine call against all deadly influences, both
from without and from within. They have therefore to exercise a
ministry that is humble, laborious and delicate, and requires con-
stant abnegation. To sustain their courage in the fulfillment of
their duties, they will take care to temper it in the purest sources of
the spirit of faith. They must never lose sight of the fact that the
children whose intelligence, heart and character they are engaged
in forming are not being prepared for earthly functions, however
legitimate or honorable. The Church confides those children to
them in order that they may one day be fit to become priests; that
1 Matt. iT., 19.
Leo XIII. on Ecclesiastical Studies. 59
is to say, missionaries of the Gospel, continuers of the work of Jesus
Christ, distributers of His Grace and His Sacraments. Let this
purely supernatural consideration incessantly imbue their double
function as professors and educators, and be the leaven, so to say,
which is to be mixed with the best flour, according to the Gospel
parable, so as to transform it into sweet and substantial bread. ^
And as an abiding thoughtfulness for the first and indispensable
formation of the spirit and virtues of the priesthood should inspire
the masters of your junior seminaries in their relations with their
pupils, so, too, the system of study and the whole economy of disci-
pline must be allied to this same primary and directing idea. We
are not unaware. Venerable Brothers, that you are to a certain ex-
tent obliged to reckon with the State programme and with the con-
ditions imposed by it for obtaining university degrees, owing to the
fact that in certain cases such degrees are required of priests en-
gaged in the management of free colleges under the patronage of
the Bishops and religious congregations, or in the higher teaching
of the Catholic faculties which you have so laudably established.
It is, moreover, of sovereign importance for the maintenance of the
influence of the clergy on society that they count among their ranks
a sufficient number of priests yielding nothing in science, of which
degrees are the official evidence, to the masters whom the State
trains for its lyceums and universities.
Nevertheless, after making all the allowances imposed by circum-
stances for this exigency of the State programme, the studies of
aspirants to the priesthood must remain faithful to the traditional
methods of past ages. It is these which have produced the eminent
men of whom France is so justly proud — the Petaus, Thomassins,
Mabillons and many others, to say nothing of your Bossuet, called
the Eagle of Meaux, because in loftiness of thought and nobility of
expression his genius soars in the highest regions of Christian
science and eloquence. The study of belles lettres rendered mighty
aid in making these men valiant and useful workers in the service
of the Church and capable of writing works which were truly
worthy to pass down to posterity, and which contribute even to-day
to the defense and propagation of revealed truth. For the belles
lettres have the property, when taught by skilful Christian masters,
of rapidly developing in the souls of young men all the germs of in-
tellectual and moral life, whilst at the same time contributing ac-
curacy and broadness to the judgment and elegance and distinction
to expression.
This consideration assumes special importance when applied to
• Matt, xiii., 33.
6o American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Greek and Latin literature, the depositaries of those masterpieces of
sacred science which the Church with good reason counts among
her most precious treasures. Half a century ago, at that period (all
too brief !) of true liberty, during which the bishops of France were
free to meet and concert such measures as they deemed best calcu-
lated to further the progress of religion, and, at the same time, most
profitable to the public peace, several of your Provincial Councils,
Venerable Brothers, recommended in the most express terms the
culture of the Latin tongue and literature. Even then your colleges
deplored the fact that the knowledge of Latin in your country
tended to diminish.^
But if the methods of pedagogy in vogue in the State establish-
ments have been for several years past progressively reducing the
study of Latin and suppressing the exercises in prose and poetry
which our fathers justly considered should hold a large place in col-
lege classes, the junior seminaries must put themselves on their
guard against these innovations, inspired by utilitarian motives and
working to the detriment of the solid formation of the mind. To
the ancient methods so often justified by their results we would
freely apply the words of St. Paul to his disciple Timothy, and with
the apostle we would say to you, Venerable Brothers, "Guard the
deposit"^ with jealous care. If it should be destined — ^which God
forbid! — one day to disappear from the other public schools, let
your junior seminaries and free colleges keep it with an intelligent
and patriotic solicitude. Doing so, you will be imitating the priests
of Jerusalem, who, saving the sacred fire of the temple from the
barbarian invader, so hid it as to be able to find it again and restore
it to its splendor when the evil day should have passed.'
Once in possession of the Latin tongue — the key, so to say, of
sacred science — and their mental faculties sufficiently developed by
the study of the belles lettres, young men destined for the priest-
hood pass from the junior to the senior seminary. There they will
prepare themselves by piety and the exercise of the priestly virtues
for the reception of Holy Orders, while devoting themselves to the
study of philosophy and theology.
In our Encyclical ''Aitcrni Patris/' which we once again recom-
mend to the attentive perusal of your seminarists and their masters,
we declared, with St. Paul as our authority, that it is by the empty
subtleties of false philosophy "per philosophiam et inanem fallaciam"*
that the minds of the faithful are most frequently led astray and the
purity of the faith corrupted among men, we added, and the events
of the last twenty years have furnished bitter confirmation of the
1 Utt. Synod. Patrum Cone. Paris ad clericos et fideles an. , 1849, in Collectione I,acensis Tom
IT., col. 36. 2 I. Tim. vi., 20. 3 II. Mach. i., 19-22. * Encyclical .^temi Patris,
Leo XIII. on Ecclesiastical Studies. 6i
reflections and apprehensions we expressed at the time. If one
notes the critical condition of the times in which we live and pon-
ders on the state of affairs in public and private life he will have no
difficulty in seeing that the cause of the evils which oppress us, as
well as those which menace, lies in the fact that erroneous opinions
on all subjects, human and divine, have gradually percolated from
philosophical schools through all ranks of society, and have come
to be accepted by a large number of minds >
We renew our condemnation of those teachings of philosophy
which have merely the name, and which by striking at the very
foundation of human knowledge lead logically to universal skepti-
cism and to irreligion. We are profoundly grieved to learn that
for some years past some Catholics have felt at liberty to follow in
the wake of a philosophy which under the specious pretext of free-
ing human reason from all preconceived ideas and from all illusions,
denies it the right of affirming anything beyond its own operations,
thus sacrificing to a radical subjectivism all the certainties which
traditional metaphysics, consecrated by the authority of the strong-
est thinkers, laid down as the necessary and unshakable foundations
for the demonstration of the existence of God, the spirituality and
immortality of the soul, and the objective reality of the exterior
world. It is to be deeply regretted that this doctrinal skepticism, of
foreign importation and Protestant origin, should have been re-
ceived with so much favor in a country so justly celebrated for its
love of clearness of thought and expression. We know. Venerable
Brothers, how far you share our well-grounded anxiety on this sub-
ject, and we reckon on you to redouble your solicitude and vigilance
in shutting out this fallacious and dangerous philosophy from the
teaching in your seminaries, and to honor more than ever the
methods we recommended in the above-quoted Encyclical of
August 4, 1879.
In our times the students in your junior and senior seminaries
can less than ever afford to be strangers to the study of physical and
natural science. To it, therefore, they must apply themselves — but
in due measure and in wise proportions. It is by no means neces-
sary that in the scientific course annexed to the study of philosophy
the professors should feel themselves obliged to expound in detail
the almost innumerable applications of physical and natural sciences
in the different branches of human industry. It is enough that their
pupils have an accurate knowledge of the main principles and sum-
mary conclusions, so as to be able to solve the objections which in-
fidels draw from these sciences against the teachings of Revelation.
1 De Studiis Monasticis, Part n., c. 9.
62 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
It is of capital importance that the students of your senior semi-
naries should study, for at least two years, with great care, "rational"
philosophy, which, as the learned Benedictine Mabillon, the glory of
his order and of France, used to say, will be of the greatest assist-
ance to them, not only in teaching them how to reason well and
arrive at right conclusions, but in putting them in a position to de-
fend the orthodox faith against the captious and often sophistical
arguments of adversaries.^
Next come the sacred sciences, properly so called — Dogmatic and
Moral Theology, Sacred Scripture, Church History and Canon
Law. These are the sciences proper to the priest — in them he re-
ceives a first initiation during his sojourn in the senior seminary,
but he must pursue his studies in them throughout the remainder
of his life.
Theology is the science of the things of faith. It is nourished,
Pope Sixtus V. tells us, at those ever-willing springs — the Holy
Scriptures, the decisions of the Popes, the decrees of the Councils.*
Called positive and speculative or scholastic, according to the
method followed in studying it, theology does not confine itself to
proposing the truths which are to be believed ; it scrutinizes their
inmost depths, shows their relations with human reason, and, aided
by the resources which true philosophy supplies, explains, develops
and adapts them accurately to all the needs of the defense and pro-
pagation of the faith. Like Beseleel, to whom the Lord gave His
spirit of wisdom, intelligence and knowledge, when intrusting him
with the mission of building His temple, the theologian "cuts the
precious stones of divine dogma, assorts them skilfully, and, by the
setting he gives them, brings out their brilliancy, charm and
beauty."^
Rightly, then, does the same Sixtus V. call theology (and here he
is referring especially to scholastic theology) a gift from heaven,
and ask that it be maintained in the schools and cultivated with
great ardor, as being abundant in fruitfulness for the Church.
Is it necessary to add that the book par excellence in which
students may with most profit study scholastic theology is the
Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas ? It is our wish, there-
fore, that professors be sure to explain to all their pupils its method,
as well as the principal articles relating to Catholic faith.
We recommend equally that all seminarists have in their hands,
and frequently peruse, that golden book known as the Catechism of
the Council of Trent, or Roman Catechism, dedicated to all priests
invested with the pastoral office (Catechismus ad Parochos). Noted
1 Const. Apost. Triumphantis Jerusalem. 2 st. Vine. Lir. Coxnmonit, c. 2. ^ game Cocst.
Apost.
Leo XIII . on Ecclesiastical Studies. 63
both for the abundance and accuracy of its teaching and for elegance
of style, this catechism is a precious summary of the whole of the-
ology, dogmatic and moral. The priest who knows it thoroughly
has always at his disposal resources which will enable him to preach
with fruit, to acquit himself fitly in the important ministry of the
confessional and the direction of souls, and be in a position to refute
triumphantly the objections of unbelievers.
With regard to the study of the Holy Scriptures, we call your
attention once more, Venerable Brothers, to the teachings we laid
down in our Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus,"^ which we wish
the professors to put before their disciples, with the necessary ex-
planations. They will put them specially on their guard against the
disturbing tendencies which it is sought to introduce into the in-
terpretation of the Bible, and which would shortly, were they to
prevail, bring about the ruin of its inspiration and supernatural
character. Under the specious pretext of depriving the adver-
saries of the revealed word of apparently irrefutable arguments
against the authenticity and veracity of the Holy Books, some
Catholic writers have thought it a clever idea to adopt those argu-
ments for themselves. By these strange and perilous tactics they
have worked to make a breach with their own hands in the walls
of the city they were charged to defend. In our Encyclical above
quoted, and in another document,^ we have spoken our mind on
this rash, dangerous policy. While encouraging our exegetists to
keep abreast with the progress of criticism, we have firmly main-
tained the principles which have been sanctioned in this matter by
the traditional authority of the Fathers and Councils, and renewed
in our own time by the Council of the Vatican.
The history of the Church is like a mirror, which reflects the life
of the Church through the ages. It proves, better far than civil
and profane history, the sovereign liberty of God and His provi-
dential action on the march of events. They who study it must
never lose sight of the fact that it contains a body of dogmatic facts
which none may call in question. That ruling, supernatural idea
which presides over the destinies of the Church is at the same time
the torch whose light illumines her history. Still, inasmuch as the
Church, which continues among men the life of the Word Incarnate,
is composed of a divine and a human element, this latter must be
expounded by teachers and studied by disciples with great probity.
"God has no need of our lies," as we are told in the Book of Job.'
The Church historian will be all the better equipped to bring out
her divine origin, superior as this is to all conceptions of a merely
1 18 November, 1893. 2 Letter to the Min. Gen. of the'Fr. Minor, November 25, 1898. 3 job
xiii., 77-
64 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
terrestrial and natural order, the more loyal he is in naught ex-
tenuating of the trails which the faults of her children, and at times
even of her ministers, have brought upon the Spouse of Christ dur-
ing the course of centuries. Studied in this way, the history of the
Church constitutes by itself a magnificent and conclusive demon-
stration of the truth and divinity of Christianity.
Lastly, to finish the cycle of studies by which candidates for the
priesthood should prepare themselves for their future ministry,
mention must be made of Canon Law, or the science of the laws
and jurisprudence of the Church. This science is connected by
very close and logical ties with that of Theology, which it applies
practically to all that concerns the government of the Church, the
dispensation of holy things, the rights and duties of her ministers,
the use of temporal goods which she needs for the accomplishment
of her mission. "Without a knowledge of Canon Law (as the
Fathers of one of your provincial councils very well said), theology
is imperfect, incomplete, like a man with only one arm. Ignorance
of Canon Law has favored the birth and diffusion of numerous
errors about the rights of the Roman Pontiflfs and of Bishops, and
about the powers which the Church derives from her own Constitu-
tion— powers whose exercise she adapts to circumstances."^-
We shall sum up all we have just said concerning your junior and
senior seminaries in this sentence of St. Paul, which we recommend
to the frequent meditation of the masters and pupils of your ecclesi-
astical athenzeums : "O Timothy, carefully guard the deposit which
has been confided to you. Fly the profane novelties of words and
objections which cover themselves with the false names of science,
for all they who have made profession of them have erred in the
faith."2
And now we have a word to say to you, dearly beloved sons, who
have been ordained priests and become the cooperators of your
Bishops. We know, and the whole world knows with us, the qual-
ities which distinguish you. There is no good work of which you
are not the inspiration or the apostles. Docile to the counsels we
gave you in the Encyclical ''Reriim Novarum," you gc to the people,
to the workers, to the poor. You endeavor by all means in your
power to help them, raise them in the moral scale, render their lot
less hard. To this end you form reunions and congresses; you
establish homes, clubs, rural banks, aid and employment offices for
the toilers. You labor to introduce reforms into economic and
social life, and in the difficult enterprise you do not hesitate to make
serious sacrifices of time and money; and with the same scope you
» Cone. Prov., Bitura. 1868. « I. Tim. vi., 30-21
Leo XIII. on Ecclesiastical Studies. 65
write books and articles in the newspapers and reviews. All these
are, in themselves, highly praiseworthy, and in them you give no
equivocal proofs of good will and of intelligent and generous de-
votedness to relieve the most pressing needs of contemporary so-
ciety and of souls.
Still, beloved sons, we deem it our duty paternally to call your
attention to some fundamental principles to which you will not fail
to conform if you desire that your activity be really fruitful and
reproductive.
Remember, above all, that zeal, to be profitable and praiseworthy,
must be "accompanied by discretion, rectitude and purity." Thus
does the grave and judicious Thomas a Kempis express himself.^
Before him St. Bernard, the glory of your country in the twelfth
century, that indefatigable apostle of all great causes touching the
honor of God, the rights of the Church or the good of souls, did
not fear to say that "zeal, separated from knowledge and from the
spirit of discernment or discretion, is insupportable . . . that
the more ardent zeal is, the more necessary is it that it be accom-
panied by that discretion which puts order into the exercise of
charity and without which even virtue may be changed into a defect
and a principle of disorder."^ And discretion in activity and in the
choice of means of rendering activity successful is all the more
indispensable from the fact that the present times are disturbed and
environed with numerous difficulties. This or that act, measure or
practice, suggested by zeal, while excellent in themselves, can only
— owing to the circumstances of the race — produce bad results.
Priests will avoid this inconvenience and this evil, if before and
during their action they take care to conform to established order
and the rules of discipline. And ecclesiastical discipline demands
union among the different members of the hierarchy, and the respect
and obedience of inferiors to their superiors. In our recent letter to
the Archbishop of Tours we said the same thing : "The edifice of the
Church of which God Himself is the architect, rests on a very visible
foundation, primarily on the authority of Peter and his successors,
but also on the Apostles and the successors of the Apostles, the
Bishops, so that to hear their voice or to despise it is tantamount
to hearing or despising Jesus Christ Himself."^
Listen, then, to the words addressed by St. Ignatius, the great
martyr of Antioch, to the clergy of the primitive Church : "Let all
obey their Bishops, as Jesus Christ obeyed His Father. In all
things touching the sense of the Church do nothing without your
Bishop, and as our Lord did nothing but in close union with His
1 Zelus animarum laudandus est si sit discretus, rectus et purus. a st. Bern, Serm. XI,IX.
In Cant. n. 5. 3 Lett, ad Arch. Turon.
66 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Father, so priests, do you nothing without your Bishop. Let all
members of the priestly body be united, as all the strings of a harp
are united in the instrument."^
Should you, on the contrary, act as priests independently of this
submission to and union with your Bishops, we would repeat to you
the words of our predecessor, Gregory XVI., viz., that "you utterly
destroy, as far as in you lies, the order established with a most wise
forethought by God, the author of the Church."^
Remember, too, beloved sons, that the Church is rightly com-
pared to an army in battle array ''sicut castrorum acies ordinata,"^
because it is her mission to combat the enemies, visible and invisible,
of God and men's souls. Wherefore did St. Paul recommend Tim-
othy to bear himself "as a good soldier of Jesus Christ ?"* Now,
that which constitutes the strength of an army and contributes most
to its victory is discipline and the exact and rigorous obedience of
all toward those in command.
Just here zeal out of place and without discretion may easily be-
come the cause of real disaster. Call to mind one of the most
memorable facts of sacred history. Certainly neither courage, will-
ingness, nor devotion to the sacred cause of religion were lacking^
in those priests who gathered round Judas Maccabeus, to fight with
him against the enemies of the true God, the profaners of the tem-
ple, the oppressors of their nation. And yet, releasing themselves
from the rules of discipline, they rashly engaged in a combat in
which they were vanquished. The Holy Spirit tells us of them
"that they were not of the race of those who might save Israel."
Why? Because they would obey only their own inspirations, and
threw themselves forward without awaiting the orders of their
leaders. "In die ilia ceciderunt sacer dotes in hello, dum volunt for titer
faccre, dum sine consilio exeunt in praelium^ Ipsi autem non erant de
semine virorum illorum, per quos salus facta est in Israel."^
On this point our enemies may serve us for an example. They
are well aware that union is strength, "vis unita fortior," so they do
not fail to unite close when it comes to attacking the holy Church of
Jesus Christ.
If, then, you desire, as you certainly do, beloved sons, that in the
formidable contest being waged against the Church by anti-Chris-
tian sects and by the city of the evil one, the victory be for God and
His Church, it is absolutely necessary for you to fight all together
in perfect order and discipline under the command of your hierarchi-
cal leaders. Pay no heed to those pernicious men who, though call-
^ St Ign. Ant., fip. ad Smyrna, 8 ; idem ad Magn., vii. 2 Greg. XVI,,Kpist. Encycl. 15 Aug.
1882. scant, vi., 3. * II. Tim. ii., 3. » I. Mace, v., 67. « I. Mace, v., 62.
Leo XIII . on Ecclesiastical Studies. 67
ing themselves Christians and Catholics, throw tares into the field of
the Lord and sow division in His Church by attacking and often
even calumniating the Bishops "established by the Holy Ghost to
rule the Church of God."^ Read neither their pamphlets nor their
papers. No good priest should in any way lend authority either to
their ideas or to their license of speech. Can he ever forget that on
the day of his ordination he promised "obedientiam et reverentiam'*
to his Bishop before the holy altar ?
Above all things, remember, beloved sons, that an indispensable
condition of true zeal and the best pledge of success in the works to
which hierarchical obedience consecrates you is purity and holiness
of life. "Jesus began by practicing before preaching."^ Like Him,
the priest must preface preaching by word by preaching by example.
"Separated from the world and its concerns (say the Fathers of the
Council of Trent), clerics have been placed on a height where they
are visible and the faithful look into their lives as into a mirror to
know what they are to imitate. Hence clerics and all they whom
God has called specially to His service should so regulate their
actions and morals that there may be nothing in their deportment,
manners, movements, words and in all the other details of their
life which is not deeply impressed with religion. They must care-
fully avoid faults which, though trivial, in others would be very
serious to them, in order that there be not a single one of their acts
which does not inspire respect in all."^ With these recommenda-
tions of the sacred Council, which we would wish, beloved sons, to
engrave in all your hearts, those priests who certainly fail to comply,
who adopted in their preaching language out of harmony with the
dignity of their priesthood and the sacredness of the word of God ;
who attended popular meetings where their presence could only
excite the passions of the wicked and of the enemies of the Church,
and who exposed themselves to the grossest insults without profit
to any one, and to the astonishment, if not scandal, of the pious
faithful; who assumed the habits, manners, conduct and spirit of
laymen. Salt must certainly be mingled with the mass which it is to
preserve from corruption, but it must at the same time defend itself
against the mass under pain of losing all savor and becoming of no
use except to be thrown out and trampled under foot.*
So, too, the priest who is the salt of the earth must in his neces-
sary contact with the society by which he is surrounded, preserve
modesty, gravity and holiness in manner, action and speech, and
not allow himself to become infected with the levity, dissipation and
vanity of the worldly. He must, on the contrary, in the midst of the
Actsxx.,28, 2 Act i., I. 3S. Cone. Trid., Sess. xxii., de Ref., c. 1. * Matt, v., 13.
68 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
men, keep his soul so united with God that he lose nothing of the
spirit of his holy state, and be not constrained to make before God
and his conscience the sad and humiliating avowal: "I never go
among laymen that I do not return less a priest."
Is it not because they have, with a zeal that is presumptive, set
aside those traditional rules of discretion, modesty and prudence
that certain priests consider as out of date and incompatible with
"the present needs of the ministry those principles of discipline and
conduct which they received from their masters in the senior sem-
inary?" They are to be seen rushing, as if by instinct, into the
most perilous innovations in speech, manners and associations.
Several of them, alas! rashly putting themselves on the slippery
incline from which they have no native power to escape, and despis-
ing the charitable warnings of their superiors and their older and
more experienced colleagues, have ended in apostasies which rejoice
the hearts of the adversaries of the Church and brought bitterest
tears into the eyes of their Bishops, their brothers in the priesthood
and the pious faithful. St. Augustine tells us : "When a man is out
of the right way the more quickly and impetuously he advances, the
more he errs."^
There are, of course, some changes which are advantageous and
calculated to advance the kingdom of God in men's souls and in
society. But, as the Holy Gospel tells us,^ it is the province of the
"Father of the household" and not of the children or servants to
examine them, and, if he judges well, to give them currency side by
side with the time-honored and venerable usages, which make up
the rest of his treasury.
Lately when fulfilling the apostolic duty of putting the Catholics
of North America on their guard against innovations, tending,
among other things, to substitute for the principles of perfection
consecrated by the teaching of doctors and the practice of saints
moral maxims and rules of life more or less impregnated with that
naturalism which nowadays endeavors to penetrate everywhere,
■we proclaimed aloud that far from repudiating and rejecting "en
bloc" the progress accomplished in the present epoch, we were only
too anxious to welcome all that goes to augment the patrimony
of science or to give greater extension to public prosperity. But
we took care to add that this progress could be of efficacious service
to the good cause only when harmonized with the authority of the
Church.*
As a conclusion to this letter we are pleased to apply to the clergy
* Enarr. in Ps. xxxi.,ti. 6. * Matt, xiii., 52. » Spist adS. R. E. Pr. Card Gibbons, 22 Jan.,
1899.
Leo XIII . on Ecclesiastical Studies. 69
of France what we formerly wrote for the priests of our diocese of
Perugia. We reproduce here a portion of the pastoral letter we
addressed to them on July 19, 1866:
"We ask the ecclesiastics of our diocese to reflect seriously on
their sublime obligations and on the difficult circumstances through
which we are passing and to act in such wise that their conduct be
in harmony with their duties and always conformable to the rules
of an enlightened and prudent zeal. For thus even our enemies
will seek in vain for motives of reproach and blame : qui ex adverso
est vereatur nihil habens malum dicere de nobis}
"Although difficulties and dangers are every day multiplying,
the pious and fervent priest must not for that be discouraged — he
must not abandon his duties or even draw rein in the accomplish-
ment of the spiritual mission he has received for the welfare and
salvation of mankind and for the maintenance of that august reli-
gion of which he is herald and minister. For it is especially by diffi-
culties and trials that his virtue becomes strong and stable; it is
in the greatest misfortunes, in the midst of political transformations
and social upheavals that the salutary and civilizing influence of his
ministry shines forth with greatest brilliancy.
"... To come down to practice we find a teaching admir-
ably adapted to the circumstances in the four maxims which the
great Apostle St. Paul gave to his disciple Titus. In all things
give good example by your works, your doctrine, the integrity of
your life, by the gravity of your conduct, using none but holy and
blameless language.^ We would that each and every member of
our clergy meditate on these maxims and conform his conduct
thereto.
"In omnibus teipsum prcBbe exemplum bonorum operum. In all
things give an example of good works ; that is, of active and exem-
plary life, animated by a true spirit of charity and guided by the
maxims of evangelical prudence — of a life of sacrifice and toil, con-
secrated to the welfare of your neighbors, not with earthly views
or for a perishable reward, but with a supernatural object. Give
an example by that language at once simple, noble and lofty, by that
sound and blameless discourse which confounds all human oppo-
sition, calms the long standing hatred the world has sworn against
you, and wins for you the respect and even esteem of the enemies of
religion. Every one devoted to the service of the sanctuary has
been at all times obliged to show himself a living model and perfect
exemplar of all the virtues; but this obligation becomes all the
more instant when, as a consequence of social upheavals, we are
1 Tit. ii., 8. 2 Tit. ii., 7, 8.
70 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
treading a difficult and uncertain path where we may at every step
discover ambushes and pretexts of attack. . . .
"In doctrina. In the face of the combined efforts of incredulity
and heresy to consummate the ruin of Catholic faith, it would be
a real crime for the clergy to remain in a state of hesitancy and
inactivity. In such an outpouring of error and conflict of opinion
he must not prove faithless to his mission, which is to defend dogma
assaulted, morality travestied and justice frequently outraged. It
is for him to oppose himself as a barrier to the attacks of error and
the deceits of heresy; to watch the tactics of the wicked who war
on the faith and honor of this Catholic country; to unmask their
plots and reveal their ambuscades; to warn the confiding,
strengthen the timid and open the eyes of the blinded. Superficial
erudition or merely common knowledge will not suffice for all this
— there is need of study, solid, profound and continuous, in a word
of a mass of doctrinal knowledge sufficient to cope with the sub-
tlety and remarkable cunning of our modern opponents. . . .
"In integritate. No better proof of the importance of this coun-
cil could be had than the sad evidence of what is going on around
us. Do we not observe that the lax life of some ecclesiastics brings
discredit and contempt on their ministry and proves the occasion
of scandals? If men, endowed with minds as brilliant as they are
remarkable, now and then desert the ranks of the sacred soldiery
and rise in revolt against the Church — that mother who, in her ten-
derness and affection had advanced them to the direction and for
the salvation of souls, their defection and wanderings have most
frequently had their origin in want of discipline and evilness of
life. . . .
"In gravitate. By gravity is to be understood that serious, judi-
cious, tactful conduct which should be characteristic of every faith-
ful and prudent minister chosen by God for the government of His
family. While thanking God for having vouchsafed to raise him
to this honor, he must show himself faithful to all his obligations,
and at the same time balanced and prudent in all his actions; he
must not allow himself to be dominated by base passions, nor car-
ried away by violent and exaggerated language ; he must lovingly
sympathize with the misfortunes and weaknesses of others; do all
the good he can to every one, disinterestedly, unostentatiously, and
maintaining ever intact the honor of his character and sublime dig-
nity."
We return now to you, beloved sons in the French clergy, and we
are firmly convinced that our perceptions and counsels, solely in-
spired as they are by our paternal affection, will be understood and
Leo XIII. on Ecclesiastical Studies. 71
received by you in the sense and bearing we wished to give them in
addressing you this letter.
We expect much from you, because God has richly endowed you
with all the gifts and qualities necessary for performing great and
holy deeds for the advantage of the Church and society. We would
that not one among you permit himself to be tarnished by those
imperfections which dim the splendor of the sacerdotal character
and injure its efficacy.
The present times are evil; the future is still more gloomy and
menacing, and seems to herald the approach of a redoubtable crisis
and social upheaval. It behooves us, then, as we have said on many
occasions, to honor the salutary principles of religion, as well as
those of justice, charity, respect and duty. It is for us to imbue
men's souls with these principles — and especially those souls which
have become captive to infidelity or disturbed by destroying pas-
sions, to bring about the reign of the grace and peace of our Divine
Redeemer, Who is the Light and the Resurrection and the Life,
and in Him to unite all men, notwithstanding the inevitable social
distinctions which divide them.
Yes, now more than ever, is there need of the help and devoted-
ness of exemplary priests, full of faith, discretion and zeal, who,
taking inspiration from the gentleness and energy of Jesus Christ,
Whose true ambassadors they are, "pro Christo legatione fungimur"'^
to announce with a courageous and inexhaustible patience the eter-
nal truths which are seldom fruitless of virtue in men's souls.
Their ministry will be laborious — oftentimes even painful, espe-
cially in countries where the people are absorbed in worldly inter-
ests and live in forgetfulness of God and His holy religion. But
the enlightened, charitable and unwearying influence of the priest
fortified by Divine grace will work, as it has already worked, prodi-
gies of resurrection almost beyond belief.
With all our soul and with unspeakable joy we hail this consoling
vista, and meanwhile with all the affection of our heart we grant
the Apostolic Benediction to you, venerable brothers, and to the
clergy and people of France.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 8th of September, in the
year 1899, the twenty-second of our Pontificate.
Leo, pp. XIII.
II. Cor. v.,
72 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
THE FATE OF HISTORICAL FALSIFICATION.
THE hue and outcry made when De Maistre, in one of his
pungent epigrams, declared that "history, as written during
the last three hundred years, was nothing more than a con-
spiracy against truth," may still be recalled by readers familiar with
that period of stress and storm. De Maistre was a man not given
to sententious moralizing or verbal prudery. Sweeping and para-
doxical as the epigram appeared at first blush, it was found upon
closer scrutiny to be sharp of edge, packed with meaning and truth,
a perfect crystallization of the pernicious influences which made
historical writing the vehicle of partisanship, misrepresentation and
falsehood. Ostensibly ignoring the imputation cast upon histori-
ans, in secret the trained eye of the scientific scholar did not fail to
descry more than a mere substratum of truth in the caustic French-
man's axiom, if indeed, it did not flash its full light into his dazzled
eye. In fact instead of becoming an overt gibe, the epigram became
a current truism.
Nor is this to be wondered at. A casual glance into the times,
methods, purposes and environments of most historians, convinces
us that they were the victims, sometimes not unconsciously or un-
willingly, of afflictive circumstances, perverse taste, traditional
misconception. Under such conditions it was an inevitable result
that fierce antipathy, implacable bitterness, blundering ignorance^
self-confident audacity, not to say blind partisanship, should usurp
the place of manUness of thought, breadth of view, ripeness of judg-
ment, honesty of purpose and fearless integrity.
History became a jest and by- word. The historian an advocate
with a brief, the salaried functionary of the State, the tool of the
political party, the apologist of the sect. "What is history ?" sneer-
ingly asks Napoleon, "but a fiction agreed upon?" "My friend,"
said Faust, "the times which are gone by are a book with seven
seals, and what you call the spirit of past ages is but the spirit of this
or that worthy gentleman in whose minds these ages are reflected."
As if setting the stamp of fullest assent on this theory, Goethe's
illustrious contemporary, Schiller, for years the accredited historian
of the Thirty Years' War, with an ingenuousness almost childlike in
its simplicity, formulates his historical creed — that history "in gen-
eral is only a magazine for my fancy, and the objects must submit to
be plastic in my hands." One is almost tempted to think that
The Fate of Historical Falsification. 73
Nietzsche had the famous Jena professor in view when he maintains
the "Suabians are the best liars in Germany — they He innocently."^
"No, no," remonstrated the old veteran statesman, Sir Robert
Walpole, when his son, in order to relieve the tedium of his
declining days, read current literature to him. "No, no — not
history, Horace; that can't be true." Our own sweet-tempered
mild-mannered Emerson, with a tincture of ill-disguised petu-
lance, owns that he is "ashamed to see what shallow village
talk our so-called history is." Can it be wondered, then, that
the raucous voice of Shopenhauer, the very antipodes of the Con-
cord Sage, joins this chorus and ungallantly arraigns Clio "of being
infected even in the smallest artery with the virus of falsehood ?"
Seemingly this picture may be drawn with too dark a realism:
appear exaggerated and pessimistic ; a piece of grotesque jocularity.
But who can view the Iconoclasm of History — to use a most appli-
cable phrase of Lord Acton's — during the last fifty years, and not be
convinced that the new methods adopted, the new researches insti-
tuted, the new discoveries made, and last, but not least, the new ob-
jectivity demanded, have shaken the credibility of many historians
of the last three hundred years, invalidated the authority of some,
remorselessly discredited the honesty of others ? Data once looked
upon as incontestably secure have been disproven ; characters once
invested with all the poetic romance and garish glamor of some
eulogist's fervid imagination have passed the critical gauntlet woe-
fully bedraggled, sadly crippled, unrecognizably disfigured; indi-
viduals once held up to scorn and execration, their bodies rotten-
ing in dungeons, their lives forfeited on the gibbet or at the stake,
consigned to their graves without a tear, buried without an epitaph,
their very ashes scattered to the winds of heaven, now appear irra-
diantly transfigured as humanity's proudest boast, God's own elect ;
epoch-making events that once thrilled the heart of a nation, under
the modern diagnostician's merciless scrutiny have been found to
be national aberrations, fanned by bigotry, nurtured by ignorance,
inspired by political chicanery ; heroes whose awesome and gigantic
stature once dwarfed all posterity to a race of liliputians, have been
toppled from their pedestals, hurled from their niches and found to
belong, after all, to the common, ignoble herd. Disenchantment
and disillusion fairly dazes us, and sends us groping into a still more
bewildering amazement.
The veil of Isis is gradually being lifted. The modern critical
and scientific spirit is no longer satisfied with the ancestral historical
patrimony, with the unaccredited tradition of past ages and men.
1 Nietzsche's Saramtliche Werke, Vol. VIII., p. 225.
74 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
Close investigation discovered the moral debasement, if not spur-
iousness of the current historical coinage ; the die must be broken ;
the alloy differentiated from the pure gold ; the original weight and
value must be re-established. History must be rehabilitated, its
equity vindicated. Detail and not deduction, reference and not in-
ference, logic and not sophistry, fact and not fiction, self-effacement
and not arbitrariness, are the shibboleths of the new movement. It
begins with original research and penetrates the very fountain head.
It rummages every neglected archive, ransacks every begrimed
library, invades the buried wastes of the past, burrows into the
bowels of the earth, scans every vestige of human activity, searches
the very hearts of men; for not only geographical, economic and
■ethnographic problems demand solution, but psychical, political and
ethical as well. The master builder of modern history cannot be
satisfied with the printed page alone. After all, it is nothing more
than the material used by his predecessor, straw that has been
threshed a thousand times without wheat. The very process in its
transmission is calculated more to perpetuate than rectify error.
Documentary evidence is the battle cry of the new school. What
revolutions it has effected within the last seventy years — for we can
only date the documentary period from 1830 — are manifest. The
forgotten folio, the worm-eaten parchment, the century-stained
manuscript, the shriveled papyrus, the tarnished palimpsest, the in-
crustrated clay brick, the shivered entablature have been triumph-
antly brought from their forgotten recesses or mouldering tombs
to bear testimony, not only to the corruption of history, but more
signally to the perennial youth and deathless vitality of Truth.
Truth outraged demanded vindication; truth silenced demanded
voice; truth suppressed demanded publicity. This is the real mis-
sion of the "epoch of full-grown history."
With few exceptions, the historians of the old school, and pari
passu, their readers, were under the spell and thrall which Cardinal
Newman, at one time himself its victim, most happily calls "the
immemorial, unauthenticated tradition." This tradition was rever-
enced as a finality — a court from which there was no appeal. Like
the Pillars of Hercules, it was the terminal of all exploration.
Without questioning its authenticity, accounting for its inconsisten-
cies, unraveling its contradictions, reasoning even about its possi-
bility or probability, it was transmitted and diffused to generations
as uncritical and credulous as itself. Thus misinformation and
error were allowed to penetrate the minds of men till they fastened
and ramified with the poisonous contagion of a cancer. What were
most historians but mere canals, who in pure passivity received the
The Fate of Historical Falsification. 75
stream of human testimony without analyzing its wholesomeness,
filtering its suspicious-looking murkiness, dredging its alluvial de-
posits or banishing its swarming infusoria?
Buckle claims that till the beginning of the seventeenth century
France — and he might without much hesitancy have added Germany
and England — did not produce a single historian, "because she had
not produced a single man who presumed to doubt what was gen-
erally accepted."^ We know, of course, that he refers to that cru-
cial period in French history when the men of "super-celestial opin-
ions and subterranean morals" had an undisputed field to them-
selves ; when truth was so outrageously caricatured that Montaigne,
always epigrammatic, could only gloss it over on the plea "that
lying was not a vice among the French, but a way of speaking ;"
when the hierophant of infidelity, Voltaire, inextricably entangled
in his monstrous falsehoods, laughed his adversaries to sullen dis-
comfiture by the flippant cynicism, "it was only a frolic of my
imagination." Striking, but illusory, as Buckle's postulates some-
times are, there is more than a half truth concealed in the present
one, and with some qualification we can readily concede it. Not on
universal skepticism as a stepping stone must the historian climb
the mountain of Truth, but on doubt as a preliminary to certitude.
With Cartesian doubt, if you will, must the critical inquiry be prose-
cuted. He cannot be satisfied with the uncorroborated word or un-
proven fact of his precursor in the same field. He has the right to
demand from his fellow craftsman his credentials as to character,
vouchers as to capacity, testimonials as to trustworthiness. He
can compel the production of the title deeds to his new acquisitions
or discoveries ; he can challenge the chain of evidence, and reject it,
if but one link be missing which places it beyond the range of ascer-
tainable and verifiable knowledge. Lord Acton substantially in-
clines to the same position. In his inaugural lecture, when assum-
ing the chair of Modern History at Cambridge, he formulates a
series of historical canons which in comprehensiveness seemingly
meet every contingency and safeguard the historian with a defense
and security that must command respect and carry authority.
"The critic," he contends, "is one who, when he lights on an in-
teresting statement, begins by suspicion. He remains in suspense
until he has subjected his authority to three operations. First, he
asks whether he has read the passage as the author wrote it. For
the transcriber and the editor and the official or officious censor on
the top of the editor have played strange tricks and have much to
answer for. And if they are not to blame, it may turn out that the
1 " History of Civilization in Ijngland," Vol. I., p. 555.
76 ' American Catholic Quarterly Review.
author wrote his book twice over ; that you can discover the first
jet, the progressive variations, things added and things struck out.
Next is the question where the writer got his information. If from
a previous writer, it can be ascertained, and the inquiry has to be
repeated. If from pubHshed papers, they must be traced, and when
the fountain head is reached, or the track disappears, the question of
veracity arises. The responsible writer's character, his position,
antecedents and probable motives have to be examined into; and
this is what, in a different and adapted sense of the word, may be
called the higher criticism, in comparison with the servile and often
mechanical work of pursuing statements to their root. For a his-
torian has to be treated as a witness, and not believed until his
sincerity is ascertained. The maxim that a man must be assumed
to be honest until the contrary is proved was not made for him.
The main thing to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but
the sublimer art of investigating it, of discerning truth from false-
hood and certainty from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism, more
than by plentitude of erudition, that the study of history strengthens
and straightens and extends the mind. And the accession of the
critic in the place of the indefatigable compiler amounts to a transfer
of government in the historic realm. "^
This may be said to give us a summary of the science of history,
one that is now universally accepted and finds its best exponents in
Menzel (K. A.), Ranke, Bohmer, Waitz, Janssen, in Germany;
Maitland, Green, Stubbs, Gardiner, Brewer and Gasquet, in Eng-
land. It lifts history from the humble sphere of a profession to that
of an authoritative science.
But history is more than a mere science. It is also an art. It not
only demands the analytical keenness of the paleographist, the
critical subtlety of the philologist, the searching intuitiveness of the
psychologist — not to mention a familiar acquaintance with political
philosophy and economy, the comparative studies of legal institu-
tions and international law — but the well-cadenced ear, the sym-
metric eye, the deft handiwork of the literary artist. Its influence,
no matter how potent or essential, would be circumscribed, if not
defeated, if it appareled itself in archaic, forbidding garb, presented
itself in the chilling form of a mathematical equation, chemical
formula or metaphysical abstraction. True historic portraiture
must appeal to the imaginative as well as perceptive faculties. Cold
science must be cunningly blended with warm imagination ; dry de-
tails must artfully coalesce with charming narrative. The phil-
osophy of history must not deport itself with pedantic stiffness nor
1 Quoted in Nineteenth Century, October, 1895, p. 624.
The Fate of Historical Falsification. yy
give utterance in portentous phraseology, but must captivate by en-
gaging form and pleasing speech. The element of poetry, though
judiciously subordinated, cannot be entirely eliminated. Was not
the original, primitive history a legend, a romance, a poem?
Shelley is not far astray when, in the language of the poet, he defines
history as "the cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of
men. The past, like an inspired rhapsodist, fills the theatre of ever-
lasting generations with her harmony."
Here a most insidious snare besets the path of the historian and
sorely tempts his historic conscience. "Instead of being equally
shared," to quote Macaulay, who was better at preaching than prac-
ticing, "instead of being equally shared between its two rulers, the
Reason and the Imagination, it (history) falls alternately under the
sole dominion of each. It is sometimes fiction; it is sometimes
theory."^ Literature affords distressingly sad examples how lit-
erary ambition perverted the historic instinct and the unleashed
imagination played havoc with truth and fact. The monuments
authors reared in the fond expectation that they would share the
perpetuity of Gizeli and insure an immortality in which as
Dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule
Our spirits from their urns,
have proven
lyike the baseless fabric of a vision,
lycaving not a wreck behind.
The old English school of history, notably that represented by
Hume, Robertson and Macaulay, to single out three of its best ex-
ponents as a general illustration, suffered the full penalty of allow-
ing imagination to outrun discretion and fairness. Looking at the
exquisite workmanship revealed in their histories, it needs no keen
sight to see that the midnight oil has been devoted, we will not say
wasted, more in giving literary symmetry, rhetorical grace, imagina-
tive scope to their productions than in searching musty documents
or deciphering vexatious incunabula. The turning of a startling
metaphor, the constructing of a striking antithesis, the rounding of
a clever epigram, the chisseling of a scintillating jeii d'esprit, re-
ceived the minutest care. Contemptuous indifference, utter neglect
awaited the garbled reference, the unverified citation, the buried
manuscript. The task of digging with patience and toil in the deep,
unexplored mines of history's richest ore seldom entered their
minds. Like surveyors, their sextants, with a wide sweep, staked
off the ground on the surface ; the woodman with his axe, the geolo-
gist with his hammer, the metallurgist with his crucible had to
follow to reveal the hidden wealth. Besides, might not the intru-
1 Macaulay's Kssays, Vol. I., p. 145, 1879.
78 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
sion of unembellished data, like a discordant note in a cloyingly
sweet melody, retard the stately march of the picturesque and
absorbing narrative ? Did not Macaulay boast that he would write
a history whose literary charm would make the society woman
throw her latest romance in the waste basket ? Does he not further-
more contend that history begins in the novel and ends in the essay ?
On what ground can we account for the astonishing rapidity with
which Hume wrote the history of England, from the Roman Inva-
sion to the Revolution — five quarto volumes — in nine years ? Or
explain how Maitland's rude scalpel fairly eviscerates Robertson's
Charles V., disclosing an uncritical and romancing spirit simply as-
tounding? Or excuse Macaulay's diflfuseness in covering a period
of fifteen years of English history, with five portentous volumes?
Do we not, to come to a later date, find one of the most admired
historians fall into the same pit? The Prophet of Craigenputtock,
booted and spurred and cap-a-pie, with savage phillipics enters the
arena to batter down all shams and hoist high the pennant of the
"eternal verities:'' what a redundancy of oracular declamation,
pessimistic vaticination, crypt phrasemaking —
As when some mighty painter dips
His pencil in the hues of earthquake and eclipse !
"Words, words, pictures, tropes, sublimities enough to make the
major and minor prophets, but nothing to hold by, to work with or
to teach. "^ "Is history a pageant or a philosophy ?" — ask the genial
author of Obiter Dicta. Even Taine, a worshiper of Carlyle, can-
not but own that "prophecy is a violent condition which does not
sustain itself, and when it fails, is replaced by grand gesticulations !"*
If the historian who is tempted into the realm of imagination,
where facts form but the background of the canvass, encounters
such dangers, what must be the ordeal and failure of the one who
builds up a theory, battles for a hypothesis? Historical theory
and historical partisanship are convertible terms. "A formed
hypothesis," says Shopenhauer, "gives us a lynx-eyed vision for all
that is favorable, but makes us blind to all that is unfavorable."*
The theorist not only mars the beauty of his work, impairs its use-
fulness and destroys its credibility, but becomes the victim of an
idiosyncrasy that relegates his performance more to the domain of
the psychological than the historical student. Had Hume sup-
pressed or even softened his bitter aspersions against the English,
the Whigs, Whig principles and Whig ministers, the happy bon mot
1 Frederic Harrison : " Choice of Books," p. 197. « " The methodical people so much ridi-
culed by Carlyle," continues Taine, " have at least the advantage over him of being able to
verify all their steps. Moreover, these vehement divinations and assertions are often void
of proof." " History of English Uteratnre," Vol. II., p. 451. 3 welt als Wille und Vorstel-
lung, Vol. II., p. 244.
The Fate of Historical Falsification. 79
that he was "a political historian, or rather a historical politician"
would have left his name untarnished. Had Robertson endeavored
to take his authorities even at second or third hand, instead of work-
ing on a theory and jotting down the first ragged and vague citation
that was offered to him, he would not now be consulted with sus-
picion by the ordinary reader and relegated to the top shelf by the
scholar.^ Had Macaulay threaded his way through "unfair party
spirit," which made him make so many loose statements and rash
inferences, his value would be immeasurably enhanced. Had even
Gibbon, who probably focalizes more of the essential requisites
of a great historian than any writer in the language,^ omitted the
last two chapters of the first volume of his inimitable masterpiece,
he would not have offended Christian sensibility, done violence to
truth, called into question a work well nigh perfection. Had
Buckle abandoned his fatuous theory about the general laws gov-
erning the course of human progress, he would have bequeathed
to posterity one of the most precious and classic torsos in the
history of any literature. Had not the late Regius professor
of modern history at Cambridge^ confined his theory "that
history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of prac-
tical politics" to England, who knows but that it would have
dignified the mission of the "ring" and its ethics elevated the status
of the "heeler" had it ever reached our own shores ? Had Froude,
the most exquisite prose colorist of the language, the incomparable
master of mis-en-scene, steered clear of the theories he wished to
establish, he would never have devoted the copious resources of his
passionate eloquence, exuberant fancy and matchless verbal bril-
liancy to prove that Henry VHI. "cut off his wife's head one day and
married her maid the next morning out of sheer love of his coun-
try."* He might even have escaped the crushing British fisticuff
given him by one of the most conservative of English reviews, when
it remarks that "ordinarily it is the task of a critic to notice any
error into which an author may have fallen. But in the case of
Mr. Froude the problem ever is to discover whether he has deviated
into truth. "^ But why continue ? The task of enforcing a theory —
of historical rehabilitation was not the besetting sin of Froude alone,
when he tried to efface what Dickens somewhat unpatriotically calls
1 " Robertson had the oddest way of consulting his friends as to what subject it would be
mdvisable for him to treat, and was open to proposals from any quarter with exemplary im-
partiality. This only showed how little the stern conditions of real historic inquiry were
appreciated by him." J. Cotter Morrison's Gibbon : " English Men of I,etters Series," p. 192.
» " The work of Gibbon as a whole, as the encyclopsedic history of thirteen hundred years, as
the grandest of historical designs, carried out alike with wonderful power and with won-
derful accuracy, must ever keep its place. Whatever else is read. Gibbon must be read, too."
Freeman, ibid., 104-5, ^J. R. Seeley. < Freeman : "The Method of Historical Study," p..
c6 « London Quarterly Review, July, 1898.
8o American Catholic Quarterly Review,
"that blot of grease upon the History of England," — no we might
point to Lord Elphinstone, who wrote a most eloquent defense of
Pontius Pilate; or Carducci, whose pathetic efforts to restore the
shattered reputation of Judas Iscariot are still in process ; or Proud-
hon, who yearned to embrace Satan and defend him from the cun-
ning malice of Jesuits and the malignant libels of the priests.
It is clearly evident that danger lurks alike in historical fiction
and historical theory, and we can only gain a sure foothold in the
one case and a clear vision in the other by planting ourselves upon
the unshifting ground of fact, above the nebulous haziness of specu-
lation. If the philosophy of history is teaching by example — a truth
which in spite of the Latin saw — exempla illustrant, non probant, we
will assume for the present, it is equally patent, that we must en-
dorse Macaulay when he, perhaps somewhat regretfully, moralizes,
"to be a really great historian is perhaps the rarest of intellectual
distinctions." But this reflection should never be dissociated from
the more pregnant one, "That the true historian . . . seeking to
compose a picture of the thing acted, must collect facts, select facts
and combine facts. Methods will differ, styles will differ. Nobody
ever' does anything exactly like anybody else, but the end in view
is generally the same, and the historian's end is truthful narration."^
These reflections bring us to the subject indicated by the rubric
of this article : to ascertain the attitude of historical writing during
the last three hundred years toward the Catholic Church; to dis-
cover whether fiction or fact, theory or truth, were the contributing
elements to build up the accepted tradition ; to allow the new school
of Protestant historians to pass judgment on the credibility and
motives of their predecessors who erected and buttressed the tra-
dition, and in what manner it has served the cause of truth.
Since the Reformation, and until within the last fifty or sixty years.
Protestantism occupied and monopolized the field of ecclesiastical
history in Germany and in England, the two nations wrested from
Catholic unity. It was more than a monopoly ; it was what in the
phraseology of the day might properly be called, if n..t chartered, at
least a sort of consecrated trust. The literary activity of the Refor-
mation, primarily the result of the late discovery of printing, was
an inheritance of the Renaissance, and not its own spontaneous
outgrowth. The subsequent ascendency of the Reformation was
coincident, — the cause of literary deterioration. The Reformers be-
came the residuary legatees of the methods, tactics, grandiloquence
and calumnies of the pagan element of Humanism. Bocaccio was
1 "A Child's History of Engl.," Vol. II., p. io6. 2 Birrell : Contemporary Review, June, 1885,
79-
The Fate of Historical Falsification. 8i
the precursor of Erasmus; the Decameron is the model of the
Familiar Colloquies; Ulrich von Hutten is the lineal descendant
of Lorenzo Valla; the literary syndicate that perpetrated the
Epistolce ohscurorum virorum, abstracting, of course, from its un-
printable coarseness and untranslatable obscenity was more than
a reminiscence of Lorenzo Medici's Academia. What Humanism
attempted by a repristination of ethical paganism, though the sen-
suous element was always dominant, the Reformation ostensibly
attempted to accomplish by a return to primitive Christianity,
though its elemental truths were always lacking. When Human-
ism discovered the unaesthetic and unintellectual drift of the Refor-
mation, the line of demarcation at once became apparent, it deep-
ened and widened into a breach, until the rupture became pro-
nounced and final. But the ultimate object of both was consistently
the same in the beginning — the undermining of Catholicism and the
severance of the bonds that moored the two nations to the Holy See.
In literary activity the Church was anticipated and outstripped
by its antagonist, and the latter was far in the race before the former
was in readiness to start. With its printing resources it fairly
deluged the land before the Catholic scholars, resting on the security
of sixteen centuries' undisputed possession were aware of the
cataclysm, had time to prepare for the coming tide, much
less adopt effective means to divert or stem it. Feverish
unrest and brooding discontent like an infection permeated the
political body; stoic apathy and moral laxity enervated the ec-
clesiastical life; a clamorous craving for change was a most
pronounced symptom, an ominous portent in the lower strata of
society. By invoking the aid of the secular government and re-
warding the bankrupt princes and robber barons with undreamed
wealth — investing their persons with unprecedented dignity and
prestige and holding out prospects still more alluring — the Reform-
ers played the master stroke in diplomacy.^ "In Silesia," says Men-
zel, "the new church was mainly established by the favor and protec-
tion of princes and magistrates. Nearly all the people were loyal to
the ancient faith and had not the remotest thought of making any
change in their religion. ... In Sweden, Gustavus Vasa, who
had conquered the independence of his countr}^, professed the new
teachings because he desired to bring to the support of his throne
the wealth and the power that had been taken from the clergy."*
"The princes of the North are unquestionably under great obliga-
tions to them [the Reformers,]" writes Frederic the Great to Vol-
1 "What the Reformation would have been without the three Saxon Electors ... it is
impossible to say." Beard :" The Hibbert I,ectures," 1883, p. loi. ^"Neuere Geschichte
der Deutschen," Vol. II., p. i.
82 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
taire . . . "for by secularizing the church property they have
added considerable to their incomes."^ "If the church had no prop-
erty," is the laconic way the Puritan Dr. Coxe, when Bishop of Ely,
puts it, "there would have been a faint cry for its reformation. "^
Did not the maintenance of the new order involve the piratical
rights the princes and nobility secured over the confiscated mon-
astery and lands ? Did not the newly acquired social and legal and
ecclesiastical prerogatives conferred on the civil power gratify their
ambition and cupidity ? The logical evolution of this Reformation
endowment was the creation of a new element and power in Chris-
tendom— secular absolutism in the ecclesiastical sphere. Inspired
and encouraged by the Reformers, it grew with marvelous rapidity.
In Germany it found its culmination in the peace of Augsburg
(1555), when the infamous axiom — ctijus regio, illius religio — re-
ceived legal sanction, and the prince became the master of the body
and soul of his subject.^ In England it even advanced further than
in Germany by a public promulgation under the most bloody ac-
companiments of Csesaro-Papism. The act of supremacy de-
throned the Pope and enthroned the King — the triple crown was
torn from the venerable head of Clement VII. and now adorned the
chaste brow of Henry VIII. ! The effect of this course in giving
strength to the tradition can hardly be overestimated.
In the next place the pulpit was not silent or inactive in propagat-
ing it and carrying legend and myth, properly garnished, into every
village and cottage. The priests of the old Church were gagged in
the one land and exiled in the other if they dared contravene the
shrieking innovator. The professorial chairs at the universities and
colleges and gymnasia were in the gift of the ruling prince or the
local parish. The fitness of the incumbents was gauged by the
ability, zeal and success with which they vindicated the tradition
and traduced the Mother Church. It mattered little that the very
endowment which made the sinecure a possibility, was the revenue
of the desecrated sanctuary, the secularized monastery or the sup-
pressed orphan asylum.
In Germany polemical bitterness and secular despotism made the
task of the apologist of Rome one of daring hardihood. A prejudice
blind, insatiate, ineradicable, swept the countries like a blighting
typhoon. The champions of the Church were derided as obscurant-
ists, bigots, idolators — traitors to national, religious and intellectual
liberty. In England confiscation, the tower, the headman's axe
iQeuvr.. Vol. XXL.p. 64, May 14, 1731. 2 •' Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty,"
etc. Sir Hubert Burke, Vol. II., p. 411. 3 •• j^uther," says Wolfgang Menzel, "was only pro*
mulgating the doctrine of the right of temporal sovereigns to decide all ecclesiastical au-
thority. . . . Episcopal power passed entirely into the hands of the prince." Geschichte
Deutschlands, Vol. II., p. 249.
The Fate of Historical Falsification. 83
awaited the 'doughty soul that would question royal supremacy.
To continue the unequal struggle at long range, from Douay,
Rheims or Salamanca, proved perhaps less dangerous, but despair-
ingly ineffective.
This combination of potential influences only accounts for the
propagation of the tradition, but leaves its origin unexplained.
How did it take its rise ? Under what conditions and circumstances
was it fostered ? What credence can be attached to its authors ?
Taking the queries in the concrete, the answer is — and Protest-
ants are the witnesses — that their true source is misapprehension
and misrepresentation, ignorance and prejudice, fabrification and
forgery. The ethical code that swayed the historian was of a jelly
fish pliancy. It was the glorification of Protestantism primarily, the
defense of truth secondarily. If conflict arose between the two postu-
lates, the latter was invariably sacrificed to the former. Truth might
be mutilated, its sacred mission prostituted, posterity imposed upon,
but the cause of Reform could not be allowed to suffer or the Catho-
lic Church appear in any light than that of the Apocalyptic Vision.
No concession to Rome. Calumniare andacter, semper aliquid adhaeret.
In Germany Luther himself sounds the keynote. "What harm
would there be," says the new Ecclesiastes, "if to accomplish better
things and for the sake of the Christian religion, one told a good,
thumping lie ?"^ That his followers fully availed themselves of this
plenary license is a stain on the escutcheon of a brave people,
and the confusion it gave rise to forms the lament of all
modern German historians. "The falsification of history during
the last three hundred years," is the plaint of Wolfgang Menzel,^
"has done an immeasurable amount of harm and occasioned deep
shame, and even now the end is not in view, when this falsehood
will take an end." "Protestant historians," is the refrain of Tollner,
"have made history nothing more than an historic apology for the
necessity of ecclesiastical reformation. According to the Protest-
ants, the Church was since the eighth century, the home of ignor-
ance and wickedness. All in authority were abominable heretics
and the Church a perfect bedlam (Narrenhaus). . . . The ex-
aggerated care with which they represented all former rulers and
leaders of the Church as tyrants and the members as pagans, and
the disgraceful neglect with which the exemplary piety existing at
all times side by side with the encroaching evil was overlooked —
these shortcomings of Protestant historians have been most as-
siduously used by the opponents of Christianity."^ The great Ger-
1 "Was ware es, ob Einerschonum Besseres und der christlichen Kirche willen eine gute
Starke Ivuge thate." I^enz : " Briefwechsel," etc., Vol. I., p. 382 ; Kolde : " Analecta I^uth-
erana," p. 356. ^"Kritikdes modemen Zeitbewusteeine," 2 Aufl., p. 153. 3 " Vermischte
Anfsatze," p. 71.
84 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
man historiographer Bohmer, in 1826, already exposes the weakness
and imposture of the Reformation historians. 'The history of the
Reformation," he writes," demands an entirely new treatment. This
I realize the more searchingly I look into the writings of the Re-
formers themselves, who in the new current representations appear
before us in a mythical garment."^ The slogan "Protestantism is
an uninterrupted attack, the utmost straining of every nerve and
sinew against Rome ; its whole battle is to extirpate Roman Cath-
olic doctrine and energy,"^ was then, as it is now, the focus of all its
concentrated zeal and activity. If at times some honest and
courageous spirit, smarting under the yoke of this oppression of
conscience, this muzzling of truth, tried to allay this bitterness, it
was only to be "prepared for the most brutal defamation and en-
mity," says one of the victims, "in spite of all adulation and self-
praise of German impartiality the same holds good to-day.
Disciples of the school of wisdom who look upon their master
[Hegel] as the absolute personification of the Spirit, demand that
the Reformation century shall only be written by those who are
penetrated with an unshaken conviction that the men of their
affected veneration were right in everything, and the opponents just
as uniformly and constantly wrong."^ "Because I did not maintain
the Pope to be anti-Christ and Rome to be the Babylonian "
says Janssen's great preceptor, Bohmer, "Waitz [professor at Got-
tingen] declares me destitute of all German patriotism."*
When Ranke's "History of the Popes" first appeared, a woric
which in spite of much painstaking research and documentary co-
piousness does but scant justice to some of the illustrious men it
deals with, he was branded as a "crypto-Catholic" by one of the
most conservative and influential journals." K. A. Menzel in the
first volume of his great history of Germany® cut away from the
traditional acceptation of the Reformation and brought the Re-
formers from the national Walhalla of German myth-history to the
critical tribunal of scientific investigation, with the result that he
was fiercely attacked by the literary journals and condemned to a
conspiracy of silence by the German savants. In language tem-
perate but trenchant he vindicates himself in the preface to the sec-
ond volume. After his death his editors bodily cut the preface out
of the second edition. Novalis pays a most glowing and impas-
sioned tribute to the Catholic Church in one of his most inspira-
tional works.*^ In the first three editions of the author's complete
ijanssen: " Bohmer's I,eben und Anschauungen," p. 265. 2 stahl : "Die lutherische
Kirche und die Union," p. 455. 8 k. A. Menzel : "Neuere Geschichte," etc., Vol. II., p. 8.
* Janssen, ut supra, p. 22. » Kreuz-Zeitung, 28 Mai, 1886. « Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen,
3 vols. Breslau, 1826-30. t " Die Christenheit oder Europa. Ein Fragment."
The Fate of Historical Falsification. 85
works it was omitted. Schlegel insisted upon its insertion in the
fourth edition.^ In the fifth edition Tieck, after Schlegel's conver-
sion, had it again suppressed, and the mutilated edition is still in
circulation. Janssen followed the advice of his Protestant master,
when, standing before the statue of Charlemagne at Mayence, "that
picture tells us what is wanting : a history of the German people
from the pen of a Catholic historian ; for what we call German his-
tory is a mere farce."^ He wrote a work that should make him a
national classic and hero, but he was denounced by the champions
of the tradition as an "historical juggler," "the assassin of historical
science," "a traitor to his country;" his masterpiece of German
scholarship was "the work of a scoundrel," "a devil's work."^ Even
one of the most eminent professors of the Berlin University, Hans
Delbriick, went as far as to put the question whether "in view of this
densely stupid forger some one did not have the impulse of Hutten
when he cut off the ears of the two Dominicans !"*
"German historical writing" — to return from the digression and
quote Professor Hillebrand — "during the last thirty years [1875]
was in its whole character national and Protestant. The learned
professors may indulge many illusions concerning their objectivity,
their scientific incorruptibility and conscientiousness, concerning
the infallibility of their wonderful methods. . . . They have
unconsciously and unintentionally served the Protestant and na-
tional interests, and in obedience to them have they made history
yield, have they sifted and compiled facts. . . . The nation (not
the entire nation, but the greater part of the so-called men of cul-
ture) was actuated since the twenties with the anti-Catholic, or,
rather, anti-Christian spirit."* Caustic and bitter is the arraignment
of Professor Scherr (Zurich) : "Mammon and Moloch, the golden
calf and the brazen steer, money and success, are the only deities
in which our epoch believes with sincerity. An immoral writing of
history (Geschichtschreibung) such as is now prevalent, especially
in Germany, prostrates itself before and swings incense to these
idols."«
It is more than passingly strange that the German Universities,
notorious hotbeds of rationalism, pantheism, atheism, are allowed to
disseminate their pernicious teachings without molestation or
hindrance; but if they dare represent with even an approximation
to truth Catholic history or doctrine, consternation seems to take
possession of the lay and academic world. The panic is amusingly
analogous to that of the Church of England at the present time.
* Berlin, 1826, Vol. I., pp. 189, 191, 208. 2 Pastor : Johannes Janssen : " Kin I^ebensbild." p. 2.
• lb., pp. 100, 106. * " Preussische Jahrbiicher," Vol. 53, p. 259. 6 Karl Hillebrand : "Zeiten,
Volker und Menschen," Vol. II., pp. 317-319. « T. Scherr : " Von Zurichberg, ' p. 141, 2 Aufl.
86 American Catholic Quarterly Review. '""'' ^
Every shade of theology and neology is complacently tolerated, but
the mere suspicion of the odor of incense or the casual whispering
of the words, reservation of the sacred species, though the actual
meaning of the words has not been defined by dogmatic enactment
or primatial decree, all the same it rouses the choleric Briton to a
frenzied state of patriotic devotion. Exeter Hall and Trafalgar
Square ring with delirious, hysterical protests. Parliamentary seats
are jeopardized. Ministries threatened with dissolution, a national
crisis like a London fog looms up menacingly over the British Em-
pire. The German Protestant is somewhat like his English brother
— whenever he "sees anything in religion which he does not like he
always prima facie imputes it to the Pope."^
If we turn our attention to England, we find the tradition even
more deeply rooted, more carefully propagated and the mighty arm
of the State for nearly three centuries barricading every avenue
that might disturb its peace or threaten its security. With the
most inhuman proscriptive enactments against the Catholic episco-
pate and priesthood, the printing of Catholic literature made a
treasonable offense, the adherents and advocates of the ancient
faith martyred, the tradition, though seated on a throne, propped
by the bayonet and sword, with every advantage of human influ-
ence and royal power, all the same met the fate of historical falsi-
fication and had to bite the dust in the end. The very names that
once were indissolubly identified with the history of the English
Reformation have lost their authority, are quoted with feelings of.
distrust, treated with contempt and of about as much interest to
the scientific historian, as the provender which the saurians and
crustaceans munched in pre-diluvian days is to the political econo-
mist.
Maitland,^ and no better authority could be produced, writes
that "for the history of the Reformation in England we depend so
much on the testimony of writers who may be considered as be-
longing or more or less attached to the puritan party, or who ob-
itained their information from persons of that sect, that it is of the
utmost importance to inquire whether there was anything in their
notions respecting truth, which ought to throw suspicion on any
of their statements." He continues: "There is something very
frank (one is almost inclined to say honest) in the avowals, either
1 Bagehot : " lyiterary Studies," Vol. II., p. 6i. 2 " i^t me name a historian who detested
fine writing and who never said to himself, ' Go to ; I will make a description,' and who yet
was dominated by a love for facts, whose one desire always was to know what happened to
dispel illusion and establish the true account— Dr. S. R. Maitland, of the Lambeth Li-
brary, whose volumes entitled ' The Dark Ages • and ' The Reformation ' are to History
what Milton's ' Lycidas ' is said to be to poetry : if they do not interest you, your tastes are
not historical."— Augustin Birrell, Contemp. Rev., June, 1885, p. 775.
The Fate of Historical Falsification. 87
direct or indirect, which various puritans have left on record that
it was considered not only allowable, but meritorious, to tell lies
for the sake of the good cause in which they were engaged/'^
Unconsciously Foxe, to whom Maitland alludes, absorbed the
same conception of truth as Luther. He was the fountain head of
the English Reformation history, the reservoir that fed all the smaller
tributaries, the cribbing ground of almost every subsequent writer.
Maitland finds his work fairly bristling with the grossest and at
times most ludicrous perversions of truth. His credulity is phenom-
enal, his ignorance palpable, his falsehoods transparent.^
Men, measures, scenes and all
Misquoting, misstating,
Misplacing, misdating.
It can hardly be a matter of surprise that Brewer accuses him of
downright falsehood and forgery. "Had he," writes the English
historian, "been an honest man, his carelessness and credulity would
have incapacitated him from being a trustworthy historian. Un-
fortunately he was not honest; he tampered with the documents
that came into his hands. "^ Burnet, the other column supporting
the Reformation's historical arch, was certainly a scholarly man,
and had access to a perfect treasure-trove of unpublished docu-
ments; but, as his editor proves, "his dates are nearly as often
wrong as right, while with regard to individuals, he constantly
makes mistakes from mere ignorance of the history of the
period. . . . He selected from the immense mass of papers
which were open to inspection such as suited his purpose. . . .
He can never be trusted except when he gives a reference, and will
be generally found to have misrepresented the author he quotes."*
Mackintosh, the Scotch historian, calls him a "purveying advocate,"
and, to show his utter contempt for him, continues: "To express
astonishment at this would perhaps argue a want of due acquaint-
ance with human nature and with Burnet."''
In Scotland our Reformation data came from the pens of Knox
and Buchanan. Of the former Dr. Whitaker, Regius professor
in the University of Cambridge, writes, and with abundant illus-
trations presents a formidable indictment, "that he was an original
genius in lying . . . that he felt his mind impregnated with
a peculiar portion of falsehood which is so largely possessed by
the father of lies."^ Of the latter he continues "that he became
equally devoid of principle and of shame, ready for any fabrication
1 "Essays on subjects connected with the Reformation in England."— S. R. Maitland, D.
D., F. R. S., F. S. A., p. I, 1849. 2 Eight glaring blunders are pointed out on one random
page by Maitland. "Six l>ttersonFox's Acts and Monuments," p. 40. ^ Brewer : "letters
and Papers, Foreign and Domestic," etc.. Vol. I., p. 60, pref. *N. Pocock : " Christian Re-
membrancer," Vol. XlylX., pp. 147, 183. 6 Mackintosh : " History of the Revolution," p. 617.
I,ond., 1834. 6 J. Whitaker : " Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated," Vol. II., p. 22.
88 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of falsehood and capable of any operation of villainy."^ The lan-
guage may sound harsh and intemperate, but it must be borne in
mind that his falsehoods were of a nature to compel the interposi-
tion of a special Parliamentary act to expurgate them. At Oxford
his book was publicly burned. It seems that shameless dishonesty
and conscienceless garbling of documents was the prominent attri-
bute of the Reformation historian of that period, or why should
the same Dr. Whitaker have the confession wrung from his sad-
dened heart. "Forgery — I blush for the honor of Protestantism
while I write — seems to have been peculiar to the Reformed. I
look in vain for one of those accursed outrages of imposition among
the disciples of Popery V'^
With Foxe and Burnet in England, Knox and Buchanan in
Scotland, found lacking the constitutive principles of reliable histo-
rians, their honesty impugned, their veracity successfully challenged,
"the credit of their copyists has also disappeared," and with their
disappearance the fate of historical falsification becomes not only
an unsightly actuality, but manifests the hand of God in visible
retributive justice.
The pathway of the three last centuries is strewn with the wreck-
age of historical falsehood. The triumph of truth may be impeded,
but with crushing step it will and must move on. The disappear-
ance of the phantasmal Popess Joanna, the darkness lifted from the
Middle Ages, the explosion of the Gunpowder Plot, the leveling
of the "tall bully" that commemorated the Popish plot to burn
London, the moribund Galileo myth, the supposititious divine mis-
sion of the Reformers, the tottering St. Bartholomew legend, the
misty Inquisition spectre, whose total disappearance was only pre-
vented by Llorente's assassination of the witnesses, all, all prove
that the Catholic Church has nothing to fear, all to hope and gain by
the new scientific school of history. Its guiding maxims resolve
themselves into the simple but adequate law laid down to the
Catholic historian by the present illustrious Pontiff Leo XIII.:
"The first law of history is not to tell a lie ; the second, not to fear to
tell the truth." In this he more than anticipates — sees the full and
glorious realization of the prediction made by one of France's most
commanding intellects, Alexis de Tocqueville — that "the restora-
tion of the science of history is the restoration of Catholic greatness."
H. G. Ganss.
Carlisle, Pa.
* lb. 2 lb., p. 2.
Race War and Negro Demoralization. 89
RACE WAR AND NEGRO DEMORALIZATION.
FROM the date of the introduction of negro slavery as a general
system in the American colonies down to the present hour the
race problem has cast its dark shadow over the fair face of the
land. We always had the trouble with us, in one form or another. In
the old slave-holding days the horrors of the social ulcer were not all
confined to the unhappy race who paid the penalty of human greed ;
thi moral torture of a portion at least of the stronger population
at the spectacle of degraded and brutalized humanity was keener
because more exquisite than the pangs of outraged nature and
family affection among the sable thralls. Nemesis, surely, was
never more appallingly realized than in the punishment which has
followed the introduction of this moral poison into our national
veins. Emancipation, which it was fondly hoped might bring its
own solution of the ethical problem, has failed to civilize the negro.
With the baldest outfit of education and the lowest plane of moral
perceptions, he has been brought into contact with the vices of a
political condition in which all the resources of a perverted white
intellect and all the passion for power and profit and political
intrigue are utilized without scruple and with a total disregard of
the moral consequences. The shadow deepens, rather than declines,
as the years roll on. In the early days of the trouble the only factor
resorted to for the settlement of race conflicts was the shot-gun.
It is to-day the shot-gun, with the addition of the hangman's rope
by way of variety, and now and again the blazing pile and the im-
plements of torture, as seen in use among the aborigines in the early
days of colonial settlement.
The immediate causes of the race conflicts have been various —
often, perhaps chiefly, they arise from the political aspects of the
question; sometimes they grow out of the difficulties of the social
problem, and sometimes, as in the matter of lynchings, they grow
out of immorality and lawlessness.
Of late the lynchings have mostly occupied the public mind, and
for some months one has scarcely been able to pick up the daily
papers without seeing in any one of them reports of one, two or
even three lynchings for that crime which all white men in the
South hold as the greatest and most detestable, and which has been
properly termed the "nameless crime" of criminal assault. It
would indeed have been remarkable if these lynchings had not in-
creased the tendency towards conflict between the races, and had
not engendered recriminations and bitterness. On the one hand
90 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the white people of the South have been painted as lawless and
cruel, carried away by unwarranted prejudice against the negro;
on the other, fierce denunciations have been made against the im-
morality of the negroes, the usual cause of the lynchings. With
the former question this article does not intend to deal ; but it is
thought that some service may be rendered by giving at this time
an idea of the condition of morality among the negroes, an explana-
tion of the causes which have led up to their present moral condi-
tion, and a remedy, which the writer believes to be the only true one
suggested.
I.
The status of negro morality may perhaps receive its fullest gen-
eral illustration from the last United States census, which presents
the following comparative table of criminal statistics. It will be
noted that under the head of "colored" the census includes "persons
of negro descent, Chinese, Japanese and civilized Indians."
The last three classes, however, are too insignificant in numbers to
be taken into practical account :
Number of prisoners in the United States, classified by sex, gen-
eral nativity and color, and offenses committed, 1890 :
Fe- Nat. white For'gn white Colored c
Total. Males, males., * , , " , , * v
Offenses. a b M'les Fern's Mai's Fem'es Mai's Fern's
All offensea 82,329 75,924 6,405 38,156 2,315 13,869 2,063 23,030 1,989
Against the government.... 1,839 1,823 16 1,188 8 439 6 191 2
Against the currency 389 385 4 260 2 97 2 27
Against the election laws.. 69 67 2 39 2 12 .. 16 ..
Against the postal -aws 299 297 2 220 1 40 1 35 ..
Against the revenue laws... 290 284 6 170 1 55 3 58 2
Against the pension laws... 28 26 2 16 2 3 ., 7 ..
Against the militar-- laws. . . 764 764 . . 483 . . 232 . . 48
Against society 18,865 15,033 3,832 7,784 1,572 4,346 1,657 2,708 695
Against public health 11 11 .. 3 .. 7 .. 1 ..
Against public justice 729 682 47 347 1/ 77 8 254 21
Against public morals 10,100 8,0012,099 4,283 952 2,438 836 1,178 306
Against public peace 4,944 3,676 1,268 1,623 426 1,033 590 989 250
Against public policy 3,081 2,663 418 1,528 177 79i 123 286 118
Against the person 17,28116,511 770 6,852 220 2,976 110 6,580 434
Homicide 7,351 6,958 393 3,045 112 1,163 50 2,698 228
Rape 1,392 1,387 5 607 2 200 1 576 2
Abduction 155 140 15 74 8 23 2 42 5
Abortion 36 25 11 18 7 5 3 2 1
Assault 8,347 8,001 346 3,108 91 1,585 54 3,262 198
Against property 37,707 36,382 1,325 19,668 375 5,313 282 11,155 650
Arson 886 806 80 303 22 124 9 372 49
Burglary 9,734 9,647 87 5,392 16 1,404 6 2,791 65
Robbery 2,381 2,350 31 1,439 11 325 5 573 15
Larceny, not specified 8,403 7,978 425 3,705 92 1,079 103 3,166 225
Grand larceny 6,731 0,411 320 3,571 95 962 65 1,877 159
Petit larceny 3,741 3,475 266 1,828 89 545 72 1,077 100
Larceny of horses 1,632 1,627 6 923 5 187 . . 485 . .
Receiving stolen goods 487 430 57 247 25 106 14 75 J8
Race War and Negro Demoralisation. 91
Fe- Nat. white For'gn white Colored c
Total. Males, males.
Offenses. a b M'les Fern's Mai's Fem'es Mai's Fern's
Embezzlement 485 480 5 320 1 85 .. 72 3
Fraud 886 868 18 524 6 136 2 200 10
Forgery 1,887 1,865 22 1,201 13 276 2 372 7
Malicious mischief and tres-
pass 454 445 9 215 .. 84 4 144 5
On the high seas 4 4 .. 2 .. 2
Murder at sea 1 1 .. .. .. 1
Assault at sea 1 1 .. 1
Piracy 2 2 .. 1 .. 1
Miscellaneous 6,633 6,171 462 2,662 140 793 108 2,396 202
Double crimes 3,449 3,367 82 1,747 26 415 23 1,194 33
Violation of municipal ordi-
nances 488 388 100 152 27 81 27 150 46
Unclassified 53 53 .. 11 . . 4 .. 38 ...
Not stated 2,286 2,101 185 641 63 240 48 934 09
Held as insane 291 212 79 90 18 42 7 62 47
Held as witnesses 66 50 16 21 6 11 3 18 7
a Includes 869 prisoners whose nativity is unknown, b Includes 38 prisoners whose na-
tivity is unknown, c Persons of negro descent, Chinese, Japanese and civilized Indians.
On this Henry Gannet observes ("Statistics of the Negroes in the
United States," by Henry Gannet) :
"The proportion of criminals among the negroes is much greater
than among the whites. The statistics of the last census show that
the white prisoners of native extraction confined in jails at the time
the census was taken were in the proportion of 9 to each 10,000 of
all whites of native extraction while the negro prisoners were in
the proportion of 33 to each 10,000 of the negro population. Thus
it appears that the proportion of negroes was nearly four times as
great as for the whites of native extraction. It should be added,
however, that the commitments of negroes are for petty offenses in
much greater proportion than among the whites."
If we should exclude the population under 15 years of age,
which practically does not come under the law, the proportion
would be yet higher against the negro.
This surely is an astounding state of morality. That the negro
should have against him a criminal record three to four times as
great as that of the whites is something appalling. Yet, dark as
the picture is, it is made still darker if we consider the nature of the
negro's chief criminality. The following table will bring this out
still more clearly than the general census : (Hoffman, p. 219.)
FEMALES.
Total No. of
Prisoners.
Offenses against the government 16
Offenses against society 3*832
Offenses against the person 770
Colored
Col.
Prisoners
Prisoners.
Per Cent.
2
12.50
683
17.58
432
56.10
92 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Total No. of Colored Col. Prisoners
Prisoners. Prisoners. Per Cent.
Offenses against property 1,325 655 49.43
Offenses of a miscellaneous character. 462 200 43-29
Aggregate 6,405 1,972 3079
Proportion of colored population over 15 years of age in total
(female), 11.09 P^^ cent.
MALES.
Total No. of Colored Col. Prisoners
Prisoners. Prisoners. Per Cent.
Offenses against the government 1,823 176 9.65
Offenses against society 15,033 2,577 17.14
Offenses against the person 16,51 1 6,308 38.21
Offenses against property 36,382 10,924 30.03
Offenses of a miscellaneous character . 6,175 2,320 37-95
Aggregate 75,924 22,305 29.38
Proportion of colored population over 15 years of age in total
(males), 10.20 per cent.
The proportion of colored males is slightly above 10 per cent, of
the whole population; but his crimes, according to the census,
against the person are above 38 per cent. ! The colored females arc
in proportion slightly above 1 1 per cent, of the total female popula-
tion, whereas their crimes against the person are above 56 per cent,
of all such crimes committed by women. This means that with
regard to the most serious of all crimes — those against the person —
the negro is from 4 to 5 i^ times as criminal as his white brother !
The following table will bring out more clearly still the specified
offenses : (See Hoffman, p. 220.)
MALE PRISONERS.
Total No. of Colored Col. Prisoners
Prisoners. Prisoners. Per Cent.
Crimes against the person —
Homicide 6,958 2,512 36.10
Rape 1,387 567 40.88
Abduction 140 32 22.86
Abortion 25 2 8.00
Assault 8,001 3,195 39.93
Crimes against property —
Arson 806 372 46.15
Burglary 9,647 2,710 28.09
Robbery 2,350 555 23.62
Larceny 7,978 3,126 39.18
Grand larceny 6,41 1 1,774 27.67
Petty larceny 3,475 1,055 30.36
Race War and Negro Demoralization. 93
FEMALE PRISONERS.
Total No. of Colored Col. Prisoners
Prisoners. Prisoners. Per Cent.
Crimes against the person —
Homiride 393 227 57.76
Assault 346 198 57-23
Crimes against property —
Arson 80 49 61.25
Larceny 425 225 52.94
Grand larceny 320 159 A9-^7
Petty larceny 266 99 37-22
On this Hoffman observes ("Race Traits and Tendencies of the
American Negro," by Frederick L. Hoffman, F. S. S.) :
"The table fully explains itself and needs little comment. Of
homicides the colored prisoners formed 36.1 per cent. For the
most atrocious of all crimes, rape, 40.88 per cent, of the prisoners
convicted were colored, and for assault 39.98 per cent. The pro-
portion of colored females charged with homicide was even greater
than that of males, and the same is true for the cases of assault."
If, following Gannet's mode, we compared the negro only with
the native white population, the record against him would give him
50 per cent, of all the convictions for rape ! If, again, we took into
account the number of those crimes committed in the South for
which there is neither trial nor conviction, but lynching pure and
simple, the percentage would probably swell to from 70 to 90 per
cent. That is to say, for the most bestial and detestable of all
crimes against the person, the negro is 7 to 9 times as great a
criminal as the white man !
Let it not be thought, as some may imagine, that this result of
the criminal record of the negro is brought about by severity and
discrimination against the negro in the courts of the South. In
those portions of the country which have ever boasted a partiality
for the colored brother the same evidences of negro criminality are
found, as the following table from Hoffman's work — page 221 —
will show:
CONVICTS IN PENNSYLVANIA PENITENTIARY, 1 886 AND 1 894.
MALES.
Percentage
Total, Colored. of Colored.
1886 1^730 244 14.10
1894 2,312 384 16.61
FEMALES.
1886 41 14 34.15
1894 52 18 34.61
Percentage of colored in total population over 15 years of age:
Males, 2.23 ; females, 2.09.
94 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
It will be seen that in Pennsylvania, where the negro males
formed only 2 per cent, of the male population and the negro
females about 2 per cent, of the female population, 16 per cent, of
the male convicts and 34 per cent, of the female convicts were
negroes. In New Jersey the same status is observed, the negroes
forming 17 per cent, of the male and 34 per cent, of the female
convicts, although the negro men are only about 31-2 per cent, of
the whole male population and the negro women about the same
of the whole female population.
And so it is elsewhere — wherever, in fact, so far as the writer has
ascertained, the negro exists in the United States.
There are two points not sufficiently emphasized by these sta-
tistics, yet whose existence no man doubts. Moreover, they are so
important that negro morality cannot be properly appreciated
without taking them into consideration. The first of these is the
negro's tendency to steal, his dishonesty ; the second his sensuality.
In the table given on pages 91-92 it will be noted that the
negro is charged with 30 to 49 per cent, of the offenses against
property. And, as has been observed, Henry Gannet notes that
commitments of the negro for "petty offenses" is in much greater
proportion than among the whites. So universal, however, are
these petty offenses, the majority of which never come to court,
that there is everywhere a general mistrust of the negro. In the
South it is seldom that a housekeeper having negro servants will
leave her goods exposed or unkept of key. It is seldom, too, that
a negro can obtain credit at stores without ironclad legal security.
This habit of dishonesty the negro may have had in savagery or
may have acquired in slavery ; but whatever excuse there may be for
it, it exists among them to such an extent that it may well be
reckoned a racial characteristic.
As to their sensuality, it would be impossible for those who have
not lived among them to know how sadly prominent it is as the
besetting sin of the race. Whilst it is not possible to bring forward
much official data on this point, and we are left largely to private
testimony, still some indications can be noted which will give us
something of a correct idea.
It will be remembered that the criminal sensuality of the negro,
as expressed in the crime of rape, was enormous — put down as not
less than 7 to 9 times as great as among the whites. This is ren-
dered still more striking if we reflect that the negro commits this
crime in the South where he knows that in every case he is certain
of sure, swift and terrible punishment — nothing less than lynching,
and sometimes burning at the stake by a frenzied mob.
How great must be the sensual tendency which causes the negro.
Race War and Negro Demoralization. 95
in spite of this knowledge, to burst all bonds and to rush to such
terrible destruction, we leave the reader to consider. Nor is this
indication of sensuality lessened if we look to milder forms of ex-
pression. The following table of illegitimate births is given by
the official records of Washington City :
PERCENTAGE OF ILLEGITIMATE IN TOTAL NUMBER OF BIRTHS,
1 879- 1 894.
(Report of the Health Officer of the District of Columbia 1894,
p. 152.)
White. Colored.
1879 2.32 17.60
1880 2.43 19.02
1881 2.33 19.42
1882 2.09 19.73
1883 3.14 20.95
1884 3.60 19.02
1885 .' 3.00 22.8S
1886 3.28 22.86
1887 3.34 21.27
1888 3.49 22.18
1889 3.59 23.45
I89I 2.90 25.12
1892 2.53 26.40
1893 2.82 27.00
1894 2.56 26.46
Average 1879-94 2.92 22.49
Such is the condition of affairs in Washington City, where it is
natural to expect that the negro would make an especially good
showing for himself. Washington is the very Mecca of the negro
in this country. Hither he has flocked in such numbers that he
forms about one-third of the entire population. Here he has
churches and schools and position such as he possesses nowhere
else. The record gives him no less than seventy-seven churches,
he is endowed here with schools the most superb, his status and
independence here is higher perhaps than anywhere else on
earth, and yet even here the official records, which are necessarily
defective, declare that he is from ten to eleven times as sensual as
the white man — that more than one-fourth of his children are born
bastards !
In other places the facts are even more damaging to him than in
Washington, and it must also be noted that where such illegitimacy
96 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
so universally reigns, there must be an enormous amount of sen-
suality multiplied of which no record is or can be kept.
If, again, we turn to diseases which are caused by sexual vices,
we find an equally enormous disproportion in regard to the two
races, as will be seen from the following table, taken from Hoff-
man's monograph, page 94 :
MORTALITY FROM SCROFULA AND VENEREAL DISEASES, BALTI-
MORE AND WASHINGTON, 1885-189O.
(Per 100,000 of Population.)
Scrofula. Contagious Diseases.
Baltimore. Washing:ton. Baltimore. Washingrton.
White 6.12 5.28 3.06 5.89
Colored .29.09 38.39 13.29 23.89
Per cent, of excess of
negro mortality. .375.30 627.10 344-30 305.60
The subject might be pursued very far, but enough has been said
to show that this vice of sensuality is a most marked and prevalent
one among the colored people, and to prove also that the negro is
sunken in moral or immoral condition three or four times as de-
graded as that among the whites, and that he develops his most
powerful vicious tendencies in the worst classes of crimes — those
against the person.
This picture, however, of negro immorality would be incomplete
if we did not bear in mind the following points, viz. : that the
negro's appreciation of crime is not so strong as that of the white
man, and that there is in him a great weakness of will power. The
negro mind, taken in general, does not develop to that full maturity
of judgment and perception to be found in the whites, and, as
Booker Washington observes, he seems not to possess that
strength and tenacity of will so necessary in overcoming difficulties.
The importance of these facts in regard to morality cannot be easily
exaggerated. On the one hand they lessen the negro's guilt, on
the other his elevation to a higher standard is rendered much more
difficult.
Nor should this portion of the subject be closed without observ-
ing that crime has not among the colored people the stigma cast
upon it which it has among the white people. The colored criminal
is seldom barred from his wonted society by the commission or
conviction of crime; he is not shunned by his fellows; he suffers
from no change of feeling in his regard unless, indeed, it be that he
is oftentimes made a hero of. Not infrequently does it happen that
when a number of negro criminals are to be carried to the peniten-
tiary they are surrounded at the depot by their friends and receive
Race War and Negro Demoralization. 97
a farewell ovation to be excelled in hearty good will and friendliness
only by the welcome which awaits them upon their return from
prison. And the crime? Well, the gentlemen of color made a
mistake — like some of their rich white brethren — the. mistake of
being caught !
II.
How has the negro fallen so low? How has it happened that
forming one-seventh of the population he stands distinguished from
the rest of the inhabitants of the country not alone by strong marks
of repugnant difference in color and physiognomy, but above all by
a criminality so greatly out of his proper proportion ?
The answer takes us far back into history, but it is easily found.
When the African was brought to America he was a perfect savage,
with the undeveloped moral sense of the savage. Up to thirty-
four years ago he was treated under a Protestant system of slavery
as a piece of property^, and whilst it is untrue that the slave-holders
were unkind to their slaves or were not provident for them in a
material way, it is undeniable that no adequate attention was paid
to their moral and spiritual welfare. Indeed, investigation would
most probably show that almost as little was done for them in these
respects as if they had possessed no souls at all.
Under practical Catholic masters this sad neglect could not exist,
and would never be tolerated by the Church. Where Catholics
who heeded the voice of the Church possessed slaves, they were
under the strictest obligation to look after their religious welfare,
and the result of such care on the part of the Church is seen in
every part of the globe wherever Catholic slave-holders once ex-
isted. In the United States it is owing to this fact mainly that we
have any negro Catholics at all. That the morals of these negro
Catholics, who are attentive to their religious duties, is of a high
standard will be attested by those who have worked amongst them.
But the majority, almost the universality of slave-holders in the
South were Protestants of some denomination. Protestantism
could bind them to nothing. They felt no obligation regarding the
morals of their slaves, and they practically fulfilled none. What-
ever improvement came to the negroes in slavery in this regard was
from contact with the whites, which was much more intimate in the
days of slavery than it has been since. But no man will contend
that this was of a character sufticiently efficacious for their complete
upraising.
The reader, however, may ask : "But since those days of slavery
has not much been done? Have not the negroes been abundantly
98 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
supplied with schools and churches and ministers ? Have not mil-
lions upon millions been poured out for the uplifting of the freed-
man
?"
Truly may we answer "Yes" to these questions. Upon no peo-
ple that ever existed upon the face of the earth have so much treas-
ure and other aid been expended as upon the colored people of the
United States for their upraising. The private donations for this
purpose from individuals in the North have been so lavish that such
men as Dr. J. L. M. Curry have felt themselves obliged to call pub-
licly for a cessation of such charity and to advise that it be not given
except through certain fixed channels. Nor have the white people
of the Southern States, unjustly held up though they often are as
being inimical to the negro, been behind in their efforts for his
advancement. At great sacrifice to themselves in the midst of new
conditions and pressing poverty, it is computed that they have
given for the education alone of the negro no less than seventy-five
or eighty millions of dollars within twenty years.
The negro everywhere has his churches and his schools. He is
naturally religious and a great church-goer ; and as to ministers, he
has perhaps more to the square mile than any other people in this
country. His crimes, however, have not diminished; his attacks
upon persons and property are as grave and numerous as ever ; his
propensity to pilfering has not grown less ; and, if we are to judge
by statistics, his lust has greatly increased.
Nor will the reader be astonished at this result if he take time
to carefully investigate the means employed to elevate negro
morality. It is to be borne in mind that the negro was and is four
times as immoral as the white man, with abnormal propensities to
stealing and lust — the last being the most difficult passion of human
nature to control. It will further be borne in mind that the negro
possesses an extremely weak will. To raise this weak race from the
low condition of morality in which it was sunken and to which it
was and is chained by the strongest passions, two levers presented
themselves — the school and the church.
As to the school, to educate a man without at the same time
training him to virtue and religion is simply to increase his capacity
for wickedness. The history of the world does not show that
nations grew in virtue as they increased their knowledge. Nor will
any one pretend that a comparison of nations to-day will prove
that the better educated are more virtuous than the ignorant. Edu-
cation divorced from religion, so far from making men more moral
will but give them an increased capacity for vice. Now of all the
systems of education ever devised by the human brain there is nor
one less calculated to uplift the negro than the one adopted and
Race War and Negro Demoralisation. 99
under which the mass of the negroes are as a matter of fact being
taught, viz., the public school system of the United States. Under
this system it is absolutely forbidden to give any religious educa-
tion. "The public school," say its advocates, "is not for religion and
morals. These are to be left to the individual and the church.
The object of the school is simply to impart knowledge and to
develop the mind." To expect the elevation of morals from such
a source is absurd upon its face. Yet this is the system which
was expected to raise up one of the most morally degraded people
on earth who pretend to any degree of Christian civilization — a.
people weak of will and held in thrall by the strongest passions of
human nature !
Nor is it surprising that the religion of the negro has not pro-
duced better results. There has never, perhaps, been given
anywhere or at any time so striking an example of the inefficiency
of Protestantism in a missionary field as the spectacle it has pre-
sented in its treatment of the negro, both during and since slavery.
Here was a race of people professing Protestantism, but sunk to a
low moral condition and practically ignorant of even Protestant
Christianity, and yet scarcely one white Protestant missionary could
be found to devote himself to them. It is true that here and there,
where masters or mistresses were of a specially devout turn of
mind, there were some sporadic efforts made at religious training
and instruction, but when all is said the fact remains that the
amount of Christian teaching and moral training which the slaves
received was so meagre as to put to shame any people professing
the name of Christian.
After the Civil War the negroes, practically forced out of the
white churches, were compelled to congregate by themselves and to
choose their ministers from their own race, ministers mostly as
ignorant and undeveloped as was the flock which they were to
preach to.
And what a religion they adopted ! Had they taken the entire
catalogue of Christian sects which have arisen since the commence-
ment of the Christian era, they could hardly have adopted one less
calculated to raise them from their sunken condition than Protest-
antism. Born of lust and license, teaching nothing definite, allow-
ing the individual by the principle of private interpretation to be-
lieve what he pleases and practice what he chooses. Protestantism
is nothing more than a glittering generality. Such a system of
religion served the negro in no other respect than to satisfy in a
vague way his natural desire for a religion of some kind. To ex-
pect that it would serv^e to impel the negro to self-abnegation and
sacrifice, that it would strengthen his weak will to overcome his
100 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
strong passions, that it would inspire him with the determination
to undertake the most difficult of all conquests — that of immoral
tendencies and fleshly appetites — was simply expecting an impossi-
bility.
The moral condition of the negro is therefore a logical outcome
of Protestant principles — they believe what they choose and prac-
tice what they wish — ^proving it all by the Bible. Though they
spend the Sundays in church-going, in singing, in shouting, in
preaching and in praying, their religion has so little moral effect
upon their lives that most of them will at the same time that they
are working themselves up into a frenzy of excitement by their ex-
hortings and prayer meetings, carry on the most shockingly im-
moral practices without apparently so much as a qualm of con-
science. Religion and morality are two separate and divorced
subjects.
Such has been the work of Protestantism on the negroes, offering
no practical bar to, if not logically enforcing, the degraded moral
condition in which they had sunken.
What, then, is the prospect for the negro? Is he to remain in
his present condition? Can he remain in his present condition?
Can this weak race survive in the state of moral degradation in
which it is to-day ? Is it doomed to destruction, or is there a means
to save it and raise it up ?
The last census, indeed, shows that the negro is on the increase,
but not in so great proportion as the native white population.
But independently of this there are authors like Hoffman who point
out the fact which is everywhere admitted that the negroes are
physically deteriorating, and that certain diseases which they at-
tribute to their immorality are being propagated enormously
amongst them at an ever increasing ratio.
The black man was not formerly more subject to these diseases
than the white man, yet through them the constitution of the whole
-colored race is now being gradually undermined, and each genera-
ttion is less and less resistive of their attacks, until in the process of
ttime the negro must disappear unless there be placed a more effica-
«cious bar to his immorality than any yet applied. The following are
tables of statistics which will illustrate the progress of the diseases
above referred to : (See Hoffman, pp. 80, 83, 84, 85, 94.)
^ CONSUMPTION IN CHARLESTON, S. C.
"^ (Death rate per iOO,ooo of population.)
Period. White. Colored.
1822-30 457 447
1831-40 331 320
1841-48 268 266
Race War and Negro Demoralization. lOi
Period. White. Colored.
1865-74 198 411
1875-84 255 668
1885-94 189 627
1822-1848. .347 342
1865-1894 213 576
MORTALITY FROM CONSUMPTION IN FOURTEEN AMERICAN
CITIES.
(Rate per 100,000 population, 1890.)
White. Colored.
Charleston, S. C 3554 686.3
New Orleans, La 250.3 587.7
Savannah, Ga 37^-^ 544-0
Mobile, Ala 304.1 608.2
Atlanta, Ga 213.8 483.7
Richmond, Va 230.5 411. i
Baltimore, Md 250.6 524.6
Washington, D. C 245.0 591.8
Brooklyn, N. Y 284.9 S39-^
New York, N. Y 379.6 845.2
Boston, Mass 365.8 884.8
Philadelphia, Pa. . .' 269.4 532.5
St. Louis, Mo 159.9 605.9
Cincinnati, Ohio 239.1 633.3
MORTALITY FROM PNEUMONIA IN TWO CITIES.
(Death rate per 100,000 living at same age.)
White. Colored. Col. over white
Ages 8 to 5. Per Cent.
Baltimore, Md 645.01 2158.95 234.72
Washington, D. C 466.17 1642.15 252.26
Afires 5 to 15.
Baltimore, Md 37.52 105.01 179-87
Washington, D. C 28.08 1 19.72 326.35
Ages 15 to 45.
Baltimore, Md 74.20 123.74 66.76
Washington, D. C 69.32 194.00 179.86
Ages 45 and over.
Baltimore, Md 323.93 360.53 14-39
Washington, D. C 274.18 446.28 62.77
There has already been given in this article a table setting forth
the mortality resulting from diseases more directly due to im-
morality than the above.
It is asserted that the negro by excessive unchastity, chiefly
through prostitution with the whites, is undermining his constitu-
I02 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tion and hence becomes an easy and ever increasing prey to these
diseases. The following extracts from the "Report on the Social
and Physical Condition of Negroes in Cities," by Professor Eugene
Harris, himself a negro, bears out this assertion with fearful force :
"From 1870 to 1880 the negro population increased nearly 36
per cent. ; from 1880 to 1890 the increase was only a little over 13
per cent. This is about one-half the rate of increase among the
whites.
"For the year 1895, when 82 white deaths from consumption
occurred in the city of Nashville, there ought to have been only 49
colored, whereas there really were 218, or nearly four and one-half
times as many as there ought to have been. It is an occasion of
serious alarm when 37 per cent, of the whole people are responsible
for 72 per cent, of the deaths from consumption. Deaths among
colored people from pulmonary diseases seem to be on the increase
throughout the South. During the period 1882- 1885 the excess
of colored deaths (over white) for the city of Memphis was 90.80
per cent. For the period 1891-1895 the excess had risen to over
137 per cent. For the period of 1886-1890 the excess of colored
deaths from consumption and pneumonia for the city of Atlanta was
139 per cent. For the period 1 891 -1895 i^ ^^^ risen to nearly 166
per cent. . . . Before the (civil) war this dread disease was
virtually unknown among the slaves. According to Hoffman,
deaths from consumption have fallen oflf 134 in 100,000 among the
whites and increased 234 in 100,000 among the blacks since the war.
"The constitutional diseases which are responsible for our un-
usual mortality are often traceable to enfeebled constitutions,
broken down by sexual immoralities. According to Hoffman, over
25 per cent, of the negro children born in Washington City are
admittedly illegitimate. According to a writer quoted in 'Black
America,' in one county in Mississippi there were during twelve
months 300 marriage licenses taken out in the County Clerk's office
for white people. According to the proportion of population there
should have been in the same time 1,200 or more for negroes.
There were actually taken out by colored people just three. . . .
A few years ago I said in a sermon at Fisk University that wherever
the Anglo-Saxon comes into contact with an inferior race the in-
ferior race invariably goes to the wall. I called attention to the
fact that, in spite of humanitarian and philanthropic efforts, the
printing press, the steam engine and the electric motor in the
hands of the Anglo-Saxon were exterminating the inferior races
more rapidly and more surely than shot and shell and bayonet. I
mentioned a number of races that have perished, not because of
destructive wars and pestilence, but because they were unable to
Race War and Negro Demoralisation. 103
live in the environment of a nineteenth century civilization ; races
whose destruction was not due to a persecution that came to them
from without, but to lack of moral stamina within ; races that per-
ished in spite of the humanitarian and philanthropic efforts that
were put forth to save them."
Nor let the idea be thought a vain one. No individual or race
can sin vitally against nature's laws and live. An example and
object lesson in this we possess in the population of Hawaii.
Seventy years ago, according to Charles Gulick, the Hawaiians,
whose territory we have so lately and so graciously stolen, were a
race of uncorrupted children, sweet, gentle, generous, hospitable.
We gave them seventy years of "Protestant missionary efforts,"
schools and teachers without stint. Read the record of their popu-
lation since that time : (See Hoffman, p. 319.)
ACTUAL AND RELATIVE DECREASE IN THE POPULATION OF
HAWAII 67 YEARS.
1823 142,000
1853 71,019
1872 49,044
1890 34436
Total decrease 107,564
Per cent, of decrease, 75.8; average annual per cent., 1.12.
It is clear that their sun is set, and in a few years they will be
forgotten. The cause of it? Unchastity, chiefly with the whites.
The same cause is now operating with the negroes, and the facts
cannot but cause grave concern to every friend of the negro race.
Is there nothing that can stem the tide? Is there no balm in
Gilead for this terrible sore ? Secular education has been tried and
has failed. Protestantism has been tried and has failed. But there
is a regenerating and uplifting power which as yet has not really
entered into the struggle, and to it we must look for the gaining of
the victory — the energetic work of the Catholic Church and the
Catholic school. Without this there is no hope for the negro.
State schools without religion cannot correct and elevate a de-
graded moral condition. Protestantism has had the negroes in its
hands for many years during slavery and since slavery; it has
multiplied its establishments and poured out its millions in mission
work, yet it cannot be shown that it has benefited the negro
morally. He is undoubtedly worse than when it took hold of him.
Only the energetic work of the Catholic Church and the Catholic
school can raise up the negro from his degraded condition and
save him.
104 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The Catholic Church is a mother to all men, and takes the negro
lovingly to her bosom, cherishing him there and insisting upon his
perfect equality with the rest of her children, displaying a special
kindness and love for him because he is poor, downtrodden and
sunken. She sends forth her clergy, trained and educated, to
devote and sacrifice their lives to his every need. She presents the
word of God to him, not doubtfully, but teaching and interpreting
it with infallible certainty and commanding by divine authority.
She permits no opinions, but a clear fixed code of belief and morals,
which by divine command she enforces upon all alike. She cher-
ishes with loving, constant care each individual soul. She goes into
the conscience and regulates that upon each of its acts. She holds a
man constantly to that fixed definite regulation by the confes-
sional, and she causes him to do penance for its every violation.
She preaches no easy doctrine of the forgiveness of sins — a fatal
defect in Protestantism in its work against immorality, especially in
reference to the negro. Moreover, her religious exercises, her
sacraments, her spiritual direction, her sermons, preached and en-
forced with divine authority — in a word, her whole system of teach-
ing and practice is eminently qualified to aid the negro, to meet his
needs and to raise him from his degraded condition.
But the work of the Church cannot be expected to have its full
effect upon the older population. It is hard to straighten a tree
which has already attained its growth. But taking the young peo-
ple and training them in her schools, the Catholic Church would be
the salvation of the negro. She would surround his weakness with
every aid ; she would correct his morals, especially his propensities
to stealing and lust, most effectually, and she would, by conse-
quence, avert his present physical deterioration and probable future
destruction, caused by his present immoral life. Under her loving
and fostering care he would rise to a new life and assume amongst
the rest of the population that position for which God has destined
him.
That the work of the Catholic Church is effectual on the negroes
is well attested by those who have worked amongst them. The
negroes who are practical Catholics lead moral and edifying lives
in striking contrast with those outside of the Church, and some of
them would rank with our best Catholics in any portion of the
globe. Many thoughtful Protestants in the South recognize the
power of the Catholic Church in regard to the negroes, and some
among negro leaders openly advise the negroes to become Catholics.
Nor let it be looked upon as an idle vision — this work of regen-
erating the negro by the Catholic Church. True, the work of the
Catholic Church among the negroes is meagre at present, but we
Race War and Negro Demoralization. 105
are not to take things on the surface. The normal condition of
the Church is one of missionary effort. The command to teach all
nations, to preach the Gospel to every creature is the very life of
her mission on earth, and hence, as long as there is a soul on earth
without the fold she cannot rest easy or unconscious of struggle.
In the United States her energies have hitherto been absorbed in
the endeavor to save her own — to house and provide against the
loss of her many children who have poured themselves upon these
hospitable shores. This work, however, has been now in a great
measure accomplished, and it takes neither prophet nor the son of a
prophet to predict that the Church in the United States is on the
eve of a great missionary upheaval. How else can it be ? Can the
Church be untrue to her mission and fail to put forth her efforts to
save the millions of non-Catholics surrounding her ?
Nor are there signs wanting that this missionary spirit is quicken-
ing on every side of us. Alas! indeed that quickening as it is, it
should at present be so weak ! Though the religious orders seem
to be fast increasing, though candidates for the diocesan priesthood
are too numerous in some dioceses to be accommodated, we have
hardly begun work upon our own white non-Catholics, and almost
the entire colored race lies perishing at our feet. All honor to the
Josephites who have nobly gone forth first to this, the most self-
sacrificing mission work of our country — a work in which at present
difficulty and hardship and lack of worldly honor are their portion.
Theirs is a noble mission, more akin to that which the Great Master
chose for Himself on earth — "the poor have the Gospel preached to
them!"
Thomas F. Price.
Raleigh, North Carolina.
io6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
IMAGINATION AND FAITH.
THE abuse of the imagination is easy, and far-reaching in its
consequences. In matters of faith it seems to find its
widest, or at least its most serious, inlet playing havoc with
the beliefs of many and blocking their way to the Church by throw-
ing false lights and shades upon Catholic doctrine. A priest whose
apostolic duties place upon him the guidance of enquirers to the
faith has not infrequently to resign himself to long delays on minor
points of doctrine or discipline. Again and again, when principle-*
of belief and authority sufficient to cover the entire Catholic system
seem to have been fully consented to, the work of catechising comes
to a standstill on the catechumen's taking fright and shying at some
item of belief already implicitly held in the acceptance of first prin-
ciples. Moreover, many of those who do not seek admission or
instruction in the Catholic faith from a denial of some of its funda-
mental tenets are open to the charge of being swayed by their imag-
ination to the discredit of their reason.
To take some examples. It is incredible how much abhorrence
is felt in certain quarters for the use of images. We have known a
guileless and deeply religious soul who confessed to an irresistible
feeling of sickness on seeing a priest lead the Rosary from a prie-
dieu before Our Blessed Lady's statue. Mr. Kensit and his sym-
pathizers seem to have a genuine distaste for any outward honor
paid to the crucifix. Yet, as a recent writer in the Church Times
has cleverly reminded them, on taking an oath in court it is the
custom to kiss the Bible. With Catholic controversialists it is a
commonplace when disputing on this point to urge the genuflexions
and bowing and elaborate marks of honor paid to sovereigns. To
see no harm in kneeling before Royalty or in kissing the Bible and
yet to refuse to kiss the crucifix or kneel before a sacred image is an
inconsistency due in great part to the imagination.
The Litany of Our Blessed Lady, with its varied list of titles,
offers a serious obstacle to many non-Catholics. They cannot find
in themselves to call the Virgin "Cause of Our Joy," "Ark of the
Covenant," "Gate of Heaven," etc. Yet by their acceptance of the
Council of Ephesus they have already given her the incomparably
higher title of "Sancta Dei Genetrix," Mother of God, O^ordKo?.
Those again who hold baptismal regeneration, yet deny the Sacra-
ment of Penance, lay themselves open to the charge of giving way
to their imagination. That one man should be freed from sin by
Imagination and Faith. 107
kneeling at the feet of another and hearing his acquittal seems the
height of credulity to believe. Yet they have virtually conceded the
possibility of such a power by allowing that the minister of baptism
cleanses the soul by pouring water upon the brow. Indeed, the
great objection to penance being its accompanying humiliation,
they would seem to have conceded a still greater abasement by
holding the justifying power of baptism. To many minds it may
well be more humbling to submit publicly to a physical cleansing
than to listen to a judicial acquittal in private.
The doctrine of Purgatory is untenable to those who are led by
the imagination. The analogy of Nature, if realized to the full,
would not merely prepare us for it, but would, perhaps, lead us to
expect it. What evidence we find in the world goes a great way
towards proving that our present state is one of trial and preparation
and discipline. If such a state be reasonable before death, why not
after death, especially since it is evident that the cleansing process
can hardly be said to have reached completion in many cases at the
hour of death ?
One of the most common triumphs of the imagination is the dis-
dain felt for miracles. That a simple Franciscan friar should be
taken up in ecstacy many miles above the earth is passed over as
a legend, or at best, a hyperbole — so strongly is the theory of gravi-
tation imbedded in the imagination. Yet that bodies should fall
is just as inconceivable on a priori grounds as that they should
mount ; nor is any one astonished on seeing his arms or limbs raised
at the bidding of his soul. Are we not giving way to our imagina-
tion when we deny to spirit the power of raising the whole body?
That it should be raised three inches or three miles is merely a
question of less or more, which should be neglected in our reason-
ing, however much it may repel the imagination. Again, to believe
that the dead have been brought back to life is considered by some
as the highest pitch of human credulity. Yet, as a matter of fact,
Nature daily brings thousands to life. Why should not some
higher Power be able to bring them "back to life?"
The doctrine of transubstantiation is rejected by many who have
little difficulty in admitting the transubstantiation of water into
wine at Cana of Galilee. To others it seems inconceivable that acci-
dents should exist without their proper substance ; even whilst they
admit that the human nature of Jesus Christ existed without its
personality; if, indeed, they hold the Divinity of Jesus Christ with
all its consequences. Our Blessed Lord's lengthy discussion with
the Jews, preserved for us by St. John in the sixth chapter of his
Gospel, would almost seem to be summed up in this : "You will be
io8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
called on to accept the greater, i. e., My Divinity ; do not reject the
less."
It may be asked how is this abuse of the imagination to be ac-
counted for? Perhaps the most influential reason is the confusion
in our use of the term. It is easy to mistake reason for imagina-
tion, and imagination for reason. The word is loosely used for the
power of inventiveness. A drama or poem of skilful plot and
striking combinations is called a work of vivid imagination ; whereas
it might be more accurate to speak of our great dramas and poems as
works of reason, enriching its productions wih the more graceful
trophies of the imagination. This inaccuracy of thought has be-
come so widespread that one of the most constant obstacles to the
teaching of scholastic philosophy is the powerlessness of certain
minds to distinguish practically between an intellectual idea, judg-
ment or argument and a phantasm of the imagination.
Hence to those who are in great part, if not altogether, bereft
of imaginativeness, it is common to mistake their reasonings for
fancies, and hence to fail in giving arguments their due. In the
case of moral arguments and evidences of Christianity and the like^
where "probability is the very guide of life," the mistake of con-
founding imagination with reason produces harmful results. Such
minds will feel uneasy with the doctrine of the Trinity — to take one
example from many. Baffled in their endeavor to realize it, they
turn from all the delicate arguments in its favor as from an attempt
to submerge reason.
The confusion between thoughts and fancies leads other men
to trust their imagination in place of reason. They believe what-
ever can be outlined or pictured or drawn up in groups of statistics.
Of Dean Stanley, Huxley once said : "Stanley could believe in any-
thing of which he had seen the supposed site, but he was skeptical
where he had not seen. At a breakfast at Monckton Milnes' just
at the time of the Colenso row, Milnes asked my views on the Penta-
teuch, and I gave them. Stanley differed from me. The account
of the creation in Genesis he dismissed as unhistorical ; but the call
of Abraham and the historical narrative of the Pentateuch he ac-
cepted. This was because he had seen Palestine — but he wasn't
present at the creation."^
Birth, education, environment help on this tyranny of the imagin-
ation. A conviction once begotten by its activity, day by day, as
the despotic image grows more familiar and clearer it asserts its
power by stifling our reason and blunting the force of argument.
Some men cannot handle or bear the sight of firearms without an
1 The Nineteenth Century, August, 1896. " T. H. Huxley," by W. Ward.
Industrial Arbitration. 109
irresistible dread. When every precaution has been employed and
every means has been taken to show them that the weapon is un-
loaded and harmless, they will still reply: "I know it is unloaded.
But it is safer to lay it aside. It might go off."
Only a sharp effort of the will can shake off this tyranny of the
imagination in the things of faith, where intrinsic evidence is not
strong enough to compel assent. At times the great act of sub-
mission to the authority of the Church puts an end, once and for all,
to the fetters which an uncurbed fancy has forged round the soul.
The majestic Bride of Christ fills the imagination with an object
that suffers no lesser fancies to dispute its sway. Sometimes the
process of drawing off from the servitude of the imagination is
gradual. The tyranny has rooted itself too firmly and its effects
are too widespread to be torn up by a sudden effort. The exercise
of will power, which is the prime moving cause, and the meritorious
principle of the act of faith has a daily duty of compelling the imag-
ination to picture the reverse of much that it formerly held true.
In the end, when the prejudices and fancies that swayed the mind
are as good as supplanted by sober pictures of the truth, the peace
of soul which results is a reward above measure for the closeness of
the struggle. To have been forced for years to fight a daily battle
against the presumptions of a lower faculty makes us wary in trust-
ing to vivid imaginings. Constant exercise of our reason and our
higher will has established our soul on a basis of truth, and we have
only to be faithful in few things in order to merit the reward of
being set over many and of seeing what we have so long felt to be
true. Vincent McNabb, O. P.
Ungland.
INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION.
THE losses entailed alike on the workingmen and on their
employers by the industrial conflict which they call a strike
have been so appalling that both capital and labor have
come to the conclusion that, in the settlement of their contests, it
is better to appeal to reason and good will than to resort to brute
force. The wisdom of this course will be made evident by count-
ing the expenses of one of the contests, the great Chicago strike
of 1894. In this deplorable struggle the Pullman Company and
the twenty-four roads centering in Chicago suffered a loss of earn-
ings amounting to $5,358,224 ; the actual loss to the workingmen in
no American Catholic Quarterly Review.
wages alone amounted to $1,750,000. But this is only a small part
of the cost of this industrial war : The displacement of labor always
involves serious losses. The expenses of United States deputy
marshals — a small army of officials — of the United States troops,
and of the militia ; lastly, the lack of transportation, and the con-
sequent stagnation of trade, must be added to the list of losses.
Hence, we need not be astonished to find that the indirect damages,
in the opinion of some, amounted to 80,000,000 of dollars ; and, if
this estimate be correct, then this deplorable war consumed wealth
to the amount of 87,000,000 of dollars, without bringing any com-
pensation whatever. Evidently, this sort of war is too expensive;
victory is as destructive as defeat, and the victor cannot stand many
triumphs of this kind.
The forces are organized on both sides ; combined capital must
meet combined labor ; the State is in duty bound to protect both
combinations so long as neither one nor the other commits any
breach of the law. The time is passed when the employers could
say that there was nothing to arbitrate, and that they were ready to
meet their workingmen individually, but must decline to recognize
their organizations. United States Commissioner of Labor Car-
roll D. Wright says: "The claim on the part of the great em.-
ployers that they can deal only with individual employes is as
absurd as it would be for the labor organizations to insist upon
meeting the individual stockholders or the individual members of
a firm. Neither party has a right to make such a claim. Repre-
sentatives must deal with representatives ; organization must recog-
nize organization, and the committees of the two must meet in
friendly spirit for the purpose of fairly and honestly discussing the
questions under consideration. When this takes place it is incum-
bent upon the representatives of the employers to state frankly
and fully the conditions under which they are attempting to pro-
duce goods ; they know the conditions of the workingmen, and the
workingmen can know the conditions of the production only
through the representatives of organized capital. The very spirit
of conciliation means frankness, a desire on the part of each to in-
form the other fully of the merits of their respective claims. When-
ever such a course is pursued the results are usually satisfactory."^
We have seen that strikes are disastrous both for the capitalists
and for the workmen ; that they inflict great losses upon the country
at large ; that individual action is unable to control the forces which
conflict in times of strikes or lockouts. Can the State interfere
and enforce peace at the point of the bayonet? This would be
1 "Elements of Practical Sociology," C. D. Wright— Longmans, Green & Co.— p. 295.
Industrial Arbitration. iii
slavery pure and simple ; besides, it would put an end to the freedom
of contract which is warranted by the Constitution, and would sub-
stitute for it a most oppressive kind of State socialism. No resource
is left but to bring the representatives of capital and those of labor
to meet one another in friendly conference; and if agreement be
found impossible, to refer the whole question to an arbiter whom
both parties can accept and in whose decision both parties are bound
to acquiesce. Such is the only way, short of an appeal to brute
force, by which conflicts may be prevented or terminated without
violence, and without sacrifice of dignity on the part of either con-
tending party.
Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation are the names indifferently
given to this method of settling or preventing industrial conflicts ;
yet, although Conciliation and Arbitration are often merged into one
another, there are some differences between the two which ought to
be brought out clearly. Conciliation is an effort on the part of one or
several persons, acceptable to both parties, to reconcile their differ-
ences by making them understand each other and agree on a com-
promise, when a compromise is possible and equitable, thus pre-
venting an outbreak ; or, if the outbreak has occurred already, by
allaying the passions and presenting proposals on which both may
agree. The mediators may, or may not, have been appointed be-
forehand. The essential is that the peacemakers be not considered
as judges, but merely as mediators, and may act entirely in the
latter capacity. When Conciliation is possible, it is the mildest and
best way of preventing or ending conflicts, and it has the great ad-
vantage that it leaves no wounds to be healed except such as may
have been already inflicted before the mediators had begun their
work of reconciliation. Arbitration is a recourse to a judge or
umpire whose decisions are binding in honor or in law. Such deci-
sions must be based on the real merits of the case, not on the dis-
positions of the contending parties. The result of Conciliation is
an agreement ; the result of Arbitratimi is a judgment. Conciliation
requires prudence and sympathy for both disputants; Arbitration
requires equity and a judicial mind. Boards of Conciliation, estab-
lished permanently or not, have been often successful ; but it has
been often found that they led to no conclusion, unless Arbitration
stood back of them in order to give their decision sufficient weight
and authority.
Arbitration may be, first. Legal; that is, established and operated
under statute law with its sanction and power of enforcing awards ;
or, second. Voluntary; that is, established and operated by mutual
agreement. In either case, while there may be a choice as to the
112 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
submission of the dispute, yet, when so submitted, the decision is
binding upon both parties, and can, so far as its character permits,
be legally enforced. These distinctions are here introduced to ex-
plain the meaning of the authors who have written on this subject^
In this paper we shall consider arbitration as either Legal or
Voluntary.
Before expressing an opinion on the kind of tribunal which is
likely to be most successful in preventing industrial disputes, or in
settling them, without any appeal to force and without leaving the
scars of deep-seated wounds, it is best briefly to state what sort of
courts have been tried before, and what success has attended the
efforts at Conciliation and Arbitration. During the mediaeval period
the Guilds, i. e., the confraternities of craftsmen, could regulate both
trade and labor with the concurrence both of the State and munici-
pal authorities. Guilds had their chartered privileges and their
special jurisdictions, varying according to time, place and the pre-
vailing polity ; they had a sort of autonomy, and they consisted of
Masters, Journeymen and Apprentices, bound together by their con-
stitution and by a community of interests ; but, under their various
forms, those associations embodied the corporate strength of the
crafts which their officers represented. The workman was not iso-
lated ; he was a unit in an aggregate which possessed considerable
strength and power. Under the pretense of freeing the workmen
from a hateful bondage, but in reality with a view to concentrate the
energies of the nation in the moral impersonal being called the
State, these useful associations were suppressed. In France the
suppression took place in 1789. In England the Guilds were
stripped of their possessions by Henry VIII., and destroyed by the
Municipal Reform Act of 1835 > i^ Germany the North German In-
dustrial Code of 1869 had a similar effect. These ill-advised at-
tempts to free the workers from the laws imposed by the Guilds
had the effect of opening a gap between masters and workmen, of
bringing disorder where order was prevailing before, and of leaving
the workers defenseless in the hands of capitalists.
Napoleon I. saw the necessity of establishing a tribunal of Con-
ciliation and Arbitration which could supply the place of the guilds,
and by a decree dated March 18, 1806, he instituted a Conseil de
Prud'hommes (council of prudent men), and gave it an extensive
jurisdiction in trade matters. It proved successful, and similar in-
stitutions were founded in the principal trade centres. "These
Conseils," says Joseph D. Weeks, "are judicial tribunals established
under the authority of the Minister of Commerce, upon the request
1 Joseph D. Weeks in " Cyclopedia of Practical Science." Article : " Industrial Arbitration."
Industrial Arbitration. 113
of the Chamber of Commerce, indorsed by the Municipal Council
of the city where the proposed conseil is to be located. The request
sets forth the need of a conseil, the trades that will be represented in
it, divided into categories of cognate trades, and other facts that
^uide the Minister in deciding upon the application. The munici-
pal council promises to provide for the expenses of the conseil.
The officers of the conseil are a president and a vice president,
named by the Chief of State, who hold office for three years ; a
secretary, appointed and removed by the Prefect, and a certain num-
ber of members, termed prud'hommes, the number in any conseil
being not less ithan six, half of whom are employers and half em-
ployed, each class electing its own representatives. Certain qualifi-
cations as to ability, experience, age, residence and character are
required to be possessed, both by the prud'hommes and, in a less
degree, by those who elect them. The prud'hommes hold office for
six years, and, together with the officers, are re-eligible. The mem-
bers of the conseils serve without pay."
Probably the most important feature of this institution is the
division of the conseil into two chambers, called the private bureau
and the general bureau. The private bureau consists of two mem-
bers only, and its function is to conciliate. If it fail to conciliate,
then the case is referred to the general bureau. There another at-
tempt at conciliation is made. If this second attempt fail also, the
case is tried and judgment rendered. "The workings of these
courts have been beneficial to French industry, especially in concil-
iation, by which more than 90 per cent, of all cases brought before
tribunals are settled. In 1847 the sixty-nine councils then in ex-
istence had before them 19,271 cases, of which 17,951 were settled
by conciliation in the private bureau, 519 more by open conciliation,
and in only 529 cases was it necessary to have formal judgment. In
-1850, of 28,000 cases 26,800 were settled by conciliation. There
were, at the close of 1874, 112 councils in France. This is a most
satisfactory showing; but it falls far short of expressing the great
benefit these councils have been to French industry, especially in
removing causes of differences or preventing them from growing
into disputes."^
In these institutions abundant provision is made for conciliation
and for arbitration, although the latter is seldom necessary. But
arbitration is compulsory upon the application of either party, and
the decision of the courts can be enforced the same as those of any
other court. This is, in a measure, Compulsory or Legal Arbitration,
owing to this feature. The plan has not proven acceptable to Eng-
1 Carroll D. Wright : " Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration," p. 8.
114 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
lish workmen, who hate anything Hke compulsion. Tribunals very-
like the conseils have been established in Belgium also ; but, owing
probably to the fact that in the latter country they have, in some
cases, criminal jurisdiction, they are not as popular as in France.
"Previous to i860, a year which marks an epoch in the history of
industrial arbitration in England, it had frequently been applied to
the settlement of industrial disputes. Legal sanctions, however,
were never sought for the awards."^ It is evident that the success
of these institutions depends on the good-will of the working popu-
lation, and that the same measure of freedom does not suit alike all
social conditions.
"In England, though a law somewhat similar in its character to
that of France has been on the statute books since the fifth year of
the reign of George IV. (1824), so little use has been made of its
provisions that its existence was practically forgotten." Before
tribunals of Conciliation and Arbitration could be accepted their
decisions had to be deprived of their legal and compulsory features,
and to depend entirely on the sense of honor and on the esprit de
corps of the societies which called for their intervention.
Both Mr. Mundella and Mr. Kettle, who were chiefly instrumental
in causing the Boards of Arbitration and Conciliation to become
features of English industry, agree that these boards should be vol •
untary, and not compulsory. Though there are acts of Parliament
which provide compulsory legal powers, these acts remained dead
letter; while the voluntary boards, created under the influence of
these high-minded gentlemen, have been very successful and have
prevented or settled many disputes which would have proven very
disastrous to the English industry. The system adopted by Mr.
Mundella is now known as the Nottingham System of Arbitration
and Conciliation, because it was first put into practice in the hosiery
and glove trade which was carried on in the immediate vicinity of
Nottingham. ''From lyio to 1820 there is an awful list of murders,
riots, arson and machine breaking recorded," says Colonel C. D.
Wright, "all arising out of industrial differences." The awful penal-
ties enacted by Parliament prevented the continuance of these acts
of violence, but left the attitude of hostility between employers and
employes just what it was before the Draconian legislation was put
into force. Mr. Mundella met the workmen, showed them that the
existing conditions were deplorable and succeeded, not without
great difficulty, in making them constitute a Board of Conciliation
and Arbitration. Mr. Mundella himself was the first chairman of
the board, and speaking of this, he says : "I have a casting vote,
1 Carroll D. Wright : " Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration," p. 9.
Industrial Arbitration. 115
and twice the casting vote has got us into trouble, and for the last
four years it has been resolved that we should not vote at all. Even
when a workingman was convinced or a master was convinced, he
did not like acting against his own order, and in some instances we
had secessions in consequence of that ; so we said, *Do not let us
vote again ; let us try if we can agree ;' and we did agree." There is
an inherent defect in this system, for there is no provision for a
deadlock. Eventually they had to resort to an independent referee
or umpire. This defect was avoided in tha Wolverhampton system
by the election of an umpire. This was done by each party using
a list of six names. The first name on both lists was that of Mr.
Rupert Kettle, Judge of Worcestershire county. He was accord-
ingly elected and served for ten years. The Nottingham rules had
in the beginning no provision for arbitration, but had to make up
afterwards for the deficiency. The Wolverhampton system made
no provision at first for conciliation, but it became evident that this
feature was necessary to expedite business and diminish legislation,
and it was accordingly added to the system.
"The scheme adopted by Mr. Kettle," says Colonel Wright, "was
a simple but admirable application of the principles of common law.
A code of rules is framed ; these rules, signed by the arbitrators and
umpire, are posted in all the workshops represented in the board,
and a copy given each workman on his hiring, he being informed
that it is the contract under which he is to work. If any question
arises it is to be referred to the board, or the conciliation committee
under the amended rules, and it is by them decided. Any breach
of the rules is a breach of contract, which can be punished the same
as the breach of any other contract. It should be noted that this
idea of a contract enters much more largely into the question of
wages and the relation of employer and employed in England than
with us.
"There are two radical differences between this plan and the Not-
tingham system," adds Colonel Wright. "The latter provides no
method of enforcing the award of the board, while under the Wol-
verhampton system provision is made for their enforcement the same
as any other contract. . . . The second difference in the two
systems is the provision for the election of a permanent arbitrator or
umpire. . . . Mr. Crompton in his work/ though strongly
favoring conciliation, confesses that every board of conciliation must
have an ultimate appeal.
"Another of the rules embodied in this system is deserving of
more than passing notice. It is the third : 'Neither masters nor
1 " Industrial Conciliation," p. 24.
Ii6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
■nien shall interfere with any man on account of his being a society
man or a non-society man/ " Some rule of this kind should be
introduced into all labor combinations, or great disorders are un-
avoidable wherever there is a difference of opinion between the two
classes of men. Consequent upon such disorders the employment
of force is necessary, and there is an end of conciliation. A similar
agreement was entered upon in Philadelphia. It became necessary
because the agents of workingmen's associations had no authority to
make their agreements binding.
"Philadelphia, November 12, 1887.
'The twenty-four firms, members of the Boot and Shoe Manu-
facturers' Association, believe that to longer make an effort to deal
with an organization without the power to enforce contracts is use-
less, unbusiness-like, unjust to ourselves and to those of our late
employes who wish to work, and invites a risk of capital, reputation
and business that we cannot entertain. Therefore, profiting from
past experience and from observation of various manufacturing in-
dustries, we propose to open our factories on Monday, November
14, 1887. We will not discriminate for or against any person be-
cause he or she is not a member of any organization; (we) will meet
a committee of our working people as a board of arbitration, and
those who wish to work in our factories will be fully protected in
their workings by the following rules and regulations : The bill of
wages paid prior to the strike will be paid in each of the branches
in the several factories until December i, 1888, and should there be
any change desired at that time the rules make provision for that
change."^ Here follow the rules, which are too long for reproduc-
tion, but which will amply repay careful reading.
The need of courts of arbitration and conciliation is so evident
that very few will question their usefulness. Already in twenty
States such courts have been established by law, and most likely all
the other States will follow the example of these twenty States. But
among the systems which have been mentioned, which one is best
adapted to the wants of the time and to the character of the Ameri-
can people ? This is the question with which we have now to deal.
Five plans seem elastic enough to bear the modifications which time
and circumstances may suggest, and yet be available to prevent or
end industrial disputes.
First. The creation of a board of conciliation consisting of an
equal number of representatives selected by the employers and of
members elected by the workingmen. This board may have either
a temporary or a permanent existence. It would be best to give it
1 " Bulletin of the Department of I^abor" for January, 1897, pp. 18, 19, 20, 21.
Industrial Arbitration. 117
permanency. This is conciliation pure and simple, and agrees sub-
stantially with the Nottingham plan.
Second. A similar institution with the addition of an umpire not
belonging to either party, whose decision is final in case of a tie. The
carrying out of the judgment to be binding in honor, but not in law.
This is voluntary arbitration, and had to be resorted to in the place
of the casting vote of the chairman in the Nottingham plan.
Third. A tribunal appointed with the sanction of the State to try
conciliation first, then to pass a judgment. The conclusion of this
tribunal to be considered as a prima facie evidence of the right or
wrong on the side of either of the contending parties ; and, unless
rebutted, to be held as decisive by the courts of equity. This is sub-
stantially the Wolverhampton scheme, less the initial contract.
Fourth. A State-appointed tribunal with the same functions as in
No. 3, but with full power to compel the attendance of the parties,
to send for persons and papers, examine the books and judge the
case in first instance. This plan comes nearest to the institution of
the prud'hommes.
Fifth. Compulsory arbitration pure and simple. It has failed
completely in England, and it should never be resorted to except in
cases of great disorders which would cause serious public disturb-
ances and endanger the life and property of citizens. In our opin-
ion the powers entrusted to the courts of equity are amply sufficient
to meet such contingencies. Of course th.e mandates of these courts
should be enforced by civil and military authorities, for they are en-
titled to all the support that the State can afford.
In our opinion the Wolverhampton plan is the best, and would be
easily accepted by the American workmen. The Nottingham plan
seems to be so weak for want of any legal sanction that, in a country
where the population contains so many foreign and discordant ele-
ments, it might prove unfit to cope with the difficulties arising from
the varying phases of the struggle. It is true that the population is
becoming more and more homogeneous, and that there is a growing:
tendency on the part both of the manufacturers and of the work-
men to meet each other in friendly conferences ; but to expect that
the era of conflict between capital and labor is closed is to take an
over-sanguine view of the situation. Combinations of masters and
societies of workmen whose delegates would meet at the same board-
to discuss the questions which interest both, supplemented by a
State board of arbitrators whose decisions should be final, and
should, if necessary, be supported by State and national courts,
would probably be the best solution of the difficulty. A refusal to-
arbitrate should be considered as a presumption of fraud or unfair-
Il8 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
ness. An agreement to arbitrate should be a prerequisite to admis-
sion into these societies. We submit the text of an agreement of
the kind which has been in force for some time in the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts :
As I am a firm believer in the principle of arbitration, I propose to inaugurate that prin-
ciple in my business.
Now, therefore, I, John Smith, a shoe manufacturer, in the city of Brockton, Mass., of the
first part, and we, the undersigned, employes of said Smith, shoe manufacturer, of Brock-
ton Mass., of the second part, hereby mutually agree that whenever, hereafter, any griev*
ance, controversy or difference shall arise between said party of the first part and the under
signed employ& of the second part, we shall mutually submit the subject matter of such
controversy or difference to the State Board of Arbitration and Conciliation in the manner
provided by our statutes, and that, pending the decision of said board, the work and labor
in the factory of said Smith shall suffer no interruption, and that we will respectively abide
by the decision of said arbitration.
John Smith, Manufacturer.
William Jones,
Charles Brow^n, Employes.
When both masters and workmen are bound by a contract, as in
the Wolverhampton plan, there is always a sort of potential com-
pulsion, for the courts which have equity jurisdiction may enjoin the
fulfilment of the contracts. It is true that, as long as joint boards
of employers and employes are free to act and are willing to abide
by the judgment of an umpire selected by themselves, or to refer
their case to a court of conciliation and arbitration appointed by the
State, the actual employment of force is a remote contingency ; yet
the right to resort to it as a last resource abides with the regular
courts and gives great weight to the decisions of the umpire or of
the State board. This is probably as far as compulsion could go
safely. "Those who advocate the compulsory method of arbitrating
labor difficulties," says Colonel Wright, "do not hesitate to advocate
frankly that the State shall intervene and try the questions raised
and compel both parties to accept whatever result shall be rendered ;
they do not hesitate to admit that compulsory arbitration is a law
suit ; they declare that what our courts are to individuals a board of
arbitration would be to corporations, and, furthermore, they con-
tend that all supposed difficulties would vanish if a court of arbitra-
tion were established and its duties defined."^ But this is clearly an
illusion. Let us suppose the award is against the manufacturers,
and they object that they cannot continue to work their plants with-
out losing more money than their value can justify ; will you con-
fiscate their plants and have your own appointees run them ? This
would be a violation of property rights warranted by the Constitu-
tion; it would be nothing but undisguised socialism. What the
manufacturers would have to do would be to lower the value of
their products without lowering the prices, and then they might
1 The remarkable article of Colonel Carroll D. Wright from which these lines are taken
will be found in the Forum, May, 1893, p. 322.
Tennyson's Religion. 119
have a chance of recuperating themselves at the expense of the
public. Suppose, on the other hand, that the award is against the
workmen ; are you going to arrest them all and compel them at the
point of the bayonet to work for the wages which appear to you
sufficient ? How long would the people tolerate such a sort of com-
pulsion ? Why, your prisons would soon be filled, and all your sol-
diers would soon be engaged in driving the workmen to the mines
and the factories. In the meantime liberty would be at an end, and
the sway of despotism would be supreme. Moreover, compulsory
labor is very costly labor, and the people who in the last resort
would have to pay the expenses of this sort of compulsion would
soon put down the galling and costly despotism which would have
been created for the purpose of enslaving labor, while diminishing
production and increasing profitless consumption. Actual and
forcible compulsion will not solve the problem. Let us have con-
ciliation first; arbitration next. If neither the one nor the other
prove sufficient, then let the regular courts be appealed to in indi-
vidual cases in which laws are being openly defied or contracts have
been ruthlessly broken. If the property or life of citizens be as-
sailed, then, but then only, let the whole strength of the State be
called upon to support the laws and maintain public security.
Rev. Rene Holaind, S. J.
Washington, D. C.
TENNYSON'S RELIGION.
IN the modern literary world Tennyson may be regarded as most
characteristically English. Of the cultured British voice of
this century he has been an almost flawless organ, and all those
who speak the tongue that he used must exult in the music of which
he proved it capable. It is, perhaps, as a language-artist rather than
a poet of mankind that he will be best remembered. A remark of
Blackwood's Magazine of forty years ago is always true of his verse :
"It is a rosary of golden beads, some of them gemmed and radiant,
fit to be set in a King's crown ; but you must tell them one by one
and take leisure for your comment while they drop from your
fingers." He polishes and enshrines oftener than he delves or
quarries.
His subtle delicacy of thought, however, has touched most
I20 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
human subjects and has lured minds into heights and depths that
even his choicest words could but glimmeringly embody. To re-
ligion and matters cognate with it he recurs incessantly.
That poets either tend to or trench on things sacred is commonly
noticeable and easily explicable. Real poetry is always in some
degree an effort to suggest what is supersensible and even inex-
pressible. To move pleased sympathy to far-off true things, true
though presently intangible, seems its highest ambition ; hence the
leadings of the greater poets will, consciously or unconsciously, be
often toward the Infinite and Eternal.
Tennyson's poetico-religious gravitation is interesting in itself as
one man's feeling about for acceptable truth. It is still more inter-
esting as a figure of the bearing toward Christianity of educated
England. For, what England thinks and says may influence so
much of the world that her faith or unfaith is vastly important in
the eyes of all believers.
To the mere literary student of Tennyson the poet's religion is
also a primary question. Without it the personality and power of
the author of "In Memoriam" and the "Idyls of the King" would
sink and shrivel ; only a skin would remain — fine-veined, indeed, but
dry and empty. To come in contact with the sap of life he, like
other seekers after greatness, had to grope back towards our origin,
and to catch any glimpse at all of the highest fruit-bearing branches
of the race it is necessary to turn in the direction of our destiny.
Even Carlyle, the Balaam of bombast — who sometimes raked great
truths into his heaps of rubbish — categorically declares, "It is well
said, in every sense, that a man's religion is the chief fact with regard
to him." If this be true of every man, it must be specially predi-
cable of the writer — who aims at influencing his fellow-creatures,
most specially so of the poet — ^who would waft us toward all that
befits our loftiest aspirations.
Supposing, then, that Tennyson's religion is worthy of some
thought, let us see whether we can fairly determine its nature and
extent. The task is not easy. In spite of many lights afforded by
different schools of admiring interpreters, the subject lies in shadow,
with its outlines hardly discernible. Was the poet a believer or a
rationalist? Was he theist or pantheist? Was he Protestant or
Christian? All these questions are still askable, and could we ask
them of the man himself he might refer us to his published works.
"His creed," writes his son, "he always said he would not formulate,
for people would not understand him if he did ; but he considered
that his poems expressed the principles at the foundation of his
faith."
Tenny soft's Religion. 12 1
We may, therefore, assume that Tennyson's religion is to be
traced in what he wrote. Happily the search through his poems is
pleasant and advantageous. They are beautiful fields to wander in.
The air, though seldom of mountain or sea strength, is full of health-
ful odors, and the sights and sounds are mostly of the purest. When
the new Laureate sang admiringly of his predecessor, Wordsworth,
as "of him that uttered nothing base," he revealed his own tendency
and prefigured the judgment to be generally passed on himself.
'Tis charming to keep Tennyson's company — but what is his re-
ligion ? Were there such a thing as an English religion, I should be
inclined to call that his religion. The paramount excellence, actual
or prospective, of the English is his most masculinely inspiring ideal.
That his countrymen, in great crises, "were left to fight for truth
alone;" that they constitute "the one voice in Europe;" that his
country is "the eye, the soul of Europe ;" that keeping "noble Eng-
land whole" and saving its "one true seed of freedom" is helping "to
save mankind" — are all premises of his world-philosophy.
Excess of enthusiasm for his own nation bred some scorn of
others. It also fostered that strongly Saxon self-sufBciency which
was one of the Laureate's least amiable qualities. Being very Eng-
lish, he sometimes narrowed himself to standards arrogantly insular.
"No little German State are we," was a petty vaunt — though it oc-
curs in a generous outburst of patriotism. Indeed, Tennyson was
not himself the fullest exemplification of that broadly truthful dic-
tum of his : "That man's the best cosmopolite who loves his native
country best."
The poet's fine Englishry gleams through Newman's one brief
communication with him. "Great differences of opinion and per-
sonal history lie between us," the eminent convert wrote in 1877,
"but it would be strange if I alone of Englishmen did not feel the
force of those endowments of mind which have made your name so
popular."
His admiration of things nobly English led to views of higher
and wider range. Whilst exalting his countrymen he tried to exalt
humanity. He would hold it and prove it of measureless elevation.
Of his typical Anglo-Saxon he might mainly be thinking ; yet for
all men he was vindicating the possibility of spotlessness and the
likelihood of immortality. His maintaining that man ought to be,
must be, immortal is his most nearly religious effort. He is re-
ported to have said that "If faith means anything it is trusting to
those instincts, or feelings, or whatever they may be called, which
assure us of some life after this." There is here, of course, but a
poor description of faith — ^but of that later.
122 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
He held those wisest who "looked beyond the grave," not "crown-
ing barren Death as lord of all." Among other fine lines on the
dead he has these strong ones :
• ' Gone forever— ever ! No ! For since our dying race began,
:^er, ever, and forever, was the leading light of man."
And though he pleads for purity and truth and justice in any and
every case, yet he spiritually adds :
" The true, the pure, the just-
Take the cYiarra forever from them, and they crumble into dust."
He argues convincingly that our dim present life cannot be the
end of such creatures as we know ourselves to be, with all our
affections and aspirations. He will not have us "dream of human
love and truth, as dying nature's earth and lime." Least of all can
he imagine that noble characters become dust and no more. He
says he knows that "transplanted human worth will bloom to profit,
otherwhere." His lamented Hallam is — after all forms of discursive
speculation — at last firmly addressed as "dear heavenly friend that
can'st not die." Nelson he calls a "spirit among things divine ;"
and for Wellington, he doubts not "that for one so true there
must be other nobler work to do, than when he fought at
Waterloo."
With the same confidence, and more reason as well as grace, he
makes the dying May Queen whisper to her mother :
" Forever and forever, all in a blessed home—
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come-
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast—
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."
These passages and other similar ones, which if less explicit are
very frequent, might seem to authorize the statement that Tennyson
held absolutely to the common doctrine of another world. It is
hardly so, however. Having no fixity of belief, he is necessarily in-
consistent. He at times seems to give up the opinion of individual
continued existence. When rejecting the "faith as vague as all un-
sweet" that we shall merge "in the general soul," he certainly affirms
that "eternal form shall still divide the eternal soul from all beside,"
and that he shall know his friend when they meet; yet with the
same friend he afterwards mingles "all the world" and finds him
"some diffusive power mix't with God and Nature."
Here and there he gives indications of a leaning to something like
spiritual metempsychosis. He trusts "that those we call the dead
are breathers of an ampler day, for ever nobler ends," and he teaches
that the "eternal process moving on, from state to state the spirit
walks."
Tennyson's Religion. 123
In "The Two Voices" — ^where, as in stronger writings than any
of Tennyson's, the objections occasionally outweigh the solutions —
he yields points and confuses issues. He says :
" But if I g^ant thou might'st defend
The thesis that thy words intend-
That to begin implies to end ;
Yet how should I for certain hold,
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould?"
If these lines mean anything definite, they give up either indi-
vidual creation or individual immortality. That we are distinct from
others and from our Creator is — as we may see in regard to Hallam
— very strongly affirmed by Tennyson. Yet even on this prime
head his contention is not uniformly maintained. That saying re-
ported of him in his last sickness : "What a shadow this life is, and
how men cling to what is after all but a small part of the great
world's life," is at best equivocal.
The world, "the immeasurable world," appeared to become the
principal object of his later poetic contemplations. He looked on it
with awe ; he almost crouched before it, as unknowable and dreadful.
That he did not make it God, we are assured by those who knew
him most intimately; some passages of his, however, would very
nearly demand that interpretation. His speaking of God's "whole
world-self" and of "the Free-will of the Universe" may be only
Teutonic frippery; but a theist or even a deist significance is not
easily found in the quasi-definition :
" That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-oflF divine event.
To which the whole creation moves."
The bewildered poet was not quite decided about attributing per-
sonality to God, so he speaks of Him as "that which" is everywhere
and "that which made us." In his lines on "The Higher Panthe-
ism" he appears to argue that the manifestation of God in creation is
God Himself, for he says :
" The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains —
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns ?
Is not the Vision He ? tho' He be not that which he seems ?"
And, in queer contradictoriness, clinging more to human per-
sonality than to Divine, he adds :
" Dark is the world to thee : thyself art the reason why ?
For is He not all but thou (sic) that hast power to feel ' I am I ?' "
The seemingly final profession — "He, They, One, All; within,
without; the Power in darkness whom we guess" — is a sadly ob-
scured summary of belief.
124 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
A strange problem is offered by this apparent pantheism of the
poet, in connection with his many most gracefully Christian utter-
ances. His work occasionally has on it something resembling "the
light that shone when Hope was born" — as he beautifully sang of
the first Christmas. He speaks of "that mystery where God-in-man
is one with man-in-God," and by his rather untheological expression
may possibly mean the truth. He refers to "the Word," he invokes
the "Strong Son of God," he prays to Christ. But, alas ! we are
authoritatively told that by Word, Immortal Love, etc., he meant
merely "the Revelation of the Eternal Thought of the Universe" —
whatever that may be.
It would disappoint many to find that the author of such Christian
sentiment and even Christian argument as the poems display did not
himself believe in Christ. But the same inevitable unsatisfactori-
ness is in all pretences of Christianity without Catholicity.
How much there is of the right spirit in the treatment of the
Camelot knights and ladies! And yet fable runs there in closer
alliance with revealed truths than could be tolerated by a religious
believer.
In the introduction of Scripture phraseology, which is frequent
and dexterous, there is unpalatable evidence that the poet is rather
using the word of God than being guided by it. This, however,
seems a common characteristic of Bible-alone people. That he
really believes what he skilfully chants is never quite fully averred.
That he was ill-disposed to actual belief is often most painfully mani-
fested. He was inclined to dogmatize poetically on real faith;
though, that he ever had had any or even knew its meaning, is more
than problematical. His oft-quoted "we have but faith" sounds fair
enough till it is interpreted to mean — we are sure of nothing, not
even of the facts of so-called science. To the question, "Is there
any hope?" his answer came "in a tongue no man could under-
stand." He indulges in the threadbare, and for him most unworthy,
superficialities about forms and creeds and .^3;.?/^^^, seeming to think
that the truths held by Christians are of arbitrary human selection.
That faith means full assent, by the grace of God, to what we suffi-
ciently know God has revealed, is a fact of which he does not appear
to have the least inkling. His late as well as his early cry was that
"it is man's privilege to doubt," implying, too, that if he does not
doubt he must attach himself to an idol He wants his readers to
believe that "there lives more faith in honest doubt than in half the
creeds." Though the creeds he knew may have been worthy of
little consideration, yet his decrying them was but a catchy way of
raisinof prejudice a^-ainst religious authority. Similarly his wor-
Tennyson's Religion. 125
shiper "whose faith has centre everywhere" gets away from all in-
conveniently definite teaching. This might do if faith meant mere
"trusting to instincts or feelings," as we saw he expressed it. But
since it is a divine thing of highest intellectuality and obligation, he
was far from grasping not alone its practical but its poetical signifi-
cance.
Tennyson was really a victim of Anglican effeteness. His is an
impressive example. In him can be seen, as strikingly as in any
man of the century, the necessary result for highly-gifted religious
minds of entanglement in an illogically national system of church-
ism. He was too mistakenly English to cast England's religion
quite behind ; but he was injuriously perplexed by its hopeless in-
efficiency. He was driven to rickety imaginings of necessary wor-
ship because of the shallow inconsistency of the only cult with
which he was at all acquainted. Then he had to fall back on the
equally thin Protestantism of doubts and denials or of groundless
sentimental vaporings.
Yet this was not what Tennyson wished or needed. He wanted
undoubted truth to build on, and heavenly realities to nerve his
best aspirings. When the flimsiness of unorthodox religiosity
crumbled in his hands, he traced some of his daintiest figures in
very wretched dust. "Most delicately hour by hour he canvassed
human mysteries;" but they proved puzzles of ever growing per-
plexity. So he feared that in "seeking to undo one riddle" he
should "knit a hundred others."
It was all in vain to murmur "how sweet to have a common
faith ;" in vain to scorn the age in which "doubt is the lord of this
dunghill ;" in vain to anathematize his own "damned vacillating
state." He got no further, for he had no ground to go on. He
remained in sickly doubt, floundering now and again into sloppy
dilutions of false philosophy. He was probably sincere in saying
that he hated "utter unfaith," and he was convinced that "unfaith in
aught is want of faith in all." Nevertheless, he continued in ped-
dling uncertainty and, with more reason than his own Arthur, might
say at the end — "for all my mind is clouded with a doubt."
What a man he might have been had his feet been planted on the
rock of unfailing Catholic doctrine ! What a poet of humanity, too,
if he had been bathed in the light and warmth of the living Church
of God ! He himself said well of the poet that he should be "bravely
furnished all abroad to fling the winged shafts of truth," and of his
mind that "clear and bright it should be ever." This would require
most intelligent Catholicism ; and had Tennyson not been robbed
of his ancestral faith it might now be true to say of him, as he said
of his ideal poet :
126 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
" He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,
He saw through his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll.
Before him lay."
Antipathy to the Catholic religion is remarkable in the late
Laureate's work more perhaps by its absence than by its presence.
Complete exemption from the taint is too much to expect from any
author who belongs to even the most shadowy species of Protest-
antism. The most delicately sympathetic writers can be gross and
insulting on that point. Even Hawthorne and the Brownings and
Russell Lowell have, one time or other, befouled themselves by
throwing mud at the sanctities which they did not understand.
One of the great weights of iniquity on the English-speaking races
must undoubtedly be the enormous amount of traditionally stupid
libel which their writers have everywhere amassed against the
Church and her children. In its thick unrepenting unteachable-
ness it is also a blot on the annals of civilization. For rancorous
ill-will to anything so nobly — not to say divinely — upright and in-
tellectual as Catholicism is necessarily a base failing, whether the
baseness lie in ignorance or in immorality.
Tennyson cannot, on the whole, be classed as anti-Catholic, but
here and there he is weakly bigoted. He retails the English view of
fat monks, leering priests, bluff Harrys and iron-worded Luthers.
He is venomous in his representations of Philip and Mary and the
leading Catholics of their time. National hate or politic pandering
to it was incentive enough to caricature such personages. But
how the poet could condescend to make Cranmer figure as a con-
scientous Christian, and even try to patch him up as a martyr, is
beyond explanation. The arch-hypocrite is placed by Macaulay
among the catiff crowd of fallen angels who neither rebelled nor
were faithful, and of whom he writes :
"Slaves of his class are never vindictive and never grateful. . . .
When an attempt is made to set him up as a saint it is scarcely pos-
sible for any man of sense who knows the history of the times to
preserve his gravity. . . . It is extraordinary that so much
ignorance should exist on this subject. ... If Mary had suf-
fered him to live, we suspect that he would have heard Mass and
received absolution, like a good Catholic, till the accession of Eliz-
abeth, and that he would then have purchased, by another apostasy,
the power of burning men better and braver than himself."
The real Cranmer must have been thoroughly known to Tenny-
son, and the false representation was unworthy. Fidelity to his-
torical truth, in so leading a part, would have been commendable
and was even demanded by fairness. In minor points he sometimes
Tennyson's Religion, 127
exaggerated its importance. It was, perhaps, the weak dramatist's
straining after exactitude that caused him to put roughly irreHgious
language in the mouths of a few of his characters. But there was
no excuse for his allowing Elizabethan ruffians to pronounce what,
to Catholic ears, is ugly blasphemy. There the bigot ousted the poet.
Where nationalism at all entered he was unfair. To the mid-
century priesthood of France he is sullenly referring when he says :
" The Jesuit laughs, and reckoning on his chance,
Would unrelenting
Kill all dissenting "
The uglier British tone may again be recognized in the silly
query: "Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter — ^which was cruder,
which was worse ?"
To Catholic forms of expression the poet is addicted simply be-
cause he is a poet. The depth and tenderness of the true religion
attracts genius — artistically if not otherwise. Hence imaginative
writers seldom treat seriously of anything Christian without taking
on a semblance of Catholicity. Hence also are some authors so
much more apparently Catholic in their spontaneous verse than in
their prejudiced prose. Protestant and English as he is, Tennyson
says pretty things about the Heavenly Bridegroom, the CruciHx, the
Blood of God, the Blessed Saerament, the Maid-mother, the Angels,
the Saints, the confession and forgiveness of sin. Martyrdom, too,
and chastity and mortification, and other grandeurs character-
istically Catholic, are treated with decent reverence.
The poet's occasional leaning to Church ways may be attributed
in some degree to his aristocratic radicalness. He advocated no-
bility with equality. The leveling-up process was one of his human
perfectibility dreams. Proud he certainly was — personally most
proud. To the "daughter of a hundred Earls" he could truly
affirm: "Your pride is yet no mate for mine, too proud to care
from whence I came." But his pride was in real or imagined worth
and plumed itself mostly on its broadly human sympathies. It was
not pettily selfish. The haughty reserve and lofty disdainfulness
of the man may receive the gentlest interpretation when we recall
how genuinely he hymned the true nobility of goodness, of kind-
ness, of simple faith. He finally accepted a title and its honors ; yet
there is the ring of sincerity in his scorn of vaunting any lineage
above our common descent from "the grand old gardener and his
wife."
For the luxurious refinements of high caste society he had the.
English gentleman's appreciation. He aspired to place and name
and wealth, and to the daintiness of life which they render possible.
But the touch of nature he never loses : and one of the clearest
128 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
glimpses of his character is caught in his advice — no matter what
else is possessed — to "pray heaven for a human heart."
The Church's insistence on the dignity of redeemed humanity
must have pleased a mind like Tennyson's. He could hardly help
coinciding with her true statement of the sense in which all men are
equal, and of the grounds of individual preeminence. Natural
equality as a basis for merited supernatural excellence ofifers a fine
field for the exercise of constructive imagination. There human
affairs may be treated most radically and yet not lowered. True
worth, true as God sees it, is alone considered ; but that is no less
raised than from earth to heaven. Hence, being an aristocrat by
taste and a democrat on principle, the noble bard sympathized with
the elevated justness of the Catholic system.
Nevertheless, his training and his environment rendered ludi-
crously false his intentionally Catholic appreciations. The fallen
Guinevere has but just had her shame discovered when she is made
to say to the holy Sisters : "So let me be a nun like you" — and she
is soon nun and abbess ! That exemplified, indeed, an English view
of cloister happenings. The Catholic idea of asceticism is also
missed. Tennyson's "Simeon Stylites" is an avowed candidate for
canonization ; he boasts blatantly ; he proposes himself for worship,
and is, withal, a whining unreality.
From the most shocking of carnal errors concerning Christianity
(that which would identify natural or sexual love with divine char-
ity) the poet is not quite exempt. His later social perfection
chimeras may have lured him toward that quagmire. Having no
hold on "the substance of things to be hoped for" in another life,
and being "immers'd in rich foreshadowings" of an earthly future,
he sang of "the crowning race of humankind" and of "what the
world will be when the years have died away." Even his lauded
pean of victory — "ring in the Christ that is to be" — is nothing more
than a proclamation that "social truth shall spread."
But unstable and changing as men without faith must always be,
he finally doubted about this worldly progress and the promised
eras of bliss. There is heard a double despondency in the lines :
" 'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven
As on this vision of the golden year,"
and the weakest hopelessness in the couplet:
" Earth may reach her earthly worst, or if she gain her earthly best,
Would she find her human offspring— this ideal man at rest?"
How unsatisfactory is this ending to a great soul's research and
a great teacher's doctrine ! He never reached the rock foundation,
and so he raised no lasting edifice. Of what he erected — philo-
sophic or religious — his own words must prove true : "The house
Tennyson's Religion. 129
was builded of the earth, and shall fall again to the ground." His
unhappy spiritual condition seems often unconsciously pictured by
himself. To whose case more forcibly than to his own could be ap-
plied the words, "Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the
living truth!"? It was the inveterate bias of the Reformation that
kept him astray. England was the real Princess of whom he said :
"And so she wears her error like a crown, to blind the truth and
me." Bereft of the divine certainty which Catholic teaching as-
sures, he could but piteously lament :
" I stretch lame hands of faith, and g^rope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all.
And faintly trust the larger hope."
Lame and faint, indeed, must have been such a soul's reliance on
the rubbishy impertinences of Universalism. And yet he is said to
have twisted to his "larger hope" ineptitude even Dante's grand
sentence : "Fecemi la divina pote state, la somma sapienza, e H primo
amove'' — because, forsooth, amore is last mentioned. The poet the-
ologian was, of course, but marking the Procession of Persons in
the Blessed Trinity, and the truth that acts ad extra are common to
the three.
There is pleasure in noting an approach to the Christian's trust
in those last published lines of the poet :
" For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place,
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar."
But the Shakespeare incident has a tawdry unfitness about it. A
dying poet's asking for his copy of the great dramatist may be an
effect of habit, and may approve itself to literary mawkishness ; but
such a request, responsibly made, could scarcely do less than jar
with the Christian solemnity of the decisive moment. What is
there to admire in a man's dying with any man's book in his hand ^
The awfulness of the passage would have been very differently
illumined were the poet's belief the living reality that his best
friends might desire. Then, too, a trace of Gerontius' fear and con-
trition and confident supplication would leave nobler impressions on
the minds of sorrowing witnesses.
A Catholic's review of the Laureate's life-work is, not unreason-
ably, tinged with sadness. There is a feeling that much has been
wasted. The poet's natural endowments were rich, his opportuni-
ties were splendid, his intentions generally pure; yet he accom-
plished relatively little. The art results may, indeed, be great ; but
the moral effect is trifling or questionable. With his powers of
mind, his university training, his inherited respect for Christianity
130 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
and his markedly religious tastes, he seemed qualified to be a
teacher. Moreover, he set out with high resolves. He appeared
to mean it when he sang :
" And yet, though all the world forsake,
Tho' fortune clip my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things."
The groundwork, however, failed. His lessons were seldom
either impressive or conclusive ; for on crucial points he could rarely
venture to say — yes or no. He hobbled between dilemmas and
wavered on lines of cleavage. If he dogmatized, it was as fancy
led, and contradiction came with a change of humor. Having no
infallible reserve of truth which he could unquestioningly call his
own, he was often helplessly at sea in his favorite quasi-religious
speculations. At times he felt himself sinking, and confusedly drew
back. But honestly to avow ignorance and seek for light was
foreign to his disposition. In intellectual pride he spun many cob-
webs over the deficiencies of his knowledge. When the want of
reserve which marks non-Catholic tampering with mysteries of re-
ligion pushed him into statements that he would not deliberately
maintain, he awkwardly sidled out of the difficulty.
His deeper sympathies seemed undeniably with revealed truths,
but revelation and truth are hazily changeable to the vagaries of
private judgment. It is a fact, also, that he repudiated the wish to
"part and divide," or to close the "grave doubts and answers" which
he proposed. He would poetically introduce the "slender shad^ of
doubt," but would not draw the "deepest measure from the chords."
All this, however, is but trifling, and trifling in matters of religion
arises from one source — from defect of faith.
There is a certain parity between England's religious state and
Tennyson's. She has so much that is good one wonders she has
not more. Long and singularly blessed in temporal estate, she has
unfortunately missed her spiritual mission. It is not that she has.
no desire to evangelize. Like the belated Jews, she has a zeal for
the law — as she chooses to interpret it. But her labor is vain, for
she cannot give what she has not. She lacks the one note which
makes a message acceptable — the satisfying note of authority. Not
being sure of the truth of God, how can she pretend to impart it ?
In her best creed and psalm there is an unavoidable discord. At
home or abroad her teaching is never long heard before it is found
to contradict itself. The discrepancy may appear at first to be, as in
Tennyson's song, but a "little rift within the lute ;" yet by and by
it "will make the music mute, and ever widening slowly silence all."
The rift in England's lute is the breach with the Church. For a
brief space of time it may have looked little. When only the Su-
Tennyson's Religion. 131
premacy was explicitly rejected, the squeaking sounds produced
might pass with the unskilled ear as the voice of Catholicity. But
with the Supremacy necessarily followed the Infallibility, and with
the Infallibility Tradition, and with Tradition all certain Revela-
tion. The widening of the rift went so far that the silence of all the
music of the Gospel seemed imminent. Then half-remedies were
hastily adopted ; but only the few have yet had the courage to take
the heroic part of closing the breach. Some would be Christian,
but not Catholic ; others would — as the Laureate makes the Queen
Mary gentlemen express it — be Catholic, but not Papist.
England's loss of faith is a loss to the world, yet still the loss is
principally her own. Apart from eternal questions and prospects,
all her intellectual life is falsified. It is evident that our essential
relations with heaven cannot be mistaken or misstated without a
derangement of all our rational bearings. A civilized nation in
error concerning Christianity may, in a very special sense, be said
to toil in the night; and walking in the darkness it hurts itself
against every stone of offense. When its energies are not paralyzed
its efforts are thrown away. 'Tis pitiful to see England's Glad-
stones and Tennysons and Ruskins and Arnolds spending their
gorgeous powers in the endless search for subterfuges from infidelity
on the one hand and from Catholicity on the othen Could they
enter on their careers in the secure possession of the Church's great
world of unfailing truth, they would be giants in the good fight for
true human liberty and progress.
The old fallacy that Catholics must be intellectually stunted, that
their faith enslaves their understandings, is now but rarely ad-
vanced. It never could have any respectable support. Tennyson,
indeed, refers to "cramping creeds," but he was not speaking — for
he was unaware of its existence — of the fulness of Revelation infal-
libly enjoyed. 'Tis almost a truism to say that truth, most particu-
larly the highest truth, constitutes the intellect's proper object, and
opens for it a boundless sphere of action. To range there is to be
untrammeled. The bird is not less free because its flight is con-
fined to the limits of the atmosphere : that's its element. Any truth
of the Catholic religion is wider and higher than the reach of wing
of even the eagles of human intelligence. Tennyson's airy fancy
might have gilded nobler pinnacles than he ever reached, had he
believed as the Church does ; and he would have trod with surer
foot, avoiding many stumbles. His aberrations were only loss and
could have in them no poetic beauty.
The wandering from even natural truth of so many of England's
most intellectual non-Catholics should be a matter for serious re-
ligious reflection. The abandonment to a reprobate sense is a
£32 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
Scripture threat to be always dreaded. Men of deep science are
teachable : they believe on sufficient authority. And as refusing to
acknowledge God's unmistakable voice in our own time and place
is in other ways a tendency toward bestiality, so is it also in the
consequent darkening of the intelligence. Believing that we may
know is human. Far more retrograde are the polished doubters of
modern England, in the winter of their torpid agnosticism, than are
the simplest faithful who live always in the season "when faith,** as
St. Augustine so profoundly observed, "predisposes them for the
exercise of reason."
With faith Tennyson might have been a Dante for the ages to
come, while with delusive Anglicanism he may be regarded, after
all, as only the most delicate of rationalistic versifiers. Similarly
his country, with its traditionally Christian name, has retained but
liittle of its Christian character. Its influence does not spread be-
lief. Where England alone of the civilized nations is known, Chris-
tianity is regarded as mere respectability or mere hypocrisy. There
is hardly a true missionary that does not prefer to meet the un-
tutored savage rather than the spoiled heathen who bears a varnish
of Anglo-Saxon religion or education. The divisions and vacilla-
tions of so-called Christians supply an excuse for making light of
conversion ; their open or most thinly-veined worldliness is a stand-
ing cause of scandal and derision.
When Tennyson sang that he counted "the gray barbarian lower
than the Christian child," he was glorifying civilized progress and
its wealth in books, in railways, in steamships. He was expressing
no preference for Christian belief; but, as often occurs to poets, his
words carried farther than he aimed. The Christian child with its
Christian catechism is, intellectually, on a higher plane than any
barbarian ; and barbarian, in a growingly literal sense, must be con-
sidered every man who has not an intelligent hold on the elements
of the Church's teaching. Her disciple alone is "the heir of all the
ages." The sweeping statement, "Better fifty years of Europe than
a cycle of Cathay" will still be accepted as substantially correct.
The Europe, however, of such incomparable value is not the
Europe of godless schools and fashionable infidelity; not even the
Europe of minute refinement and colossal marketing. These
things China may have had for decades of centuries. 'Tis rather
the Europe of the believing nations, the Europe of art and industry
built up on Christian standards ; the Europe of heroism and sacri-
fice that, whilst ennobling every object of sense, was ready to give
up all for the unseen realities of faith.
George Lee, C. S. Sp.
Bennett, Pa.
Cardinal Giuliano delta Rover e. 133
CARDINAL GIULIANO DELLA ROVERE.
" The History of the Popes From the Close of the Middle Ages." Drawn from the Secret
Archives of the Vatican. From the German of Dr. Ludwig Pastor, Professor of History in
the University of Innsbruck, indited by Frederick Ignatius Autrobus, of the Oratory. Vol-
umes V. and VI. B. Herder, St. Louis, Mo.
THE welcome intelligence of the death of his inveterate en-
emy, Alexander VI., reached the Cardinal of St. Peter ad
Vincula in his French retreat, and was a signal that the
days of his exile were ended. In a few days he was back in Rome,
and in a few months he was Pope Julius II. As Borgia had adopted
Alexander the Great for his patron saint, della Rovere invoked the
Twa.1 memory of Julius Caesar. The words of Dante spring to our
lips:
" Un Marcel diventa
Ogni villan che partegg^ando viene."
Without wasting time in moralizing, we cannot but regret that
Julius did not imitate his great prototype in one particular : he ought
to have found time, amidst his manifold activities, to write or dic-
tate his commentaries. Unfortunately for his reputation, he left the
task of immortalizing his name to painters, sculptors and architects,
and never did Pope or King employ artists of such transcendent
merit; but he neglected to secure the humble but more effective
services of the scribe. In consequence his historical character has
fared worse than the magnificent monument which Michel Angelo
designed for him, but never completed. Enough and to spare was
written about his pontificate ; but as he had a peculiar gift of making
enemies for himself, and as the virulence of a Renaissance enemy
was truly demoniacal, there is no crime of which a human being is
capable that has not been charged against him. On the other hand,
none of his contemporaries deemed it his business to undertake the
defense of this "terrible" apparition.
As for the thirty-two years of his Cardinalate, it is well-nigh im-
possible to reduce his erratic career to anything like consistent con-
duct. And yet there must be a key to the actions of so resolute a
man if we could but discover it. The task of discovering this key
we shall leave to some one more highly gifted with psychological in-
sight ; we are content to follow the mighty Cardinal as he appears
and disappears on the ever-shifting stage of Italian politics.
The only writer of importance who has made a special study of
the personal history of della Rovere is Moritz Brosch, whose well-
known monograph, "Papst Julius II.," appeared in Gotha in 1878.
134 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
It is confessedly a one-sided presentation of the subject, founded
mainly upon documents preserved in the Venetian Archives. The
author by long study has become so thoroughly imbued with the
Venetian spirit that one might imagine he was writing a political
pamphlet in the interest of the Signory. This is surely an unsatis-
factory method of writing "scientific" history. His concluding
words, moreover, prove that he did not himself consider that he had
done full justice to his "hero," for he tells us :
"The true grandeur of this Pope lies in a domain outside the
framework of this treatise, and we must here hand him over to the
specialist historian of art : we refer to his relations to the building
arts. It was given to him, by virtue of a will-power which de-
manded to be immortalized, not only to admire the sublimest pro-
ducts of monumental creations which the human spirit has brought
forth since the palmy days of Greece, but to be a co-worker in their
production. Chance, or what may appear to us to be such, gave
him for contemporaries the most perfect of artists ; but it is his work,
his merit, his enduring renown that, seizing his opportunity, he
recognized these artists, entrusted to them the mightiest of tasks
and spurred them on with passion and intelligence. The name of
Julius II. has been engraved in marble in indelible characters by
Michel Angelo, the greatest of modern artists and the noblest per-
sonage of the Italian Renaissance, and time will not eflFace it."^
It is obvious that a biography which so sharply and curtly dis-
tinguishes between "Julius the follower of Pericles the Olympian
and Julius the statesman and Pope-King" can present no full and
adequate picture of a busy and many-sided life. It would be more
accurate to designate Brosch's treatise as "The Story of Julius II.
as Viewed by Contemporary Venetians."
There is ample room, therefore, for a life of this extraordinary
Pontiff to be written with a far greater breadth of vision than Brosch
allowed himself to take, and from a more impartial standpoint.
Giuliano was born December 5, 1443, at Albizzola, a hamlet in
the neighborhood of Savona. Pastor still maintains against the
opinion of Reumont, Brosch and others that the della Rovere fam-
ily, though impoverished, was of noble extraction. Whatever
doubt there may be of its nobility, there is none of its extreme pov-
erty. The future arbiter of Europe began life either as an artisan
or, according to another account, as a clerk in the service of Vene-
tian merchants. Bembo's venemous libel that "shortly before his
elevation to the Cardinalate" he had been detected in the theft of
two ducats from his employers is of value, as Brosch wisely remarks,
1 p. 276.
Cardinal Giuliano delta Rover e. 135
only as manifesting the hatred and contempt with which his name
was mentioned in the circle of the Venetian nobihty.
At an early age he followed his uncle, Francesco della Rovere,
into the Order of St. Francis, and when Francesco forged his way
upward through the gradations of general of the order and Cardinal
to the Papacy, the nephew followed rapidly in the path of glory.
Sixtus IV. is the Pope who reduced nepotism to a political science
and made it the engine of Papal government. Finding the States
of the Church torn and distracted by rebellious and semi-indepen-
dent barons, and suspecting on the part of the Sacred College a dis-
position to look down on the scion of a lowly house, he determined
to surround himself with agents entirely devoted to his own person
and ready to execute his commands with implicit obedience.
Thanks to the fecundity of his Ligurian stock, he was abundantly
supplied with relatives, who were invited to Rome and elevated to
the highest dignities of Church and State.
Sixtus was elected Pope on the 9th of August, 1471, and four
months later, notwithstanding the indignant pfotests of his Cardi-
nals— protests which were rather deep than loud — he introduced, as
the equals of the sons of the old Italian nobles, two of his nephews
whose parents had won a scanty livelihood by fishing in the Golf of
Genoa. Then, for the first time, men learned two names which they
were destined often afterwards to pronounce with aflfection or hatred,
Riario and della Roz'ere. To his sister's son, Pietro Riario, aged 24,
Sixtus gave the title of Cardinal of S. Sisto ; to Giuliano, who was
four years older than his cousin, was given the title vacated by his
uncle, of S. Peter ad Vincula, by which he was known to the civil-
ized world for above thirty-one years.
In order to enable these two poor Franciscan friars, now become
the spoiled children of fortune, to sustain their dignity with proper
state, the indulgent uncle showered upon their heads a bewildering
accumulation of Patriarchates, Archbishoprics, Bishoprics, Abbacies
and other opulent benefices in every part of Christendom. The re-
sults of this sudden metamorphosis upon the two young men were
as different as their characters. The open-hearted and light-headed
Riario ran a course of extravagance which brought him to his grave
in two years, leaving the record, unprecedented in those days, of
having spent 200,000, or as some will have it, 300,000- ducats, and
bequeathing to his fond uncle 60.000 ducats of debts. An attempt
was made some thirty years ago by the Civilta Cattolica to reinstate
his memory before the court of history, but, we regret to say, the
attempt was a failure.
The tougher fabric of Giuliano's character enabled him to resist
136 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the temptations to dissipation before which his cousin fell so easy a
victim ; and although Madama Felice remained to furnish irrefraga-
ble testimony that her father had not in his youth been in-
variably true to his monastic vows, nevertheless the general tenor
of his conduct was earnest and dignified. Frivolous pleasure pos-
sessed at no time of his life much attraction for the restless soul of
Julius. In this respect he bore a strong resemblance to his ener-
getic uncle; and possibly for the very reason that both drew so
copious an amount of sap from the family "oak," the relation be-
tween them was rather that of respectful admiration than of warm
affection. Giuliano was never his uncle's "favorite;" nor can we
imagine the reserved, gruff, headstrong man as a favorite with any
one. Whatever affection Sixtus possessed went out to his sister's
children; and his preference for the Riarii was so pronounced that
whispers began to spread abroad that Pietro and his brother Giro-
lamo must be nearer to the Pontiff in blood than was officially pro-
claimed. The suspicion was without foundation ; but in the days of
Machiavelli suspicion built whole castles without foundations, and
many of these airy castles have endured to the present time.
Whilst Cardinal Riario was dazzling and shocking the Italians
with epicurean banquets and with royal progresses through the
States of the peninsula, Giuliano was devoting his time and his
large revenues to his favorite occupation of building palaces and
fortresses. Indeed it soon became patent that the two cousins were
at cross purposes and that there was but little love between them.
Each had a brother for whose advancement he was eager. Giulia-
no's brother Giovanni was a student at the University of Pavia, and
Cardinal Riario having ascertained that Duke Galeazzo of Milan
"had cast his eyes upon him and expressed a wish that this nephew
of the Pope's should be connected with his family by marriage,"^
had him secretly conveyed from Pavia to Rome, and substituted in
his stead his notorious brother and successor in the Pope's affec-
tions, Girolamo, upon whom Sforza bestowed the hand of Caterina,
his natural daughter. It can scarcely be wondered at that so vin-
dictive a man as Giuliano should have preserved a life-long resent-
ment against Girolamo, which manifested itself in many a sudden
outbreak of anger whilst the latter was omnipotent in the counsels
of Sixtus, and yet more in the aid which Giuliano gave to Cesare
Borgia in the uprooting of his dynasty in the Romagna. Giuliano
secured a more substantial, if less brilliant, alliance for his brother by
marrying him into the family of Federigo di Montefeltro, Count,
later Duke, of Urbino, which eventually resulted in the establish-
ment of the della Rovere dynasty in that Duchy.
' Pastor, IV., 247.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rover e. 137
After the premature death of Cardinal Riario in 1474, Giuliano
came forward more prominently ; and it is characteristic of him that
his first appearance should be at the head of an army. The object
of this military expedition was to reestablish something like order in
the valley of the Tiber, some of the cities of which were a prey to
downright anarchy, others, especially Citta di Castello, were usurped
by petty tyrants. The warlike Cardinal succeeded in reducing Todi
and Spoleto; but when he addressed himself to the subjugation of
Niccolo Vitelli, the tyrant of Citta di Castello, he found his efforts
opposed by the machinations of Florence, Milan and the neighbor-
ing barons. The greedy merchants of Florence were intent upon
enlarging their territory at the expense of the Church, and were
much annoyed because Sixtus had forbidden the sale to them of his
city of Imola, which had come temporarily into the hands of Sforza.
As regards the larger and smaller dynasts of Italy, from the Duke
of Milan and the King of Naples to the most insignificant of them,
since they all held their domains with no other title than the sword,
it had become the unwritten law that they should all unite to prevent
the deposition of any de facto ruler.
An instructive illustration of the working of this law of "honor
among thieves" had recently been furnished by no less faithful a
vassal of the Holy See than the Count of Urbino himself. For
twenty-four years Federigo had waged war against Sigismond Mala-
testa, Lord of Rimini, who was straining every nerve to form for
himself an independent kingdom in Central Italy. Finally, in 1463,
the Pontifical troops succeeded in crushing the tyrant, and Mala-
tcsta was permitted by Pius II. to retain the city of Rimini as a per-
sonal fief until his death, upon which it should devolve to the imme-
diate jurisdiction of the Church. Sigismond died in 1469, leaving
no legitimate issue from his numerous wives. But, strange to say,
Federigo supported the pretensions of Robert Malatesta, a natural
son of Sigismond, against the Supreme Pontiff and "arranged a new
confederation of Milan, Florence and Naples for the independence
of Rimini.^ So jealous were the Pope's vassals and neighbors of
any increase of his power. Actuated by this same feeling, Sforza,
the Medici and the King of Naples lent every aid to the little tyrant
of Citta di Castello. Federigo, no doubt, sympathized with him,
but was bought off by the alluring vision of the ducal crown and the
flattering offer of alliance with the Papal family. Resuming his old
command as general of the Papal forces, Duke Federigo appeared
before Citta di Castello and had sufficient influence and diplomacy
to free Cardinal Giuliano from a most embarrassing situation.
1 Dennistown : " Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino." Vol. I., p. 186.
138 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Vitelli made a nominal surrender and accompanied the Duke and
the Cardinal to Rome. "Surrounded by treachery, with such an
ally as Ferrante of Naples at his side, and with neighbors like Lo-
renzo de Medici, can the Pope be blamed for establishing his
nephews firmly in the States of the Church, where a Cesare Borgia
and a Pope like Julius 11. were needed to purge it from its oppress-
ors great and small ?"^ The extreme recklessness with which the
Italian politicians pursued their plans for the weakening of their
neighbors is expressed with cynical frankness in Lorenzo's utter-
ance : "For any one in my position, the division of power is advan-
tageous ; and, if it were possible without scandal, three or four Popes
would be better than a single one."^
How Pontiffs of a different stamp from Sixtus IV. would have
dealt with the problems which confronted him we can only surmise.
The Rovere Pope saw no way out of his difficulties except to adopt
the tactics of his adversaries. He had a fit instrument for such work
at hand in the person of his nephew Girolamo Riario. This worthy
had begun life either as a clerk in a drug store or as public scrivener,
or probably in both capacities. Had he been left at these humble
occupations it would have been a great blessing for the Catholic
Church. But unfortunately he was destined for higher and baser
things. We have seen how, through the intrigues of his brother,
he had been intruded into the family of the Duke of Milan. His
wife, Caterina Sforza, was, to be sure, only a bastard daughter of the
Duke, but, as Commines somewhere quaintly remarks, female ille-
gitimacy was of no consequence among the Italian princes of that
age. Caterina possessed all the energy and unscrupulous ambition
characteristic of her family, and she brought her husband as dowry
the city of Imola in the Romanga. It was Pandora's gift for Italy
and the Universal Church. For, in the first place, it was well under-
stood that this petty countship was intended to be only the stepping-
stone by which Girolamo should rise to greatness ; and, secondly, the
establishment of a Papal nephew in that region ran counter to the
views of the Florentine magnate, Lorenzo de Medici. The conse-
quence was the shameful tragedy enacted in the Cathedral of Flor-
ence in 1478, and the war with the Republic which convulsed the
Peninsula and led to still worse evils.
All these deplorable transactions are narrated by Pastor frankly
and dispassionately, and we refer the reader to his pages. We al-
lude to them here simply in order to state that the Cardinal of St.
Peter ad Vincula was in no wise responsible for this dark side of the
Pontificate of his uncle. There was, however, a bright side to this
Pastor, IV. , p. 268. 2 Pastor, I V. . p. 300^
Cardinal Giidiano delta Rover e. 139
Pontificate, and in it Giuliano figures quite creditably. Sixtus, as
everybody knows, was by eminence the patron of the arts and the
renovator of Rome. In this field of work he was ably assisted, if
not instigated, by the energetic and art-loving Cardinal, and beyond
doubt many of the great artistic glories of Sixtus owe their existence
to the wise suggestions of Giuliano. In addition, the Cardinal, out
of his own revenues, rebuilt the Church and Convent of S. Pietro in
Vincoli, continued the work begun by Cardinal Riario on the SS.
Apostoli and fortified Grottaferrata and Ostia. He was also en-
trusted with several important embassies to the European powers.
In 1476 we meet him in France ;^ in 1480 he is Legate in the Nether-
lands ;^ again in 1482 he is Legate at the Court of Louis XI. and
returns to Rome with the released Cardinal La Balue. In fact,
Giuliano, according to modern notions, ought to have taken up his
permanent residence in France, to look after his Archiepiscopal See
of Avignon and his bishoprics of Viviers and Mende. But these
sees were of interest to him at that time for revenue only.
During the last two years of the Pontificate of Sixtus (1482-1484),
years made gloomy by the disgraceful war against Ferrara and the
dissensions of the Orsini and the Colonna, Giuliano appears at his
best in the quality of peacemaker. No one attempts, except on the
plea of senility, to justify the alliance of Sixtus with the grasping
Republic of Venice for the overthrow of the Este dynasty. It was
an insane scheme of Girolamo to aggrandize himself with the aid
of Venice, and when he discovered (what was patent from the begin-
ning) that the Venetians, after devouring Ferrara, would devour his
own little territory, he caused his uncle to turn face, order his allies
to vvillidraw their troops, and, on their refusing, to excommunicate
them. It would be difficult to find in the entire history of
the Papacy so reckless an exercise of the supreme power of the
keys.
The Ferrarese war was on the point of breaking out when Car-
dinal Giuliano returned from his second legation to France ; and to
him Duke Ercole d'Este and Lorenzo de Medici had recourse, be-
seeching him to exert his influence in the interest of peace. "Thjy
were well acquainted," says Pastor,^ "with the Cardinal's opinion of
the ambitious and restless Riario." "Duke Ercole," says Reumont,*
"vainly tried through Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere to make the
Pope understand that it would be neither to the honor nor the ad-
» Pastor, IV., p. 322, very justly expresses his amazement that Brosch knows nothing of
this embassy, and finding no mention of Giuliano in contemporary Venetian authorities,
" takes upon himself to suggest that the Cardinal legate may at this time have fallen under
the Pope's displeasure." Thus history is written ! 2 pastor, IV., 334. 3 ly., 352. * " I^orenzo
de Medici," Vol. 11., p, 198.
I40 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
vantage of the Holy See to leave him to be crushed by the superior
power of Venice,'' Unfortunately, the aged Pope was so completely
enslaved by the overbearing Riario that, as Brosch remarks, "twenty
Giulianos could not have moved him to act against the will of Giro-
lamo."^
Giuliano made another solemn effort in July, 1482. Placing him-
self at the head of the Cardinals then residing in Rome, he repaired
to the Vatican and earnestly implored the Pope to restore tranquil-
lity to Italy. "Hearing of this, Girolamo hastened to the Holy
Father and succeeded in dissipating the last hope of peace." It was
a strange and aimless war, and so completely were the old ideas and
traditions of men upset that we find the Duke of Urbino leading the
troops of the Pope's enemies, whilst the Papal army is under the
command of Robert Malatesta.
It was slow work convincing Sixtus that in aiding to extend the
possessions of Venice he was building up the most dangerous enemy
of the Holy See — "the very power which threatened to become most
dangerous to him by its constant endeavors to obtain control over
the cities on the Adriatic coast."^ But finally the peace party pre-
vailed. "Giuliano della Rovere — ^who, twenty years after, as his
uncle's successor, opposed in arms the power of this republic, his
uncle's old ally — seems to have been the means of finally inducing
the Pope to break with Venice."^
The last year of Sixtus IV. was embittered by the intestine quar-
rels of the Roman nobility, especially the recrudescence of the old
feuds between the Orsini and the Colonna. Into this affair we need
to enter only to say that Cardinal Giuliano again appears as the de-
termined opponent of Girolamo's violence and as a sequester pads.
When the Colonna faction had been crushed and their palaces razed
to the ground, the Cardinal came forward to advocate moderation
and amnesty. It is also said that "high words passed between Giro-
lamo Riario and Cardinal Giuliano, even in the presence of the Pope.
Cardinal Giuliano had granted asylum in his palace to some fugi-
tives from Cardinal Colonna's dwelling, and had expressed his dis-
pleasure at Riario's violence. Girolamo accused the Cardinal of pro-
tecting rebels and enemies of the Church. Giuliano replied that the
men whom he protected were no rebels against the Church, but
some of her most faithful servants ; that Girolamo was hunting them
out of Rome, setting the Church of God on fire and destroying her.
He was the cause of all the evil deeds which were bringing ruin on
the Pope and on the Cardinals, The Count, on this, flew into a
rage and declared that he would drive him out of the country, burn
' Brosch, p. 24. ^Reumont, IL, 202. 2 Reumont, ibid.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. 141
his house over his head, and give it up to plunder, as he had done
to that of the Colonna."^
Is it not just possible that the poor old Pope, as he witnessed this
disedifying domestic squabble, may have begged pardon of God and
His Church for having obstructed his needy relatives upon the
Papacy? Not long after, August 12, 1484, he passed away, leaving
Rome in confusion and far worse scenes to follow.
The energetic measures by which the College of Cardinals re-
stored order in the Eternal City and banished Girolamo to the Ro-
magna are graphically narrated by Pastor.^ In the ensuing Con-
clave Cardinal Giuliano, though without hope of securing the elec-
tion for himself, dictated that of a candidate "who owed everything
to him.'* This was Cardinal Cibo, a Genoese, who had been Bishop
of the native seat of the Rovere in the days of their obscurity and who
was indebted to the personal friendship of Giuliano for his subse-
quent elevation to the Cardinalate. The chief merit of Cibo in the
eyes of Giuliano was his weakness and indecision of character, which
emboldened the Rovere to aspire to the position of "the power be-
hind the throne." In order to carry through the election of his
creature, "he threw himself into the contest with all the unscrupu-
lous energy of his nature and did not hesitate to have recourse to
bribery. . . . The worldly-minded Cardinals were all the easier
now to win over, because they were afraid that he might ally himself
with the Venetians, in which case Barbo, whose principles in morals
were very strict, would have ascended the chair of S. Peter. Giuliano
succeeded first in gaining the Cardinals Orsini, Raflfaele Riario, then
Ascanio Sforza. Sforza was followed by Borgia, and the latter per-
suaded Giovanni d'Aragona to join their party. Jakob Burchard,
who took part in the conclave, relates that Cardinal Cibo won the
votes of his future electors by signing petitions for favors which
they presented to him during the night in his cell. The negotiations
had lasted through the whole night. By the morning of 29th
August, 1484, Giuliano della Rovere had secured eighteen votes for
Cibo. The opposition party now gave up all resistance as useless.
At 9 o'clock A. M. Cardinal Piccolomini was able to announce to the
crowd assembled outside the Vatican that Cardinal Cibo had been
elected and had assumed the name of INNOCENT VIII. The
people burst forth into acclamations, the bells of the palace of S.
Peter's began to ring, and the thunder of cannons resounded from
the Castle of S. Angelo."»
Instead of rejoicing, the short-sighted populace ought to have
gone through the streets of Rome chanting the Miserere and tolling
» Pastor, IV., 383. ^Vo\.V.,p.22<)etseg9. s Pastor, Vol. V., p. 238.
142 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the church bells in token of the departing decorum of the Sacred
College. Had Giuliano sought the things that are of Christ instead
of pursuing his own selfish aims, he had influence enough to check
the downward tendency which had set in. But the shameful Con-
clave of 1484 was followed, as a logical consequence, by the still
more shameful election of Borgia by the same simoniacal methods
in 1492. Eight years of the Pontificate of one who flaunted in the
Vatican the fruits of his early incontinency made it possible to in-
trude into the Papal Seat one who continued in incontinency till his
old age.
In forcing Cibo upon the Church, is it not possible that Giuliano,
who was tarred with the same pitch, was deliberately introducing a
precedent in order to facilitate his own elevation on a future occa-
sion ? A precedent was certainly needed ; for the Popes of the Mid-
dle Ages had at least been chaste. Dante, who in his bitter partisan-
ship has accused them of almost every other crime, has never once
charged them with gross immorality. Nor can the Popes of the
Tusculan era be quoted otherwise than as exceptions confirming the
rule ; for they were not the free choice of the qualified electors, but
creatures of the civil power.
At any rate Innocent was elected, and merrily rang the bells. As
^ token of gratitude and of servitude the Pope installed the Cardinal
of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Vatican, and it was well understood in
Urbe and in Orbe that Giuliano was master and Innocent a docile
slave.
The first use which Giuliano made of his grand vizirship was ta
involve the Pope in a war with Naples, the necessity and opportune-
ness of which are by no means apparent. Not that there were not
solid grievances against the Aragonese monarch, who in his anxiety
for the aggrandisement of his realm was insistent upon the annexa-
tion of Terracina and of the Papal enclaves of Benevento and Ponte-
corvo. He, moreover, refused to pay any other tribute for his king-
dom than the traditional white palfrey. There was also sharp an-
tagonism between King Ferrante, who wished to be master in his
realm, and his barons, who were as refractory as the vassals of the
Pope. In addition to these subjects of dispute which arose from the
feudal relations of Rome and Naples, there were serious complaints
against Ferrante on account of his arrogant pretensions in matters
pertaining to the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom. The differ-
ences might possibly have been adjusted by compromise; but
Giuliano was not a man who believed in compromises. On October
14, 1485, Innocent, though destitute of allies except the rebellious
barons, and opposed by all the Italian powers, declared war
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. 143.
against Ferrante. In a few weeks the Neapolitan army under
Duke Alfonso, the King's son, reinforced by the Orsini, the
Florentines and the Milanese, appeared before the gates of
Rome.
"Amidst the general alarm and excitement," says Pastor,^ "there
was one man only who kept his head on his shoulders, and that was
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. If Rome did not fall into the hands
of the enemy, and if their hopes of help from within the city itself
were disappointed, it was to the iron energy of that prelate that the
Pope's thanks were due. Day and night he allowed himself no rest.
In the cold December nights he was to be seen with Cardinals Co-
lonna and Savelli making the round of the guards of the gates and
walls. The Vatican was turned into a fort, the house of the Neapol-
itan Ambassador was pillaged, the castle of the Orsini on Monte
Giordano was set on fire. Virginio Orsini swore that he would
have his revenge; that the head of Giuliano should be carried
through the town spiked on a lance."
"Virginio Orsini carried on the war with Rome with the pen as
well as with the sword. He wrote pamphlets calling for the deposi-
tion of Giuliano, whom he accused of the most horrible vices, and
of Innocent VIII. The Romans were urged to rebel against the
degrading tyranny of the 'Genoese sailor,' who was not even a true
Pope. Orsini offered to assist in bringing about the election of a
new Pontiff and new Cardinals, and threatened to throw Innocent
VIII. into the Tiber."^
Evidently Giuliano's reckless leadership had led the Papal policy
into a blind alley, from which there were but two methods of
escape. Innocent must either retrace his steps and accept such
terms as his enemies chose to concede, or he must hew down the
opposition of the Italians by the importation of foreign troops.
That was a most momentous meeting of the Cardinals in which this
solemn alternative was discussed, and the hatred which every Cath-
olic feels for the name of Borgia is materially lessened when we
reflect that the detested Rodrigo resisted Giuliano and his French
colleague. La Balue, with stubborn persistence. From this time
forward Borgia and Giuliano were bitter and unrelenting enemies.
The fact that Borgia was notoriously immoral in his private life has
led many to admire the hatred with which Julius pursued him in life
and death. But it was no subject of ethics which caused the dis-
sension between them ; in this regard they were on equal terms.
The estrangement arose from their divergent views on politics ; and
it is highly significant of the low conception of patriotism enter-
1 Vol. v., p. 257. 2 Pastor, v., p. 258.
144 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
tained by the Italians of that age that Borgia the Spaniard was a
better ItaHan patriot than Rovere the Ligurian.
Although every courier from every section of Christendom
brought letter upon letter to Pope Innocent pleading for the restora-
tion of peace ; though the Emperor and the King of Spain and the
Duke of Brittany, and we know not how many more, expostulated
and threatened the convocation of a General Council; though the
King of Hungary went so far as to send troops to the assistance of
Ferrante, his wife's father, the voice of Innocent, that is to say, of
Giuliano, was still for war.
In the isolated condition of the Pope and his vizir one hope re-
mained: France might be persuaded to intervene. The long-
headed and much-calumniated Louis XL had died in 1483 ; he had
left a boy, Charles VIIL, to succeed him. It might be possible to
induce the French to revive the defunct Angevine pretensions to the
crown of Naples. Fortunately for Innocent, Giuliano, on March
23, i486, proceeded to Genoa in order to conduct the negotiations
with France and the Duke of Lorraine at closer range. Whilst the
Cardinal was occupied in this aflfair and in fitting out a fleet, his
adversaries took advantage of his absence to dispose the timid Pon-
tiff to peace, which was concluded suddenly on August 10. The
terms were dictated by the Pope. Ferrante yielded every point at
issue, all the more readily because he had determined to violate
every concession as soon as the Papal army was disbanded.
"Looking at the conditions that Ferrante accepted, no one would
have guessed that his was the victorious side. In this he can hardly
have been actuated by the fear of France alone. The clue to his
apparent amiability must rather be sought in his subsequent con-
duct, for his facility in making concessions on paper was more than
counterbalanced by the skill with which he evaded the fulfilment
of his engagements."^
Giuliano hastened back to Rome and exerted himself to the
utmost to persuade the Pope that the treaty which had been con-
cluded was a mere delusion. But Innocent had no desire to con-
tinue the struggle ; and Giuliano, finding his efforts -unavailing, re-
tired to sulk in his fortress of Ostia. As he had foreseen, "the whole
compact was as quickly broken as it had been concluded. There
can hardly be found in all the annals of history a more scandalous
violation of a treaty."^
It was not in the nature of the Rovere to remain inactive for any
considerable length of time. On March 2 of the following year he
was appointed legate for the March of Ancona, with the special
duty of subduing a certain Guzzoni, who, during the troubles with
iPastor, V.,p. 264. 2 Ibid.
Cardinal Giuliano delta Rovers. 145
Naples, had taken forcible possession of Osimo, and who, in order
to retain power, had invited the Sultan to invade Italy. It took the
Papal troops five months to reduce the place ; and even then Guzzoni
dictated his own terms. Meanwhile Giuliano wearied of his task,
and was replaced by Cardinal La Balue.
It soon became apparent that Pope Innocent had passed out of
the tutelage of Cardinal della Rovere and had come under the influ-
ence of a far more cautious politician. This was none other than
Lorenzo de Medici, who for the remaining five years of this Pontifi-
cate (1^187-1492) guided the Pontiff through his difficulties. Lo-
renzo had gained this influence by proposing a family alliance with
His Holiness. He gave his daughter Maddalena in marriage to
Franceschetto Cibo, whom Innocent had begotten when a youth of
seventeen, before he had any thought of taking Orders. "The fam-
ily alliance between the Medici and the Cibo," says Reumont,^ "has
this peculiarity, that in this case, for the first time, the son of a Pope
was in some degree recognized and brought on the political stage,
the sad beginning of a grievous error in the history of the Pope-
dom." The price which Lorenzo demanded for this sacrifice of his
daughter's honor and happiness was the elevation to the Cardinalate
of his son Giovanni, a lad of fourteen, later Pope Leo X. In com-
plying with this strange demand of his prospective ally. Pope Inno-
cent retained enough sense of decency to stipulate that the boy
should not take his seat in the Sacred College for three years, a con-
dition which Lorenzo very unwillingly accepted, and which he subse-
quently made every effort to set aside. When we consider that the
chief reason of the degeneracy of the higher dignitaries of Holy
Church in that age was the bad example set by the Cardinals, who
were chosen mainly by political influence, we can estimate the hol-
lowness of the clamor for reform raised, as a rule, most loudly by
those who were most responsible for the sad state of affairs.
But the immediate effect of Lorenzo's alliance with His Holiness
was unquestionably beneficial ; for the Medici was a wise and pru-
dent statesman, and his tact served as a counterpoise to the impetu-
osity of Giuliano. Another war between Naples and the Pope
seemed inevitable. Ferrante's violation of his treaty of peace was
flagrant and insolent. "In the latter half of July (1487) Innocent
held a consistory on the condition of affairs in Naples. The whole
college of Cardinals agreed with him that the honor of the Holy
See no longer permitted him to look on unmoved."^ The nuncio
whom the Pope dispatched to Naples was received with contumely
and summarily dismissed. At this juncture Lorenzo wrote to his
ambassador at Rome :
Lorenzo, II., p. 265. 2 Reiimont, p. 270.
146 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
"The more I think over the matter, the more I am confirmed in
my view, that the Pope must neither yield his rights to the king nor
make war upon him. The way to avoid both extremes seems to
me to be this: that the Pope should without delay take every
measure to maintain his rights as to the question of homage, but on
the other hand avoid everything that might lead to a passage of
arms or to an interdict. We are not in a fit condition for making
war, and the circumstances of Italy in general, as well as those of
the States of the Church in especial, will not sustain a shock. An
interdict unsupported by arms produces little effect; therefore I
think for the present the matter is best left alone,"^ with many more
words to the same effect. The efforts of Lorenzo to prevent the
renewal of war between Naples and the Holy See, efforts which
were finally successful, form the most glorious title to fame of the
Florentine statesman. As Reumont justly observes : "All the
misfortunes that befell Ferrante's family and dynasty in 1495 (at
the time of the French invasion) were provoked by his self-will of
six years before. It was no thanks to him nor to his son, who was
worse than he, nor to the Pope, that they were not overtaken then
by the misfortune of which both parties — the one in his ambitious,
tyrannical stubbornness, the other in his inconsiderate weakness —
seemed to have no foreboding. That it was avoided for a time was
chiefly owing to Lorenzo de Medici, a fact the merit of which ought
to cover many of his sins."^
Pope Innocent's weakness was owing to his wavering between
the restraining counsels of Lorenzo on the one hand and the ag-
gressive suggestions of Cardinal Giuliano on the other. The Nea-
politan ambassador openly lay the entire blame of the quarrel upon
the Cardinal. He maintained that when the king in the negotia-
tions for the peace had promised to pay the tribute, it was with the
understanding that the Pope "would not insist upon it." "But no
sooner was I away," continues the envoy, "(would to God I had
not gone in such a hurry !) than Cardinal della Rovere arrived from
Genoa, and thereupon they rearranged the conditions according to
their pleasure."^ The Neapolitan, of course, was not stating the
entire truth ; but he shows that his master recognized who was his
most formidable adversary. We also feel that it was rather Giuliano
than Innocent who was speaking when the Pope made the threat,
if pushed to the wall, of retiring beyond the Alps and returning with
an avenging army. This had been for some time, and constantly
remained, the Rovere's drastic remedy for the ills of Italy ; that is to
say, until, as Julius II., he raised the contrary cry of "Out with the
Barbarians."
* Reumont, p. 271. 2 Lorenzo, II., p. 409. 3 Reumont, II., p. 418.
Cardinal Giuliano della Rover e. 147
Finally Ferrante came to terms ; and with that sudden revulsion
of sentiment so common in Italy, he became most demonstrative in
his assurances of esteem for the Pope and the Cardinal. From the
former he begged, as a great favor, the hand of a daughter of his
daughter Theodorina for his grandson, the Marquis of Gerace. As
for Giuliano, "he and the king ceased to oppose each other, for they
needed each other. Nothing was wanting to their intimacy at the
beginning of the next Pontificate, except the element of duration.
For it was soon to happen that Giuliano della Rovere, disregarding
every consideration of duty, should become the chief instigator oi
the foreign invasion which hurled the Aragonese monarch from his
throne and plunged his Italian fatherland into misery and bond-
age."'
Giuliano's reconciliation with Ferrante was followed by his recon-
ciliation with the Orsini, especially with Virginio, the same who had
threatened to carry the Cardinal's head through Rome spiked on a
lance.
The motive of this new-born affection was patent. The condi-
tion of Pope Innocent's health was such as to make it clear that the
Chair of St. Peter, the sole object of Giuliano's ambition, would
soon be vacant. The candidate for the Papacy could not afford to
make for himself unrelenting enemies. On the other hand, the
friendship of a candidate with Giuliano's ability and energy was
worth cultivating.
As a matter of fact, Giuliano did not become Pope in 1492 ; and
his career during the Pontificate of his successful rival, Alexander
VI., will furnish ample material for a separate article.
J. F. LOUGHLIN.
Philadelphia.
Brosch, Julius 11., p. 49.
148 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
GOVERNMENT SECULARIZATION OF THE EDUCA-
TION OF CATHOLIC INDIAN YOUTH.
ANNUAI/RKPORTS OV TIIK DIJPARTMRNT OF THK INTKRIOR for the fiscal year
ended June 30, 1898. Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1898. Octavo, pages 1,062.
INDIAN AND WHITK IN TIlK NORTHWEST; or a history of Catholicity in Montana.
By ly. B. Palladino, S. J. With an introduction by Right Rev. John B. Brondel, first
Bishop of Helena. Octavo, pages 409. Baltimore : John Murphy & Co., 1894.
DOMINION OP CANADA. Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the year
ended June 30, 1898. Oetnvo, pages 597. Printed by order of Parliament, Ottawa, 1899.
DKPARTMKNT OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. Details of expenditure and revenue for the fiscal
year ended June 30, 1898, as contained in the Auditor General's Report. Octavo, pages
142. Ottawa, 1899.
WE have before us the report of WilHam A. Jones, United
States Commissioner of Indian Afifairs, for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1898. It is an octavo volume of more
than 1,000 pag;es; in it will be found the reports of every official
connected with the management of the affairs of the nations, the
tribes, the communities and the bands of American Indians living
within the territory of the United States.
The important ofBce of the United States Commissioner is under
the control of the Department of the Interior. It is one of the
richest plums at the disposal of the President-elect when inaugu-
rated. Its desirability is not on account of the salary of the office,
which is only $4,000 per year, but on account of the peculiar as well
as the extensive patronage under its control.
Conj^ress appropriates about $7,500,000, for purposes specifically
designated each year, which is to be expended under the direction
of the United States Commissioner, through his agents and sub-
ordinates, who are accountable to him in their respective de-
partments. The appropriations for the fiscal year mentioned
were:
Current and c()ntino;otit expenses $782,840
Fulfilling treaty stipulations 3,250,400
Miscellaneous support, gratuities 664,125
Incidental expenses 80,000
Support of schools 2,638,390
Miscellaneous 238,100
Total $7.653355
It devolves upon the Commissioner to see that the treaty stipula-
Seatlarisation of Catholic Indian Education. 149
tions are fulfilled each year, which include the payment of annuities
in money and kind to all the tribes and communities comprised
within the Indian population entitled thereto — from Western New
York, North, South and West, to the shores of the Pacific. It de-
volves upon him to see that the rights of the weaker bands are not
encroached by the stronger ; and that the interests of both are pro-
tected against the unlawful schemes and the cupidity of the whites.
The supreme control of the education of Indian youth is confided to
his care, involving the outlay of $2,638,390 appropriated for Indian
schools. So also has he supervision over the expenditure of about
$1,000,000 more for miscellaneous support and contingencies. Un-
der his control are the trust funds of the Indian tribes in the Treas-
ury of the United States, deposited there according to treaties, which
bear interest at four and five per cent. Congress has no control
over these trust funds, which aggregate about $34,000,000, and
yield an annual interest of $1,624,000.
Under his control are the lands ceded to the Government by
treaty, the proceeds of which when sold are placed to the credit of
the respective tribes and communities in whose possession these
lands had been held, aggregating millions of acres and containing
untold millions of forestal, mineral and grazing wealth. The Com-
missioner also controls the disposition of the reservation lands —
when the advance of civilization renders their sale necessary and
advantageous to their occupants.
Nor are all the tribes in dependent circumstances. The Osages
of Oklahoma, comprising 906 full bloods and 855 of mixed blood,
have on deposit in the United States Treasury $8,447,090, which
yields an aggregate interest of $422,050 per annum. The Southern
civilized and semi-civilized tribes, comprising the Cherokees, the
Choctaws, the Creeks, the Seminoles, etc., have on deposit in the
Treasury $7,718,000, about equally divided, which yields an annual
interest of $382,190.
The different bands of the Sioux have $3,480,000, earning an ag-
gregate of $174,000 interest annually; the Sissetons and the Utes,
nearly $3,000,000, with an interest revenue of $134,000; the Che-
yennes and the Arapahoes, $1,000,000, earning $50,000 yearly inter-
est; the Chickasaws have $1,174,000, earning $84,335 yearly; the
Sac and the Fox, over a million and a half, with annual interest of
$76,500, while twenty-four other nationalities not so wealthy have
an aggregate of $6,120,000, earning $301,000 yearly interest.
Subordinate to the Commissioner is the small army of agents,
superintendents of tribes and of schools, who are appointed by him
and whose tenure of ofBce is usually four years. They exercise
supreme control in their respective spheres over the Indian com-
150 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
muiiities. Under these officials is another army of subordinates
occupied in the local administration of the ordinary affairs of the
respective bands and tribes. Besides the control of these func-
tionaries, the Commissioner has the supervision of the allotment of
the annual contracts for supplies of all kinds to be furnished the
people of certain tribes in accordance v^ith treaties, which aggregate
a large sum, the details of which occupy 343 closely printed octavo
pages of the annual report of the fiscal year. These supplies are
distributed, as stated, according to treaty stipulation by the respec-
tive subordinate agents of the Commissioner, as well as the annui-
ties to be paid in money, in the chief centres of the Indian communi-
ties.
A study of the articles in the contracts made during one year
will give some idea of the immensity of the details in this one de-
partment. Nor should it be overlooked that the annuities in kind
and in money are not donations given in relief, but for the payment
of Indian lands ceded to the Government as a necessary conse-
quence of the demands of settlers, growing out of the progress of
white civilization. The Commissioner has under his control the
leasing of reservation lands for grazing and for the cutting of tim-
ber. He has also to oversee the allotments of lands in severalty in
the respective reservations, which is a progressive movement in the
interest of the Indian towards citizenship.
All the functions detailed, which are but a part of the whole of
what constitutes the power of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
are stated to show the great extent of his jurisdiction over what
relates to the material interest of the American Indian. But he also
has control over the intellectual and more or less of the spiritual
interests of all the Indian youth. The Government to-day sustains
in the Indian country, at Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, and at Mount
Pleasant, in Michigan, 148 boarding and training schools, with an
average attendance of 16,233 pupils, and 149 day schools, all of
which two latter are in the Indian country, with an average attend-
ance of 3,682 pupils.
This is an increase during the past two decades of the former
class of 100 and of the latter of 47. It is at the Commissioner's dis-
cretion where the Indian youth shall be educated in Catholic schools
and convents in the Northwest, according to the appropriation.'
The Government schools are expensive, the total cost of the whole
system during the fiscal year being $2,521,428 — the salaries paid the
superintendents of the boarding schools ranging from $1,000 to
$2,000 per annum. The school at Carlisle, Pa., costs for salaries
alone $40,880.
1 The appropriation for CaUiolic education made each year limits the amount to be ec-
pended therefor.
Secularisatian of Catholic Indian Education. 151
There is a vicious feature in the appointment of the agents and
superintendents, who, as stated, become the local rulers over the
respective tribes and communities. These oflficials are appointed
through the influence of Congressmen and Senators, as a reward
for political services rendered. Their tenure of office, as stated,
rarely exceeds four years, during which they seek to realize the per-
quisites obtainable in their respective positions. The exception to
the rules generally controlling this class of appointments has been
the appointment of army officers in certain important localities, who
served without extra compensation and whose administrations have
been intelligent, humane, strictly honest and satisfactory to the In-
dians as well as to the Government. Unfortunately the exigencies
of the armies in Cuba and in the Philippines has necessitated the
recall to their respective regiments of most of the officers detailed
for such service, there being only four left in the Indian country.
The maladministration of agents and superintendents, despite the
precautionary system of control by the United States Commissioner,
has been so bad that certain aggrieved tribes have been driven to
the verge of outbreak. In his report for the current year the Com-
missioner outlines the causes leading to the revolt of the Chippewas.
The tribes of this nation, he alleges, were outrageously swindled
and their people grievously wronged; first, in connection with"Hquor
prosecutions," where deputy marshals "set up" prosecutions and
cited the Chippewas to appear as witnesses at St. Paul, merely to
realize on their official fees. In many cases the unfortunate Chip-
pewas were arrested and taken to St. Paul, and then left to get home
as best they could, having to beg for food on their way. An honest,
watchful agent would have prevented this scandalous outrage.
But a more astounding fraud, probably the greatest in recent
years, was perpetrated on the Chippewas by the estimators of the
pine lands they had ceded to the Government by treaty, where
$280,000 was charged against their fund. Such robberies as those
connected with "Hquor prosecutions" are derogatory to the in-
tegrity of the local agents, while they show a want of vigilance on
the part of the Commissioner. It is his duty to see that the United
States District Attorney in control prosecutes these deputy mar-
shals and cause their dismissal from the Government service, which
they have brought into disrepute.
But the gigantic robbery of nearly $300,000, paid out of the un-
fortunate Chippewas' fund for alleged inspection of pine lands, is in-
explicable. The Commissioner must have signed the vouchers for
these payments. The work was, or should have been, done by con-
tract and bondsmen required; if the latter are responsible they
should be made to pay the Government for the fraud and restitution
152 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
in part made to the Chippewas. It is the duty of the Senators from
Minnesota to probe this matter and bring the offenders to justice,
whether the Commissioner takes action or not.
The appropriations made each year by Congress are according
to the estimates submitted by the Commissioner, and they outline
to some extent the poHcy to be pursued. The budget usually passes
through the House of Representatives by a party vote. When it
comes before the Senate it is referred to the Committee on Indian
Affairs, where it undergoes a close scrutiny.
Experienced Senators interested in the welfare of the American
Indian race are zealous in opposing whatever might appear detri-
mental to the interest of the Indian and of his family.
We have said the Commissioner has control over the intellectual,
as he has to a considerable extent, over the spiritual development
in the education of Indian youth.
Fifty or more years ago the Rocky Mountain and Northwestern
Indian nations were solidly pagan ; not only on the American side
of the boundary line, but across this line into the British North-
western regions, where the same nationalities and kindred tribes
ruled supreme. In Montana the leading nations of the "Rockies"
lived in their wild state and were constantly at war among them-
selves.
Through the influence of the Flat Head nation, who were the
elite of the Montana tribes, Father De Smet, S. J., made the long
and dangerous journey from St. Louis, Mo., to the Flat Head vil-
lage in 1841. He inaugurated the introduction of Christianity and
prepared the way for the advent of the Jesuit Fathers from the
Turin Province in Italy and from the Belgian Province.
The young Jesuit Fathers who subsequently came to continue the
work of Father De Smet were among the brightest, the most intel-
lectual and the most zealous as well as the most pious of the Cath-
olic missionaries who during three centuries had left the refined cir-
cles of European life to cross the Atlantic and to engage in mis-
sionary work among the Indians of North America. The rendez-
vous of these young priests was at the Jesuit college of St. Louis.
From this centre a perilous journey of 1,000 or more miles through
a country traversed by hostile pagan tribes would have to be made
before the scene of their apostolic labors would be reached. They
brought with them lay brothers and scholastics who were skilful
adepts not only in the mechanic arts, but also in agricultural
knowledge. The history of their missionary work may not be re-
cited in this article. Its details have been published by one of their
illustrious members, Rev. Louis B. Palladino, S. J., in his "Indian
and White in the Northwest."
Secularisation of Catholic Indian Education. 153.
The golden jubilee of the foundation of the Montana missions
was celebrated in 1892. This work of the Catholic Church forms
one of the most instructive and interesting chapters in the history
of civilization in North America. Consider the wild tribes of the
"Rockies" evangehzed and brought under religious discipline.
These are in alphabetical order: The Assiniboines, Blackfeet,.
Coeur d'Alenes, Cheyennes, Colvilles, Crees, Crows, Gros Ventres,
Flat Heads, Kalispels, Kootenays, Missoulas, Nez Perces, Piegans,
Pend d' Oreiles, Shoshones and Teutons.
What is most remarkable in this glorious chapter of Catholic
Church history in the Northwest is that at the epoch of the Golden
Period more than nine-tenths of the Indian population of Montana,
young and old, were practical Catholics, whose heads of families
had prospered and are now in fair circumstances. The prominence
of the Catholic religion is in evidence. An apostolic Bishop, vener-
able clergy, religious orders of men and of women, academies,
schools, churches, hospitals, asylums for orphan boys and girls, a
House of the Good Shepherd, with a white population of Catholics,,
among whom "up-to-date" sodalities, confraternities and charitable
societies of both sexes have good foundations.
To provide education for Catholic Indian children, the United
States Commissioner made contracts with Catholic mission schools
for a stated number at so much per capita, and for other children
with sectarian missionary schools, all of which were officially known
as contract schools.
What is meant by contract schools may be more fully explained
as follows : In Montana, for instance, where the Indian population
is solidly Catholic, there are boarding and training schools for boys
and girls conducted by religious orders of men and women. In
1895 there were such institutions for the Blackfeet, the Crow, the
Flat Head, the Fort Belknap and the Tongue River agencies.
For that year the United Commissioner made contracts with
these Catholic missionary schools according to the funds appropri-
ated for the education of pupils as follows in Montana :
Blackfeet, 100, at $125 each $12,500
Crows, 85, at $108 each 9,180
Flat Heads, 300, at $150 each 45,ooo
At Fort Belknap, 135, at $108 each 14,580
At Tongue River, 40, $108 each 4,320
Number of pupils, 660. Total cost $85,580
In 1899 the effect of the sectarian propaganda in Congress against
the Government education of Catholic Indian children resulted in
the following reductions :
154 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
Blackfeet, reduced to 34, at $108 each $3,672
Crows, reduced to 34, at $108 each 3*672
Flat Heads, reduced to 161, at $108 each i7>3^
At Fort Belknap, reduced to 49, at $108 each 5,292
At Tongue River, reduced to 26, at $108 each 2,808
Reduction in the number of pupils contracted for in Montana,
356; reduction per capita, 28 per cent.; reduction in total cost,
$52,748.
Similar reductions were made in contract school education
throughout all the Indian reservations and communities where.
Catholic Indian children were to be educated. Even in the little
town of Baraga, on Lake Superior, founded by the saintly missionary
Bishop of that name, where in 1895 the Government paid for the
education of 45 pupils at $108 each per annum, this number was
reduced in 1899 to 19, with a difference in the cost of $2,808.
In the Ottawa old time mission of L'Arbre Croche, now known
as Harbor Springs, Michigan, the number of pupils was reduced
from 95 to 34, with a diminished cost to the appropriation for the
education of these Catholic Indian pupils of $6,528.
In the Dakotas, where all was Indian, the reduction was exces-
sive, as it was also in the Chippewa reservations, where the reduc-
tion was 50 per cent. At Green Bay, Wisconsin, where 130 pupils
had been educated at a cost of $108 each per annum, the number
was reduced to 45, with a diminished charge to the appropriation of
$9,240.
The Kate Drexel school in Oregon, where 60 pupils were paid
for at $108 per capita, at a total cast of $6,000, has been reduced in
number to 24 at $100 per capita, with a total cost of $2,400. In re-
gard to the Hampton Institute, in Virginia, and the Lincoln Insti-
tution, at Philadelphia, Pa., both of which are provided for by spe-
cial appropriations, 120 pupils were maintained in the former and
200 in the latter at a cost of $167 per capita, which is some $50 more
than the average paid in the Indian country. It is needless to say
these are non-Catholic institutions, whose pupils are brought from .
the boarding schools in the Northwest.
An exception to this peculiar feature in the Government system
of the education of Indian youth is to be found in Oklahoma, where
are the Osage reservations. These Osages are, as has been stated,
"the richest people on earth." They are solidly Catholic, and they
support missionary schools for the education of their children out of
the interest on their funds on deposit in the United States Treasury.
In 1892 the appropriations for Catholic schools for Indian youth
was $394,756, the highest reached after 1890, while for all other de-
nominations the total was $216,814.
Secularisation of Catholic Indian Education. 155
The general non-Catholic public could not understand the dispro-
portion between the former and the latter ; nor was the fact gen-
erally known that the majority of Indian youth to be educated were
Catholic.
Taken in connection with the eclat of the golden jubilee of Cath-
olicity in Montana, the large amount appropriated for Catholic In-
dian education excited the alarm of pessimistic non-Catholics,
and then followed the crusade in Congress and elsewhere against
the appropriation of public money for Catholic purposes. This
propaganda has been detrimental to the educational interests of
Catholic Indian youth. In 1893 the appropriation was reduced to
$375.843 ; in 1894 it was $389,745 ; in 1895 it was reduced to $359,-
215 ; in 1896 it was cut to $308,471 ; in 1897 it was reduced to $198,-
228 ; in 1898 to $156,754; while for the year 1899 it is only $116,862.
In the meantime the Presbyterian, the Congregational, Episcopal,
Friends (Quaker), Mennonite, Unitarian, Lutheran, Methodist, etc.,
had disappeared from the list of contract schools.
It has become apparent that the United States Commissioner of
Indian Affairs favors the policy of educating the youth of Catholic
Indian parents in non-Catholic Government schools. In pursu-
ance of this policy the number of Indian boarding and industrial
schools and the number of day schools has been gradually increased,
while the respective agents and superintendents of Indian communi-
ties have used their authority to influence if not to compel the at-
tendance of Indian pupils. Whatever advantage there may be to
the average Indian pupil attending the boarding and industrial
schools, it is the opinion of many interested in the education of In-
dian children that the average day school is a costly and not alto-
gether an advantageous system.
As a rule these schools are to the Indian child dismal affairs, and
were it not that at noon the children are given a substantial meal
there would be scant attendance.
It is apparent, moreover, that these schools in the Northwest are
intended as nurseries for the boarding and training establishments,
the pupils of the former being transferred to the latter by the power
of the agents, in conformity with the design of making the educa-
tion of Indian youth non-Catholic.
The present system of non-sectarian education costs an annual
outlay of $2,500,000. Would it not be more advantageous to civil-
ization, would it not be more just that Catholic Indian youth be
provided with Catholic teachers, who would confirm them in moral-
ity and educate them also ?
But this is not a principle recognized under the present Govern-
mental system. In the process of the non-religious education of a
156 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Catholic Indian boy or girl it will be miraculous if that boy or girl,,
who had been baptized by a Catholic priest and confirmed by a
Catholic Bishop, does not graduate from the chilling atmosphere of
a Government boarding or training school without the loss of the
Catholic faith. But there is a still worse fate reserved for pupils
of the schools mentioned.
Each year a certain number of pupils are transferred to the "uni-
versities" of the system of non-Catholic education known as the
Carlisle, the Mount Pleasant, the Lincoln Institution and the
Hampton Institute, the two latter during the past ten years having
been maintained by special appropriations outside of the Indian
budget of $33,400 and $20,000 respectively. If these four institu-
tions, in so far as relates to the religious animus of their principals,
be judged by that of the leading "university" of Indian education
under the auspices of the American Republic, which is the Carlisle
institution in Pennsylvania, costing at least $100,000 per annum,
the hope that any Catholic pupil may graduate therefrom with his
or her faith intact will prove groundless.
The principal of this leading "university" at CarHsle, Pa., which
in 1898 contained 867 Indian boys and girls, is R. H. Pratt, as he
officially signs : Major First United States Cavalry. To do him jus-
tice. Major Pratt, who has managed the Carlisle institution more
than a decade of years, is outspoken in his antipathy to the Cath-
olic religion. Apparently it would require a miracle as remarkable
as that which converted St. Paul to remove the scales from the eyes
of R. H. Pratt, Major First United States Cavalry and principal of
the Carlisle Indian School.
The most outspoken official champion of opposition to the Cath-
olic education of Indian youth, children of Catholic parents, was
United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs T. J. Morgan. He
made no secret of his anti-Catholic animus during all his adminis-
tration ; as such he was the representative of the Government of the
United States. Unfortunately his methods were supported by a
majority of United States Senators.
His first aggressive movement was his effort to break up Cath-
olic ascendancy in educational work in Montana. In 1892 he ad-
dressed a letter to the Indian agents in Montana, informing them
that a new Indian industrial and training school had been organized
at the Fort Shaw reservation, with Dr. William H. Winslow, prin-
cipal teacher at the Chilico Boarding School, as manager.
"It is intended," said United States Commissioner Morgan, "that
a large number of children will be transferred from your reserva-
tion to this new school, and you are directed to cooperate heartily
with Superintendent Winslow and with Supervisor Parker in their
Secularisation of Catholic Indian Education. 157
efforts to secure a large enrollment for Fort Shaw as soon as the
school is ready to receive pupils. Children to be transferred should
not be under 12 to 14 years of age, and they should have a fair
knowledge of English. It is desirable that the children should have
been previously in attendance at some other school." "We call the
attention," says Father Palladino, "of all fair-minded people to the
above, and that every one may be able to judge of its importance
and pregnancy we have only to state here the simple fact that of all
the Indian youth under 12 to 14 years of age in Montana, to say
the least, nine-tenths are Catholics and nearly all in attendance at
Catholic schools. This we know to be absolutely true, and a glance
at the official Indian school statistics in Montana will convince any
one of the fact and the accuracy of our assertion. With regard to
the Jocko or Flat Head reservation, the case does not even admit
of exception, as all the Indian children there are practical Cath-
olics to a unit.
'It must, then, be evident to every one that the new Fort Shaw
school can have no pupils, or that, if it is to have any, nine-tenths
of the number must be drawn from the Catholic Indian youth in
attendance at Catholic schools. In the first supposition the Fort
Shaw school would seem unnecessary and has no reason to exist ;
in the second, it cannot but be an outrage and a crying injustice
on the souls and consciences of these helpless Catholic Indian chil-
dren. Will the Hon. Commissioner appoint some Catholic priest
as spiritual director of his new Fort Shaw institution ?
"Will he have a Catholic chaplain to instruct those Catholic In-
dian children and minister to them the comforts of their religion ?
One might sooner expect lambs to be protected by wolves than
Christian instruction to be allowed these Indian children by Gov-
ernment officials of the Hon. Commissioner Morgan and Dr. Dor-
chester kind. The Fort Shaw school is a non-sectarian Govern-
ment institution, and as such, of course, will be conducted on non-
sectarian principles. We know the meaning of 'non-sectarian' both
in the jargon of nothingarians and in the official language of Com-
missioner Morgan and his compeers. With the former it is ex-
clusive of all religion ; with the latter it simply means nothing in re-
ligion that is Catholic, and anything that is non-Catholic, or any-
thing that is non-Catholic and anti-Catholic. This we know from
the manner in which the non-sectarian Indian schools of Commis-
sioner Morgan's own making are conducted throughout the land,
and we challenge contradiction of our statement. Hence we neces-
sarily conclude that in the Fort Shaw school there will be for our
Catholic Indian children something worse than even simply no re-
ligious instruction; there will be a positive religious instruction,
158 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezu.
but of such a kind only as will be consistent with the non-sectarian
character of the institution, of its master and managers, that is, non-
Catholic and anti-Catholic. We now ask, what can such a school
lead to but the practical de-Catholization of every Catholic Indian
youth that will be forced to enter its doors ?
"The Indian agents of Montana are officially directed to 'coope-
rate heartily in the efforts to secure a large attendance of pupils for
Fort Shaw.' This explains itself and needs no comment at our
hands. It can easily be surmised what this cooperation is likely to
be; it will be both hearty and very heartless at the same time.
What else can it be under the circumstances ?
" 'Three acres and a cow' will be the price paid Indian parents to
have them consent to the 'promotion' of their Catholic children to
the new school or some other of the same kind. . . . But what
the 'three acres and a cow' method, what bribes and well-known
Indian 'tips' may fail to do, the suspension of rations, that is the
starving out process, is sure to accomplish. An empty stomach, we
all know, is a rather strong argument, and its reasonings are never
without a peculiar convincing force of their own."
The new administration started out with the publicly avowed
purpose to discontinue all Indian contract schools by the substitu-
tion of Government ones of the non-sectarian kind. That this
policy was inaugurated and continued by the administration prin-
cipally to do away with the Catholic Indian schools, is no longer
a matter of doubt ; it is on record and blazoned all along its course
and tenure of office. It is true that in the twenty-third annual Re-
port of the Board of Indian Commissioners of 1891, page 134, we
find the following declaration from Commissioner Morgan: "In
reference to the contract schools the present policy of the Govern-
ment is to preserve the statu quo and not interfere with the schools
already established;" and again: "That it will allow matters to
take their own course." But these promises seem to have been for-
gotten or cast to the winds, and facts belie the words. The bulldoz-
ing by the Hon. Commissioner of the Catholic Indian Mission Bu-
reau at Washington, established by the Catholic Hierarchy of the
United States to look after the school and mission interests of our
Catholic Indians, the diminished number of allowed pupils in Cath-
olic Indian contract schools, the erection, unnecessarily and at a
great expenditure of the people's money, of non-sectarian Govern-
ment schools, side by side with and in opposition to the mission
schools; school inspectors, school supervisors and school superin-
tendents of pronounced anti-Catholic propensities, whose principal
duty would seem to be to find fault with and run down whatever is
Catholic, and the conduct of some of whom has been at times more
Secularisation of Catholic Indian Education. i$'~}
noticeable for coarseness and shocking vulgarity than polite, gen-
tlemanly breeding ; all this, with more that could be added, is evi-
dence enough that the statu quo is not being preserved; that the
Catholic Indian schools, at least, are not only being interfered with,
but slowly and gradually done away by a policy that aims their
continuance practically impossible.
And yet, despite the odds against them, these schools are well
conducted, efficient and successful, and as a matter of fact superior
to the non-sectarian ones of the Government. And this they are,
it would seem, not in the eyes of their friends alone, but in those
even of the Government officials who have had occasion to visit
them frequently, and who, far from being partial, are openly hostile.
We positively know that some of these officials have, time and
again, held up our Catholic schools as models and examples for
imitation, and they have even directed matrons, teachers and other
attaches of the Government Indian schools to acquaint themselves
with and to follow Catholic methods. A like testimony from such
witnesses is indeed more than a gratifying and unlooked for com-
pliment in favor of our Catholic Indian schools; it is their best
vindication.^
The outlook for the future of Catholic Indian education is
gloomy ; unless the policy of secularizing this education is interfered
with, untold evil will result to the souls of Indian Catholic youth.
We have shown that during the passing decade the appropriation
for Catholic contract schools has been gradually reduced from
$394,756 to $116,862. If this process continues, as it probably will
continue, the secularization of the education of Catholic Indian
children will have been made complete.
This prospect has probably induced the Bishop of Helena to
make the situation known to his fellow-citizens and to the Chris-
tian world by the following communication :
Helena, Montana, July 12, i8gg.
To whom it may concern : I herewith submit to the consideration of the general public
the official reports of the six Indian agents of Montana to the Indian Department at Washing
ton with regard to the Catholic Indian missions. A short time ago there were 300 children
of Flat Heads at school in St. Ignatius ; 200 children of Gros Ventres and Assinniboines at
school in St. Paul's ; 200 children of different tribes at school in St. Peter's ; 100 children of
Crows at school in St. Xavier's ; 100 children of Blackfeet at school in the Holy Family mis-
sion, and 65 children of Cheyennes at school in St. lyabre's. First class buildings, mostly of
stone and brick, were erected in the wildest parts of Montana at a cost of $400,000 and fur-
nished with all the necessary and convenient equipments for boarding, lodging and school-
ing the Indian children of the respective tribes. I^et it be taken into consideration that said
expensive structures, etc., were erected in compliance with suggestions, if not demands, of
the Government officials and inspectors, whose requirements for Indian school accommoda-
tions and equipment seemed to surpass what might have been considered more than suffi-
cient in first-class schools for white children. Under such circumstances the action on the
part of Congress in discontinuing to make appropriation for the funds which alone can
make the running of said schools possible will hardly be considered as just and fair, more
especially as it was at the urgent request of the administration that the Catholic Church en.
' " Indian and White in the Northwest," p. 236.
i6o American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tered upon the work to the extent that it did. As the cause of this unexpected and unfair
treatment is traceable to the fact that religion is taught to the children, it may not be amiss
to state what is well known to every one acquainted with the work, that in order to success-
fully civilize the Indian it is necessary to Christianize him.
I hope and pray that this simple and short statement of facts may make the situation
clear and induce the legislators at Washington to promote the welfare of the Indians by
continuing to extend a helping hand to the devoted men and women engaged *in bringing to
Christianity and civilization the American Indian.
John B. Brondel, Bishop of Helena, Montana.
Bishop Brondel quotes from the official reports of Indian agencies
in Montana published in the annual reports of the Department of
the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1898 :
Blackfoot Indian Agency — page 183 — Education: "There arc
conducted on this reservation two schools — the Government board-
ing school on Willow creek, with an attendance of 103, and the
Holy Family Mission, on the Two Medicine river, with an attend-
ance of 45. At the Holy Family Mission school the building occu-
pied by the Sisters and girls was destroyed by fire last February.
A new building is under process of construction, which when com-
pleted will render the school thoroughly complete, where undoubt-
edly the past excellent work of the Holy Family Mission among the
Indians will be continued."
The Crow Agency — page 188 — Education : "The highest num-
ber in school attendance during the year was 238 pupils. Of these
1 58 attended the Government school at the agency and 80 the Cath-
olic mission schools at the Big Horn sub-agency and the Pryor
Creek sub-agency. The school at the latter place has been discon-
tinued upon the alleged ground of gradual discontinuance of Gov-
ernment aid. This leaves the Indians on Pryor creek — some 500 —
without a school, and the nearest point where children from this
band can attend school is the Catholic mission school at the Big
Horn sub-agency, some fifty miles distant. Much complaint has
been entered at this office by the parents of the Pryor creek chil-
dren on account of the closing of the school at that point."
The Flat Head Agency — pp. 190-191 : "I desire," reports the
agent, *'to mention the matter of increased school facilities that to
me seem very necessary. For many years past (more than fifty)
tlie education of the children here has been under contract with the
Jesuit Fathers ; but Congress having of late years deemed it wise
to eventually discontinue all aid to sectarian schools, has been cut-
ting down their appropriation. The past year the contract provided
for 215 children; this year for 161. When it is borne in mind that
there are 450 children on the reservation of school age, the neces-
sity for additional school facilities is apparent. It would seem very
desirable that a reasonable provision should be made for a board-
ing school plant at the agency and possibly one day school on
Camas prairie. The only school upon the reservation is at St. Ig-
Secularisation of Catholic Indian Edtication. i6i
natius Mission, and it is maintained by contract with the Jesuit
Fathers. The larger boys are taught by the fathers, while the girls
are under the direction of the Sisters of Providence, the kinder-
garten being taught by the Ursuline nuns. The boys in addition to
their school work have the benefit of practical work in the shoe,
saddlery, tin, carpenter and blacksmith shops, together with farm-
ing and gardening. The girls are taught all kinds of housework,
sewing and dairying."
The agent making the above report might have stated that the
Flat Head Indians are solidly Catholic.
The Fort Belknap Agency — pp. 192-193-194: "There are on
this agency 322 children between the ages of 6 and 18 years. The
educational branch of the service on the reservation has been con-
ducted by the industrial boarding school at the agency and the con-
tract school, a Roman Catholic institution, at the Little Rockies.
The contract school conducted by the Roman Catholic Church,
under the supervision of the Rev. Charles Mackin, at the Little
Rocky Mountains, has had a successful year, and did much good
work in elevating and training the Indian children of that locality.
Several improvements have been made at this institution during the
year, and the general appearance of the plant is attractive and pros-
perous. The missionary work of the reservation is carried on by
the Jesuit Fathers, who are faithful and diligent workers and are
doing much good among the Indians. A new church is being built
at the mission, which will be of great assistance to them in their
work.''
The Fort Peck Agency— p. 196: "There are 375 children en-
rolled of school age at this agency, of whom 183 attend school.
The Presbyterian and Roman Catholic Churches maintain mis-
sionaries. Both are doing good work among the Indians. Con-
siderable progress has been made in the past few years."
The Tongue River Agency— p. 198: "I sincerely trust," reports
the agent, "that some steps may be taken in the near future relative
to more adequate school facilities for these people. There should
be a boarding school on this reservation large enough to accommo-
date at least 250 pupils. At present we have 384 children of school
age. St. Labre's Mission, a contract school on Tongue river, can
accommodate 65 pupils ; the day school at the agency can accommo-
date comfortably about 30 pupils, which leaves 289 children with-
out any school facilities whatsoever."
The apparent object of Bishop Brondel in bringing the attention
of the American public to the educational status among the Indian
tribes of Montana by the official reports of the Government agents
was to show the effect of the non-Catholic crusade upon the educa-
1 62 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tional interests of the Indians in that State, nine-tenths of whom are
Roman CathoHcs. To those familiar with the glorious results of
more than half a century's missionary toil in the Northwest among
the wild tribes of the "Rockies," and the perfection to which the
education of Indian children had been brought in the schools and
convents under the charge of some of the most renowned religious
orders existing, the great solicitude of the apostolic Bishop for the
welfare of the endangered souls of so many of his spiritual children
can be understood.
But United States Commissioner Jones is by no means satisfied
with the present status. In his recent report for 1899 he urges
more schools, more systematic methods, study of individual traits
and consideration of subsequent environment in outlining studies in
the Indian schools.
The entire educational system of the United States Indian Com-
missioner's ofifice is predicated upon the final abolishment of the
anomalous Indian reservation system, according to Commissioner
Jones. But we doubt very much if during his natural life Mr.
Jones will see the reservation system abolished.
The Seneca and Tuscarora reservations in Western New York,
the remnant of, the once extensive domain of these Iroquoian na-
tions, have existed with reduced outlines from the close of the
Revolutionary War to the present day, and they are likely to remain
under the protection of American law.
Does Mr. Jones imagine he can force such Western nations as
the Osage, the Ute and other wealthy Indian communities, who
hold their reservations by treaties with the Government, to give up
their hunting grounds in accordance with his theory ?
Commissioner Jones states there are now 20,522 boys and girls in
attendance on the various Indian schools out of an enrollment of
over 25,000, the Indian population from which these are taken being
181,000. This population has remained stationary.
He feels, however, compelled to state that one discouraging fact
is disclosed by the unsatisfactory results of the past nine years' trial
of co-education of the Indians with the whites in the public schools.
The results of this co-education are not commensurate with the ex-
penditure. The idea theoretically is an admirable expedient for
breaking down prejudices and civilizing the Indian, but the fig-
ures show it is not an unqualified success. The full-blood, who
needs such contact most, is rarely secured, and the groundwork at
least of Indian education must be laid under the Government's
auspices and control.
Commissioner Jones urges stronger measures for forcing the at-
tendance on Indian schools. Concerning the Indian territory, he
Secularisation of Catholic Indian Education. 163
severely arraigns nepotism, lack of management, demoralized con-
ditions and a deplorable state of affairs generally in administering
the schools and orphan asylums of the five Indian nations.
But a most pregnant statement emanates from the United States
Commissioner's office in the admission that out of 21 of the costly
boarding schools, not more than four of the high salaried superin-
tendents are reported competent to teach the ordinary English
branches, while financial mismanagement is especially com-
plained of.^
It occurs to us to say in regard to the Indian reservation system,
which the United States Commissioner hopes to break up, so as to
acquire more autocratic control over the education of Indian youth,
that it is more than probable that the Indians will see the ad-
vantage of taking land in severalty in their respective reservations ;
as tribal control is gradually disappearing and as the Indian, by the
allotment process, becomes a citizen de jure, he will be entitled to
regulate the affairs of his community in the same manner as his
more civilized neighbors, the whites.
Over such communities the Commissioner of Indian Affairs can
have no control. The educational interests as well as the religious
interests of the Indian child reverts to the natural authority of the
parent. We believe this will be the inevitable result.
The Indian population of the United States may be safely stated
as 180,000. As has been seen, it requires an annual appropriation
approximating to $7,500,000 for the management of our Indian af-
fairs ; this is exclusive of the annual payment by the United States
Treasury of $1,624,000 for interest on the funds of the respective
Indian communities on deposit in the National Treasury. The
American Indian population does not increase. The official census
of the Dominion of Canada shows a total Indian population of
100,093 souls in 1898. The same returns for 1897 gave a total of
99,364 souls, which shows that this population does not retrogade.
But there are some wild unreclaimed tribes in the Northwest which
are not included in the official census.
It cost the Canadian Government $1,001,305 for the manage-
ment of its Indian affairs for the year 1898, or a per capita of less
than $10, while it cost the American Government over $41.60 per
capita.
The Canadian Indians include 16,448 Anglicans or Episcopalians,
1,054 Presbyterians, 8,885 Methodists, 1,581 of mixed denomina-
tions, 49^535 Roman Catholics, 15,615 pagans and 6,975 whose re-
ligion is unknown to the department, many of whom are Roman
Catholics.
> Taken from an outline of the United States Commissioner's report recently submitted
by the Washington conespondent of the Detroit rree Press, November 20 i8q8.
164 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Under the control of the Canadian Government there are several
Indian nationalities in the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario of kin-
dred stock with American Indians. Of the Iroquoian nationalities,
Canada has the Catholic Mohawks at Caughnawago, on the St.
Lawrence, who are descendants of the Christian families forced to
leave their homes in the Iroquoian cantons by pagan persecution
during the seventeenth century. Other Catholic Mohawks are to
be found at the St. Regis reservation, while the Mohawks and other
tribes of the Six Nations, who in the hegira from the Iroquoian can-
tons as a consequence of the War of the Revolution, followed Brant
Thayandanega to Canada, who are non-Catholics, are domiciled on
the Grand River reservation, which was given by the British Gov-
ernment to Brant and his followers for services rendered of that
bloody kind which made their presence on American soil impos-
sible. There are besides more than 2,000 Mohawks, Cayugas and
Oneidas in other localities in Ontario. There are many bands of
Chippewas on the Canadian frontier between Lake St. Clair and the
head waters of Lake Superior.
There are over 5,000 Ojibbewas, solidly Catholic, on the coasts,
islands and harbors on the Canadian frontier from the vicinity of
Lake Huron to the head waters of Lake Superior, all of whom are
kindred to our American tribes — besides the Missisaguas, Potta-
wotomies, Munsees, etc.
Of the 20,618 Indians in Ontario 6,404 are Catholics attended by
missionaries. There are in this province 3,219 pagans. In the
Province of Quebec there are 10,667 Indians, of whom 7,386 are
CathoHc, and included in this number are the Abenakis, the Hurons,
the Micmacs, the Algonquins and the Montagnais, who have been
Catholic during about three centuries.
In the Province of New Brunswick there are 1,627 Indians solidly
Catholic. In the Province of Nova Scotia the Indian population is
2,027, composed of Micmacs who were converted by Catholic mis-
sionaries three centuries ago. In the Prince Edward Island there
are 314 Indians, all Micmac Catholics. In British Columbia the
Indian population numbers 2,635. O^ these 1,066 are Catholics,
1,000 pagans and the others are Methodists and Presbyterians.
On the Fraser River reservation there are 3,165 Indians, of whom
2,740 are CathoHc, 91 Episcopalians, 153 Methodists and 181
pagans. On the Babine and Upper Skeena River agency there are
2,840 Indians, of whom 1,755 ^^^ Catholics, 664 are Episcopalians,
247 are Methodists and the remainder pagans. At the Williams
Lake agency there are 1,920 Indians, of whom 1,896 are Catholics
and 24 are Episcopalians. On the Northwest Coast agency in the
same Province of British Columbia there are 4,082 Indians, of
Secularisation of Catholic Indian Education. 165
whom 1,164 are Episcopalians, 1,901 are Methodists, 147 of other
Protestant sects and 870 pagans. There are no Catholics enrolled
at this agency.
Now we come again to kindred tribes ; this time in the Northwest.
The Indians at the Kootenay agency number 543, all solidly Cath-
olic. At the Cowichan agency there are 1,913 Indians, of whom
42 are Episcopalians, 153 are Methodists, 55 of other Protestant
sects and 1,663 Catholics. At the Kamloops agency there are 3,778
Indians, 1,542 of whom are Episcopalians, 2,235 are Catholics and i
pagan. At the Kwawkewlth agency there are 1,587 Indians, 730
of whom are Episcopalians, 113 are Methodists, 102 Catholics and
652 are pagans.
This ends the enumeration in the Province of British Columbia.
In the Province of Manitoba we find the kindred tribes of our
Chippewas, Crees, Saulteaux and Sioux. There are on the five
agencies in Manitoba an aggregate of 6,716 Indians. Of these
2,536 are Episcopalians, 87 of other sects, 1,123 Catholics and 187
pagans.
In the Northwest Territory, which is of vast extent, we find again
many kindred tribes of American Indian nationalities. The num-
ber enrolled is 14,600, of whom 2,365 are Episcopalians, 650 are
Presbyterians, 1,381 are Methodists, 6,700 are pagans and 3,483 are
Catholics. In ten other Northwestern and coast agencies, out of
11,673 Indians enrolled 2,064 are Episcopalians, 8,166 are Cath-
olics and probably 2,400 are pagans.
The Episcopalian missions among the Canadian Indians are sup-
ported by a wealthy association in London, whose foundation dates
back to colonial times. The Methodist and Presbyterian missions
are supported by wealthy organizations in Canada. We hope the
readers of the Review who have kindly given their attention to the
Indian status in the Dominion of Canada will not have been wearied
by the study. It is important, however, to show how the Canadian
Government deals with the educational and spiritual interests of its
Indian population. The Dominion Government is our near neigh-
bor ; while across its boundary line from east of Lake Erie to the
regions of the Pacific Ocean many of the Indian nationalities, as
has been shown, are allied in racial and tribal connection with the
parent stocks of the race dwelling on American soil.
The Canadian Government officially recognizes and subsidizes
219 day schools in all the Dominion for the education of Indian
youth. Of these 71 are in Ontario, 17 in Quebec, 8 in Nova Scotia,.
6 in New Brunswick, i in Prince Edward Island, 27 in British Co-
lumbia, 46 in Manitoba, 34 in the Northwest territories and 9 are
in localities outside treaty limits.
1 66 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
The religious classification of these respective schools, as given
in the report of the Department of Indian Affairs for 1898, shows
that "^2 are Episcopalian, 37 Methodist, i Moravian, 6 Presby-
terian, 70 Roman Catholic and 33 undenominational. Many of the
Episcopalian schools are taught by ministers, while of the Roman
Catholic schools 7 are taught by missionary priests and 1 5 by Sis-
ters of religious orders. Most of the undenominational schools are
maintained in the Iroquoian communities in the Province of Ontario.
There are 33 boarding schools in the Dominion, recognized 2[nd
subsidized by the Government. Of these 16 are Roman Catholic ;
managed by four religious orders of women ; 9 by Missionary Ob-
late Fathers and 3 by laymen. There are 10 Episcopalian institu-
tions, 4 of which are managed by ministers and 6 by laymen. There
are 2 Methodist schools managed by laymen and 5 Presbyterian, 2
of which are managed by ministers and 3 by laymen. Only one of
these boarding schools, thafc at Fort William, is in Ontario, the 32
others are in the Northwestern territories and provinces between
Lake Superior and the Pacific Ocean.
The Dominion Government recognizes and subsidizes 22 indus-
trial schools, in which the boys are taught farming and different
trades, and the girls sewing, knitting and general housework. Of
these institutions 7 are classed as Episcopalian, of which 4 are man-
aged by ministers and 3 by laymen ; 9 are Roman Catholic and man-
aged by missionary priests ; 4 are Methodist and managed by min-
isters of that denomination.
A careful study of the reports of all the Indian agents in the
Dominion of Canada shows that the system of management is wise
and paternal. The tenure of of!ice of these officials is not affected
by political changes, and in most cases it is terminated only by
death. A considerable number are local pastors and missionary
fathers. There are no such scandals and frauds perpetrated upon
the unsophisticated Indian tribes and communities as we read of in
the reports of the American agents — while in regard to the wel-
fare of the Indian youth in what relates to their intellectual and re-
ligious interest there is a marked contrast. On the American side
of the line the Government has spent $20,000,000 of public funds
during the past decade to secularize the education of American In-
dian youth. On the Dominion side the Canadian policy has been
to subsidize such religious organizations as were most available
according to the religious belief of the Indians in their respective
localities. Among the subjects designated by the Superintendent
of Indian Affairs of the Dominion of Canada, upon which each
agent or principal of Indian schools is required to report, is "Moral
and Religious Training."
Secularization of Catholic Indian Education. 167
To illustrate the working of the Canadian system, extracts from
the reports of the principals of some of these educational institutions
are submitted. The principal of the Brandon Industrial School, in
the Province of Manitoba, Rev. John Semmens, a Methodist min-
ister, states: "The following is a list of the services held for the
moral benefit of the pupils of our school : Prayers after breakfast
in the school room, studies opened with prayer and hymns sung
during the day, public prayers every evening at 8 o'clock, prayers
with sick children in the hospital room, pupils on Sabbath morning
permitted to attend the church in the city, on Sabbath evenings a
service of song and prayer and exhortation." These Indian chil-
dren get a good deal of Methodism.
The principal of the Wikwemikong Industrial School, in Ontario,
attached to the extensive missionary establishment of the Jesuit
Fathers, which is Rev. G. A. Artus, S. J., states : "The pupils are
instructed very carefully in morals and religion by the missionaries
themselves, and I am pleased to say that the general conduct has
been good, and but few punishments had to be administered last
year. The discipline is enforced almost exclusively by means of
religious exhortation, prizes and distinctions of honor. They at-
tend all the religious services held in the parish church and receive
twice a week special religious and moral instruction."
One of the largest industrial schools in the Province of Mani-
toba is that of St. Boniface, a Catholic institution. The principal
of this school is Rev. J. B. Dorais, who states : "Being aware of
the necessity and importance of developing the moral faculties of
the children from their childhood, all efforts are made to teach them
the principles of Christianity and their duty to God, to others and to
themselves. They are brought up in the fear of God and in obedi-
ence to the authority which rules them. The pupils' conduct is all
that can be desired."
One of the largest industrial schools in the Northwest territories
is located at Battleford. It is an Episcopal institution and liberally
subsidized. Its principal is Rev. E. Matheson, an Episcopal clergy-
man, who states: "Moral and religious training is carefully at-
tended to as being the only sure foundation on which to build up a
truly useful life ; there are daily prayers morning and evening, Sun-
day services and Sunday school."
The only Presbyterian industrial school in the Northwest terri-
tories is at Regina. It is an extensive institution and subsidized by
the Dominion Government to the extent of $19,500 per annum. It
is in charge of Rev. A. J. McLeod, a Presbyterian minister, who
states: "Great emphasis is laid on the religious training. Since
the school opened ^2 boys and girls have been admitted into the
1 68 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Presbyterian Church by profession of faith. In this great work of
character building all the members of the stafif most cordially coop-
erate. Regular Sabbath services are held, including a Sabbath
school in the afternoon."
The St. Albert Boarding School, in the Northwest territories, is
one of the large institutions, of which there are several, which are
managed by Sisters of Charity. The Mother Superior, L. A. Dan-
durand, states : "The greatest care is taken in forming the pupils'
character and intellect and to avoid bad habits or influence."
Which of the two systems will conduce most practically to the
welfare of the youth of the American Indian race? This race is
identical in stock to a great extent on both sides of the national
boundary line. On the American side the system of management
which has failed to protect the Indian from periodical frauds, is
tainted with political influence and interests, and has not been able
to combat the efforts of sectarian bigotry to force upon the country
the secularization of the education of Indian youth, while spending
$41,60 per capita in the administration of the liberal annual appro-
priations made by Congress.
The system of management of the Dominion Government is wise
and paternal. It is neither tainted by political influence nor has
it been affected by sectarian bigotry. Where Indian communities
are Catholic, educational and religious instruction are provided be-
cause of right and as a matter of policy. Where Episcopalian,
Methodist or Presbyterian missionaries have won the Indian from
paganism to Christianity, Government aid is freely given to ad-
vance this work of civilization, while among the semi-civilized com-
munities in Ontario it is left to these communities to decide upon
the cult of religious ministration.
Which of the two systems is the most humane, which the most
advantageous to the American Indian, to his present, to his future
status as well as to his eternal welfare ? Is it not time that a change
was made in the interests of humanity in the management and care
ot our Indian communities ?
Richard R. Elliott.
Detroit, Mich.
Constitutio de lubilaei Indulgentiis. 169
CONSTITUTIO DE lUBILAEI INDULGENTIIS.
I.
Suspensio Indulgentiarum et Facultatum vertente Anno Universalis
lubilcei Millesimo Noningentesimo.
LEO EPISCOPUS
SERVUS SERVORUM DEI
Ad perpetuam rei memoriam.
QUOD Pontificum maximorum sanxit auctoritas, ut Anni sacri
solemnia Romae potissimum agerentur, id quidem cum pro-
visa divinitus dignitate et grandioribus muneribus almae
Urbis est admodum congruens. Haec enim omnium, quotquot
ubique sunt, christianorum patria communis : haec sedes sacrae po-
testatis princeps, eademque traditae a Deo doctrinae custos sem-
piterna: hinc ut abunico augustissimoquecapite in omnes christianae
reipublicae venas perenni communicatione vita propagatur. Nihil
ergo tarn consentaneum, quam catholicos homines vocatu Sedis
ApostoHcae hue certa per intervalla temporum convenire, ut scilicet
una simul et remedia expiandis animis in Urbe reperiant et romanam
auctoritatem praesentes agnoscant. Quod cum tam salutare ac frug-
iferum appareat, sane cupimus ut urbs Roma toto anno proximo
maiore qua fieri potest frequentia mortalium celebretur : ob eamque
rem peregrinationis romanae cupidis velut stimulos addituri, admis-
sorum expiandorum privilegia, quae liberalitate indulgentiaque Ec^
clesiae passim concessa sunt, intermitti volumus: videlicet, quod
plures decessores Nostri in caussis similibus consuevere, Indul-
gentias usitatas apostolica auctoritate ad totum Annum sacrum sus-
pendimus: verumtamen prudenti quadam temperatione modoque
adhibito, ut infra scriptum est.
Integras atque immutatas permanere volumus et decernimus.
I. Indulgentias in articulo mortis concessas :
II. Eam, qua fruuntur ex auctoritate Benedicti XIII. decessoris
Nostri, quotquot ad sacri aeris pulsum de genu vel stantes Saluta-
tionem angelicam, aliamve pro temporis ratione precationem reci-
taverint :
III. Indulgentiam decern annorum totidemque quadragenarum
Pii IX. auctoritate an. MDCCCLXXVI iis tributam qui pie templa
visitent in quibus Sacramentum augustum quadraginta horarum
spatio adorandum proponitur :
IV. Illas it'»m Innocentii XI. et Innocentii XII. decessorum No-
strorum decreto iis constitutas, qui Sacramentum augustum, cum ad
470 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
aegrotos defertur, comitentur, vel cereum aut facem per alios defe-
rendam ea occasione mittant :
V. Indulgentiam alias concessam adeuntibus pietatis causa tem-
plum sanctae Mariae Angelorum Ordinis Fratrum Minorum extra
Assisii moenia a vesperis Calendarum Augusti ad soils occasum diei
insequentis :
VI. Indulgentias, quas S. R. E. Cardinales Legati a latere, apo-
stolicae Sedis Nuntii, item Episcopi in usu Pontificalium aut imper-
tienda benedictione aliave forma consueta largiri solent :
VII. Indulgentias Altarium Privilegiatorum pro fidelibus de-
functis, aliasque eodem modo pro solis defunctis concessas: item
quaecumque vivis quidem concessae sint, sed hac dumtaxat causa ut
defunctis per modum suffragii directe applicari valeant. Quas
omnes et singulas volumus non prodesse vivis, prodesse de-
functis.
De facultatibus vero haec constituimus et sancimus, quae se-
quuntur.
I. Rata firmaque sit facultas Episcopis aliisque locorum Ordi-
nariis impertiendi indulgentias in articulo mortis eamdemque com-
municandi secundum Litteras a Benedicto XIV. decessore Nostro
datas Nonis Aprilis An. MDCCXLVH :
II. Item ratae firmaeque sint facultates Tribunalis Officii Inqui-
sitionis adversus haereticam pravitatem, eiusque Officialium : Mis-
sionariorum quoque et Ministrorum qui vel ab eodem Tribunali, vel .
a Congregatione S. R. E. Cardinalium negotiis propagandae Fidei
praeposita, vel alias ab apostolica Sede ad id deputati fuerint: no-
minatim facultas absolvendi ab haeresi eos, qui, eiurato errore, ad
fidem redierint :
III. Ratae firmaeque sint facultates, quas Officium Poeniten-
tiariae Nostrae apostolicae Missionariis, in locis Missionum earum-
'<]ue occasione exercendas, concesserit :
IV. Item facultates Episcoporum aliorumque sacrorum Antisti-
tum circa dispensationes et absolutiones suorum subditorum in casi-
bus occultis etiam Sedi apostolicae reservatis, quemadmodum ipsis a
sacra Tridentina Synodo, seu alias, etiam in publicis casibus, a iure
communi ecclesiastico et ab apostolica Sede pro certis personis et ca-
sibus permissae dignoscuntur. Idem statuimus de facultatibus Anti-
stitum Ordinum religiosorum, quaecumque ipsis in Regulares sibi
subiectos ab apostolica Sede tributae sint.
lis exceptis, de quibus supra memoravimus, ceteras omnes et
singulas Indulgentias tam plenarias, etiam ad instar lubilaei con-
cessas, quam non plenarias, suspendimus ac nullas iubemus esse.
Similique ratione facultates et indulta absolvendi etiam a casibus
Nobis et apostolicae Sedi reservatis, relaxandi censuras, commutandi
Constitutio de lubilaei Indulgentiis. i/i
vota, dispensandi etiam super irregularitatibus et impedimentis cuil-
ibet quoquo modo concessa, suspendimus ac nulli suffragari volumus
ac decernimus. Quocirca praesentium auctoritate Litterarum prae-
cipimus ac mandamus, ut, praeter Indulgentias lubilaei, easque,
quas supra nominatim excepimus, nullae praeterea aliae uspiam, sub
poena excommunicationis eo ipso incurrendae aliisque poenis arbi-
trio Ordinariorum infligendis, publicentur, indicantur, vel in usum
demandentur.
Quaecumque autem his Litteris decreta continentur, omnia ea
stabilia, rata, valida esse volumus et iubemus, contrariis non obstan-
tibus quibuscumque.
Earum vero exemplis aut transumptis, etiam impressis, Notarii
publici manu et sigillo personae in ecclesiastica dignitate constitutae
munitis, eamdem volumus haberi fidem, quae haberetur praesentibus
si essent exhibitae vel ostensae.
Nulli ergo hominum liceat banc paginam Nostrae suspensionis,
decreti, declarationis, voluntatis infringere, vel ei ausu temerario
contra ire : si quis autem hoc attentare praesumpserit, indignationem
oinnipotentis Dei ac beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli se no-
verit incursurum.
Datum Romae apud Sanctum Petrum anno Incarnationis Domi-
nicae millesimo octingentesimo nonagesimo nono Pridie Cal. Octo-
bris, Pontificatus Nostri anno vicesimo secundo.
C. Card. Aloisi Masella, Pro-Dat.
A. Card. Macchi.
Visa de Curia: I. de Aquila e Vicecomitibus.
Loco -I* Plumbi.
Reg. in Secret. Brevium: I. Cugnonius.
II.
Sanctis simi Domini Nostri Leonis divina pvovidentia PapaeXIII. Con-
stitutio qua indulgentiae lubilaei anni MDCCCC conceduntur moniali-
bus, oblatis, tertiariis aliisque sive puellis sive mulieribus in monas-
teriis piisve communitatibus degentibus, eremitis, iniirmis, carcere aut
captivitate detentis, cum opportunis facidtatibus circa absolutiones et
votorum commutationes.
LEO EPISCOPUS
SERVUS SERVORUM DEI
Ad futuram rei memoriam.
Aeterni Pastoris infinitam caritatem animo reputantes, qui pro-
prias eves vocat nominatim,^ ut vitam habeant et abtmdantius habeant*
172 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
quique ipsarum adventum ad sui gremium non modo expectat, sed
ipse saepe praevertit, consilium agitavimus de Apostolicae liberali-
tatis thesauro recludendo in proximum annum lubilaei iis etiam,
quibus sua conditio non sinit ut praescriptam peregrinationem ad
almam banc Urbem et ad beatorum Apostolorum limina suscipiant.
Placuit igitur fructu vacuam non redire multorum fidem ac pietatem,
qui huiusmodi iter summo cum studio essent aggressuri, nisi eos
aut septa monasterii, aut ineluctabilis captivitas, aut corporis infirm-
itas impediret. Quae quidem relaxatio atque benignitas non
istorum tantum necessitati aut utilitati prospiciet, sed in communem
omnium salutem redundabit. Coniunctis enim tot hominum pre-
cibus et lacrimis, quos vel vitae innocentia et religionis ardor, vel
poenitentia, vel calamitas segregavit a ceteris, divinae misericordiae
placandae spem licebit multo validiorem fovere. Quamobrem vi
praesentium litterarum opportunas rationes describere decrevimus,
quibus quum viri tum mulieres in eremis, monasteriis et religiosis
domibus assidue vitam degentes, vel custodiis et carceribus detenti,
vel morbis aut infirmitatibus impediti quominus veneranda Aposto-
lorum sepulcra et Patriarchales Urbis Basilicas adeant, permissarum
absolutionum concessique plenarii lubilaei fieri participes valeant.
Qui autem sub hac providentia comprehenduntur, hi sunt :
I. Moniales omnes, quotquot solemnia vota religionis ediderunt
et in monasteriis degunt sub claustri perpetui disciplina ; item quae
tyrocinium exercent, quaeve in monasteriis, aut educationis aut alia
de causa legitima, commorantur. Pariter Monasteriorum huius-
modi Moniales, quae stipis colligendae gratia septa religiosa egre-
diuntur :
II. Oblatae, vitae societate coniunctae, quarum Instituta fuerint
ab Apostolica Sede vel ratione stabili, vel ad experimentum probata,
una cum suis novitiis atque educandis puellis aliisque communi cum
ipsis contubernio utentibus, quamquam severiori claustri lege non
adstringantur.
III. Tertiariae sub uno eodemque tecto communiter viventes cum
suis pariter novitiis atque educandis puellis, aliisque cum ipsis una
degentibus, etsi severiore claustri lege minime teneantur, earumque
Institutum nee unquam ad hunc diem ab Apostolica Sede approba-
tum fuerit, nee ut approbatum in posterum haberi debeat vi prae-
sentis concessionis :
IV. Puellae ac mulieres in gynaeceis seu Conservatoriis degentes,
quamvis nee Moniales, nee Oblatae, nee Tertiariae, nullisque claustri
legibus obnoxiae sint. Has omnes, quas diximus, tam in Urbe
quam extra, ubique locorum et gentium degentes, praesentis con-
cessionis gratia et privilegio frui posse decernimus ac declaramus.
Constitutio de luhilaei Indulgentiis. 173
V. Idem concedimus Anachoretis atque Eremitis, non quidem eis
qui nullis clausurae legibus adstricti vel in collegio et societate, vel
solitarii sub Ordinariorum regimine certisque legibus aut regulis
obtemperantes vivunt: sed eis qui in continua licet non omnimode
perpetua clausura et solitudine deditam contemplationi vitam agunt,
etiamsi monasticum aut regularem Ordinem profiteantur, ut Cister-
cienses aliquot, Chartusienses, Monachi et Eremitae sancti Romualdi
solent.
VI. Ad utriusque sexus Christifideles eamdem concessionis gra-
tiam extendimus, qui captivi in hostium potestatem versantur, ad
eosque ubique locorum, qui ex civilibus aut criminalibus causis in
carcere detinentur ; item qui exilii poenam aut deportationis luunt ;
qui in triremibus aut alibi ad opus damnati reperiuntur ; denique ad
religiosos viros qui suis in coenobiis sub custodia retinentur vel qui
ex rectorum praecepto certam habent sedem, quasi exilii aut de-
portationis loco assignatam.
VII. Eamdem concessionem communem esse pariter volumus
utriusque sexus infirmis cuiusvis ordinis et conditionis, vel qui iam
extra Urbem in morbum aliquem mciderint, cuius causa, intra lubi-
laei annum, Urbem adire, medici iudicio, non possint, vel qui, licet
convaluerint, non sine tamen gravi incommodo romanum iter ag-
gredi possint, vel qui omnino dare se in iter imbecilla ex habitu vale-
tudine prohibeantur. Horum denique numero senes haberi volu-
mus, qui septuagesimum aetatis suae annum excesserint.
Itaque istos omnes et singulos monemus, hortamur et obsecramus
in Domino, ut peccata sua in amaritudine animae recolentes eadem-
que intimo animi sensu detestantes, saluberrimo Poenitentiae Sacra-
mento et congruis satisfactionibus suam quisque conscientiam ex-
piare curent ; tum ad caeleste Convivium ea, qua par est, fide, reve-
rentia,caritate,accedant,Deumque optimum maximum,per Unigen-
itum Filium eius ac per merita augustissimae Virginis Mariae et
beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli omniumque Sanctorum, iuxta
Xostram Ecclesiaeque mentem enixis precibus orent pro sanctae
Ecclesiae prosperitate atque incremento, pro extirpandis erroribus,
pro catholicorum principum concordia, totiusque christiani populi
tranquillitate et salute; in eumque finem visitationi quatuor Urbis
Basilicarum, alia religionis, pietatis, caritatis opera devote sufficiant,
quum voluntaria, tum praesertim a delectis sacri ordinis viris auc-
toritate Nostra iniungenda, prout infra edicitur.
Scilicet volumus ac iubemus ut venerabiles fratres Episcopi aliique
locorum Ordinarii Monialibus, Oblatis, Tertiariis, aliisque superius
memoratis sive puellis, sive mulieribus, Anachoretis, Eremitis, in
174 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
carcere detentis, aegrotantibus et septuagenario maioribus, statuant
ac praescribant sive per se, sive per prudentes Confessarios, congrua
religionis ac pietatis opera iuxta singulorum statum, conditionem
et valetudinem ac loci et temporis rationes : quorum perfunctionem
operum pro visitatione quatuor Urbis Basilicarum valere volumus
ac decernimus. Eamdem commutandorum operum facultatem con-
cedimus Praelatis Regularibus, videlicet utendam erga Instituta et
personas singulas quae in ipsorum iurisdictione sint. — Eodem
genere personis quae in Urbe degant, designari opera sufficienda
volumus per dilectum Filium Nostrum S. R. E. Cardinalem Vica-
rium eiusque vices gerentem, sive per se ipsos sive per prudentes
Confessarios.
Itaque Omnipotentis Dei misericordia et Beatorum Apostolorum
Petri et Pauli auctoritate confisi, iis omnibus et singulis, quos supra
memoravimus, vere poenitentibus et intra praesentem lubilaei an-
num rite confessis ac sacra Communione refectis, Deumque, ut supra
dictum est, orantibus, omnia denique implentibus alia iniungenda
opera in locum visitationum, ac, vel inchoatis tantum iisdem ope-
ribus, si morbus periculosus oppresserit, plenissimam omnium pec-
catorum indulgentiam, veniam et remissionem, etiam duplici vice
intra anni sancti decursum si iniuncta opera iteraverint, baud secus
ac si praescripta communiter ceteris omnibus expleverint, de Apo-
stolicae liberalitatis amplitudine largimur atque concedimus.
Monialibus earumque novitiis licere volumus, at prima dumtaxat
vice, sumere sibi ex alterutro Cleri ordine Confessarios, qui tamen
sint ad audiendas Monialium confessiones rite approbati. Ana-
choretis atque Ereniitis supra dictis, itemque Oblatis, Tertiariis,
puellis ac mulieribus in monasteriis piisque domibus vitam com-
munem agentibus, quibus forte ordinario tempore eligendi sibi Con-
fessarii libera facultas non sit, similiterque Christifidelibus captivi-
tate, carcere aut custodia, infirmitate aut senectute impeditis, fas.
esse iubemus eligere sibi prima vice dumtaxat Confessarios quos-
cumque, dummodo ad confessiones personarum saecularium pro-
bati rite sint. Idem eisdem conditionibus liceat viris religiosis ex
quolibet Ordine aut Congregatione vel Instituto. — Confessariis sic
electis concedimus et tribuimus ut personas supra dictas, auditis
earum confessionibus, absolvere possint a quibusvis peccatis, etiam
apostolicae Sedi speciali forma reservatis, excepto casu haeresis
formalis et externae, imposita poenitentia salutari aliisque iuxta
canonicas sanctiones rectaeque disciplinae regulas iniungendis.
Praeterea confessariis, quos moniales sibi elegerint, facultatem facl-
mus dispensandi super vota quaelibet ab ipsis post solemnem pro-
fessionem facta, quae regulari observantiae minime adversentur..
Constitutio de lubilaei Indulgentiis. 175,
Simili modo Confessarios supra memoratos etiam dispensando com-
mutare posse volumus omnia vota, quibus Oblatae Novitiae, Ter-
tiariae, puellae et mulieres in communibus domibus agentes sese
obstrinxerint, exceptis iis, quae Nobis et apostolicae Sedi reservata
sint: factaque commutatione, a votorum etiam iuratorum obser-
vantia absolvere.
■ Hortamur autem Venerabiles Fratres Episcopos aliosque locorum
Ordinarios, ut, Apostolicae Nostrae benignitatis exemplo, eligendis
ad praesentium effectum Confessariis impertiri ne recusent faculta-
tem absolvendi a casibus qui ipsis Ordinariis reservati sint.
Volumus denique ut praesentium transumptis sive exemplis, etiam
impressis, manu alicuius notarii publici et sigillo viri in sacri ordinis
dignitate constituti munitis, eadem ab omnibus adiungatur fides,
quae ipsis praesentibus adhiberetur, si exhibitae fort'Ut vef ostensae.
Ceterum harum decreta et iussa Litterarum rata, valida, firma in
omnes partes esse et fore decernimus, contrariis non obstantibus.
quibuscumque.
Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat paginam banc Nostrae declar-
ationis, hortationis, concessionis, derogationis, decreti et voluntatis
infringere vel ei ausu temerario contraire ; si quis autem hoc atten-
tare praesumpserit, indignationem omnipotentis Dei ac beatorum
Petri et Pauli Apostolorum eius se noverit incursurum.
Datum Romae apud Sanctum Petrum anno Incarnationis Do-
minicae millesimo octingentesimo nonagesimo nono Calend. No-
vembris, Pontificatus Nostri anno vicesimo secundo.
C. Card. Aloisi Masella, Pro-Dat.
A. Card. Macchi.
Loco ^ Plumbi.
Visa de Curia: I. de Aquila e Vicecomitibus.
Reg. in Secret. Brevium: I. Cugnonius.
176 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
SUSPENSION OF INDULGENCES AND FACULTIES
DURING THE YEAR OF UNIVERSAL JUBILEE 1900.
I.
LEO, BISHOP
SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
For Perpetual Remembrance.
THE custom sanctioned by the authority of the Supreme Pon-
tiffs, namely, that the solemnities of the Holy Year should
be accomplished chiefly at Rome, is indeed appropriate in
the highest degree to the divinely appointed dignity, and to the
larger gifts of the Beloved City. For this is the common country
of all Christians, whoever and wherever they may be ; it is the chief
seat of Sacred Power, and the everlasting guardian of the doctrine
handed down by God; and from here, as from the sole and most
venerable source, life is transmitted perennially through all the
veins of the Christian Republic. It is, therefore, highly proper,
that at the call of the Apostolic See, Catholics should gather here
at certain intervals, in order that at one and the same time they may
find in the City remedies suitable for the purification of their souls,
and, by their presence, acknowledge the authority of Rome. So
salutary and profitable does this seem, that We earnestly desire to
behold multitudes thronging Rome during the entire coming year ;
and, to offer additional incentives to those wishing to make the
pilgrimage to Rome, We will that the privileges which are freely
granted by the indulgent liberality of the Church, for the expiation
of sins committed, be suspended ; that is to say, as has been the
custom of Our Predecessors in similar cases, by Our Apostolic
Authority We suspend the usual Indulgences during the entire
Holy Year ; with, however, the prudent modification and qualifica-
tion hereinafter described :
We will and decree that there shall remain intact and unchanged :
I. Indulgences granted in articulo mortis:
II. The Indulgences which, by the authority of Our Predecessor,
Benedict XIII., those may gain, who, at the sound of the church
bell, shall recite, either while standing or kneeling, the Angelic
Salutation, or other prayer proper to the season :
III. The Indulgences of ten years and ten quarantines granted
Suspension of Indulgences. 177
in 1876 by the authority of Pius IX., to those who piously visit
churches in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration
during the Forty Hours :
IV. The Indulgences granted by the decree of Our Predecessors,
Innocent XI. and Innocent XIL, to those who accompany the
Blessed Sacrament when It is carried to the sick ; or, who send a
candle or a torch to be borne by others on such occasions :
V. The Indulgence heretofore granted to those who through
piety visit the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, of the order of the
Friars Minor, outside the walls of Assisi, from Vespers on the first
of August to the setting of the sun on the following day :
VI. Indulgences which Cardinal Legates a latere of the Holy
Roman Church, Nuncios of the Apostolic See, Bishops in Pontifical
functions, or, when giving their blessing, or in any other accus-
tomed form, are wont to bestow :
VII. The Indulgences of privileged Altars for the faithful de-
parted, and others granted in the same manner for the deceased
alone; and, also, whatsoever Indulgences may have been granted
for the living, but with the express proviso that these shall be ap-
plied directly by way of suffrage to the dead. We will that all and
each of these shall not avail the living, but the dead.
We ordain and decree the following regulations concerning fac-
ulties :
I. The faculty is ratified and continued by which Bishops and
other Ordinaries of places grant the Indulgences in articulo mortis^
and communicate the same faculty according to the letter given
by our predecessor, Benedict XIV., 5th of April, 1747:
II. The faculties of the Tribunal of the Office of the Inquisition
against heretical perverseness, and the faculties of its officials are
ratified and continued; likewise, the faculties of Missionaries and
Ministers who shall have been deputed, either by this Tribunal, or
by the Congregation of Cardinals entrusted with the work of the
Propagation of the Faith, or who shall have been otherwise deputed
by the ApostoHc See; especially the faculty of absolving from
heresy those who have foresworn their error, and have returned to
the Faith :
III. The faculties are ratified and continued, which the Office of
Our Apostolic Penitentiary has conceded to Missionaries, to be
used in and for the benefit of their respective Missions :
IV. Likewise the Faculties of Bishops and other Sacred Prelates
in the matter of dispensing and absolving their subjects in secret
cases, even in those reserved to the Apostolic See, in the manner
provided for by the Holy Council of Trent, or otherwise, even in
178 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
public cases, by the common Ecclesiastical Law, and by the Apos-
tolic See for certain persons and cases. We decree the same with
regard to such faculties of Prelates of Religious Orders as may
have been granted them by the Apostolic See for the regulars sub-
ject to them.
With the exceptions mentioned above, We suspend and We order
to be considered as null, all other Indulgences both Plenary, even
those granted in the form of Jubilee, as well as Partial Indulgences.
And, in like manner. We suspend, and We will and decree to be
absolutely inoperative, all faculties and indults of absolving, even
in cases reserved to Us and to the Apostolic See, of relaxing cen-
sures, of commuting vows, of dispensing in any irregularities and
impediments, to whomsoever or in whatsoever manner these facul-
ties and indults may have been granted. Wherefore, by the author-
ity of the present Letters We direct and command that, excepting
the Indulgences of the Jubilee, and those which we have especially
named above, no others in any place whatsoever be published, pro-
claimed, or practised, under pain of excommunication to be incurred
by the very fact, and under such other penalties as may be inflicted
by the judgment of the Ordinaries.
We will and order that all the Decrees contained in these Letters
be held as established, ratified and valid, all to the contrary notwith-
standing.
We will that the same authority be attributed to copies of these
Letters, even if printed, provided they be signed by the hand of a
Notary, and confirmed by the seal of some one in Ecclesiastical
dignity, as would be possessed by these presents if exhibited.
No man, therefore, may infringe or temerariously venture to con-
travene this document of Our suspension, decree, declaration, will.
If any one shall so presume, let him know that he will incur the
wrath of Almighty God, and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
Given at St. Peter's in Rome in the year of the Incarnation of Our
Lord, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, on the 30th day
of September, in the twenty-second year of our Pontificate.
C. Card. Aloysius Masella, Pro-Datary.
A. Card. Macchi.
Visa de Curia: J. De Aquila Visconti.
Registered in the Secretariate of Briefs: I. Cugnoni.
Suspension of Indulgences. 179
H.
OUR MOST HOLY FATHER
LEO XIII.
BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE
POPE.
Constitution in which the Indulgences of the Jubilee Year jpoo are
granted to Nuns, Ohlates, Tertiaries and others, whether girls or
women, divelling in Monasteries or Pious Communities, to Hermits,
to the sick, to those detained in prisons or captivity, with suitable
Facidties for Absolution and Commutation of Vows.
LEO, BISHOP
SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
For Future Remembrance.
Recalling to mind the infinite charity of the eternal Shepherd,
who calls his own sheep by name (John x., 3), so that they may have
life, and have it more abundantly (Ibid., 10), and Who not only waits
their coming to His bosom, but often Himself anticipates it, We
have resolved to open the treasury of Apostolic liberality in the
coming year of Jubilee, even to those whose condition does not al-
low them to undertake the prescribed pilgrimage to this Beloved
City and ad limina Apostolorum. It has pleased Us, therefore, to
avoid rendering fruitless the faith and piety of many who would with
the greatest eagerness undertake a journey of this kind unless pre-
vented either by monastic walls or unavoidable captivity, or bodily
infirmity. This benevolent relaxation will provide serviceably not
only for their need, but will redound to the common weal. For
the combined prayers and tears of so many whom innocence of life
and religious fervor, or penance, or misfortune, has set apart from
others encourages L^s to cherish a much stronger hope of appeasing
the Divine mercy. Wherefore, by virtue of the present Letters We
have decreed to make known the appropriate manner in which both
men and women who live in hermitages, monasteries and religious
houses, or who are detained in barracks or in prisons, or who are
prevented by disease or infirmities, from visiting the venerated
tombs of the Apostles and the Patriarchal Basilicas of this City, can
i8o American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
become sharers in the absolutions offered to them in the Plenary
come sharers in the absolutions offered to them in the Plenary
Jubilee.
Those who are thus provided for are :
I. All Nuns who have made solemn vows of Religion, and who
live in convents under the discipline of perpetual enclosure ; as well
as those who are making their novitiate, or who for purposes of edu-
cation or for some other lawful cause dwell in such convents. Like-
wise Nuns of such Conventual Instiitttions who leave the precincts
of their convents for the purpose of collecting alms :
II. Female Oblates living in common, whose Institutes have
been approved by the Apostolic See, either permanently or tempo-
rarily, together with their novices, the children who are being edu-
cated by them, and others living under their roof, although they
are not bound by the law of strict enclosure :
III. Female Tertiaries living in common under the same roof,
likewise with their novices, the children they are educating, and
others dwelling with them, even though they are bound by no law of
enclosure, and even though their Institute has not as yet been ap-
proved by the Apostolic See, and should not be held in future as
approved by reason of the present concession :
IV. Girls and women in Institutions, or dwelling in seminaries,
although neither Nuns or Oblates or Tertiaries, nor in any way
bound by the law of enclosure. We declare and decree that all
these thus far mentioned, whether in the City or out of it, no matter
where they live, or of what race they are, can enjoy the favor and
privilege of the present concession :
V. We grant the same to Anchorites and Hermits, not indeed to
those who, bound by no laws of enclosure, live either in community
or solitary under the government of their Ordinaries, obeying cer-
tain laws or rules : but to those who lead contemplative lives in con-
tinuous, although not in all respects, perpetual enclosure and soli-
tude, even though they profess a monastic or regular Order, as
many Cistercians, Carthusians, Monks, and Hermits of St. Ro-
muald are wont to do :
VI. We extend the same favor to the faithful of both sexes, who
are held captive in the power of their enemies, and to those who
in any part of the world are imprisoned either in civil or criminal
cases ; or who are undergoing the punishment of exile or deporta-
tion ; who are condemned to hard labor in the galleys or elsewhere ;
finally, to male religious who are under restraint in their own mon-
asteries, or who by the command of their Superiors have a fixe'd
location assigned to them in lieu of exile or deportation :
VII. We likewise will that the same concession be granted to
Suspension of Indulgences. i8i
the sick of both sexes, of whatever rank or condition, who either
outside the City shall have already contracted a disease which, in
the opinion of their physician, prevents them from undertaking the
journey to the City within the year of Jubilee, or who, although
convalescent, cannot undergo the fatigue of the journey to Rome
without serious inconvenience, or who are prevented by habitual ill
health from attempting the voyage. We will that those who have
passed their seventieth year shall be considered in the same cate-
gory.
Therefore, we admonish, exhort, and beseech in the Lord, each
and all of these, that recalling their sins in the bitterness of their
soul, and detesting them from the bottom of their heart, they may
be careful to purify their conscience by the saving Sacrament of
Penance, and by condign satisfaction; and approach, with all due
faith, reverence and charity the Heavenly Banquet, and pray earn-
estly to the Most High God, through His Only Begotten Son, and
the merits of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the Holy Apos-
tles Peter and Paul and of all the Saints, for Our intention and the
intention of the Church, for the prosperity and spread of Holy
Church, for the extirpation of all error, for concord among Catholic
Rulers, and for the tranquillity and prosperity of the whole Chris-
tian people ; and, to that end, devoutly substitute for the visitation
of the four Basilicas of the City other voluntary works of religion,
piety and charity, and especially such as are enjoined by Our author-
ity by ecclesiastics delegated as hereinafter announced.
We will and order, namely, that our Venerable Brethren, the
Bishops, and other Ordinaries of places designate and prescribe,
either by themselves or through prudent Confessors, suitable works
of religion and piety, according to the state, condition and health
of each, and the circumstances of time and place, for Nuns, Oblates,
Tertiaries and others mentioned above, whether girls or women,
Anchorites, Hermits, Prisoners, the sick and septuagenarians: the
performance of such works We will and decree to be equivalent to
the visitation of the four Basilicas of the City.
We grant to Prelates regular the same faculty of commuting the
prescribed good works in favor of their Institutes, and for the indi-
viduals who are under their jurisdiction. — We will that suitable
works be designated for persons of this character who live in the
City, by Our Beloved Son, the Cardinal Vicar and his vicegerents,
either by themselves or by prudent Confessors.
Therefore, confiding in the mercy of Almighty God, and the
authority of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to each and every
»ne of those whom We have named above, who being truly peni-
1 82 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
tent, and within the present year of Jubilee, having duly confessed
their sins, and been refreshed by Holy Communion, shall have
prayed to God as above directed, and finally fulfilled all the other
works enjoined in lieu of the visits, etc., and to those who may have
fallen dangerously ill after having begun these same works, in the
fulness of Apostolic liberality We bestow and grant a most Plenary
Indulgence, pardon and remission of all their sins, even for a
second time within the course of the Holy Year, if they shall have
repeated the works enjoined, just as though they had complied
with the conditions generally prescribed for all others.
We will that Nuns and Novices be permitted, but only once, to
choose for themselves Confessors from either branch of the Clergy,
provided, that these shall have been duly approved for hearing the
Confessions of Nuns. We command that it be lawful for Anchorites
and Hermits as above mentioned, likewise for Oblates, Tertiaries,
girls and women living in community, in convents and in pious
houses, who, ordinarily are not free to choose their own Confes-
sors, and likewise to the faithful in captivity, in prison, or under re-
straint, impeded by infirmity or old age, to choose for themselves,
but once only, any Confessor they please, provided that such Con-
fessors shall have been duly approved for hearing the confessions
of seculars. Under the same conditions, the same privilege is
granted to male religious of whatsoever Order or Congregation o.-
Institute. To the Confessors thus selected, We grant and give
faculties to absolve the persons above mentioned, after hearing
their Confessions, from any sins whatsoever, even from those re-
served to the Apostolic See by especial form, except the case of
formal and external heresy, a salutary penance being imposed, and
others being enjoined according to the canonical sanctions and the
rule of right discipline. Moreover, We give the Confessors
whom nuns shall have chosen the faculty of dispensing from what-
soever vows these latter shall have made after their solemn profes-
sion, and which may not be opposed to the regular observance. In
like manner. We will that Confessors above mentioned can com-
mute, even by dispensing, all vows by which Oblates, Novices,
Tertiaries, girls and women, dwelling in communities shall have
bound themselves, excepting those which are reserved to Us and
the Apostolic See : and, having made proper Commutation, they can
absolve from the observance even of vows confirmed by oath.
We exhort Our Venerable Brethren, the Bishops and other Ordi-
naries of places, after the example of Our Apostolic benevolence
not to refuse to give the Confessors chosen to carry into effect the
present Letters, the faculty of absolving from cases which may be
reserved by the Ordinaries themselves.
Suspension of Indulgences. 183
Finally, We will that the same authority be attributed to transla-
tions, or copies of the present Letters, even printed, provided they
be signed by the hand of Notary, and confirmed by the seal of some
one in ecclesiastical dignity, as would be possessed by these presents
if exhibited. And We ordain that the decrees and orders of these
Letters are, and shall be held as ratified valid, continued in full
force in all their parts. All to the contrary notwithstanding.
No man, therefore, may infringe or temerariously venture to con-
travene this document of Our Declaration, Exhortation, Conces-
sion, Derogation, Decree and Will : if any one shall so presume let
him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the
Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
Given at St. Peter's, in Rome, in the year of Our Lord, eighteen
hundred and ninety-nine, on the 24th day of October, in the 22d
year of Our Pontificate.
C. Card. Aloysius Masella, Pro-Datary.
A. Card. Macchi.
Visa de Curia: J. De Aquila Visconti.
Registered in the Secretariate of Briefs: I. Cugnoni.
Cathedral I^ibrary Association.
i84 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
Scientific Cbronicle<
A CURE FOR LEPROSY.
It is said, on what appears to be good authority, that a cure for
leprosy has been really found. The matter is deemed of sufficient
importance to engage the attention of the Government. A plant
that grows in Venezuela is the agency which is said to possess the
healing attribute. Surgeon General Wyman at Honolulu has had
several specimens of the plant forwarded to him, and these are now
growing under the observation of Dr. Carmichael, of the United
States Marine Hospital. The authorities at Washington have re-
quested him to watch the growth of the plants and make experi-
ments with them. There is no description of them as yet — no
name, botanical or vulgar, indeed ; but it is claimed for the shrub
that it has been found a cure in numerous cases. About a year
ago it was stated that a priest had discovered a plant in some of the
Pacific isles for which similar powers were claimed, but since the
announcement was made no further particulars of any kind have
been given to the world. We are left to conjecture whether the
new claimant is the same as the previous one or not. The proba-
bility is that it is a different plant, since there is a cardinal difference
in most cases between the flora of the South American region and
that of the Melanasian islands, particularly in regard to essential
characteristics.
THE UNPUNCTUAL NOVEMBER METEORS.
Great disappointment has been felt over the non-appearance of
the Leonids last month, and still more at the failure of the astrono-
mers to account for the failure of the celestial shoal to arrive on time.
The assumption underlying this feeling is, of course, that the
Leonids are an actually existent swarm of stellar material, not lia-
Scientific Chronicle. 185
ble to extinction, absorption or organic change. This assumption
may be entirely erroneous. The starry heavens tell of nothing more
eloquently than of vast cataclysmal changes in the structure and
composition of the matter of the universe. Who can tell whether
the Leonids may not have been absorbed into the mass of some
huge planet far beyond the range of our best telescopes ? So far
from this year being an annus mirabilis, from an astronomical stand-
point, it was far inferior to the usual run in the matter of winter
meteoric displays. Ordinarily November brings a considerable
addition to the bedizenment of our nocturnal skies, but this par-
ticular November happened to be utterly insignificant in that re-
spect. Among the various theories put forward to explain the dis-
appointment one by Professor Pickering, of Harvard, appears to
be the most plausible. His thesis is that the time has been wrongly
computed, and that the shower is not due this year, but two years
later, in 1 901, and possibly three years later, in 1902! To reach
this conclusion Professor Pickering went back to the year 902,
when the first shower of Leonids of which there are preserved
records took place. Every thirty-three and one-quarter years the
shower reoccurred until 1602 ; that is, counting only by centuries,
there were showers in 902, 1002, iioi, 1202, 1302, 1402, 1502 and
1602, and then there appears to have been a change in the orbit of
the swarm, for instead of reappearing about one hundred years
later, it reappeared ninety-six years later, in 1698, and since then
the shower of Leonids has taken place not every thirty-three years,
as is generally supposed, but every thirty-four years. There was
a shower in 1833, and then the statement has been repeated many
times of late that the next was in 1866. Professor Pickering ad-
mits that this may have been true in England, but it certainly is
not a correct statement for America. There was a shower visible
in 1866 in America, but it was not to be compared to the shower
of one year later, 1867, when it may have been cloudy in England
and therefore unnoted. And since that change in the orbit of the
swarm in the seventeenth century it has appeared at intervals of
thirty-four years. The error that astronomers all over the world
have made lies in the fact that they computed from the early
records without consulting carefully all the statistics of the cen-
turies as Professor Pickering has just done. According to his cal-
culation, then, the shower should arrive in 1901.
One fact seems to have been pretty generally overlooked in all
the scientific explanations that we have seen. Those who remember
the magnificent swarm of 1867 may recall the fact that the more
brilliant ones usually burst like sky rockets. The cause of this was
1 86 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
said to be their contact with the earth's atmosphere. Why may
not have our planet overtaken the Leonids and passed them by at
a comparatively short distance, supposing them to be still in ex-
istence? The failure to strike our atmospherical envelope might
account for their invisibility. If they be subject to variations in
their orbit, as Professor Pickering tells us, there is no good reason
Vi^hy our failure to see them last November may not be attributed to
another change like that in the interval from 1602 to 1698.
CANCER AND VACCINATION.
The alarming hypothesis has been broached that the great in-
crease in that frightful malady cancer is due to the practice of vac-
cination. The theory was put forward by Dr. W. B. Clarke, of
Indianapolis, in a paper read a short time ago before the State
Society, of Homoeopathic Physicians. Commencing with the fact
that cancer is a disease characterized by rapid growth of abnormal
cell-structure, he said : "It takes twenty-one years or more to make
ease characterized by the rapid imposition of cells, I ask you is it safe
a man, and but three or four to make a cow. As cancer is a dis-
ease characterized by the rapid imposition of cells, I ask you is it safe
to put the rapid-growing cells or protoplasm of a diseased animal
into the slow-growing cells of man, as is done in vaccination?"
Dr. Clarke believes that we are reaping the harvest of the seed so
generally introduced forty to fifty years ago, and that deaths from
cancer are more numerous in England and Prussia, simply be-
cause the pernicious practice (of vaccination for smallpox) was gen-
erally introduced so much earlier there.
This is something for the out-and-out vaccinationists to ponder
over. Dr. Clark's inferences seem to be borne out to some
extent by Dr. Lambert Lack, a London physician, who has for a
considerable time been investigating the reason for the "abnormal
ratio of increase in cancer cases. He gave his views and basic
reasons to the Lancet a short time ago. He had long believed that
the epithelial cells of cancer were themselves the sole infective
agents; that this cancer epithelium was practically normal epithe-
lium, only out of place, and that from the very commencement of
the cancer it was growing in the lymph spaces. "I thought from
this," he goes on, "that if the normal epithelium by some acci-
dental means should obtain entrance into the lymph spaces it would
find no barrier to its continued growth and would produce all the
phenomena of cancer. At present I have performed but a single
Scientific Chronicle. 187
experiment to test this view. I obtained an emulsion of tlie epi-
thelial cells from the healthy ovary of a healthy rabbit and placed
them in the animal's peritoneum. The animal died fourteen months
afterward, and on examination masses of growth were found in the
abdominal and thoracic cavities having the characteristic features
of typical ovarian cancer."
Dr. Lack undertook to furnish the results obtained from further
experiments in this direction, and until this information is forth-
coming it would be rash to predicate acceptance of these somewhat
startling: statements about inoculation from animals.
A CETACIAN CURE FOR RHEUMATISM.
According to the British Australian, several persons suffering
from rheumatism have arrived at the Kiah whaling station, in the
Eden district, New South Wales, for the purpose of undergoing
the whale-bath cure. The treatment requires the patient, divested
of his clothing, frequently to remain for a long time in the interior
of a dead whale. Some remarkable cures are said to have been
effected by the treatment. This feat recalls a somewhat similar
one which gained for a distinguished Dublin surgeon a knighthood.
He treated a Lord Lieutenant for a cutaneous disease, and the
method he adopted was to get him into the interior of a cow freshly
killed and still warm. It was heroic, but, as the story goes, per-
fectly successful, and the grateful viceroy, beside a munificent fee,
bestowed on the surgeon the knightly accolade. In old medicine
such remedies were frequently resorted to; and many more of a
still more repulsive character. The pendulum of therapeutics seems
to be swinging back to the ancient ideas, and perhaps in due time
we may witness the reintroduction of astrology as one of the sub-
jects to be taken in the preparatory medical course.
A NAVIGABLE AIR-SHIP AT LAST.
It seems to be beyond all doubt that the dream of the aeronauts,
a balloon or air-ship that can be steered like a marine vessel and
driven even against the wind as a steamer, is at last realized. To
France, the natal place of the air balloon, belongs the palm of suc-
cess in this marvelous undertaking. The inventor is M. de Santos
Dumont. His balloon is twenty metres in height and 7>^ metres
1 88 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
in diameter. It is inflated with five hundred cubic metres of gas.
In this machine M. Dumont has made several ascents with com-
plete success. He has circled in it about the Eiffel Tower, guiding
it around the structure in an upward spiral movement and coming
down with the greatest ease whenever he desired. The whole
weight of the balloon, basket and steering apparatus is barely sev-
enty-five kilos. The propellors and engines are of aluminum. The
motor, the inventor says, is a modification of the De Dion type, and
has double the power of an ordinary one, being provided with two
cylinders, one over the other, and two pistons united by a bar pass-
ing through the top of the lower cylinder. The engine which gives
motion to the propeller was invented by M. Dumont, but for a
very different purpose. He used it first in an automobile race in
Paris last year, and after that he bethought him of applying it to the
propulsion of a balloon. All the scientists to whom he broached
the subject shook their heads when they heard the suggestion of
fire as an agency in connection with a balloon, but M. Dumont
went ahead and carried out his idea. Although very satisfactory
results so far has attended the experiments, he desiderates still
better ones, and hopes to attain these by alterations in the pro-
peller and the basket and getting a more powerful motor. The
steering apparatus he finds so satisfactory that he intends to leave
it as it is. Next year, when the weather clears, he intends making
ascents along the shores of the Mediterranean, beginning at Nice
or Monte Carlo. It is to be noted that Mr. Maxim, the famous
inventor, was very sanguine of being the first to perfect a navi-
gable balloon. He had done wonders in reducing the weight of
the motor in the air-ship. In the first rude essays at human flight
the only available source of power was that of the human muscle,
which meant at least a thousand pounds per horse-power, if con-
tinued for any considerable time. Giffard's steam-engine and
boiler taken together weighed, according to his own report of
September, 1852, one hundred and ten pounds per horse-power.
Some years later Mr. Stringfellow constructed a small model which
is said to have weighed only thirteen pounds per horse-power.
While both scientific and unscientific writers were debating the
possibility of ever constructing a large motor of like efficiency,
Mr. Maxim went resolutely to work and at one step reduced the
weight to less than ten pounds per horse-power. Mr. Maxim ex-
pressed the belief further that a useful working steam-engine and
boiler could be constructed to weigh but five pounds per horse-
power ! "I am of the opinion," he said, "that with a generator and
engine especially constructed for lightness a naphtha motor could
be constructed which would develop one hundred actual horse-
Scientific Chronicle. 189
power and not weigh more than five hundred pounds including
the condenser, and still have a factor of safety quite as large as we
find in locomotive practice.*' It will be seen that even these san-
guine predictions have been surpassed by M. Dumont's actual
achievements. So, too, with regard to the question of speed, M.
Dumont calculates on being able to obtain, with his improved
machinery, a velocity of sixty miles an hour in his aerial flights.
This is beyond the wildest dreams of the previous experimentalists.
One of the most eminent of these, Mr. Giflfard, after the success
of his first experiments, prepared the plans of a mammoth vessel
which was to be propelled at a speed of forty-four miles an hour
even with the engines he could then command. So confident was
he, indeed, that he obtained a patent for and meant to venture the
expense of constructing a balloon nearly two thousand feet long — ^a
work he would undoubtedly have attempted had not blindness over-
taken and prevented him. The Tissandier brothers, who for many
years labored arduously in the cause of aeronautics, became con-
vinced that it was only necessary to increase the size of the bal-
loon to insure its success. But M. Dumont's remarkable results
show that these eminent scientists had been looking for success
along a mistaken plane. His balloon is comparatively small, and
the great speed he believes he can attain is the result of the applica-
tion of more efficient methods in the machinery of propulsion.
NON-ALCOHOLIC ANTIDOTES FOR SNAKE BITE.
So much has been published regarding the virtues of alcohol as
an antidote for various kinds of poisoning, animal and mineral, that
it is pleasing to hear of efforts made to discover remedies of a differ-
ent character. The homoeopathic principle is taken by some ex-
perimentalists as a basis in these investigations. Recently there
appeared statements respecting an interesting series of experiments
carried on by Professor F. R. Eraser, F. R. S., to establish the
truth of a theory that the bile of certain animals will act as an anti-
dote to the venom of serpents and against the toxin of such dis-
eases as diphtheria and tetanus. The bile of noxious serpents is
found to be a powerful antidote against the venom of serpents, and
in the efficiency of its action is closely followed by the bile of in-
nocuous serpents. Carrying the research still further, Professor
Fraser found that the bile of animals without venom-producing
glands — such as man, the ox, pig and rabbit — was definitely anti-
dotal, but less so than that of serpents. In his experiments on the
190 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
toxins of the disease it was found by Professor Eraser that the veno-
mous serpents furnished bile that had much stronger antidotal
action than that of the nonvenomous serpents, while among the
non-venomous animals the bile of the rabbit was found to be effica-
cious not only against the toxins, but also the venoms.
SOME FALLACIES ABOUT READING DISTANCE.
The majority of readers labor under the belief that ease and com-
fort in this delightful mental exercise are to be best had by holding
the book or newspaper which yields it quite close. It may be this
pernicious habit which is responsible for the great prevalence of
short vision among the people of to -day. Dr. Norburne B. Jenkins,
who has made this subject a special study, recently laid down, in the
Medical Record, some useful suggestions, founded upon laws which
he had previously outlined. They seem applicable to the average
case, though it seems to some that the capabilities of different classes
of vision ought to be taken into account. The nearer objects ap-
proach the eyes, he finds, the greater will be the necesssary muscular
effort and the sooner will the muscles refuse to perform their func-
tions ; the farther the type is held from the eyes, the less is the re-
quisite muscular effort; hence it is probable that the farthest point
at which distinct reading-vision is possible is the proper distance
for continuous reading. Probably this point is more than thirty-
five centimetres (fourteen inches) distant from the eyes, and is de-
pendent upon the strength of the muscles, habit and the visual
acuity.
PROGRESS IN ARTIFICIAL DIAMOND PRODUCTION.
The distinguished inventor of whom we have spoken in the pre-
ceding article, if he has been outdistanced in the race for the prize
of the air, has his compensation in other directions. Besides his
triumphs in the field of scientific slaughter, he has others more sat-
isfactory to lovers of peaceful science. Amongst these is the arti-
ficial production of diamonds. He has devised a process for mak-
ing a species of carbon which closely, if not completely, resembles
diamond, and will be far less expensive than the natural diamond.
The substance, when obtained, is used in the manufacture of fila-
ments for high voltage incandescent lamps, which require a carbon
Scientific Chronicle. 191
possessing a high resistance and made of a highly refractory mate-
rial. Acting on the principle that carbon dioxide may be kept in
a liquid condition at a pressure of from 500 to 600 pounds to the
square inch, but when converted into carbon monoxide requires a
much greater pressure to confine, Mr. Maxim places in a strong,
tightly closed vessel carbon dioxide in a liquid or solid state and
some form of carbon, such as gasoline or other hydrocarbon. De-
composition is then effected by the electric arc, and part of the
oxygen of the carbon dioxide unites with the carbon and furnishes
carbon monoxide. The pressure thus becomes very high, and the
carbon at or near the conductors is converted into a very hard sub-
stance in the form of diamond scales. The carbon produced by
this process is reduced to a fine powder and then made into fila-
ments in the usual way. The one formidable difficulty which con-
fronted previous experimentalists in this field was to find a material
for a jar so fireproof as to be able to withstand the enormous pres-
sure from within generated by the terrific heat required for the pro-
cess of converting the carbon into the mineral. This difficulty
Mr. Maxim appears to have overcome, but by what method we have
yet to learn. There is no statement as yet as to the nature of the
material which he has found to answer his onerous requirements.
192 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
3500ft 1Rev(ew0»
SOMK RECENT BOOKS FROM THE OPEN COURT PUBWSHING CO., CHICAGO :
The Dawn of a New Era. By Dr, Paul Carus. Pp. 50.
Science and Faith. By £>r. Paul Topinard. Translated from the French by Thomas J.
McCormack. Pp. vi., 361.
History of Modern Philosophy in France. By Lucien Levy-Bruhl. Pp. x., 500.
"All the publications of the Open Court Publishing Company
are brought out with a very practical end in view, which is nothing
less than the reconstruction of religion upon the broad basis of
modern science." This statement is authoritative. It emanates
from Dr. Paul Carus, who is probably the head and, as we may judge
by his works, the soul of the firm. The statement is found on the
thirty-first page of The Dawn of a Nezv Era. The "old tradi-
tional dogmas will have to be revised and thoroughly remodelled,"
we are told, and "the basis" on which the revision and remodelling
is to b,e effected is "the doctrine of evolution" which we are in-
formed "is one of the most important fundamental religious
truths" (ib.). If any one be curious to know what special need
there may be just now for the Open Court to take in hand "the
reconstruction of religion," let him learn that "there are two kinds
of Christianity. One is love and charity ; it wants the truth brought
out and desires to see it practically applied in daily life. It is ani-
mated by the spirit of Jesus and tends to broaden the minds of
men" (p. 5). This kind the Open Court, everybody will be glad to
know, will not reconstruct. "The other [kind] is pervaded with
exclusiveness and bigotry ; it does not aspire through Christ to the
truth; but takes Christ as tradition has shaped His life and doc-
trines, to be the truth itself. It naturally lacks charity, and hinders
the spiritual growth of men. It has always been looked upon as or-
thodox and the only true Christianity. It has been fortified by Bible
passages, formulated in Quicumques, indorsed by OEcuinenical Coun-
cils and by Papal Bulls" (ib.). This kind of Christianity Dr. Carus is
persuaded needs "reconstruction." We agree with him. But whilst
waiving his equivocal use of the term "kinds of Christianity," might
we venture to remind so scientific a writer as Dr. Carus of the first
rule for the demonstrative syllogism : let the disjunctive members be
completely enumerated f We fear, pace tanti viri, he has, unwittingly
of course, fallen into a sophism. There are three, not two,
"kinds of Christianity." The third "kind" includes all the perfec-
tion of the first and positively excludes all the monstrosities of
Book Notices. 193
the second. This kind is Christ's Christianity^-as gleaned
from historical documents, our only present natural means of
knowing it. It is of this kind that its Founder said : "He that be-
lieveth not shall be condemned." Of it, too, one of Christ's own
commissioned ambassadors spoke when he pronounced anathema
on any one, "even an angel from heaven," that "should preach any
other Gospel." Dr. Carus considers these "harsh terms." Still
we read in the first record of primitive Christianity that the very
listeners to Christ's doctrine found His "words hard." And yet
the Master altered them not one jot or tittle. But Dr. Carus brings
another charge against "orthodox Christianity" besides its "exclu-
siveness, bigotry and uncharitableness," or rather he finds the ex-
clusiveness so excessive that it will not tolerate even Monism.
He says: "In order to substantiate the so-called orthodox
conception of Christianity, our ecclesiastical instructors have
gotten into the habit of telling us again and again that there
is no religion save such as is theistic, and [Italics ours] that
there is no theism save such as is a belief in a personal
God, and a personal God means a distinct individual being
with an ego-consciousness like that found in man, only in an in-
finitely higher plane — a view which we [Dr. Carus] call anthro-
potheism" (p. 33). And so the Open Court endeavors to so "recon-
struct religion" that it shall include no "belief in a personal God."
A less broad-minded thinker than our author might wonder what
"kind" of a religion that might be; but the synthetic soul of our
author readily takes in the religiosity of Monism. Another ele-
ment that is to disappear in the reconstructing process is the pagan-
ism of Church Christianity, for the second kind "is not as yet free
from paganism." By paganism the author understands "a belief in
the letter of parables or allegorical dogmas to the detriment of the
spirit; and tradition and habit combine to make our theologians
worship the letter that killeth. A one-sided training warps their
judgment. Their notions of God, the sacraments, miracles, inspira-
tion, prayer, Christ's sonship and other religious ideas are as a rule
more pagan than they themselves are aware of. The constitutions
of most churches are so formulated as to make a belief in the' literal
meaning of symbols the test of orthodoxy and Christians are urged
to set their trust upon myths. For the higher education of the
clergy we would propose, therefore, that every theologian should
study at least one of the natural sciences or mathematics. It would
be the best way, perhaps the only way, to teach them the sternness
of truth to dispel their anthropomorphic notions of God" (p. 49).
It is not the purpose of The Dawn of a New Era to point out all
the deficiencies, not to say vices, of "orthodox" Christianity, much
less to set forth the entire programme of its "reconstruction." It
194 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
is the aim and object of the Open Court PubHshing Company to
carry on this dual task — critical and constructive. The little
pamphlet is just one out of many stages in the general undertaking.
It offers here a short eulogy on the liberal spirit that prevailed at the
World's Parliament of Religions. There is also a brief article on the
New Orthodoxy and another somewhat longer on the late Professor
Romanes* Thoughts on Religion.
The extracts given above will no doubt abundantly suffice for our
readers to perceive the critical side of the author's design, as a con-
tribution to the general reconstructive work of his company. It is
not quite so easy to illustrate the positive side of his purpose. On
the whole it may be said that the aim is to make "religion scien-
tific." "Science" and "scientific" are terms ubiquitous in the Open
Court publications ; and they seem to indicate an ardent love for
truth that is quite inspiring. One could wish, however, that this
love had kept the author from using the terms so frequently in such
connection as to express or imply an opposition on the part of
"orthodox" Christians to genuine science.
A writer as scientific as Dr. Carus must be observant and cautious
enough to notice that there are very many eminent men who whilst
thoroughly "scientific" recognize a goodly number of truths which
transcend "science" both in their origin and in their object-
sphere. Moreover, so religious a man as our author has surely in
his soul the charity and the modesty which should prompt him to
suppose that these his eminently scientific brethren do not yield their
intellectual assent to such truths blindly and without a thoroughly
objective reason. In view of this knowledge on his part of the
recognition, by very competent scientists, of a transcendent order of
truth, he will not require his readers to agree with him in the follow-
ing fervid description of the relation of science, in the proper sense
of the term, to true religion : "There is no peace of soul for him
whose religion has not passed through the furnace of scientific criti-
cism where it is cleansed of all the slag and dross of paganism. If
God ever spoke to man, science is the burning bush ; and if there is
any light by which man can hope to illumine his path so as to make
firm his steps, it is the Hght of science. Let us therefore make re-
ligion scientific and science religious. Let us on the one hand
imbue religion with the spirit of science, with its rigorous criticism,
strict exactness and stern devotion to truth ; and on the other hand
let us open our eyes to the moral and religious importance of the
results of scientific inquiry. Let the light of science illumine both
our minds and our sentiments, for science is holy and the light of
science is the dwelling place of God" (p. 50). The scientific writer
must not be refused the stimulating elixir of rhetoric, and we may
Book Notices. 19S
charitably presume that here our author used his privilege too
freely.
One is surprised, not to say pained, at finding so sensitively a re-
ligious man as Dr. Carus speaking insultingly of St. Paul. He
characterizes the Apostle's conception of marriage as "low, not to
say vulgar and unchristian" (p. 43). The terms do not reflect any
very deep humility nor even charity in our author's religiousness.
These deficiencies, however, one may overlook in one so devoted to
the scientific elements of religion. But this devotion will hardly ex-
cuse him from not having investigated more fully the circumstances
which prompted St. Paul to write as he did to the Corinthians. For
the rest, if Dr. Carus will read carefully the fifth chapter of the
Apostle's letter to the Ephesians, he will find there the purest and
most sublime conception of matrimony ever expressed in human
language. Dr. Carus should have known and pondered over that
conception. He would have found his challenge to "any orthodox
clergyman to defend" the Pauline conception quite uncalled for.
It is just possible, however, that a mind so absorbed in science as
his may not be able fully to appreciate the transcendentally spiritual
thought of the Apostle in likening the union of man and wife to the
mystical alliance of Christ with the Church, especially as such a
thought does not lend itself to scientific criticism, the supreme cri-
terion of our author's religion. Still this lack of spiritual insight
will not excuse his gross calumny of St. Paul.
We have said enough to make clear the general intention of the
Open Court Publishing Company, as set forth by the New Era.
The second work at the head of this paper is the most recent serious
effort at realizing that intention. A glance through the book shows
that it is not only based upon, but is permeated through and
through with "the doctrine of evolution" on which "the old tradi-
tional dogmas will have to be revised and radically remodelled."
The author is most true in his speculation to the sub-title of his
book, Man as an Animal. The essay begins and ends with this con-
ception. The man-animal is declared to have evolved into a social
animal ; but sociality marks in the author's view no more than a
variation in degree, not in kind, of man's nature. One seeks in
vain throughout the book for any justification of this application of
the doctrine of evolution to the entirety of man's being. The posi-
tion is taken a priori, and then analogies drawn from comparative
anatomy are made to do service for proof. This sweeping of all the
higher elements of human nature — intellectual, volitional, social,
moral and religious — under the causality of cerebral activity cannot
be justified as a legitimately "scientific" procedure. In view of this
summary apriorism running through the work, one is prepared to
196 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
meet with other similarly "scientific" positions, such, for instance as
the statements concerning the process of evolution of primitive
man from his Anthropoid or Pithecoid ancestry. It is a little sur-
prising to read how familiar the author shows himself with this
process. His descriptions are so vivid one easily fancies Dr. Topi-
nard to have been actually an eye-witness of the transformation.
His narration of the way in which, for instance, the mere gesture-
language of the primeval savage passed over into the spoken word
is particularly graphic. "It was natural," we are told, "for primi-
tive man, as his gesture-language became more precise, to make
an effort to accompany it with sounds in some way connected with
what he desired to express. Unconsciously at first and then con-
sciously, he modulated his utterances by his larynx and then pro-
gressively articulated them with his mouth. He thus soon attained
the power of calling out in moments of danger, of commanding in
the management of his household, or in the chase, and even of re-
counting during the evenings his adventures after the manner of the
howling monkeys, but better" (p. 147). This is a fair specimen of
the "science" with which the book is filled from cover to cover.
Looking through it all one may fairly ask, Is this the kind cf
"science" on which religion is to be "reconstructed," the old truths
of faith "radically remodelled?" In the name of "science" Dr.
Cams deprives religion of its supreme object, a personal God, and
substitutes the abstraction, or the world-soul, or impersonal force of
Monism. Dr. Topinard comes along and takes from man a spir-
itual and immortal soul and gives him instead a nervous mechan-
ism some degrees more complexly constructed than that of the
monkey. Upon these monstrosities "science," aided by phantasy
and emotion, is to construct a reUgion. Even Dr. Topinard is scep-
tical of the result. Some years ago, he tells us, he was looking
about for the scientific basis of ethics, "the principle of justice and
the distinction between good and evil, the principle of altruism, and
so forth." He had reached the conclusion that they must be ac-
cepted without discussion "as dogmas or articles of faith." This
conclusion, he says, was "distressing" to him, and he ceased not "to
ponder on them." Then he "searched for some property of living
beings possessing a nervous system that would give body and ob-
jective reality to these dogmas." He reread Herbert Spencer and
other writers, amongst whom was Dr. Paul Cams. Then he adds :
"The doctrine which Dr. Paul Cams upholds is alluring. Will it
convert the masses, which it is our aim to lead into the ways of
righteousness? Will it prove sufficient as a sanction of the moral
obligation? That is the question." (P. 2.) That indeed is the
question, become infinitely more a question in the light, or rather
Book Notices. 197
the darkness of a "science" which leaves for man neither a God nor
a soul, in any sense of the terms that can supply a rational basis for
a moral life.
Dr. Topinard's book is entitled Science and Faith. The latter
term occurs several times in the book, on the first and the last two
pages. The concluding paragraph of the work deserves quoting as
an illustration of the author's conception of science, but especially
of faith. He has spoken much of science, he says, and very little oi
faith. 'The reason is that the two mutually exclude each other.
Science is knowledge ; faith is belief. Science considers things ob-
jectively, and accepts only what is demonstrated by observations
perpendce et numerandce, and by generalizations and inductions which
go with it, stopping at agnosticism." One cannot help wishing
that the author had furnished in his own speculation an illustration
of this definition of science ; that he had found farther back than his
exaggerated theory of Transformism that healthy agnosticism
"which should acknowledge the unknown when facts abandoned
him," and ere he fell into "nebulous hypotheses" where "positive
and objective facts" were not forthcoming.
"Faith," he goes on to say, "is subjective, individual and depen-
dent on cerebral sensibility, as the latter has been constituted by he-
redity, education, habits and temperament of the subject. Orators
who, like Pere Didon, seek to demonstrate the compatibility of the
truths established by science and the beliefs dictated by faith, only
shatter the latter : a faith which is examined and shown to be in ac-
cord with facts ceases to be faith." The author does not deny "the
utility of extolling certain articles of faith ;" at least at the present
day, and indeed even he himself "is not far from admitting that the
four or five principles, especially justice, which society takes for its
base and ideal, should be converted into articles of faith" (p. 361).
The reason of this admission we saw above is that he has been un-
able as yet to discover any "property of living beings possessing a
nervous system that would give body and objective reality to these
dogmas." Thus we see another of the essentials of religion elimi-
nated in the reconstructing process. First a Personal God is re-
jected and His place given to an impersonal force^ an abstraction..
Then man is deprived of a spiritual soul and assigned an aggregate
of forces and states in a complexly constituted and convoluted
brain. Lastly, faith is stripped of its real bases and objects and
reduced to subjective fancy and feeling, the resultant of "cerebral
sensibility." Truly this is "reconstructing" religion ; but is it done
on the "broad basis of science ?" If the contents of this book and
many of the other publications of the Open Court Company be
science, may Heaven prevent humanity from trusting either to the
198 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
foundations or the superstructure! The "broad basis of science"
ought surely be "facts" and principles, objectively verifiable, not of
course by sense, but by intellect, the only natural interpreter of
sense perception in our possession. Now when we seek for the
"facts" of Dr. Topinard's science we find them distorted or colored
by an unfounded and unverifiable theory, viz. : that man is a mere
animal, even though social ; and that man, with his soul and all his
intellectual, moral and religious endowments, has been evolved from
purely animal ancestry. "What is certain" says our author, "is
that man by all his characters is descended from some Primate.
The brain, the hand and all that relates to his way of standing, with
the exception of the foot, are proofs of it." (P. 20.) Now certainty
(certitude) is based on evidence. Where is the evidence for this
proposition? The majority of the most cultured intellects of the
human race, past and present, has not been able to discover it,
though many modern scientists take the proposition as a "working
hypothesis." Have Dr. Topinard and his school some specially
keen instinct for evidence which has enabled them to discover a
ground of certainty in a proposition which the larger number of
thoroughly scientific men hold as either untrue or at best hypotheti-
cal ? Another of the author's a priori statements is that concerning
faith, cited above. Is it a "fact" that faith depends on "cerebral
sensibility," etc.? What "broad basis of science" underHes this
theory ? Surely Dr. Topinard's modesty will not allow him to arro-
gate to himself a monopoly of knowledge as to the nature, object
and genesis of faith. He cannot but know that very many emi-
nently scholarly and "scientific" minds, including if he will Pere
Didon, find quite a firmly objective sphere and motive of faith apart
from "cerebral sensibility," etc.
We might cite, as another illustration of "scientific" accuracy, the
author's remark concerning the origin of the doctrine of the Divine
Trinity. (P. 237.) But we have said enough to show upon what
"scientific basis" the work of "reconstructing religion" is being
pushed forward.
We have no space left to treat of the third work on our list — a
work in which there is some, though not so much of this kind of re-
constructive science exemplified in Dr. Topinard's essay. We
might add, by way of conclusion, that there is just enough of such
"science" in the Open Court publications to catch the mind of
half-educated youth who have had a smattering of some "ologies"
and the "science" diluted for the popular literature of the day. With-
out religious or philosophical training they are unable to detect the
poisonous sophistry pervading these works. Swallowing it all, they
lose appreciation of supernatural and even supersensible truth.
Book Notices. I99
Their "metaphysical sense" becomes completely atrophied. The
story of the consequences of a "scientific reHgion" in which there is
neither a personal God, a spiritual soul, nor genuine faith is written
large in the prisons, asylums and death morgues of our cities, in
the headlines of our newspapers flashing out the daily record of
crime and scandal, and yet more in the diseased bodies and ruined
lives of victims unknown to the outside world. F. P. S.
PRA GiROLAMO SAVONAROLA. A Biogiaphical study, based on Contemporary Documents.
By Herbert lyucas, of the Society of Jesus. 8vo, pp. xxxii., 474. London: Sands &
Co. St. lyouis : B. Herder.
Readers of the London Tablet will recognize in this volume a
series of articles which appeared in that periodical from April to
December, 1898. They were universally admired, widely quoted
and somewhat sharply criticized. The author's name was not men-
tioned, but every one admitted that he was well equipped, and that
he had access to the best sources of information. Before many
numbers of the series had appeared it was evident that he had
studied the subject thoroughly, and his fair presentation of the facts,
together with his calm, dispassionate conclusions, showed that he
was no partisan, and that he desired only the truth. Altogether the
Tablet series formed the most important addition to Savonarola lit-
erature in the fifth centennial year of his death.
This volume, however, is not merely a reprint of the Tablet series.
The articles have been carefully revised, and more than half the
work has been rewritten and very much enlarged.
The author's account of how he came to study the subject is inter-
esting. He received for review a brochure on Savonarola by Dr.
Ludwig Pastor, entitled Zur Beurtheilung Savonarolas, which was a
rejoinder to some critics of his treatment of the Florentine Reformer
in the third volume of his Geschiehte der Pdpste im Zeitalter der Renais-
sance, and especially to Dr. Paolo Luotto's // vero Savonarola e il
Savonarola di Lodovico Pastor.
While preparing himself for this review, Father Lucas learned of
the mass of documentary evidence which existed on the subject,
scattered through many volumes, and inaccessible to the general
English reader. Then the thought came to him that it would be
much better to bring this evidence into compendious form, and
within the compass of a single volume, than to sit in judgment on
two experts. This thought was acted upon, and the result was the
excellent series of papers in the Tablet, and this still more excellent
book.
2CX) American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The writer needed no such apology as is contained in the follow-
ing words which appear in the preface : "Whatever the judgment
to be ultimately passed upon Savonarola may be, it will hardly be
questioned that he occupies a position in ecclesiastical history so
conspicuous and important as to make it desirable that all, or sub-
stantially all, that can be known about him should be placed within
the reach of those students of history who have neither the leisure,
nor perhaps the opportunity, to ransack a library in quest of the
whole truth/'
The purpose of the writer is sufficient. "The purpose of this
biography is, primarily, to set before the reader the fact of Savo-
narola's life, and a summary of the documentary evidence bearing
thereon ; and, secondly, to express with, we trust, becoming modera-
tion and reserve, our own judgment on such points as have given
rise to a divergence of views upon his actions, his words, his aims
and intentions, and on the actions and motives of those who, in
greater or less measure, took part in the conflict which issued in the
final catastrophe of his condemnation and death."
An excellent feature of the work, and very rare, is short explana-
tions of the character of many of the works quoted, a full list of
which is placed in the beginning. J. P. T.
The Catbchism Explained. An Kxhaustive Exposition of the Christian Religion, with
special reference to the present state of society and the spirit of the age. From the
origrinal of Rev. Francis Spirago. lEdited by Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S. J. 8vo,.
pp. 730. New York : Benziger Brothers.
English-speaking Catholics, lay and cleric, were never so well
supplied with treatises on Christian doctrine as they are at the
present time. The Catechism of Perseverance by Gaume in four
volumes is an exhaustless storehouse, with a wealth of information
and illustration that has never been excelled. For many years it
was the only full exposition of Christian doctrine in English. But
within the last two years several other excellent works on the same
subject have appeared.
The first was an "Exposition of Christian Doctrine" in three vol-
umes, published by McVey, of Philadelphia. The two volumes
which have already been published have received a most flattering
reception. Then came the "Catechism of Rodez," translated by
Father Thein, of Cleveland, and published by Herder, of St. Louis.
It had proved its worth in the original by exhausting many editions
without lessening the demand, and the translation sprang into favor
at once.
Now we have this new treatise, with its simple but suggestive title^
Book Notices. 201
"The Catechism Explained." It is intended for the preacher, the
catechist, the teacher and the family. It is really what it claims to
be, the catechism explained. But in that explanation lies its excel-
lence. The illustrations, comparisons and quotations from the
Scriptures, the fathers and other writers make it very full, very
clear and very attractive. At this time especially, when persons
outside of the Catholic Church are getting farther and farther away
from truth, books of this kind are most welcome. There is no ex-
cuse for any one being ignorant of God's truth, but least of all for a
Catholic. He has the true Church of Christ to teach him at all
times — the Church which the Son of Man established for that very
purpose, and to which He gave His own authority. The Church
discharges her high office by preaching the Gospel, by placing
printed copies of it in the hands of her followers, but most of all by
teaching the fundamentals of Christianity to children through the
catechism, which is a compendium of all Christian truth.
In books like the one before us, the compendium is enlarged, the
upper structure is built on the same foundation and the number of
teachers is multiplied. If parents could be induced to get copies of
such books and with their assistance explain the catechism to their
children, how much more faithfully they would fulfil their obliga-
tions to the little ones whom God has committed to them, and how
much more successfully they would earn the love and respect of
their offspring. The Catholic public in general should show its ap-
preciation of the labors of editors and publishers who make these
books by patronizing them. J. P. T.
Daily Thoughts for Priests. By ygry Rev. J. B. Hogan, S. S., D. D., President of St.
John's Seminary, Brighton, Mass. i2mo., pp. x., 202. Boston : Marlier, Callanan & Cc
This book has been written by a man of piety, learning and ex-
perience. This is said not to praise the man, but the book. The
combination is so rare in authors, that it is well worthy of note.
We have books by pious men, and by learned men, and by men of
experience, but books by pious learned men of experience are rare.
This is one reason, and a very important one, why we do not profit
more by spiritual books. They are good, they are filled with
truth, but it is generally abstract, or it is made practical by com-
parisons and examples that are remote and ancient, and that fail to
bring it home to the student.
Every one admits that in order to live a spiritual life a man must
feed on spiritual food. He does this by meditation and pious read-
ing. But it is freely conceded that on account of the mode of
202 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
life of the majority of priests who do not live in community, any-
thing like regular order is hard to follow. The varying demands
that are made on the missionary priest, the constant change of hour
for different duties, the ease with which others may intrude them-
selves on us, and the many distractions of the world about us, make
it very difficult indeed for us to follow a strict rule of life, such as we
all acknowledge we should follow.
A pious man does not understand our difficulties, and he con-
tinues to prepare books of meditation for us that are very good and
very long, but that we do not use. The learned man writes to con-
vince us that we must use those books if we wish to be spiritual.
But the practical man sees the difficulty and tries to overcome ic.
This is what the author of the book before us has done. He
does not deny the excellence of meditation in the strictest sense,
and no one knows better than he the many good books of medita-
tion that have been written, but he takes into consideration all the
circumstances of the occasion, and he provides for those who are
prevented from following the best course.
"Daily Thoughts" are short, practical treatises on divine truths
which may be taken up at any spare moment in the day and assimi-
lated. Each subject is introduced by a text generally from the
words of Christ, and is ushered out by some quotation from the
Imitation, the Fathers or some other authorized source. They are
so practical and so clearly and concisely put that no effort is re-
quired in reading them. Indeed, one cannot get away from them
who meets them at all. With this book on his table a priest need
never be spiritually hungry. J. P. T.
Sacerdos Rite Institutus Pus Exercitationibus Menstrua Recollectionis. Auc
tore P. Adulpho Petit, S.J. Series Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta et Quinta. i2mo.
Typis Societatis Sancti Augustini, Bruges et Insulis.
The meditations contained in these five little volumes were begun
in the "Etudes Ecclesiastiques," and they attracted such wide at-
tention that many readers of that periodical asked the author to put
them into book form, in order that they might be better preserved
and made more easily accessible to a larger number of readers. The
request was granted, and the first series was published.
The purpose of the author, as the title indicates, is to provide
priests with material for a retreat each month. Hence he chooses
subjects which are particularly suitable for the sacerdotal state, and
which are not generally found in books of meditation. He treats
them very much at length, so that a person may find material for
several days' meditation, if he have so much time to devote to his
Book Notices. 203
retreat. He so arranges his matter that it may be used for spiritual
reading when several persons are making a retreat together, and
he writes always rather with a view to clearness than to brevity.
To each meditation proper he joins another by way of supple-
ment, which is a preparation for death and judgment. The former
is more speculative, the latter more practical. Finally, in answer
also to the request of readers, he adds a special examen in each
instance on the virtues and duties of the priest.
In the beginning the author intended to publish only the first
series, but the work was so well received and so widely read that the
demand for more was too strong to be refused. Hence the second
and following series until the fifth came from the press. The earlier
volumes have already run through several editions.
One need not search for the reason of such a demand and such
high commendations as have been bestowed on the work. The
author has that peculiar keen analytical spiritual insight that fits a
man to think for others. It is rare. Most books of meditation
impress one as being made up of the meditations of some one else.
Such books are not of much real service to their readers. We rarely
find a book in which the writer has really prepared our meditation
for us. This is the characteristic of Father Petit's book.
The volumes are so small, so light, so beautifully and clearly'
printed in easy graceful Latin that they tempt one to use them. As
they become better known they will surely be highly appreciated.
J.P.T.
D. DiONYSicrs Cartusianus ; Knarratio in Canticum Canticorum Salomonis. Mon-
strolii, Typis Cartusse S. M. de Pratis. N. D. des Pr€s, Montreuil-sur-Mer. France.
Pp. 512.
The editors of the new issue of the works of Dionysius the Car-
thusian are doing wisely in publishing apart from the Opera Omnia,
individual writings of the great theologian. One of these detached
opuscula is presented in the pretty little volume here under notice.
A neat little book it is, done up in the excellent manner which
makes the newly collected works so attractive. A book for the
pocket, a vade mecum for the priest or religious whose mind and
heart are attuned to the spiritual harmonies that found so apt an
instrument in the soul of Dionysius. Only a purified spirit such
as his could produce an accompaniment in right accord with the
sublimest of canticles. It needs the far-seeing wisdom, the close
touch with the Divine, the delicate spiritual sense that comes of
abiding life in the unearthly atmosphere of religion, to realize and
present to less gifted souls the mystic meaning hidden under the
204 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
luxuriant symbolism of the Song of Songs. In his commentary on
the Canticles, Dionysius shows to evidence those spiritual endow-
ments that were so singularly his — the blending of intellectual in-
sight into the truths of faith, the accurate technical knowledge of
scientific theology and especially the abiding consciousness of the
bearing of all religious truth and communication on its first and
last end, the union of the rational creature with its Creator. Here
learned exegesis and subtle scholasticism are seen in their proper
objective relations to a sound unexaggerated mysticism.
If we might venture a suggestion to the Dionysian editors, it
would be that they anticipate the publication in the larger form of
some of the opuscula that illustrate other sides of the author's mind.
Such, for instance, as the Compendium Philosophice, the De Venustate
Mundi or De laudibus superlaudabilis Dei. Students not drawn by
Commentaries on the Sacred Text might be stimulated to a taste
for these most wholesome works by the reading of the more orig-
inal, spontaneous outpouring of the great Carthusian's soul.
The lyiFE AND Works of Dante Allighieri, being an Introduction to the Study of the
'•Divina Commedia." By the Rev. J. F. Hogan, D. D., Professor, St. Patrick's College
Maynooth. 8vo., xii., 352. New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
"This work does not and could not profess to be an exhaustive
treatment of the life and works of Dante. Composed, as it is in
the main, of certain lectures delivered to the students of Maynooth
College, it is intended chiefly for those who have neither the time
nor the inclination to become specialists in the study of the 'Divina
Commedia.' "
The book is intended to be an introduction to Dante. It is pretty
generally conceded that such a work is not only useful, but almost
essential, for those who use English translations as well as for those
who read the original.
The notes that accompany translations are not sufficient to pre-
vent many students from being discouraged and sometimes re-
pelled. It is said that Sir Walter Scott and Cardinal Newman gave
up Cary's translation. If this be true, how much more necessary it
must be to provide helps for younger readers of less ability.
In the narrative system which the author of this work follows he
gives a descriptive account of the contents of each part. His com-
ments, interspersed through the poet's narrative, touch only the
salient features of each canto. He has abstained purposely from
quoting many opinions and authorities, because such a course was
foreign to his purpose.
Book Notices. 20$
The book is timely, for the English students of Dante are increas-
ing rapidly, and it ought to help them very much to understand and
appreciate this great production which has not been dimmed by
time nor forgotten by fickle man.
Tub Sibylliwe Oracles. Translated from the Greek into English Blank Verse. By Mil-
ton S. Terry, D. D., lylv. D. New edition revised after the text of Rzach. i2mo, pp.
29a. New York : Eatou Sl Mains.
The conspicuous place which the Sybils occupy in the traditions
and history of ancient Greece and Rome makes them interesting
subjects for every student. The bibliography of them is very ex-
tensive and ancient, but their oracles had not been accessible in
English dress until Dr. Terry made his first translation in 1890. A
translation of the first eight books was published by Sir John Floyer
in London in 1713, but it has been out of print for many years. The
present edition is intended to supercede the previous translation by
the same author, and Js based on the Greek text of Aloisius Rzach
published at Vienna ir* 1891. Dr. Terry speaks of the text of Rzach
as the best extant, and refers to the book as a product of inde-
fatigable labor that is not likely to be soon superseded.
In the present instance the metre is pentameter instead of hexa-
meter, as in the Greek, because the author thinks that the latter is
somewhat foreign to the genius of the English tongue.
The work is very carefully done. A short table of contents is
given at the beginning of each book, and also a short sketch of its
history or supposed history. There are numerous explanatory foot-
notes and references to the Christian Fathers who have quoted tha
text.
In the appendix much additional valuable information appears,
and at the end, besides a full bibliography, there is an index of the
fathers who quote the Sibyls, with reference to the lines in the text
that are quoted. It is a very pretty book, the workmanship being
beyond reproach in every particular.
What is I^ibbralism ? Englished and adapted from the Spanish of Dr. Don Felix Sarda y
Salvany, by Cond6 B. Fallen, Ph. D., I^t,. D. i2mo, pp. 176. St. Louis : B. Herder.
We cannot better make known the purpose and excellence of this
book than by quoting from the preface the history of the original :
"In 1886 there appeared in Spain a little work under the title El
Liheralismc es Pecado: 'Liberalism is a Sin,' by Don Felix Sarda y
Salvany, a priest of Barcelona and editor of a journal called La
2o6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Revista Popular. The book excited considerable commotion, it
was vigorously assailed by the Liberals. A Spanish Bishop, of a
Liberal turn, instigated an answer to Dr. Sarda's work by another
Spanish priest. Both books were sent to Rome praying the Sacred
Congregation of the Index to put Dr. Sarda's work under the ban."
The answer was a great surprise. In a letter which the Sacred
Congregation wrote on the subject we read :
"The Sacred Congregation has carefully examined both works
and decided as follows : In the first, not only is nothing found con-
trary to sound doctrine, but its author, Dr. Felix Sarda, merits great
praise for his exposition and defense of the sound doctrine therein
set forth with solidity, order and lucidity and without ofifense to
any one." In regard to the other book, the Sacred Congregation
says that in matter it needs corrections, and that its offensive per-
sonalities merit rebuke. The author is advised to withdraw it from
circulation as far as possible.
Dr. Sarda's work is indeed excellent, and Dr. Fallen has caught
the spirit of the Spanish author so well that one mind only is visible
in the American book. It is particularly suited to American readers
and will do immense good in the hands of young men and women
who are most exposed to the danger of which it treats.
Carmel in England : a History of the English Mission of the Discalced Carmelites, 1615
to 1849. Drawn from documents preserved in the archives of the Order. By Father B.
Zimmerman. i2mo., pp. xvi., 379. I,ondon : Burns & Gates. New York: Benziger
Brothers.
Here is an important addition to English Church history which
in recent years has received many contributions from able pens. It
is the very best way to write history. No one man has the time
or ability, nor does any one live long enough to write a complete
history of the Church in any country where she has existed as long
as in England. But if the members of the different religious com-
munities will gather together the materials which are at hand in
the archives of each one, and compile from them the history of
the saintly founders and distinguished members who have labored
so faithfully for the spread of the Gospel, we shall soon have all the
links of the chain ready to be welded together by some master hand.
The work before us is one of those links covering that important
period of English history comprised between the years 1615 and
1849 and dealing with St. Simon Stock, the founder of the English
branch of the order, and with his many saintly followers, it is both
interesting and valuable. The work has been compiled from docu-
ments preserved in the archives of the order, and it has been very
Book Notices. 207
carefully done. It adds one more chapter to that glorious history
of sanctity and heroism which distinguished the Catholic Church
in England for so many centuries, and which promises to encourage
the wandering children of the faith to return again to the true fold
from which they have wandered.
Studies in Literature. Some Words about Chaucer and Other Essays. By Maurice
Francis Egan, A. M., LL. D. i2mo., pp. 130. St. lyouis : Herder & Co.
The author of these essays tells us that they might be called
"Studies for Lectures," and that they are all united with the "Sanc-
tity of Literature" for their keynote, although their titles seem to
separate them from one another. Their titles are : "Some Words
About Chaucer," "On the Teaching of English," "The Sanctity of
Literature," "Some Aspects of an American Essayist," "The Ode
Structure of Coventry Patmore," "New Handbooks of Philoso-
phy." Mr. Egan has been identified with literature so long,
both as a writer and a teacher, that he needs no introduction to
American readers. In recent years he has frequently appeared on
the lecture platform, and his merits have been more prominently
brought before the public. All that he does bears the stamp of the
student and the scholar, and his name is a guarantee of orthodoxy,
which is a high recommendation.
The Holy Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate. The Old and the New Testament. 8
vo., pp. 1400. Baltimore : Murphy & Co.
This is the best one volume edition of the Bible that we have seen.
It is compact and the type is unusually good for a book of the size.
For general reading, no one should try to find a one volume edition
of the whole Bible, but for reference, when one must have many
books at hand in order to work rapidly, this one will be very use-
ful. We have not been making Bibles to be proud of, and we are
glad to notice any advancement in that field of book-making which
our neighbors have worked so admirably.
Sacra Liturgia Tom. II. Tractatus de Rubricis Missalis Romani. Opera J. F Van
der Stappen. Mechliniae: N. Dessain. Pp. 361.
We called attention in the July number of the Review to the first
volume of this work on Sacred Liturgy, treating of the Rubrics of
the Breviary. The present volume deals with the Rubrics of the
2o8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Missal in the same method. The matter is cast into the form of
question and answer, thus adapting the work for its didactic use
as a text-book in Ecclesiastical Seminaries. Clearness and exact-
ness of style and the mechanical arrangement of the material are
excellencies in the same direction.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
Geschichte Des Deutschen Volkes Vom Dreizehnten Jahrhundert Bis Zvu Aus-
GANG Des Mittelalters. Von Emil Michael S.J. Vol. II. describing the religions
and social conditions, education and instruction in Germany during the thirteenth cem
' tury. Freiburg and St. IvOuis; Herder: 1899.
Exhort ATiONES Domestic2e Venerabilis Servi Dei Cardinalis Roberti Bellarmini:
Bruxellis: 14 Rue des Ursulines, 1899.
The Friars of the Philippines. By /?ev. Ambrose Coleman, O. P. lamo., pp. 152.
Boston: Marlier, Callanan & Co.
lyOYAL Blue and Royal Scarlet; a story of '76. By Marion Ames Taggart. lamo., pp.
233. New York: Benziger Bros.
Peggy. By Laura E. Richards. Hlustrated by Etheldred B. Barry. lamo., pp. 308. Bos-
ton: Dana Estes & Co.
Essays Educational and Historical on Some Important Episodes. By a Member of
the Order of Mercy. i2mo., pp. 408. New York: O'Shea & Co.
Chisel, Pen and Poignard ; or, Benvenuto Cellini. His Times and His Contemporaries.
By the author of "The I,ife of Sir Kenelm Digby." With nineteen illusttations. Stc,
pp. 157. I,ondon and New York : I,ongmans, Green & Co.
The Saints— Saint Ambrose. By the Due de Broglie, of the French Academy. Trans-
lated by Margaret Maitland, with a Preface by G. Tyrrell, S. J. lamo., pp. rii., 169. I<on-
don: Duckworth & Co. New York: Benziger Brothers.
A Round Table of the Representative French Catholic Novelists. With Por-
traits and Selections, lamo., pp. 315. New York : Benziger Brothers.
THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC
QUARTERLY REVIEW
" Contributors to the Quarterly will be allowed all proper freedom in the ex-
pression of their thoughts outside the domain of defined doctrines, the Review not
holding itself responsible for the individual opinions of its contributors."
(Extract from Salutatory, July, 1890.)
VOL. XXV.— APRIL, 1900.— No. 98.
IMPERIALISM IN THE PHILIPPINES.
THE policy adopted by the Spanish monarch in the first occu-
pation of the Philippines was told in a recent number of this
magazine. It also described the results obtained by that
policy in practice. It is instructive to compare it with the new im-
perialism which has been forced on them in the name of American
civilization during the past year.
When Legaspi, in the sixteenth century, raised the Spanish flag
in the uncivilized archipelago of San Lazaro, the objects proposed
were clearly laid down in his instructions. They were: First,
the conversion of its savage population to Christianity ; second, their
organization, when converted, on the model of the Spanish people of
the time, and thirdly, the establishment of the supremacy of the Gov-
ernment of Spain among them, with the same powers as it exercised
in Europe. That a civilized nation might justly take control of un-
organized savage lands was generally admitted then, as now; but
the limits of that control were much more clearly defined by public
opinion. Savages were recognized as men, with the same rights to
liberty, life and property as their civilized brothers. A Christian
power had no right to impose its authority on strangers, except for
their own real benefit or by their free consent. If imposed for any
other cause it was regarded as tyranny and not to be tolerated b}'"
Christian conscience. Such was the doctrine laid down to the Span-
Entered according to Act of congress, in the year 1899, by Benjamin H. Whittaker, in the
OflBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
210 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ish court and the Spanish universities by Las Casas, and endorsed
by the Spanish rulers themselves. It is not to be thought that these
principles were always carried out, in practice, any more than the
general laws of the United States are observed by all American citi-
zens to-day ; but at least they were recognized, and Spanish states-
men tried, in general, to put them in practice. Philip II. and his
Governor, Legaspi, did so in the Philippine settlements. The latter
before his death was able to claim with truth that he had obtained
recognition of Spanish authority through the whole Philippine arch-
ipelago without war or bloodshed. It is a rare boast in the annals
of colonial settlements by Europeans. Penn at Philadelphia and
Calvert in Maryland are the only similar cases in our own land of
former colonies. The peaceful character thus imprinted on the
Philippine Government was little changed during the three cen-
turies after Legaspi's death. There was only one really serious
insurrection among the native converts in all that time — that of
Silan, in 1759, after the capture of Manila by the English.
The course of the American occupation so far has been very differ-
ent from Legaspi's. If directed by any definite policy, that policy
has never been published, either to the natives of the islands or the
citizens of the United States. Congress declared war on Spain
without specifying any reason for such action. It declared, further,
that the war was not made for the purpose of seizing territory, and
especially Cuban territory. As the action of Spain during the war
was strictly defensive, one cannot see on what grounds this intention
could not be carried out ; but it was certainly abandoned, without
hesitation, by the Administration as soon as Congress had ad-
journed. Commodore Dewey's fleet entered Manila Bay, destroyed
the weaker Spanish fleet, without loss of ^ man to itself, and threat-
ened to lay the defenseless city in ashes if its Governor attempted
any further resistance to American arms. It was not occupied by
force for several months because there were no troops to garrison
it if occupied. Meanwhile an insurrection, of especially ferocious
character, was stirred up by representatives of the United States.
Our Government had no policy at the time on the subject of terri-
torial occupation. It had nothing to fear from the Spanish troops
on the islands, yet its representatives deliberately involved the
hitherto peaceful population in a civil war carried on with savage
atrocity. Unarmed Spaniards, and especially priests, were treated
with a barbarity unknown in civilized war. More than fifty priests
were murdered and several hundred imprisoned and tortured.
Churches were plundered and desecrated, and armed bands, re-
cruited in part from the jails, were sent through the islands to rob
Imperialism in the Philippines. 211
and slay at will under the tacit protection of the American fleet and
army. Though Aguinaldo was furnished with arms by American
officers and obeyed generally the suggestions of our commanders,
it does not appear that a word of reprobation was addressed by any
of them to him on the atrocities done on prisoners, especially non-
combatants. Indeed, Mr. Wildmann, our Consul General, urged
the starvation or semi-starvation of the Spanish prisoners on his
friend Aguinaldo. The spirit which prevailed was like that in which
the English Government, during our own War of Independence,
stirred up the Mohawks to the massacre of Wyoming. It was less
excusable, as the Filipino cutthroats were riot savages by condition,
but a hitherto peaceful people stirred to savagery by reckless prom-
ises and the demoralization of plunder held out to them by Ameri-
can agents.
The misery inflicted on a peaceful population of many millions by
setting a band of reckless adventurers over them to overthrow the
whole social system at a blow seems not to have cost a thought to
either American officers or our Administration. A few months be-
fore the American press and Congress were denouncing with fervid
eloquence the horrors of civil war in Cuba and calling imperatively
on the Spanish Government to sacrifice everything for its cessation
in the "interests of humanity." A population four times larger than
Cuba's was deliberately plunged into a similar condition by Ameri-
can officials for the sake of inflicting some injury on the power of
Spain.
The war had been begun without alleged motive, and when the
Spanish Government, after the destruction of its fleets, asked for its
cessation our Administration appeared equally uncertain as to what
terms it should ask as the price of peace. Its policy was like that
of the old Norse Vikings in their descents on the coasts of France
or England ; but it hardly knew what ransom would best suit its own
interests. The idea of any principle of international right or jus-
tice beyond the right of the strongest to take whatever he pleased,
seems never to have been thought of. Still it was hardly worth
while to send a fleet to burn the towns of Spain for the mere pleas-
ure of destruction, so a "protocol" of peace was granted, by which
Spain not only withdrew from Cuba, but ceded Puerto Rico and
Guam to this country. It was provided further that the question
of the Philippines, which had been raised solely by Admiral Dewey's
entry into Manila Bay and destruction of the Spanish fleet there,
should be settled later on, when Mr. McKinley should have made
up his mind as to his own interests. The day after this protocol
was signed the commanders of the American forces thought well to
212 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
storm Manila, though its surrender for the time had been actually
granted by the Spanish Government. Manila was stormed, accord-
ingly, after a kind of sham battle which cost a number of lives with-
out the shadow of necessity. An army, made up mostly of new
levies with three months' military training, was placed in absolute
control of a city of three hundred thousand people. It proceeded
to rule it with all the confidence born of ignorance of the people,
and even their language, that might be expected from such an army.
In the words of a correspondent who belonged to one of the volun-
teer regiments, "The rifle, revolver and club did wonders in reform-
ing the population," on the ideas of the new militia. The feelings
of the people themselves towards the reform and reformers may be
imagined.
In the meantime the rest of the islands were left a prey to an-
archy. The greatest part of the Spanish troops were kept prisoners
in Manila. The others were shut up in a few towns, and without
supplies or orders were wholly unable to maintain order. Robber
bands pillaged Panay and Mindanao while our Administration was
thinking whether it had better withdraw from the islands altogether,
keep Manila, demand the cession of Luzon, or that of all the Philip-
pines. The last was finally decided on, and the Spanish Govern-
ment, of course, was powerless to resist. The whole Spanish gar-
rison in the islands had been less than fourteen thousand. That
little force had preserved peace and order among a population of
seven millions besides the outlying savage tribes. It was decided to
send at once from forty to sixty thousand American troops to estab-
lish American authority there. At the same time the Administra-
tion was quite uncertain what form the new institutions ought to
have. It was only sure that bayonets in plenty were needed for
their introduction.
When Legaspi, on his landing in Cebu, was attacked by the native
chiefs he drove his assailants off by discharges of artillery in the
air, as he wanted to avoid bloodshed. The provisions he had to take
by force he afterwards paid for at full value. When the natives sued
for peace and offered tribute in price for it the Spanish Governor
granted the first and declined the second. He was satisfied with
the acknowledgment of the sovereign rights of the Spanish Crown,
and on his part he recognized the right of the natives to govern
themselves by their own laws. It cannot be said that the American
imperialist policy shows to advantage beside Legaspi's.
When the late Emperor of France negotiated the annexation of
Savoy and Nice by the Sardinian Government he considered it only
just to take a vote of the population itself on the question of change
Imperialism in the Philippines. 213
of government. It is strange to find our Republican Administra-
tion, ruling on the principle that government is only of the people
and for the people, paying no attention to the will of the people in
the Philippines when changing their government of over three hun-
dred years' standing. The new imperialism regards the popular will
as having no place in the selection of rulers, at least outside the
American continent. The ideas that it professes are wholly foreign
to the habitual American ideas of government under which this
nation has been formed.
What was the condition of the people of Manila under the mili-
tary despotism set over them in the name of American liberty can
be judged from the accounts published in the San Francisco papers
before Aguinaldo came into collision with our troops. A corre-
spondent of the Call, of that city, who was a corporal in one of the
volunteer regiments, thus told it in December, 1898. It must be
remembered that the soldiers he speaks of were all new recruits and
almost all ignorant of the language or customs of the people whom
they were authorized to rule at discretion :
"The Minnesota boys, when we first entered the city, were given
the task of looking after its policing, and they have filled the bill to
the limit, incidentally filling the Coroner's office at the same time.
The native population had conceived something nearly akin to con-
tempt for the American soldier, not being able to disassociate kind-
ness and justice from weakness and cowardice. As soon as the boys
got to work they started in to convince them of their mistake, and
have, I imagine, succeeded fairly well. To give an idea of the
methods employed I will relate a little occurrence of yesterday morn-
ing:
"There is a large market just at the foot of the Colquante bridge
which is the rendezvous of a rough gang. There gambling is car-
ried on much in the same manner as it is in Chinatown at home —
behind closed doors. Yesterday a Minnesota policeman, a mere
boy, hearing the chink of coin, started in to investigate, and entering
one of the many shacks came upon a game running with a forced
draught. He ordered the proprietor to close the place and come
with him ; but the Filipino instead of obeying made a grab for the
young fellow. The Filipino died right then and there. Then the
young fellow turned loose on everything in sight. A tremendous
crowd gathered. Three members of the California guard hurried to
the scene and waded through the mob with butts and bayonets,
leaving sore heads and bleeding flanks to mark their path. When
they reached the shack they found it filled with smoke, through
which they perceived Filipino bodies lying where the wounded fell.
214 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
while the Minnesota guard was discovered sitting on a table munch-
ing an orange while waiting for some one to come and clean up the
debris.
"A few such instances have served in a great measure to teach the
anarchy loving Malay the error of his ways."
The flippancy with which these murders are described and the
admiration for the coolness of the soldier who "sat munching an
orange" over the bodies of three or four unarmed victims of his
revolver, tells sufficiently its own tale. The brand of "anarchy lov-
ing" gratuitously affixed to them is also noteworthy. The writer
continues to tell how the Island of Panay, which had not yet been
ceded to Ihe United States, was faring under the new regime of
delay :
"While these pacific measures are progressing in Manila the peo-
ple of Iloilo are having a regular monkey-and-parrot time. That
unfortunate city is in a state of chaos. The insurgents are besieg-
ing it on the outside, while the native population is rioting within
the walls. The Spanish garrison, worn out by long and constant
service, suffering from wounds and sickness, lacking food and medi-
cines and utterly without hope of succor from its own government,
continues to fight with the desperation born of the knowledge that a
massacre will follow capitulation. Business is entirely suspended.
The stores are closed, residences are barricaded and soldiers and
civilians pray that there may soon come to their relief those same
American troops which only a few months ago they so affected to
despise. It is probable that a few days will see a couple or three
regiments sent down there to put things to rights."
This was "substituting the mild sway of justice for arbitrary rule,"
as President McKinley modestly called it in his proclamation of the
5th of January. There is a touch of Mephistopheles about that pro-
clamation which almost tempts one to credit the writer with a grim,
if cynical, sense of humor. It declares that the military power must
be absolute over the whole of the islands, until the legislation of
the United States should see fit to change it, and as the President's
own part in making the burthen easy, he adds :
"In performing this duty the military commander of the United
States is enjoined to make known to the inhabitants of the Philip-
pine Islands that in succeeding to the sovereignty of Spain, in sever-
ing the former political relations of the inhabitants and in estab-
lishing a new political power, the authority of the United States is
to be exerted for the sovereignty of the persons and property of the
people of the islands and for the confirmation of all their private
rights and relations. It will be the duty of the commander of the
Imperialism in the Philippines. 215
forces of occupation to announce and proclaim, in the most public
manner, that we come not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends,
to protect the natives in their homes, in their employments and in
their personal and religious rights. All persons who either by active
aid or honest admission cooperate with the Government of the
United States to give effect to these benefits and purposes will re-
ceive the reward of its support and protection. All others will be
brought within the lawful rule we have assumed, with firmness if
need be, but without severity so far as may be possible.
"Within the absolute domain of military authority, which neces-
sarily is and must remain supreme in the ceded territory until the
legislation of the United States shall otherwise provide, the munici-
pal laws of the territory, in respect to private rights and property
and the repression of crime, are to be considered as continuing in
force, and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals as far as possi-
ble. The operations of civil and municipal government are to be per-
formed by such oiBcers as may accept the supremacy of the United
States by taking the oath of allegiance, or by officers chosen, so far
as may be practicable, from the inhabitants of the islands."
What the effect of the proclamation of good intentions thus sol-
emnly ordered would have in reconciling the population to the rule
of rifle and revolver in the hands of the volunteer police as above
described may be easily guessed. It is not easy for even an Ameri-
can familiar with English to make out the sense of this wonderful
document. How "the authority of the United States is to be ex-
erted for the sovereignty of the persons and property of the people of
the islands" passes comprehension. How people can "cooperate by
honest admission with the Government to give effect to these bene-
fits and purposes" is equally bewildering. The classification of the
future judges and officials into "those who may accept the suprem-
acy of the United States," or others "chosen from the inhabitants of
the islands" is a still more brilliant flower of rhetoric. It may be
added that the islands at this time were not American territory and
no oath of allegiance could be lawfully accepted from them at this
time.
This was, indeed, a change from the peace of the older time under
the so-called tyranny of Spain ; but there was worse in store for the
ill-starred population, whose fate had been suddenly changed, be-
cause American politicians were horrified over the alleged cruelty
of Spanish warfare in Cuba. Though the American occupation was
confined to Manila, pending the ratification of the peace treaty, a
collision occurred with Aguinaldo's soldiers outside its walls on the
4th of February. Three Filipino soldiers crossed into the Ameri-
2i6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
can lines, and an American sentry shot and killed one of them, in
much the same spirit as the young soldier, above described, emptied
his revolver into the native cardplayers. The comrades of the slain
man at once opened fire on the American lines. The result may be
best described in the words of one of the participants, a Califomian
soldier in the Third Artillery, whose letter was pubHshed in San
Francisco shortly afterwards. He writes :
"A small body of insurgents had attempted to cross San Juan
bridge and was driven back. It returned with reinforcements, and
the second volley followed its attack upon the line. A few seconds
after the second report every regiment in Manila was lined up out-
side its quarters, waiting impatiently for the signal to move. And
of all the cheering you ever heard in your life ! It showed that
every soldier in Manila was 'just dying' for a chance to get at the
black devils.
"The next morning the Americans charged over the trenches and
swept everything before them. Our boat then steamed up to the
firing line and started to shell the towns on the river. We struck
Santa Ana, the insurgent headquarters, first, and after an hour's hot
work we had the town in flames ,and what was left of the Filipinos
running like frightened sheep.
"When we stopped shelling Santa Ana the First California Regi-
ment entered, and what we had not burned they finished with a
vengeance. Their motto, as well as that of the other regiments, is :
'The only good Filipino is a dead one; take no prisoners, as lead is
cheaper than rice.' At times we could hardly see one another through
the powder smoke. We could tell, though, by the sound and by
the regularity of the volley firing that our boys were giving them
hades, and could see that the Americans in the other part of the
town were pursuing the same course as we — that is, burning every-
thing around them.
"The Tennessee men were on the right, and an orderly came
aboard and reported that they were killing every native in sight,
whether a soldier or not. We were then recalled by General Otis and
had to remain in front of the place guarding it, while the rest of the
boys were enjoying themselves shooting 'niggers' on the run. All
along the river we could see the corpses of the natives lying on the
banks or floating down the river. The Idahos at one place were
burying the natives, and at one hole I saw them throw in sixty-five
bodies.
"Our own battery did not do much Saturday night, but the next
morning they made one of the grandest charges of history. They
charged a cemetery that was full of natives and piled them up till
Imperialism in the Philippines. 21/
you couldn't count the dead. They say our major bears a charmed
life. He rode at the head of the column, urging the men forward
and telling them to spare not even the wounded, thrusting his own
«word through every wounded insurgent he passed."
Ten days later a Washington volunteer described the result to
the families around Manila thus in the Seattle Times:
"The native women and children in our neighborhood and be-
yond, as well as the old men and sick, are absolutely starving to
death. Their husbands and fathers have been killed, wounded, cap-
tured or driven back to Malolos, their houses burned to the ground
with all their earthly possessions, and they are left with no means of
subsistence. They attempt to come into the American lines by
thousands, but have to be turned back. We cannot feed
them."
On the 28th of February another California volunteer, Simon by
name, told the subsequent events thus :
"After leaving troops in the captured towns we made a complete
circuit and burned about twenty towns, making about a hundred
thousand people homeless."
On the 29th of March an Examiner correspondent tells how the
work proceeded then :
"The country between Marilao and Manila presents a picture of
desolation. Smoke is curling from hundreds of ash heaps, and the
remains of trees and fences torn by shrapnel are to be seen every-
where. The general appearance of the country is as if it had been
swept by a cyclone. The roads are strewn with the furniture and
clothing dropped in flight by the Filipinos. The only persons re-
maining behind are a few aged persons too infirm to escape. They
camp beside ruins of their former homes and beg passers-by for any
kind of assistance. The majority of them are living on the generos-
ity of our soldiers, who give them portions of their rations. The
dogs of the Filipinos cower in the bushes, still terrified and barking,
while hundreds of pigs may be seen searching for food. Bodies of
dead Filipinos are stranded in the shallows of the rivers or are rest-
ing in the jungle where they crawled to die or were left in the wake
of the hurriedly retreating army. These bodies give forth a horri-
ble odor, but there is no time at present to bury them. An old
woman was found hidden in a house at Meycuayan yesterday just
dead, apparently from fright and hunger."
The Peace Commissioners in their recent report add their experi-
ence. They write of Manila :
"The situation of the city when we got there was bad. Incen-
diary fires occurred daily. The streets were almost deserted. Half
21 8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the native population had fled, and most of the remainder were shut
in their houses. Business was at a standstill. Insurgent troops
everywhere faced our lines, and the sound of the rifle fire was fre-
quently audible in our house. A reign of terror prevailed. Fili-
pinos who had favored Americans feared assassination, and few had
the courage to come out openly for us. Fortunately there were
among this number some of the best men of the city."
This ghastly record speaks for itself. It is true that accounts of
this kind are no longer permitted to pass the censor's office in Ma-
nila established by General Otis, but there is little ground for hop-
ing that the same ruthless destruction is not still going on. The sole
principle that seemed to be recognized by either the American
officers or the American administration was that absolute submis-
sion to the will of Congress was the condition on which this carni-
val of blood and fire could be stopped. Professor Schurman, of the
Peace Commission, on the 226. of May offered what he was pleased
to call "terms" to the natives in arms as follows :
"While the final decision as to the form of government is in the
hands of the Congress, the President, under his military powers,
pending the action of Congress, stands ready to offer the following
form of government :
"A Governor General, to be appointed by the President ; a cabi-
net, to be appointed by the President; the heads of departments
and Judges to be either Americans or Filipinos, or both, and also a
general advisory council, its members to be chosen by the people
by a form of suffrage to be hereafter carefully determined upon.
"The President earnestly desires that bloodshed cease and that the
people of the Philippines at an early date enjoy the largest measure
of self-government compatible with peace and order."
This while the blood-shedding was almost exclusively the work of
the American troops ! !
The Filipino Commissioners asked for a truce until they could
lay these propositions before their people, but that was rejected as
preposterous. Professor Schurman told the Filipinos they had no
means of gathering the people together, as the Americans control
most of the ports. He also reminded them that a liberal forfit
of government was offered them, and pointed out that it was better
than the conditions existing under Spanish rule.
How even so learned a man as the professor could suppose peace
proposals would be accepted without the consideration of the men
asked to accept them is as incomprehensible as his unctuous asser-
tion that the war was unavoidable, though the attacked natives were
asking a truce to settle terms if possible.
Imperialism in the Philippines. 219
The war went on in this purposeless, savage way while the Peace
Commission was proclaiming pompously "that the aim and object of
the American Government, apart from the fulfillment of the solemn
obligations it has assumed towards the family of nations by the ac-
ceptance of sovereignty over the Philippine Islands, is the well-being,
prosperity and happiness of the Philippine people, and their eleva-
tion and advancement to a position among the most civilized peo-
ples of the world. The President believes this felicity — the perfec-
tion of the Philippine people — is to be brought about by the assur-
ance of peace and order, by the guarantee of civil and religious
liberty, by the establishment of courts of justice, by the cultivation of
letters, the sciences and liberal and practical arts, by the enlargement
of intercourse with foreign nations, by the expansion of industries
and the pursuits of trade and commerce, by the multiplication of im-
provement in the means of internal communication, by development
with modern mechanical inventions of the great natural resources of
the archipelago and, in a word, by the uninterrupted devotion of
the people to the pursuits of useful objects and the realization of
those noble ideals which constitute the higher civilization of man-
kind." Such was the promise while the luckless natives were being
shot down.
A few days before this proclamation the Examiner's correspondent
described the operations of General Wheaton's flying brigade, which
had just made a tour around the bay. "About four thousand of our
troops moved over the country, firing tens of thousands of cartridges
at two or three hundred retreating men. The village of Cainta was
burned. We lost a few men killed and a great many wounded and
we cleared a great stretch of thicket, hill and flat country of the
insurgents. We may h2iVe killed a thousand in the whole movement,
but there were only a few score of bodies to show for it. We took
300 prisoners, but we captured few arms. But what was it all
worth? When we burned all the houses in the country and with-
drew our lines to the river, the insurgents returned to their old
places. General Otis complains that the insurgents will not con-
centrate. That was the complaint of General Weyler in Cuba. Our
army is on the defensive. These sallies here and there may furnish
good material for war despatches to Washington, but they do little
to end the war. Meanwhile property in the island is being de-
stroyed in every direction. Look where you will and columns of
smoke darken the horizon. Unless we move against the main in-
surgent army, the agricultural population will become homeless
vagabonds."
Another correspondent, Mr. Brooks, described the details of the
220 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
methods used in a spirit too remarkable to be overlooked.
He wrote to the San Francisco Bulletin with chuckling bru-
tality :
"The Church of Caloocan is a wreck, and stands an example of
what an American gunner can do with some of his long-distance
guns. The bombarding vessels were fully three miles away in the
deeper waters of Manila Bay, but the Monadnock dropped one of
those thirteen-inch terrors through the corner of the church with
the neatness of a target practice at short range. This killed a large
number of refugees and nearly finished the large stone edifice, but
there are plenty of evidence of other shots, including the artillery
efforts. The church, rearing above the tall trees of the village,
made a capital target. The city prison was also subjected to quite
rough treatment by the shells, and its stone dungeons well shaken
up. Caloocan is said to have contained 5,000 people. To-day
there is not a thatched hut nor a man left. The troops found it
absolutely necessary to burn the buildings in order to prevent them
from being used as places of refuge for Filipino sharpshooters.
There was accordingly a holocaust that could be seen for miles, and
even after darkness fell the flames lit the skies. There are half a
dozen villages similar to Caloocan between Manila and Malolos.
Many of them are within gunshot of the bay, and unless something
unexpected happens they will suffer the same fate as their sister
village."
In the light of these burning villages, what is a man to think of
the Peace Commissioners unctuously telling the Filipino people "that
the United States are not only willing, but anxious, to establish in
the Philippine Islands an enlightened system of government under
which the Philippine people may enjoy the largest measure of home
rule, and the amplest liberty consonant with the supreme ends of
government, and compatible with those obligations which the
United States has assumed toward the civilized nations of the world ?
The United States is striving earnestly for the welfare and advance-
ment of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. There can be no
real conflict between American sovereignty and the rights and lib-
erties of the Philippine people, for just as the United States stands
ready to furnish armies and navies and all the infinite resources of
a great and powerful nation to maintain and support their rightful
supremacy over the Philippine Islands, so it is even more solicitous
to spread peace and happiness among the Philippine people, guar-
antee them rightful freedom, protect them in their just privileges
and immunities, accustom them to free self-government in ever-
increasing measure and encourage them in those democratic aspira-
Imperialism in the Philippines. 221
tions, sentiments and ideals which are promised and are fruitful to
national development."
In the same document the Commissioner? tell what the insurgent
natives had demanded of Spain two years earher; namely, Parlia-
mentary representation, freedom of the press, religious toleration,
economic autonomy and laws similar to those of Spain. The aboli-
tion of the power of "banishment was demanded, with legal equality
for all persons in law and equality in pay J^etween Spanish and native
civil servants." The Commissioners comment with calm assurance
that these demands had good grounds because "in practice every
Spanish Governor did what he saw fit, and the evil deeds of men
in the Government were hidden from Spain by strict press censor-
ship." No Spanish Governor had left a hundred thousand natives
homeless, or slaughtered a thousand fleeing insurgents as a military
exhibition of gunnery. The recklessness of truth displayed by the
Commissioners is scarcely less revolting than the horrors of the
war itself.
To describe the action of Americans in the Philippines as having
anything in common with the free institutions which are the proud-
est boast of our country is a simple falsehood. From the beginning
the framers of our Government jealously guarded against the power
of military force at home. The present administration makes it ab-
solute in the Philippines. If such be American liberties, they are
not different from those enjoyed by the subjects of the Sultan of
Turkey.
The system of government which had directed the Philippines for
over three hundred years and under which its civilized population
of seven million people had grown from some scattered savage
tribes was abolished at a stroke of the pen by the American admin-
istration. It had absolutely nothing to substitute for it at the time.
It was quite uncertain whether the real interests or even the popular
sentiment of our country demanded the possession of the islands
thus left to anarchy. What the seven million Filipinos wished, or
even what manner of a people they were, was treated as of no im-
portance whatever. A military officer without experience of legis-
lation or civil administration and unacquainted with the language,
habits or institutions of the country was vested with absolute powers
to rule the islands and furnished with a force of new recruits double
the whole strength of our national army two years ago. A com-
mission of two college professors, one of whom had written a book
on the Philippines, an old politician who had been our Minister to
China, and the commanding general and admiral, was charged with
due solemnity to "facilitate the most humane and effective extension
222 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of authority throughout the islands, and to secure with the least
possible delay the benefits of a wise and generous protection of life
and property to the inhabitants."
This remarkable description of the only measure thought of by
American statesmen to provide for the government of a population
as large as that of the late Confederate States is taken from Presi-
dent McKinley's own message of the 5th of December, a full year
later. It need scarcely be added that the commission effected abso-
lutely nothing. Its civilian members visited Manila, held meetings,
interviewed some natives and gravely forwarded a report to Wash-
ington in November, which set forth at length its own benevolent
intentions, but had only to suggest as a form of government "that
the Filipinos are not a nation, but a variegated assemblage of differ-
ent tribes and peoples, and their loyalty is still of the tribal type.
As to the intellectual capacities of the Filipinos, the commission is
disposed to rate them high. But excepting in a limited number of
people, these capacities have not been developed by education or
experience. The masses of the people are uneducated. That intel-
ligent public opinion on which popular government rests does not
exist in the Philippines. And it cannot exist until education has
elevated the masses, broadened their intellectual horizon and disci-
plined their faculty of judgment. And even then the power of self-
government cannot be assured without considerable previous train-
ing and experience under the guidance and tutelage of an enlight-
ened and liberal foreign power. For the bald fact is that the Fili-
pinos have never had any experience in governing themselves."
One attempt had been made, the commission said, at setting up a
civil government after the retirement of Spain from the islands.
"In Negros Island the natives had adopted a local form of govern-
ment, including a Congress, and had raised the American flag.
They believed themselves capable of managing their own affairs,
and asked for a battalion of troops to hold in check a mountain
band of fanatics. The battalion was furnished, but the people
proved themselves unable to carry out their programme owing to
ill feeling among their own officials. The Americans remained
popular. At the request of General Otis, a new and simplified
scheme of government for the island, giving the people a large voice
in their affairs, but placing an American in full control, was put into
operation. It brought about satisfaction (to the American possi-
bly), and public order is better in the island to-day than at any time
during the last twenty years." Summing up, the commission says :
"The flat failure of this attempt to establish an independent native
government in Negros, conducted as it was under the most favor-
able circumstances, makes it apparent that here as well as in less
Imperialism in the Philippines. 223
favored provinces a large amount of American control is at present
absolutely essential to a successful administration of public aflfairs."
Flat failure to give even one island in the archipelago any toler-
able government except a military despotism is the acknowledged
result of our first experiment in colonization on the new "imperial"
policy. Sixty thousand American troops have been employed for
a year in chasing natives and burning the houses and fields of a
population that was unknown to the majority of Americans two
years ago. The cost to this country cannot be less than a hundred
millions. Every soldier on foreign service costs the American peo-
ple fifteen hundred dollars a year, and there are now over sixty
thousand in the Philippines. The whole annual revenue under the
Spanish Government did not equal a tenth of the amount already
spent by the Administration in its attempt to establish American
rule on anti-American lines in the Philippines. The Spanish force
which maintained peace before numbered less than ten thousand
and cost about three millions annually, yet it did not need to reduce
the country to a desert to preserve order — as even the Peace Com-
missioners admit.
A more grotesque if less bloody illustration of the folly of trying
to establish American institutions by military despotism is yet to tell.
It comes from Guam, the island in the Ladrones which had been
seized as a useful coaling station more than eighteen months ago.
There was no insurrection there. A population of a few thousands
had been living in peace under the rule of a Spanish officer with a
dozen of police before the war. The President deemed it necessary
to "Americanize" them in the imperialist manner by appointing a
Military Governor, with absolute power over their liberties and
properties. This gentleman, a Captain Leary, set about his task in
the spirit of a Turkish Pasha. He found nine Catholic priests em-
ployed in their ordinary duties among this Catholic population. The
Governor ordered eight of them to be banished, as he thought their
influence might be hostile to his own regime. There were neither
charges nor trial, other than the captain's ukase. The treaty, signed
by our Government with Spain, had guaranteed all Spaniards the
right to remain in the ceded islands, and also full freedom of reli-
gion. The captain in the fullness of his authority treated the stipu-
lations as beneath his notice and deported the priests, as likely to
obstruct the "Americanization" of the country. What his own
ideas of American institutions are may be learned from the sympa-
thetic description of his reforms given by a correspondent of the
New York Tribune on the 20th of November. The writer tells
gravely that "Governor Leary, of Guam, is having novel experiences
for an American in an altogether unique community. One of his
224 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
recent reports gives a terse resume of affairs in the captain's domin-
ion. It shows that the islanders are inordinately lazy, having ac-
quired the habit of raising only such crops as will keep their bodies
and souls together, and that they cannot be easily induced to value
money or exercise their earning power. The most interesting part
of the report relates to reforms begun, of which the Governor says :
'Having disposed of the priests' reign, rapid progress was made and
no further resistance will be encountered.' The first of these re-
forms is calculated to compel each adult native to contribute to the
support of the government by engaging in food production. The
order directs all who have no trade to plant cereals, vegetables, etc.,
under more or less severe penalties. It is stipulated that each citizen
shall have at least twelve hens, one sow and continue in possession of
them indefinitely. They must bring eggs, chickens and vegetables to
sell to the Governor's house and barracks at stated intervals, and
they must pay their taxes. The other order demands that concubi-
nage, which was general all over the island, shall stop immediately."
In this order Governor Leary moralizes as follows: "The existing
custom of raising families of illegitimate children is repulsive to
ideas of decency, antagonistic to moral advancement, incompatible
with the generally recognized customs of civilized society, a viola-
tion of the accepted principles of Christianity and a most degrading
injustice to the innocent offspring, who is not responsible for the
conditions of his unfortunate existence."
This is not an extract from Sancho Panza's history in Barataria,
but an actual statement of the rule introduced into a long settled
island as American civilization. It is told in all serious admiration
by an American newspaper correspondent as the doings in peace of
the first Governor appointed by President McKinley. The final
climax is added to finish the picture :
"The Governor, in conclusion, commanded immediate wedlock
for the whole population, and made the license and civil ceremony
free until November 3. As a result, the ofificers in charge of the
licenses and marriages were worked half to death until nearly every-
body on the island was legally married. There was a rush to obey
the order, and in fact the people have shown a disposition to be obe-
dient to any suggestion from their Governor."
If any exercise of despotic power like this is told in the Arabian
Nights, we do not know of it. The supposed ''general concu-
binage" which shocked the Governor is, it is needless to say, a fig-
ment of his own imagination. Similar stories were told of the
Philippines a few months ago, though marriages are more numerous
proportionately there than in any European country. Mr. Leary
may hold a civil ceremony essential to valid marriage, but such is
Imperialism in the Philippines. 225
not the belief of Catholics, and the people of Guam are all Catholics.
The audacious pretense to regulate the most intimate family rela-
tions by the ukase of a sea captain is unparalleled in the history of
America. It is noteworthy that it is highly approved by the Tri-
bune correspondent. Catholics of America may well ponder on
this and ask how long will freedom of conscience be left to them-
selves if the new theory of establishing free institutions by military
despotism is tolerated by the American people.
It would be childish in the face of this action of Captain Leary,
which has as yet received no condemnation from our Administration,
to say there is no danger of persecution of Catholics under American
rule. Its likelihood seems much greater at the present moment than
it would have been two years ago to believe that the sympathy in
the sufferings of the Cuban "reconcentrados" expressed by the
American press would end in the reign of terror among the Filipinos
that has been just described. If any people, be it French, English
or American, lets its government be guided by impulse of the mo-
ment, not principle, it is impossible to say what it may not attempt.
The recent experience of Admiral Dewey, welcomed to New York
as a hero by seven millions of American citizens and hissed in public
a few weeks later, is a modern object lesson of what popular favor is
worth in this country as in others. Two years ago it would have
been a joke to suggest the extension of American principles of gov-
ernment to other islands by military despotism. We have seen the
experiment tried in Guam and the Philippines, and few seem to find
it strange to-day. Would the New York Tribune find a new Cul-
turkampf in America against the Catholic Church here, if suggested
by an American administration, materially different from the lawless
expulsion of the Spanish friars from Guam, which its correspondent
describes with such unctuous, if idiotic, approval ?
There are a few cardinal principles on which the stability of gov-
ernment so long enjoyed by these United States rests. It is not re-
publican institutions in theory alone. A dozen at least of other
lands have equally perfect theoretical constitutions, yet cannot main-
tain peace within their boundaries. Those principles are that the
will of the people, expressed by fixed methods of election, shall be
supreme in naming the administrative and other rulers of the com-
munity ; that the standing army shall be kept in such limits as shall
preclude the risk of a military dictator overruling the civil order of
law, and that the civil government shall not interfere in matters
of religion among its citizens. The first and second have already
been set aside in the Philippines, and that, too, on the pretense of
extending American ideas there. The third has been flagrantly dis-
regarded in Guam by an officer dependent for his petty authority
226 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
entirely on the President of the United States. Its extension to the
seven milHon Catholics of the Philippines has been unblushingly
advocated in many quarters. The expulsion of the Catholic priests,
who had been guaranteed the full right to remain there by solemn
treaty, was urged before the Treaty Commissioners at Paris by an
English adviser, who was deemed worthy of consultation by our
Commissioners. The confiscation of the property, held for centu-
ries, for the support of Catholic seminaries, colleges and charities is
commonly called for by a section of the American press. Even a
sober publication like the Outlook, of New York, asked lately for a
court of law, properly constituted, "to get round the possessory
titles" of the Catholic orders in the Philippines. It went on to add
with frank ignorance of the existence of any law courts in the Span-
ish colonies "that possessory title is gained by what is known as
'adverse possession ;' that it is well settled that such adverse posses-
sion must be actual, visible, notorious, distinct and hostile, and that
it may well be doubted whether the courts (American) would hold
that such a title had been gained in a country where notoriously
there were no courts or processes by which the title could be con-
tested." As the courts of Manila have been in existence for over
three hundred years, the meaning of this astounding argument can
only be that no rights of property have any existence in the islands.
Confiscation thus would only be the exercise of the rights of an
American Governor to seize Catholic Church property at will.
How ready a large number of Americans are to act on this
theory, without even the formality of a court, has been only too
clearly shown during the past year. Plunder of every kind taken
from the churches built by Catholic piety in the Philippines has
been carried through the country by the returning volunteers of
the army of occupation. Chalices, vestments, paintings, bells, stat-
ues and crucifixes in thousands have been exhibited in the tents of
the returned soldiers without any attempt on the part of the military
authorities to interfere with the robberies. The Peace Commis-
sion calmly contented itself with dismissing the question, and other
advocates openly maintained that no robbery had been done by
American soldiers because "strict orders had been issued against
plunder." Orders "issued" are apparently regarded as all the pro-
tection the Catholics of the Philippines have a right to expect under
the new imperialism. In the same way the treaty with Spain as-
sured the right of all Spanish residents to reside in the ceded islands.
Therefore the eight priests exiled from Guam by Captain Leary had
no grounds for complaint. This, indeed, is Cromwell come again.
"I meddle with no man's conscience, but I will not permit the Mass
where the English Parliament rules."
Imperialism in the Philippines. 227
The danger that some American Catholics may let themselves be
hoodwinked as to the real meaning of this threatened attack on their
religion in the Philippines is a most serious one. It has been shown
by numerous utterances in the press. At the beginning of last year
the New York Herald professed to give "a prominent Catholic cler-
gyman" of that city as saying :
"If the islands are to be held by the United States, it is to be ex-
pected they will be placed under the hierarchy of the United States.
The Government will not look with favor on the proposition to
allow the Spanish priests to remain in power and office in these islands.
While they are cordially disliked and even hated by a large body
of the natives, they are still very influential and their presence there
would be a constant menace to the interests of this country and a
hindrance to the work of Americanising the islands."
If the author of this statement be really a Catholic priest, he must
have forgotten everything of Catholic rights in his anxiety for Amer-
icanizing the islands, whatever that may mean. Is the presence of
Catholic priests among a Catholic people dependent on the favor of
Government or is it a right of conscience ? We heard a good deal
of native Americanism and similar phrases in former years in this
country, but it is strange, indeed, to find a Catholic describing the
Catholic influence of the priests who have formed the Catholic popu-
lation of the Philippines as a menace to American interests. The
English Government, after its failure to root out the faith of the
Irish people by the penal laws, endeavored to secure a veto on the
nomination of the Irish Bishops from the Holy See. That attempt
was baffled by the determination of the Irish Catholics in 1814. It
was felt that any favor of a non-Catholic Government in politics
or any support for the clergy would not compensate for the danger
of its interference in the choice of spiritual guides. It looks as if
a veto on the appointment of Catholic Bishops and priests, too, in
the Philippines is being thought of as a development of the new
imperialism. We do not believe that the Catholics of America can
or will tolerate a subjection of their Church to the policy of the Ad-
ministration at Washington any more than the Irish Catholics of
the days of George III. would permit the veto to an English mon-
arch.
The expulsion of the Spanish priests from the Philippines would
mean that nearly six millions of Catholics should be deprived of the
means of divine worship. It would leave them absolutely without
the moral guidance which, during ten generations, they have been
accustomed to receive from their priests during the whole course
of their lives. When the American fleet entered Manila Bay the
whole clergy of the country numbered little over two thousand.
228 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Thirteen hundred, or two-thirds, belonged to the religious orders,
and this thirteen hundred had the spiritual guidance of five and a
half millions of Catholics. Baptisms, marriages, administration of
the other sacraments, the celebration of Mass and other divine ser-
vices, instruction in the Christian doctrine and the moral conduct of
life were all supplied for that population by the friars whom it is so
lightly proposed to expel, lest they might be a "hindrance to Amer-
icanization" of the people raised from barbarism to civilization by
their labors and those of their predecessors in the same orders. Of
the secular clergy about one-half are of Spanish birth. If they, too,
had to be sacrificed, there would remain about four hundred priests
of Filipino race to minister to a population larger than the Dominion
of Canada. What the result would be may be guessed from the
state of Negros and Panay as told by the Peace Commission and
American correspondents in preceding pages. It would in all like-
lihood be the utter demoralization of the mass of the Philippine
people.
The duty of Catholic citizens in this matter is clear. The people
are sovereign by law, at least as yet, in these United States. Every
citizen has a share in that sovereignty and is responsible for his ex-
ercise of it. It is at election time that this sovereign power can be
used by the citizen of the United States without any superior but his
own conscience. He must, then, clear his conscience as the Domini-
can missioners of San Domingo called on the Spanish King to clear
his conscience of injustice to the Indians. For persecution directed
against the Church of God no Catholic can give his aid without
practical apostasy. To any violation of the American Constitution or
any policy which sets justice and humanity aside he is bound in con-
science to offer resistance to the fullest of his powers as a citizen.
There can be no middle course. If the honored name of American
liberty or the shelter of the American flag is given by faithless ad-
ministrators of government of any grade, to rapine or slaughter or
to war on the rights of conscience, every Catholic voter, every hon-
est citizen of any creed is bound, as far as his power goes, to pre-
vent such maladministration. It is a sworn duty to uphold the
Constitution of our country and to obey its laws in all not contrary
to conscience. It is a higher duty to follow the law of God for man
as taught by his own Church or imprinted on the human heart by
natural reason. We trust that this duty will not be forgotten by any
Catholic.
Bryan J. Clinch.
8an Francisco.
The Religion of Shakespeare. 229
THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE.
THE question of Shakespeare's religion has been much dis-
cussed. The most recent contribution to this department of
Shakespearean literature is the learned and scholarly volume,
entitled "The Religion of Shakespeare," which we owe to the pen
of Father Sebastian Bowden, the distinguished London Oratorian.
Father Bowden has made it clear that Rationalism can lay little
claim to Shakespeare and Protestantism even less, and that, if
Shakespeare's religion may be gathered from his writings the evi-
dence is all in favor of his having been a Catholic.
We say, if Shakespeare's religion may be gathered from his writ-
ings, for it is on this kind of evidence that Father Bowden chiefly
relies. Father Bowden does not indeed neglect what he calls
"external evidence." He shows that Shakespeare's mother was a
Catholic. He gives good reason for believing that Shakespeare's
father was a Catholic, and, in this connection, upholds with consid-
erable ingenuity and force the genuineness of the Catholicly worded
"last will and testament" that has been ascribed to John Shake-
speare. He argues, as he reasonably may, that if Shakespeare's
parents were both Catholics, the inference must be, until the con-
trary is proved, that Shakespeare himself was a Catholic. He shows
that the contrary has never been proved, that there is no evidence
whatever of a satisfactory kind of the poet's acceptance of the new
religion. He points out that tradition is in favor of Shakespeare's
Catholicism. He quotes in testimony to this the declaration of the
Rev. Richard Davies, who, writing in the latter part of the seven-
teenth century, asserts that Shakespeare "died a Papist."
That external evidence of this kind carries with it considerable
weight is acknowledged by such critics as the Rev. Professor Shut-
tleworth, who, in an address delivered at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey
on April 23, 1899, admitted that "a strong argument in favor of his
(Shakespeare's) Catholicism was the fact that his mother belonged
to one of the oldest and most famous Catholic families in England —
the Ardens of Warwickshire — some of whose members had fig-
ured as martyrs for that creed." Another well-known Shake-
spearean critic, Mr, Halliwell Phillipps, remarking on the statement
of the Rev. Richard Davies that Shakespeare "died a Papist," points
out that the statement represents the local tradition of the latter half
of the seventeenth century, and is "the testimony of a sober clergy-
man who could have had no conceivable motive for deception in
what is evidently the casual note of a provincial hearsay,"
230 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
But while Father Bowden gives due weight to the external evi-
dence, he finds in Shakespeare's writings the most convincing proofs
of the poet's Catholicism. It would be impossible for us in the
course of a short paper to set forth Father Bowden's arguments in
detail. All that we can attempt is to indicate the lines on which his
arguments proceed. We limit ourselves to the inquiry whether the
religion with which Shakespeare in his writings shows his sympa-
thies is the religion of the so-called Reformers, or the religion of the
Catholic Church. If it can be shown that all Shakespeare's sympa-
thies were with the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church, it
will follow that Shakespeare was no Rationalist, and thus we may
omit any reference to the direct arguments by which Father Bowden
has convincingly shown the futility of the attempts made by Pro-
fessor Caird and other recent writers to claim Shakespeare for Ra-
tionalism.
What had the so-called Reformers abolished ? The Sacrifice of
the Mass, the sacraments of the Holy Eucharist, Penance and Ex-
treme Unction, Purgatory and prayers for the dead, the homage paid
to Our Lady and the saints, the intercession of saints, the veneration
of relics and holy images, the sign of the cross, vestments, satis-
factory works, meritorious works, celibacy, the religious state with
its three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. All these had
been abolished by the "Reformers," and they were all reestablished
by Shakespeare, who speaks of them and of other beliefs and prac-
tices of the Catholic Church, as Father Bowden has shown, in a spirit
of the profoundest reverence. Indeed we marvel at the audacity
(there is no other word for it) with which Shakespeare pays open
reverence to these proscribed beliefs and practices. Dr. Stubbs, the
Dean of Ely, might well say, as he did when preaching the Shake-
speare anniversary sermon, in the Collegiate Church of Holy Trin-
ity, Stratford on Avon, on April 23, 1899, that there were "some
things in Shakespeare for which, had he been a theologian, he might
have been burned."
Compare man as viewed by the "Reformers" with man as viewed
by Shakespeare, and (i) in respect to his nature. In the words of
the authorized Lutheran Confession of Faith, man is characterized by
the "intimate, profound, inscrutable and irreparable corruption of
his entire nature, and of all his powers, especially of the superior
and principal powers of his soul." (Solida Declaratio I., 31.) How
does that compare with : "What a piece of work is man ! How
noble in reason ; how infinite in faculties ! In form and moving how
express and admirable ! In action how like an angel ! In appre-
hension how like a God !" (Hamlet II., 2.) (2) In respect to free
will and responsibility. According to Luther, man, in regard to the
The Religion of Shakespeare. 231
work of his salvation, is "lik<; the statue of salt into which Lot's wife
was turned; like to a trunk or a stone, having the use neither of
eyes, nor mouth, nor any of the senses, nor of the heart." (In Genes.-
cxix.) But with Shakespeare man is free and responsible. His
conscience is as a lamp to his feet. He may follow its guiding light,
but he is not constrained to do so. If he do follow, peace and bless-
ing are his portion. If he refuse to follow, his soul is rent by re-
morse and fear. (3) In respect to grace. Sanctifying grace, with
the "Reformers," was little more than a name. The sinner, in their
teaching, was justified extrinsically only, and in consequence of his
faith. Once a sinner, always intrinsically a sinner. Actual grace,
in their teaching, was irresistible. In the illustration of Luther, the
soul is like to a mule, and is now ridden by God, now ridden by the
devil. Its rider always determines its course. When actual grace
is given, God is riding the mule, and the mule must go as God
is directing. With Shakespeare, on the other hand, as appears from
Father Bowden's pages, sanctifying grace is no mere extrinsic de-
nomination, but a state or habit of the soul, an inherent, supernatural
quality of the soul. Actual grace has no necessitating force. It
may be accepted or set aside. And, like sanctifying grace, it is not
the effect of Mes Mucialis, but is won by earnest prayer.
Compare Shakespeare and the "Reformers" in their respective
views on philosophy. Any abuse that the "Reformers" could spare
from the friars and nuns they showered upon the philosophy of the
schools. Wicliffe, "the Morning Star of the Reformation," had
called the schools the "camps of Cain." Luther, improving on this,
had called them "the unclean houses (lupanaria) of anti-Christ."
Calvin, who was never to be outdone in amenities, called the great
scholastic doctors "horned asses," "two-legged beasts," etc., etc.
But, with Shakespeare, Aristotle \o a name to be held in high honor.
And when he manifests his mind upon such important points of
philosophy as, e. g., the genesis of knowledge, the nature of knowl-
edge and its claims to objectivity, the formation of habits intellectual
and moral, the claim of the will to freedom, the root of the distinction
between man and brute, his views are always scholastic.
Certain critics, unable to deny the appreciative spirit in which
Shakespeare writes of the beliefs and customs of the Old Religion,
have endeavored to explain away the significance of this by assert-
ing that the stage in Shakespeare's day was free from religious ran-
cor. This explanation is at once inadequate and inaccurate, (i)
It is inadequate. The mere absence of bigotry might account for a
neutral attitude on the poet's part. But it could never account for
the intense sympathy which Shakespeare everywhere manifests with
Catholic rites and doctrines. It would account for his not describ-
232 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ing Confession as, in the elegant words of Luther, "a most bloody
torture" (cruentissima carnificina) ; but it would not account for his
laying stress on the consolation and peace which the Sacrament of
Penance aflfords. It would account for his refraining from ribald
stories concerning monks and nuns ; but it would not account for his
holding up monks and nuns as models of conscientiousness and
purity. (2) The explanation is not simply inadequate; it is posi-
tively false. The truth is, as Father Bowden has shown, that the
stage in Shakespeare's day was the arena for fierce religious con-
troversy. In 1589, shortly after Shakespeare's arrival in London,
the Puritans and Prelatists were reviling each other, in plays written
in the interests of their respective parties, with such rigor that Harte,
the Mayor of London, felt obliged, in the interests of the public
peace, to intervene. But there was no Mayor, or other official, to
intervene in the interests of the Catholics, and, in a rapid succes-
sion of plays, they were slandered and lampooned with impunity.
George Peele, in his "Farewell to the Famous and Fortunate Gen-
erals of Our English Forces" (1589), invites Norris and Drake to
lead their armies "to lofty Rome, and there deface the power of anti-
Christ, and pull his paper walls and popery down." Lodge and
Greene, in their jointly written play, the "Looking Glass for Lon-
don" (1591), call upon London to repent of its sins, lest, in punish-
ment, it fall again under the dominion of "Romish anti-Christ." In
Greene's "Maiden's Dream" (1593), Sir Christopher Hatton is held
up to admiration because "He hated anti-Christ and all his trash,
and was not led away by superstitions." Marlowe in his "Faus-
tus" (1593), exhibits at length the superstition, luxury and mum-
mery of the Pope, and of the "bald pate friars whose summum honum
is belly cheer;" and in his "Massacre of Paris" (1593) the same poet
represents the Pope as ratifying whatever is done by murder and
tyranny, and the Duke of Guise as declaring that he has a "Papal
dispensation" for the murder of all Protestants, which is to be effected
l>y 30,000 friars and monks from the monasteries, priories, abbeys
and halls. Marston's "Scourge of Villainy" sets before us "peevish
Papists" crouching and kneeling to "dumb idols," and enlarges
tipon the "monstrous filth" of Douai Seminary. Dekker, in the in-
troduction to his "Whore of Babylon" (1600), informs us that the
purpose of his play is to set forth "the inveterate malice, treasons,
machinations, underminings and continual bloody stratagems of the
purple whore of Rome." Other instances of this kind might easily
be given ; but we think that proof sufficient has already been fur-
nished that in the works of Shakespeare's contemporary dramatists
the bitterness and rancor of Protestant bigotry was aggressively
manifest. In the writings of Shakespeare, on the other hand, there
TJie Religion of Shakespeare. 233
is not a single word in disrespect of the ancient Church, its beliefs,
its practices, or its institutions. Shakespeare does indeed use the
expression which gives the title to Dekker's play ; but only to place
it in the mouth of the dissolute, drunken Falstaff, as he tosses on his
death bed without a word of prayer, or a single token of repentance.
Shakespeare, instead of assailing the Church, defended it, as we
have already said. Candid Protestant critics have admitted this.
'*In an age," writes Mr. Knight (Biography of Shakespeare, p. 183),
"when the prejudices of tht multitude were flattered and stimulated
by abuse and ridicule of the ancient ecclesiastical character, Shake-
speare always exhibits it so as to command respect and affec-
tion."
Not only did Shakespeare carefully refrain from introducing any-
thing anti-Catholic into his original compositions, but he further
rigorously eliminated all the anti-Catholic elements from the plays
which he remodeled. One of the plays remodeled by him was "The
Troublesome Reign of King John." The aim of this scurrilous pro-
duction was to glorify Protestantism and vilify the ancient faith. As
Shakespeare was well aware, all that he needed to do in order to
secure the popularity of his adaptation was to retain, or better still,
to emphasize its furious attacks on the Church, and its ribald stories
of monks and nuns. But Shakespeare instead of retaining or em-
phasizing acted as though he were a censor appointed by the
Church. In the original play, when the sentence of his excommuni-
cation is made known to him, John contemptuously replies : "So,
sir, the more the fox is curst, the better it fares ; if God bless me and
my land, let the Pope and his shavelings curse and spare not." A
censor deputatus would never let that pass. So Shakespeare strikes
it out. In the original play John threatens to "rouse the lazy lub-
bers (the monks) from their cells and send them as prisoners to the
Pope." Thunders of applause must have greeted these words when
spoken before an Elizabethan audience. But Shakespeare runs his
pen through them, all the same. The original play gives expression
to the current calumny that, according to Catholic teaching, an oath
"made with a heretic" has no binding force. Shakespeare not only
strikes this out, but is careful also to substitute in its stead, and
place in Pandulph's mouth, a detailed and elaborate disquisition on
the nature of an oath, in complete accordance with the Church's
genuine teaching on the subject. In the original play John, after
his victory over the French, hurls jeers and invectives at "the mis-
chievous Priest in Italy, who calls himself God's Vicar," and is now
hard at work with Dirges, Octaves and Requiems to assuage the
flames of Purgatory for those who have fallen in battle, and covers
with abuse those princes "who formerly bore the yoke of the servile
234 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
priest/' All this is carefully suppressed by Shakespeare. In the
original play there were certain filthy cloister scenes. According to
Gervinus these abominable scenes, with their vile and slanderous at-
tacks on monks and nuns, were "certainly very amusing to the fresh
Protestant feelings of the time." No doubt they were ; but Shake-
speare did not permit a single line of them to remain. In the orig-
inal play Pandulph, the Papal Legate, is represented as a hypocrite,
a crafty, double-dealing, unscrupulous politician. But in Shake-
speare's "King John" he appears as an experienced, far-sighted,
broad-minded statesman, and a true ghostly father withal, full of
sympathy for the afflicted. In the original play a compliment is
paid to Henry VIII. John declares that his sins have made him
unworthy to fulfil the exalted task of driving "Pope and Poperie"
from the realm of England, but that one day a king will be raised
up great and good enough to receive so noble a commission. Shake-
speare quietly put his pen through this. In the original play the
prophecy of the Five Moons is given an anti-Papal interpretation.
In Shakespeare's "King John" it is stripped of this interpretation.
In the original play John is defiant to the last, and dies cursing
Rome and prophesying its downfall. In Shakespeare's "King-
John" the King dies desolate and despairing. Was there ever a
more careful censor deputatiis than Shakespeare proved himself to be ?
But we must admit an apparent exception to the general vigilance
of his censorship. When Pandulph, as Legate of Pope Innocent
III., called King John to account for refusing to permit Archbishop
Langton to take possession of his See of Canterbury, and for appro-
priating the revenues of that see, the King bade the Legate inform
the Pope "that no Italian priest shall tithe or toil in our dominion ;
but, as we under heaven are supreme head, so, under Him, that
Great Supremacy, where we do reign, we will alone uphold, without
the assistance of a mortal hand : So tell the Pope, all reverence
apart to him and his usurp'd authority." (King John III., i.) This
speech, which is undoubtedly a very bitter one, has been often
quoted in anti-Catholic declamations by Prime Ministers, Lord
Chancellors and Archbishops in our own times. But the question
is whether this bitter speech really represents the mind of Shake-
speare. Many critics, as might have been expected, have asserted
that it does, and, all other proofs failing, have pointed triumphant!}'
to these lines as a convincing proof of Shakespeare's Protestantism.
But these critics, as Father Bowden has pointed out, have been some-
what overhasty in reaching their conclusion. To discover a dra-
matist's mind it is not sufficient to consider the sentiments that he
expresses ; we must further consider the mouth through which he
expresses him. We may lawfully seek the poet's ideal in the char-
The Religion of Shakespeare. 235
acter which he draws on heroic Hnes; but we surely do him an in-
justice if we seek for his ideal in the 'Villain of the piece." King-
John speaks the words in question. Now what manner of man is
John as he appears in Shakespeare's play ? Does the poet portray
him as a hero, or does he portray him as a villain ? He portrays him
most emphatically as a villain. "John," says the Protestant critic
Kreysig, quoted by Father Bowden, "begins as an ordinary and
respectable man of the world, and he ends as an ordinary criminal ;
he is not only a villain, but a mean villain. The satanic grandeur of
an Edmund or a Macbeth is wholly beyond him." (Vorlesungen L,
462.) But not only was John, in Shakespeare's delineation, "a vil-
lain, and a mean villain ;" he was further an unsuccessful villain. All
his curses recoiled upon himself. His bold defiance to the Pope
proved to be nothing more than mere sound and fury. He ended
by eating his own words. He humbled himself to the dust before
the Legate, and as a penitent received again his crown from the
Legate's hands, and his kingdom in fief from the Pope. The anti-
Catholic speeches then which Shakespeare places in the mouth of
King John no more prove that Shakespeare was a Protestant than
the words "There is no God," which David represents the fool as
saying "in his heart" prove that David was a skeptic.
Shakespeare does indeed manifest his scorn for one form of re-
ligion. But that religion was not the Catholic. It was the religion
which strove to oust the Catholic religion ; the religion which cast
aside authority and scofYed at tradition ; which bade every man take
the Bible and interpret it for himself. Professors of this religion
find their place in Shakespeare's pages. Jack Cade and his follow-
ers. Costard and Holof ernes. Quince and Bottom; but, above all,.
Falstaff — such are the representatives of the "reformed" doctrine,
as they appear in the writings of Shakespeare. Father Bowden is
of opinion that, in the character of Falstaflf, Shakespeare was por-
traying Sir John Oldcastle, otherwise known as Lord Cobham, the
notorious Lollard leader whom Bale and Fox had canonized as a
Protestant martyr. There is certainly a striking resemblance be-
tween Oldcastle and Falstaff. In both of them we find sanctimon-
iousness and the habit of quoting Scripture on the one hand, and
obscenity and depravity on the other. Indeed, Shakespeare would
seem to have given his audience something more than a hint that
Falstaff was drawn from Oldcastle, for Prince Henry styles Falstaff
in almost the first words that he addresses to him, "My old lad of the
castle/' and these words supplied the title under which the play was
first produced. But, whether Shakespeare intended to portray Old-
castle in Falstaff or not, there can be no doubt that the public ac-
credited him with this intention, and in November, 1599, a play.
236 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
written by Anthony Munday in collaboration with others, and en-
titled "The History of Sir John Oldcastle, the Good Lord Cobham,"
was put on the stage with the view to rehabilitating Oldcastle in
popular esteem. The words of the prologue, "It is no hampered
glutton we present, nor aged counsellor to youthful sin ; let fair truth
be graced, since forged invention former time defaced," are an evi-
dent allusion to Shakespeare's description of Falstaff : "That villain-
ous, abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded
Satan," and the delineation that it is supposed to contain of Lord
Cobham. But whether Falstaff stood for Oldcastle or not, the pro-
fessors of the "reformed" religion met with scant courtesy from
Shakespeare, who drew his ideal expounders of religion from the
representatives of the ancient faith. This is acknowledged even by
Protestant critics. Thus Mr. Thornbury, whom Father Bowden
describes as "a very strong Protestant," writes : "To judge from
Sir Oliver Martext and Sir Hugh Evans, the parish priests (Pro-
testant) of Shakespeare's day were no very shining lights, and the
poet seems to fall back, as in 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'The Two Gen-
tlemen of Verona,* on the ideal priest of an earlier age. It is indeed
true that he always mentions the old faith with a certain yearning
fondness." (Shakespeare's England, Vol. I., p. 211.) Shakespeare
does indeed utter a reproach against Cardinal Beaufort, and his
picture of Wolsey is far from a favorable one. But his reproach
against Beaufort is one that any Catholic might have lawfully made,
while his portrait of Wolsey is actually copied from the description
given of the famous Cardinal by B. Edmund Campion, the first
Jesuit martyr, in his "History of Ireland.** Of Shakespeare's treat-
ment of Pandulph we have already spoken. The remaining Cath-
olic prelates whom Shakespeare put on the stage were, in the words
of the Protestant critic Thummel, "recruited from the highest houses
in England, and represent a stately array of political lords in priestly
robes, of noble descent, true priests and Englishmen to the back-
bone." (Tahrbuch, 16, 361.)
Once Shakespeare does seem to be leading up to an attack on the
Church. "The world is deceived by ornament," he makes Bassanio
to say. Bassanio speaks first of ornament as deceiving in the law,
and then turns to ornament as deceiving in religion. Surely here at
least can come no attack on the "Reformers." Whoever accused
the spoilers of churches, the whitewashers of mural decorations, the
renders of vestments, the melters of ecclesiastical vessels of gold and
silver of excessive love of ornament in religion ? Surely now will
come an onslaught on vestments, incense, lights, processions and the
like papist trumperies and mummeries. Yet, once again, not the
gorgeous ceremonial of the Catholic Church, but the Protestant
The Religion of Shakespeare. 237
treatment of the Bible is the object of Shakespeare's scorn. "In
religion," continues Bassanio, "what damned error, but some sober
brow will bless it and approve it with a test, hiding the grossness
with fair ornament."
What were the themes which Shakespeare chose ? Protestants
might celebrate, as Bale and Spencer did, the downfall of the Papal
supremacy; or, like Ben Jonson, the discovery of the Gunpowder
Plot ; or, like Dekker, the destruction of the Armada ; or might sing,
like Fletcher, the glories of Elizabeth. But Shakespeare has not a
single word to say on these subjects. His muse is almost exclu-
sively occupied with the men and women, and the spirit and temper
of Catholic times.
Where does Shakespeare find his heroes. We know where the
"Reformers" found theirs. They found them in King John, in
"bluflf King Hal," in "good Queen Bess." Shakespeare writes of
John and Henry. We have seen what John was in Shakespeare's
delineation — "a villain, and a mean villain," with all his curses oh
the Pope recoiling on his own head. How does Shakespeare write
of Henry VHI. ? Had Fletcher, Munday, Marlowe or any other
Protestant dramatist written on such a theme, the "Reformation"
would have been set before us as the heroic act of Henry's reiga,
and Catherine and her daughter Mary would suffer by contrast with
Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth. But Shakespeare's treatment of the
subject is the very opposite to this. Shakespeare exposes the Tudor
tyranny in its worst features. He excites all our sympathy in be-
half of the pious Catholic Queen, "whose afflictions, virtues and
patience," says Mr. Spedding, "he elaborately exhibits," and arouses
all our indignation at the shameless wrong that has been done her.
Henry he represents as a melodramatic, pretentious, arrogant, oily
hypocrite. He scoffs again and again at Henry's "conscience," that
conscience which had divorced a lawful wife, married an adultress
and forced upon an unwilling nation the curse of the "Reformation."
One who scoffed at the "conscience" which had divorced Queen
Catherine, and celebrated with all his matchless power the virtues
of that deposed Queen, was clearly not the man to sing the glories
of Elizabeth. And, in truth, when Elizabeth died, Shakespeare
alone of the contemporary poets and dramatists refused to compose
a single line in honor of her memory. Chettle taxed him with this.
"Nor doth the silver-tongued mellicent drop from his honeyed muse
one subtle tear to mourn her death." But Shakespeare obstinately
remained silent.
Shakespeare's ideal Prince is King Henry V. And this ideal
Prince of his, this man whom he would set before the world as the
great national hero of England, he draws as a devout Catholic. Of
238 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the King's piety Shakespeare leaves us in no doubt. "We are in
God's hands, brother, not in theirs," remarks Henry when the Duke
of Gloster has expressed his apprehension lest the French should
attack at a moment when the English were unprepared. Henry
warns a private soldier whom he meets by chance, and who is un-
aware that he is speaking with the King, that a soldier in the wars
should, like a sick man on his bed, "wash every mote from his con-
science;" thus prepared "death is to him advantage." Before the
fight commences Henry invokes the aid of heaven. When the vic-
tory is gained he gives the glory to God. "Praised be God, and not
our strength for it,'' he cries, when first he hears that the field is
won. And when he later learns how complete the victory has been,
he prays : "O God, Thy arm was here ; and not to us, but to Thy
arm alone ascribe we all. . . . Take it, God, for it is only
Thine." And then he proclaims as the order of the day : "Do we
all holy rites ; let there be sung *Non nobis' and Te Deum.' " In
the same spirit of humility, Henry refused the request of the lords
that he should have borne before him "his bruised helmet and his
bended sword," on his triumphant entry through the streets of Lon-
don; for he was ever "free from vainness and self-glorious pride,
giving full glory, signal and ostent, quite from himself to God."
And this devoutly-minded King, this "mirror of Christian knights"
is depicted by Shakespeare as an earnest and fervent Catholic.
Before the battle of Agincourt he implores God not, when decid-
ing what shall be the issue of the contest, to think of his father's
complicity in the murder of Richard H., but to think rather of the
measures which he himself has taken to expiate his father's crime.
He provides from year to year for five hundred aged poor who
"twice a day their withered hands hold up towards heaven to par-
don blood ;" and he has built two chantries "where the sad and sol-
emn priests sing still for Richard's soul." "These two foundations,"
writes Father Bowden, "were situated on the opposite banks of the
Thames. That on the Surrey shore at Sheene was given to the
Carthusians. The other, Sion House, facing it on the Middlesex
shore, was bestowed on Bridgettine nuns."
On the supposition that a dramatist's views may be gathered from
his writings, we may confidently say that Father Bowden has proved
to demonstration that Shakespeare's sympathies were entirely with
the beliefs and practices of the ancient faith. But may we make this
supposition? Some of the non-Catholic reviewers of Father Bow-
den's work, seeing clearly that, if the supposition be admitted,
Father Bowden's conclusion must remain incontestable, have denied
his right to make the supposition. A dramatist, they argued,
speaks only in character, and his writings are, in consequence, no
The Religion of Shakespeare. 239
index to his personal views. The answer to this contention is mani-
fold, (i) It is quite in accordance with custom to judge of a dra-
matist's views on life and religion from the manner in which he ex-
presses himself on these all important subjects in his writings. The
personal beliefs and inmost convictions of all great dramatists from
Eschylus to Milton (for Milton's greater poems are, in truth, dramas)
have been discussed in the past, and are still the subject of discus-
sion, though the data of this discusssion are taken, in most cases,
from their dramas alone. (2) There are not a few critics at the pres-
ent day, like Professor Dowden, Professor Caird and Mr. Tyler, in
England, and Kreysig and Dr. Vehse, in Germany, who profess to
prove from Shakespeare's dramas that Shakespeare was a Ration-
alist. If, then, it be lawful to argue from the writings of dramatists
generally to the religious beliefs of the dramatists themselves, why
are we to make an exception in the case of Shakespeare ? And if
it be lawful to attempt to prove from Shakespeare's writings that
Shakespeare was a Rationalist, why is it not lawful from those same
writings to attempt to prove that Shakespeare was a Catholic?
(3) Father Bowden, in his inquiry, has been guided throughout by
the canon of criticism laid down by Aristotle to the effect that we
are, when endeavoring to ascertain a dramatist's views, to consider
not simply what the dramatist says, but also the character by which
he says it. The reasonableness of this rule is apparent. The
language and action of a hero may be supposed to represent the
poet's type of what is good and noble, and therefore of what he
would wish his own language and action to be. The sentiments of
a scoundrel, on the other hand, are intentionally drawn as false,
base and treacherous, and therefore presumably not those of the
poet's ideal self. Now, though Shakespeare may place anti-Cath-
olic sentiments in the mouth of one portrayed by him as "not only a
villain, but a mean villain," like Kin^ John, he is careful to draw
those characters whom he evidently reveres and loves as devout and
earnest Catholics. We have been able to present Father Bowden's
arguments only in their broad, general lines. For the full elabora-
tion of these arguments we refer our readers to Father Bowden's
interesting and scholarly volume.
William L. Gildea.
.I,ondon.
240 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE.
A JUBILEE, or Holy Year, is a year in which a Plenary Indul-
gence is granted to all who visit certain churches, and per-
form certain good works, with proper dispositions, and Con-
fessors receive extraordinary powers with regard to absolution in
reserved cases, and censures, and in the commutation of vows.
Several reasons for the institution of the Holy Year are given by
the Popes in their Constitutions : the compassion of Mother Church
offering a remedy to those who are oppressed by sin, to stir up and
renew the devotion of the faithful, to venerate SS. Peter and Paul by
frequent visits to their basilicas, and to honor the city. Mother,
Mistress and Head of all the Churches, which is consecrated by the
tombs of the two Apostles and the blood of so many martyrs.
The Jubilee of the Christian Church has a parallel in the observ-
ance prescribed in Leviticus (ch. xxv.), "Thou shalt sanctify the
fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants ot
the land : for it is the year of Jubilee. Every man shall return to
his possession, and every one shall go back to his former family."
The Mosaic Jubilee was announced by sound of trumpet, for it
came laden with redemption to all, debtors were relieved, and those
who had been forced in the straits of poverty to sell their land re-
sumed possession. Just as the Hebrews received, every fifty years,
restitution of mortgages ; as the debts of their poor were cancelled
and slaves were set at liberty, so the faithful in the year of Jubilee
obtain remission of the penalty of their offenses by the Indulgence,
and those who are in the bonds of sin are freed through the merits
of Christ.
In the Divine economy man's instruction in spiritual and invisi-
ble mysteries is conveyed to him by visible and material signs : the
wisdom of God condescending to his capacity, to lift him up, by the
help of figures and symbols to a comprehension of the august reali-
ties. What were the sacrifices and ritual observances of the Old
Law but aids to human intelligence, confined in its ken by sense
and matter, giving expression to spiritual thoughts in visible and
material actions ? The Church, God's vicarious Teacher, does not
neglect this method. The institution of the Holy Year and the rites
that solemnize it, like all the ceremonies of her liturgy, are materia!
symbols that speak to the senses, but raise the soul into the region
of spirit.
The characteristic ceremony which distinguishes the Holy Year
The Year of Jubilee. 241
is the opening and shutting of the Porta Santa, or Holy Door. It
was suggested by the ordinance appointed for the Jews in Ezechiel
(ch. xlvi.), "The gate of the inner court, that looketh toward the
east, shall be shut the six days, on which work is done, but on the
Sabbath Day it shall be opened, yea and on the day of the new
moon it shall be opened."
The Porta Santa is one of the five doors of the basilica of St. Peter,
and of the three other Patriarchal basilicas, St. Paul, St. John Late-
ran and St. Mary Major, which is only opened during the year of the
Jubilee and walled up till the next. The ceremony with which it is
opened and shut is a link with the ancient discipline of the Church
dealing with penitents. At the beginning of Lent it was the custom
solemnly to exclude from participation in the sacred mysteries, and
even from the church's precincts, those who by the canons were
subject to public penance. On Good Friday, if duly repentant, they
were absolved, and admitted again to communion with the faithful.
The Jubilee rite indicates the opening and closing of the Church's
spiritual treasury, the satisfaction and merits of the Redeemer,
from whose bounty pardon of sin and remission of punishment are
dispensed to those who qualify themselves, by fulfilling the pre-
scribed conditions, to receive the indulgence of the Holy Year.
It is sometimes said that the observance of the Holy Year, or
Jubilee, was a contrivance of the Papal Court to bring, with a con-
course from all parts of the world, an increase to its exchequer. So
far was the first institution of the Jubilee from being an invention of
the Popes, that the proclamation of the first historically authenti-
cated Jubilee by Boniface VIII. cannot be described as a spontan-
eous act of that Pontiff. At Christmas of the year 1299 Rome was
invaded by extraordinary crowds from places far and near, who
came to visit the Basilica of St. Peter, and on the first day of the
new year they arrived in still greater numbers, all full of hope to
obtain some great indulgence and spiritual favors they had heard
of and were led to expect. For two months this concourse con-
tinued to increase, and Pope Boniface was induced to order search
to be made in the Church's registers for any trace of a grant to-
justify the popular expectation. Nothing could be discovered ; even
if a document ever existed, its loss was not to be wondered at in the
perpetual wars of foreign enemies and the troubles of domestic
faction. Tradition was investigated, and the evidence of the oldest
living, whose fathers had been alive a hundred years before. Nona-
genarians were found to certify that they had heard from their par-
ents who had come as pilgrims to Rome at the beginning of the
century that at every hundredth year Indulgences were to be gained
by visiting the Churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, but nothing
242 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
could be ascertained as to the nature or extent of the privileges
claimed ; on this, testimony was not concurrent.
It was then that Boniface, after consulting his Cardinals, issued
the famous Bull of 22 P'ebruary, 1300, in which he implicitly sanc-
tioned the tradition, and determined the conditions for gaining the
spiritual favors. To all the faithful, who during the year 1300, or on
each hundredth year following, should visit the basilicas of St.
Peter and St. Paul on thirty different days, if resident in Rome ; or
fifteen days, if pilgrims or strangers, he grants a Plenary Indulgence.
This decree may therefore be regarded as the revival and solemn
ratification of a traditional persuasion of the Christian people, based
On their practical faith in the power of the Keys, and the Headship
of Rome, and testified to from the earliest times by pilgrimages of
laymen and churchmen, of noble and simple, made to the tomb of
Peter.
The publication of the Bull at this critical period was most oppor-
tune. Civil faction, the political revolutions in Italy and the turbu-
lent ambition of foreign invaders who aimed at domineering over
the Church, had been bringing discredit on Religion, sapping the
popular faith and multiplying excesses and crimes.
The announcement of the Jubilee drew to Rome extraordinary
multitudes from every part of Christendom. Giovanni Villani, who
was present, says that during the year there was a continuous pop-
ulation of 200,000 souls, and in the course of twelve months two
millions were calculated to have arrived. Among these Charles of
Valois, brother of Philip le Bel, with his wife Catharine, came ac-
companied by a suite of five hundred knights. It has been conjec-
tured, and not without reason, that the poet Dante came to Rome on
this occasion, and that in his allusion to the crowds passing over the
bridge of S. Angelo in two streams, one directed to St. Peter's, the
other returning to the city, he is describing what he saw :
As when the Romans (because all too vast
Their multitude, the year of Jubilee)
The bridge in twofold line and order pass'd ;
And, thus divided, on one side they see
The castle, and towards St. Peter's g-o.
And turn'd towards the mount the others be.^
It is also singular that the initial scene of his great poem is timed
for Maundy Thursday, 1300. The subject of the "Divina Commedia,"
as Dante tells us in his dedication to Can Grande della Scala, is man
in his relation to the Divine Justice, which dispenses reward or pun-
ishment according to the use made of his free will. It was com-
posed with a deeply spiritual and ascetic purpose; in the poet's
words, "to raise up those who are in this life from their condition of
misery, and conduct them to a state of bliss."
* Dante, Inferno, xviil. Mrs. Ramsay's Translation.
The Year of Jubilee. 243
The scope and purpose of the Holy Year is no other, and it would
almost seem as if Dante had conceived the idea of his poem, when he
was full of the impressions of the first Jubilee Year. Dante was
certainly at Rome in the pontificate of Boniface, for he was one
of five ambassadors sent to the Pope by the Guelphs of Florence.
The liberality of the Pontiff, aided by contributions from some
Romans and the more wealthy of the pilgrims, provided lodging and
food for all this multitude. Abundant alms for the entertainment of
the poor, and for the restoration and embellishment of the churches,
poured in. St. Peter's alone received fifty thousand gold florins,
and St. Paul's thirty thousand. By the Pope's command a large
portion of this money was invested in the purchase of castles and
land as endowment for the basilicas, and till the present day the
memory of those donations has been preserved in the name "Castel
Giubileo," given to a domain ten miles from Rome, still part of the
patrimony of St. Peter's.
The second Jubilee was promulgated in a time of desolation for
Rome. For forty years the Popes had been holding splendid court
at Avignon, and the Eternal City, abandoned to itself, was reduced to
a state of extreme squalor. An earthquake had laid part in ruins,
grass grew in St. Peter's, its bell tower was cast down, the Lateran
was roofless, disaster menaced St. Paul's, the Liberian Basilica had
suffered severely. A pestilence succeeded the earthquake and the
Romans, in consternation, betook themselves to the churches and
implored the divine mercy. They regarded their afflictions as a
scourge for sin, and turned to the absent Pontiff for encouragement
and help. The Pope then was Clement VI. An embassy headed
by Stephen Colonna was dispatched to Avignon in 1342, and two
years later another was sent conducted by Petrarch and Cola di
Rienzi, then at the height of his fame and the popular favor. The
eloquence of one envoy and the fascinating enthusiasm of the other
appealed to the Pope. They besought him to restore the pontifical
residence to Rome, and to raise it from its depression by anticipating
the time for another Jubilee. Clement would not promise to bring
back the Court, but he was so captivated by the young Tribune that
he associated him with the Bishop of Orvieto in a commission to
govern the Roman State till permanent provision was made. He
agreed to anticipate the Holy Year, and issued a Bull stating that,
in consideration of the brief span of human life, he abbreviated the
interval fixed for the celebration of the Jubilee, reducing it from a
hundred to fifty years. He added the Lateran to the churches to be
visited by the pilgrims, reducing at the same time the number of
visits to be made by strangers to eight. He deputed a Cardinal as
Legate a latere to preside at the opening, appointed for the vigil of
244 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Christmas, 1349. The Jubilee of 1350, notwithstanding the absence
of the Papal Court, saw a greater concourse of pilgrims than the
first. Matteo Villani, a contemporary, relates that at Pentecost
nearly 800,000 persons were present in Rome. Louis of Bavaria
came among the rest, and Rienzi offered him the protectorate of the
Roman Republic, an honor which he declined out of reverence for
the rights of the Church. St. Brigid of Sweden was also then in the
city, where she had arrived with her daughter some years before to
fix her home on soil sanctified by the blood of so many martyrs.
In 1371 Gregory XL was elected Pope. Yielding to the repre-
sentations and entreaties of St. Brigid and St. Catherine of Siena,
and awed, perhaps, by a threat of the Romans to give themselves
a Pope if he did not speedily come to reside with them himself, he
resolved to set out. On January 17, 1377, he made his solemn entry
into the city, received with unfeigned acclamation by the populace.
He published no Jubilee, but to the number of churches to be visited
for the indulgences he added St. Mary Major's.
In 1389 Pope Urban VI. further reduced the interval separating
the Holy Years to thirty-three years, in memory of the reputed
years of our Lord's life on earth, and fixed the year 1390 for the cele-
bration of the next. He died before its opening, but his decree was
carried out by his successor, Boniface IX. At this time an anti-
pope divided the allegiance of Christendom, and his adherents in
France and Spain abstained from taking part in the pilgrimage to
Rome. Accordingly this was not so numerous as on previous
occasions. Many, however, came from Germany, Hungary,
Bohemia, Poland, England and other countries in the obedience of
Boniface.
The year 1400 had been designated in the original Bull of Boni-
face VIII. as a Holy Year, and notwithstanding the subsequent
changes decreed by other Popes, immense multitudes flocked to
Rome, in expectation of the promised graces. But the Pope re-
fused to open anew the treasures of the Church after such a short
interval.
The fourth Jubilee was celebrated by Martin V. in 1423, after the
space of thirty-three years prescribed by Urban VI. This time the
pilgrims were less numerous than at the last. It was just at the close
of the great schism which was healed by the election of Martin, and
the renunciation or deposition of three contending claimants. It
was this Pontiff who sternly rebuked the English Primate for pre-
suming to arrogate the powers of the Vicar of Christ and proclaim a
sort of Jubilee to all who visited his Cathedral Church at Canter-
bury.
If the last two Jubilees passed in comparative obscurity, this can-
The Year of Jubilee. 245
not be said of the. next recurrence of the Holy Year. It was cele-
brated by Nicholas V. in 1450. The number of pilgrims far sur-
passed any of the former occasions. Many came to Rome, drawn
by the fame of the Pope's personal holiness of life. He frequently
took part in the processions of penance in the streets, often with
bare feet. During this Jubilee, devotion to the Holy Face and its
image, preserved in St. Peter's, received a great impulse. So eager
was Frederic HI., crowned King of the Romans and heir to the Im-
perial throne, to obtain a near view of the holy relic, that to enable
him to enter the small chapel where it is kept he was made honorary
canon of the chapter. It was on occasion of a solemn exposition of
the Relic that a crowd returning from the Basilica, meeting another
on its way to the church, on the bridge of S. Angelo, was thrown
into panic which caused the death of two hundred persons.
Clearly the Popes, from what has been said, did not consider
themselves tied by their predecessors to the intervals prescribed for
holding the Jubilees, and the space of a hundred years was suc-
cessively replaced by periods of fifty and thirty-three years. The
last change, and it reduced the interval to twenty-five, still observed,
was made by Paul II. in 1470. He issued a Bull in that year mak-
ing this modification and proclaiming a Jubilee for 1475. ^^ ^^^
not live to celebrate it, and the sixth Holy Year was solemnized by
Sixtus IV.
It is in the Jubilee of Alexander VI. that we hear the first men-
tion of the Porta Santa, or Holy Door, to be opened and shut with
certain solemnities at the beginning and end of each Jubilee. In-
deed most of the ceremonial attending the commencement and close
of the years of Jubilee was established by this Pontiff. He directed
that the announcement of the Jubilee was to be made three times in
the previous year, but Julius III. limited the proclamations to two,
fixed afterwards by Gregory XIII. for the Feast of the Ascension
and the last Sunday in Advent. This regulation continues in force.
Alexander VI. was the first to extend the privileges of the Jubilee
to the whole Catholic world in the year following its celebration in
Rome, on the fulfillment of certain conditions. Publishing the Jubi-
lee for 1500 Alexander refers in his Bull to a "Door which is wont
to be opened for the devotion of the faithful each hundredth Jubilee
year." This, if it existed, must have been walled up by Boniface
IX., but it could not be discovered by Alexander's workmen, al-
though he himself superintended the search ; and he ordered a new
door to be prepared, decorated with marble and sculpture, easily
recognized for future occasions.
The eighth Jubilee was celebrated under Clement VII. in 1525,
the year in which Luther contracted his union with Catherine de
246 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Bore. On account of the religious ferment and wars of the time the
number of pilgrims to Rome was not remarkable.
The ninth Jubilee was published by Paul II. in 1549; but^
through the vacancy of the See by his death in November, the in-
auguration was deferred till February 24, 1550, when it was per-
formed by his successor, Julius III.
It was during this Holy Year that the Confraternity of the Holy
Trinity, "Trinita dei Pellegrini," first came into notice. It had been
founded under another name two years before by St. Philip Neri's
direction, for the advancement of its associates in piety and virtue
and for mutual help. At the approach of the Jubilee this society
began to interest itself on behalf of the poorer pilgrims who were
to be expected, and rented a small house where beds were provided
for ten or twelve persons. A lady then offered the use of another
house for women. In these two hospices the brothers and sisters of
the Confraternity welcomed foot-sore travelers on their arrival and
ministered to their wants during their stay. The marvelous devel-
opment of this institution and the services it rendered to the poor,
in centuries to follow, will appear in the sequel.
One of the most memorable Jubilees was the tenth, under Greg-
ory XIII., in 1575. At the opening of the Holy Door the crowd
was enormous, said to number 300,000. The pressure was so great
that two hundred persons were forced through the opened entrance
before the Pope was able to pass. Pilgrimages arrived from all
parts, four hundred confraternities entered the city processionally
to the chant of psalms, fourteen thousand came from Spoleto alone,,
and large numbers from other towns. The confraternity of the
Holy Trinity by this time had so strengthened its administration
and resources that it was enabled to house and feed, in the course
of the year, 365,000 persons, of whom 20,000 were women. To
provide spiritual help for this vast multitude confessionals were
multiplied in the churches, priests were appointed with all the ex-
traordinary faculties of Penitentiaries, to the number of fifty in St,
Peter's, thirty in the Lateran and the same in St. Mary Major's and
St. Paul's.
The Pope himself set an example of devotion and penance. He
made /requent visits with his attendants to the churches, fasting for
three days before each visit. The first was on January 3, when he
made his confession, received Holy Communion, went to pray in
each of the three basilicas within the city, prostrating himself at the
Holy Door and kneeling before the High Altar, the Blessed Sacra-
ment and other altars. He dismounted from his litter at the Ostian
Gate, and seventy-four years old as he was, proceeded on foot for a
mile and a half to St. Paul's, with no cortege but an immense crowd
The Year of Jubilee. 247
of devout pilgrims prayerfully following in his steps, he repeating
this for three days. In the time of carnival, which was suspended
that year, he made the penitential visit of the Seven Churches. In
all these exercises he was imitated by many of the Cardinals and by
Bishops and prelates of every degree. Among the rest was St.
Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, who edified Rome by the
assiduity and compunction with which he every day visited the
various sanctuaries. During the year the Pope showed himself fre-
quently to the pilgrims and admitted them freely to kiss his feet, at
Easter-tide to the number of three thousand and on one day thir-
teen thousand.
Clement VIII. celebrated the tenth Jubilee in 1600. Prevented
by gout from opening the Holy Door on Christmas Eve, he per-
formed the function on the feast of St. Silvester. Bishops and pil-
grims numbering four thousand were entertained at his expense in
the Borgo for ten days, the Pope himself serving the tables and his
nephews, the Cardinals Aldobrandini and S. Giorgio, washing the
feet of all who arrived. He dispensed in charity in the course of
the year 300,000 crowns, and on more than one occasion, assisted by
Cardinals Borromeo and Baronius, washed the feet of pilgrims at
Trinita dei Pellegrini. In this hospice 270,000 persons were lodged
during the year, beside 50,000 belonging to aggregated associations.
Five hundred and seventy corporate pilgrimages entered Rome in
procession during the year, mostly with bare feet, ashes on their
heads and penitential garb ; 28,000 Masses were said in St. Peter's,
22,000 in St. Paul's, 19,000 in St. Mary Major's, 16,000 in the
Church of the Trinita dei Pellegrini, besides the other churches of
Rome.
Cardinals Bellarmine, Baronius and others preached often to the
people. The Pope visited the Basilicas sixty times in the course of
the year, often mounted the Scala Santa on his knees, all the time
suffering from gout.
This Jubilee year was marked by the foundation of several char-
itable institutions. A poor simple man, Fra Alberisio, who went
about the streets calling to those he met : "Fate bene, adesso che
avete tempo'* (Do good, now that you have time), supported with
the alms he collected ten thousand pilgrims and originated the
brotherhood and hospital still called by his salutation, the "Fate
bene Fratelli.' Among establishments founded by the Pope him-
self this year was the Scots* College.
Urban VIII. celebrated the twelfth Jubilee in 1625. The con-
course was again great and solemn processions of pilgrims thronged
the streets ; 210,377 communicants were counted in St. Peter's alone ;
the number of pilgrims lodged at Trinita dei Pellegrini and its de-
248 American Catholic Quarterly Reznew.
pendency of the Convalescents was over half a million, the figure
given in the Register is 588,633. To entertain so great a number
the ordinary revenues of the Confraternity were insufficient, and the
Pope contributed 10,000 crowns. Cardinals, Princes, Ambassadors
and nobles came forward with generous help. The list of the bene-
factions, sums of 1,000, 800, 500, etc., is still preserved. Still the
administrators of the Confraternity were driven to the point of con-
tracting a loan, when Francesco Contarelli, nephew of the Cardinal
of the same name, died bequeathing forty-five thousand crowns to
the institution. Another Confraternity, the Gonfalone, founded in
1264 by St. Bonaventure, for mutual assistance, joined this year the
urgent work of charity and maintained 31,300 pilgrims.
A Protestant historian, Schmeiden, writing from Rome at this
time, describes the constant movement, not of passing strangers
only, but of the inhabitants of every town and village in Italy. Some
places were left almost deserted, the population going in mass to
Rome. When they came near the city they ranged themselves in
order with their standards, the images of their patron saints and
other religious emblems, and so made their entry. They went from
church to church in strange garb, some clothed in a white sack with
black mantle, some in coarse canvas with cord and hood, some
carrying heavy crosses and wearing sackcloth open at the back,
scourged themselves as they went.
These penitential exercises were not confined to the poorer pil-
grims. Cardinal Lante, venerable in his ninety years, went fifteen
times barefooted to visit the Basilicas, and over and over again made
the ascent of the Scala Santa on his knees in tears. Five Cardinals
divided the city into districts and preached in the squares.
Some amusing incidents are recorded during this Jubilee. The
canons of St. Mary Major's wanted to remove the medals which,
according to custom, had been built into the Holy Door at its last
closing, before the arrival of the Cardinal Legate deputed to reopen
it. A reference to authority gave it against the canons. At St.
Paul's some one had knocked on the door before the arrival of the
Legate ; the masons behind the door took this for the ceremonial
signal, and at once threw down the wall. A crowd of two hundred
persons scrambled through the opening, carrying with them scraps
of the plaster as a memento of the day. The old record says that the
master of ceremonies "prudently" had the door built up to the height
of a man, and when the Legate arrived the rite was proceeded with
as usual. As the Pope on Holy Innocents' day was passing
through the portico of St. Peter's to make the first of his visits, a
pilgrim in his eagerness to kiss the Pope's feet got confused by the
crowd and embraced the feet of the Majordomo instead, on which
The Year of Jubilee. 249
the Pope turned to the unfortunate man and said : "We dispense
you from the homage. We take it as done."
Nearly a million and a half of pilgrims visited Rome in 1675, when
Clement X. celebrated the fourteenth Jubilee. The register of
Trinita dei Pellegrini proves that 300,000 persons were entertained
by that institution alone.
The Jubilees of 1700, opened by Innocent XII. and closed by
Clement XL, that of 1725 under Benedict XIII. and of 1750 cele-
brated by Benedict XIV., bring us to the Jubilee of 1775 published
by Clement XIV., but celebrated by Pius VI. The concourse at
this last was great ; at Trinita dei Pellegrini 130,000 were entertained
for three days and 395,000 received in Holy Week.
In 1800 no Jubilee could be observed. The French Revolution,
sweeping like a tempest over all Europe, did not spare Rome. Pius
VI., torn from his See, carried prisoner into France, with the States
of the Church a prey to anarchy, was in no condition to open the
Holy Year. He died at Valence in August, 1799, and it was not till
March of the following year that the Cardinals, assembled in Venice,
elected his successor in the person of Pius VII.
We come now to the nineteenth Jubilee, held in 1825 under Leo
XII. As this was the last occasion on which the Holy Year was
solemnly celebrated, and the ceremonial observed was, so far as the
changed conditions of Rome permit, followed by Leo XIII. in the
Jubilee recently begun, it may be interesting to dwell at some length
on the details of the rite.
On May 24, 1824, the Pope held a Consistory to consult the Car-
dinals on the means for best promoting the success of the under-
taking. On the same day he issued a Bull of general invitation to
Rome in the following year. On Ascension day, attended by a
numerous court, in the Sala Regia, he consigned the Jubilee Bull
to a prelate official of the Apostolic Datary for publication. The
prelate immediately proceeded to the porch of St. Peter's, and from
an elevated stage read the proclamation to the sound of trumpet and
drum, followed by a discharge of musketry. At the same time three
couriers, with attendant drums and trumpets, were dispatched to
publish the Bull at the doors of the other three churches.
The Pope next ordered missions to be preached during the first
half of August in six of the principal squares of the city, piazze
Navona, Barberini, Colonna, Monti, S. Giacomo and S. Maria Mag-
giore. Orators of the highest repute were selected, and the Pope
himself assisted at the close of the mission in piazza Navona and
blessed the people from a balcony. On the last Sunday of Advent
the Bull was again read, and on Christmas Eve the Porta Santa was
opened.
250 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
For three days before the vigil all the bells of the churches were
rung for two hours. Long before the hour for Vespers the vast
square of St. Peter's began to fill. From all the approaches from
the Borgo, from Trastevere and from the neighboring gates of the
city crowds of Romans and strangers and peasants in the pictur-
esque costumes of their various villages hastened to secure the most
advantageous places. Soldiers, horse and foot, were drawn up be-
hind the people ; the colonnade was hung with the brilliant tapestries
from Raphael's designs, the piazza had a festive air, but the great
gates of the basilica were closed, the church was empty.
Before leaving his apartments the Pope announced the names of
the three Legates deputed to open the Holy Doors in the other
basilicas at the same time that he opened the one in St. Peter's.
They were, as is the custom, the Cardinal Dean for St. Paul's and
the Cardinals Archpriests of the other two churches for each re-
spectively. Robed pontifically in crimson vestments and wearing a
mitre, he proceeded to the Sixtine Chapel to pray before the Holy
Sacrament solemnly exposed. The Apostolic sub-deacon led the
way, bearing aloft the pontifical three-barred cross. Seven acolytes,
prelates of the Tribunal of the Signatura, carrying candhs, sur-
rounded the Papal cross. While the Pope knelt in adoration lighted
candles were distributed to the assistants. After incensing the
Blessed Sacrament the Pope intoned the hymn "Veni Creator,"
which was taken up by the choir. Then, seated on the Sedia Gesta-
toria, the portable chair of state, he was borne on the shoulders of
twelve attendants in bright livery, under a splendid canopy of gold
cloth, with the Habelli, or fans of ostrich feathers carried by chamber-
lains on either side, holding in his left hand a candle presented to
him by the first Cardinal Deacon, and blessing with his right as he
went. Preceded by the dignitaries of the Papal Chapel, the Bishops
assistant at the throne and the three orders of Cardinals, vested ac-
cording to their rank in rich dalmatics, chasubles or copes and fol-
lowed by all the colleges of prelates, he was conducted down the
Scala Regia to the colonnade and through the square between a
double line of the clergy of Rome marshaled to let him pass to the
portico of St. Peter's.
In the portico, in front of the Holy Door, which is the last on the
right hand, a throne was prepared. On this the Pope seated himself
for a few moments, then he rose, and taking a silver hammer from
the hands of the Cardinal Grand Penitentiary, advanced to the Door
and struck upon it with the hammer, saying : "Open ye to me the
Gates of Justice," to which the choir answered : "I will go into
them, and give praise to the Lord." Striking the door a second
time, he said : "I will come into Thy House," and the choir an-
The Year of Jubilee. 351
swered: "I will worship towards Thy Holy Temple." A third
time he struck the door, with the words : "Open the Gates, for the
Lord is with us," and the response of the choir : "Who hath shown
His power in Israel." The Pope then returned to the throne, and
the Grand Penitentiary struck the door twice with the hammer.
Upon this the door, which had previously been detached from the
wall on all sides, was made to fall gently back, and, inclined on a
massive frame of wood, was drawn aside. The Penitentiaries
washed carefully the doorstep and lintels with sponges and dried
them with fine linen cloths. When this was done the Pope rose and
recited the prayer, Actiones nostras, and the choir sang the 99th
Psalm, "Jubilate Deo omnis terra." This was followed by some
versicles and the prayer recited by the Pope : "O God, who by Thy
servant Moses didst institute a year of Jubilee for Thy people of
Israel, grant to us Thy servants a happy commencement to this
Jubilee instituted by Thy authority, in which Thou wiliest this door
to be opened for Thy people to offer prayers to Thy Majesty, so that,
having obtained in it pardon and full remission of all our offenses,
when the day of our summons arrives, we may be found worthy to
share Thy glory by the gift of Thy mercy."
Having finished the prayer, the Pope resumed his mitre, and de-
scending from the throne, advanced towards the Holy Door. Stand-
ing on the step, he took in his right hand the triple cross from the
sub-deacon and holding his lighted candle in his left, he intoned the
"Te Deum," and then crossed the threshold, the first to enter the
Basilica. The assistant Cardinals, two and two, followed, with all
the rest, and the crowd immediately after. The Pope again was
raised on the Sedia Gestatoria and carried to the Altar of the Con-
fession, or High Altar under the dome, where he assisted at
Vespers.
As the Pope crossed the threshold of the Holy Door the great
bell of St. Peter's rang out its loud-voiced peal ; at the signal the
bells of more than three hundred churches joined their music, and
the cannon of the castle of S. Angelo thundered the tidings to the
foot of the Alban Hills and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Such was the ceremonial at the opening of the last Jubilee. When
shorn of all the pomp of the gorgeous public procession and ap-
proach to the basilica through the colonnade and great square of St.
Peter's — when the Holy Father is constrained to make his entrance
into his own church by a private door from his palace — and the ma-
jesty of the solemn rite is confined to a narrow space guarded to
protect it from insult, in the presence of a few privileged witnesses,
the opening of the Holy Door for the Jubilee of 1900 must have
filled the hearts of all who assisted with conflicting emotions. But
252 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
regret at the absence of much that gave dignity and solemnity to
the occasion, impossible to-day under a hostile domination, was
overpowered in the gladness of the thought that in any form it had
been granted to Leo XIII., after seventy-five years since he himself
assisted at the last opening of the Porta Santa, to open to us with
such grandeur of solemnity as still exists the treasures of God's
grace and pardon.
James A. Campbell.
THE ELECTION OF ALEXANDER VI.
ON the 6th day of August, A. D. 1492 — three days had passed
since the little fleet of Christopher Columbus had departed
from Palos on its memorable voyage of discovery — three-
and-twenty Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church met in conclave at
the Vatican for the purpose of selecting a successor to Pope Inno-
cent VIII. As the reader may be curious to form some personal
acquaintance with the eminent dignitaries who were responsible to
the Church and to humanity for the election of Alexander VI. , I
shall assume the office of cicerone and introduce them one by one as
they enter the sacred enclosure.
In fact, the Cardinals of the fifteenth century are far better known
to fame than their successors at any later age ; and this for two rea-
sons. First, they were then much fewer in numbers. Ever since
the days of Avignon they had made persistent efforts to restrict the
membership of the Sacred College to little above a score, thus
increasing their individual importance to the detriment of the Papal
monarchy. Indeed it was no fault of theirs if the form of Church
government was not converted into a downright Venetian aristoc-
racy, with the Supreme Pontiff reduced to the position of a mere
Doge or figurehead. Secondly, and as a consequence of their over-
shadowing influence, it was taken for granted that to them and to
their father's houses belonged "all the best things of Israel." It
fairly takes one's breath away to read the long catalogue of incon-
gruous and incompatible benefices which many of them held, or, to
speak more accurately, the revenues of which they appropriated to
their own use. As a natural result, they were, away and beyond,
the most opulent, and therefore the most powerful, princes of their
time ; and their friendship was obsequiously courted by Popes and
kings. As another result, and one which "did not nor could not
The Election of Alexander VI. 253
come to good," the Cardinalate became the coveted prey of princely
and royal cadets and of intriguing and unscrupulous politicians.
It would be childish to expect that any Pope of reforming tenden-
cies could do much in the way of abolishing these abuses. In the
first place, no Papal candidate known to be a reformer could by any
possibility run the gauntlet of a Conclave. Moreover, the right of
presentation to benefices was only to a limited extent vested in the
Pope. The major portion of the emoluments of the Cardinals came
through the jus patronatus of monarchs and princes, who thus
secured their good-will and services, often to the grave displeasure
and inconvenience of the Supreme Pontiff.
The objects to which the Cardinals devoted their enormous in-
comes were as different as their respective characters. But taking
them for all in all, and thanking God that the Renaissance Cardinals
have forever disappeared from the earth, we are compelled by justice
to admit that to their generous patronage of the arts more than to
any other factor, we owe the first awakenings of modern culture.
Their faults and vices may be imputed to the circumstances of their
times ; but the high and noble impulses which distinguish them from
the secular barons of that or any other age, they owed to the prompt-
ings of the Catholic faith, which was operative in the most worldly
of them.
To return to the Conclave of 1492 : The first in order of seniority,
this prince of Holy Church who advances with tall, majestic figure,
noble countenance and piercing black eyes, is Cardinal Rodrigo
Borgia, Dean of the Sacred College. The blood of the royal race
of Aragon flows in his veins. He is now sixty years of age ; during
thirty-seven of which he has worn the Roman purple. It was by
mere accident that he ever became identified either with Rome or
with the priesthood. Born in the province of Valencia, he had
chosen the army for his calling, when the elevation of his uncle,
Calixtus III., to the Papacy opened up new prospects to his ambi-
tion. He immediately came, or was summoned, to Rome; and
since his younger brother was selected for the office of Captain
General of the Pontifical forces, there was nothing left for Rodrigo
but to become a Cardinal. "Could Calixtus have foreseen the evil
which his nephews would do to Italy and to the Church," exclaims
Pastor indignantly, "he would certainly, instead of elevating them,
have banished them to the deepest dungeons of Spain."^ No doubt
he would ; but since he laid no claim to the gift of prophecy, there is
very little use or consolation in our losing our tempers at this late
day because of his mistake. Under four successive Pontiffs
Rodrigo has held separate court as "a second Pope," for during this
1 Pastor, II., 448.
254 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
extended period he has been Vice Chancellor of the Roman Church.*
Strange rumors are in circulation regarding the private life of the
great Cardinal; but these malicious whispers are scarcely audible
amidst the chorus of applause which greets him as the most magnan-
imous, most affable, most industrious and most efficient official who,
within the memory of living men, has transacted the business of the
Holy See.
Next in the order of seniority comes Francesco Piccolomini, popu-
larly known as the Cardinal of Siena. As Borgia owed his early
elevation to the partiality of his uncle, Calixtus III., so did Picco-
lomini owe his still more youthful elevation to the affection of his
mother's brother. Pope Pius II. But here ends the resemblance
between them ; for whereas the young Borgia had been made an
ecclesiastic, or at least a Cardinal, almost in spite of himself and
without any preliminary spiritual training, Piccolomini, after a boy-
hood passed in destitute circumstances, had been taken into the
household of his uncle and most carefully prepared for the priest-
hood under his able and experienced direction. "In his twenty-
third year, immediately upon his receiving his doctor's hat as canon-
ist, he was appointed Archbishop of Siena in January, 1460 ; in the
following March he was created Cardinal ; in April, after the death
of the Cardinal of Pavia (Ammannati), he was sent as Legate to the
Picentine March, with the experienced Bishop of Marsico as his
counsellor. The only thing objectionable about him was his youth ;
for in the administration of his Legation and in his later conduct at
the Curia he proved to be a man of spotless character and many-
sided capacity, not to be compared with the scandalous nephew
whom Calixtus had introduced into the Sacred College."'
"In the time of Paul II., he filled the difficult post of Legate in
Germany with consummate tact, to the great satisfaction of the then
Pope ; the knowledge of German which he had acquired while living
in the household of Pius II. being naturally of great assistance to
him there. Afterwards, when, owing to the influence of the nephews
of Sixtus IV., a worldly spirit predominated at the Court, he, like
others of a pious and serious turn of mind, kept away from Rome
as much as possible, and still more so in the time of Alexander VI.
Like his uncle. Cardinal Piccolomini was tormented with gout, and
was prematurely old and decrepid, although he had led a very regu-
r* Two contrary reasons have been assigned for the anomaly that a Cardinal holding the
position of Chancellor to the Pope should be designated a Kzc<r-Chancellor. The common
explanation is that the chancellorship being merely of prelatial rank, it would be beneath
the dignity of a Cardinal to hold it otherwise than as a locum tenens. On the other hand,
the Benedictine compilers of the Art de Verifier //?j Z)a/(»5, speaking of Boniface VIII., in-
form us that "la dignity de Chancelier de I'Eglise Romaine fut supprim6e sous son
Pontificat, quia, dit le Docteur Taberelli, Cancellarius de Pari certabat cum Papa.'*
•Voig^, Enea Silvio, vol. iii., p. 531.
The Election of Alexander VL 255
lar life. Sigismondo de' Conti* -especially praises his scrupulous
love of order. *He left no moment unoccupied ; his time for study
was before daybreak ; he spent his mornings in prayer and his mid-
day hours in giving audiences, to which the humblest had easy
access. He was so temperate in food and drink that he only allowed
himself an evening meal every other day.' "*
Borgia and Piccolomini are the sole survivors in 1492 of the re-
mote times of Calixtus III. and Pius II. Of the Cardinals created
by Paul II., three still remain. Two of them, Battista Zcno and Gio-
vanni Michiel, owed their elevation to their close relationship to that
Pontiff, being his sisters' children. Like the true Venetian noble-
men they are, they may confidently be relied upon to lose no oppor-
tunity of advancing their own interests. This will undoubtedly be
the case with Michiel.
Their colleague, Oliviero Carafa, is a man of widely different
stamp. He was created Cardinal by Paul II. on September 18, 1467.
He was a distinguished member, indeed one of the chief founders, of
the great Neapolitan house which has furnished to that most charm-
ing of modern Catholic historians, Alfred von Reumont, the subject
of one of his most delightful monographs. Die Carafa von Maddaloni.
The prominent part which Cardinal Carafa took in the ecclesiastical
affairs of his time seems to justify us in making a somewhat extended
extract from Reumont's description of him. "He was born in 1430.
. . . At the age of eight-and-twenty Oliviero was raised by Pius
II. to the archiepiscopal dignity. Nine years afterwards Paul II.
invested him with the Roman purple. He was a jurist, a theologian,
an antiquarian, a statesman. He even exerted himself in the art of
war, as an admiral, in commanding a fleet of galleys against the
Turks, but without any fortunate results. Like most of his race,
faithful and attached to the Aragonese, in whose favors he shared
largely, and often in the midst of the difficulties attending the vary-
ing politics of the Popes Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII. and Alexander
VI., he defended the interests of his sovereign's family. According
to the morality or immorality of those times, he accumulated, besides
* " Sigismondo de' Conti was a man of good family in Foligno, where he held the office
of Chancellor under Paul II. He was famous as a Humanist, and came in 1476 Ito improve
his fortunes in Rome, where he was made one of the secretaries of the Curia. He attended
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere in an embassy to Germany in 1480, and in 1482 was made one
of the secretaries of the Pope. This office he held till 1502, when he retired • but Julius II.
appointed him his private secretary, and he died in Rome in 1512. He is famous in the
history of art as the donor whose portrait was painted by Raffaelle in the great picture of
the ' Madonna di Foligno ' which was painted by his order." Creighton, vol. iv.,p. 328.
* Pastor, vol. vi., p. 199. The Catholic historian repels with righteous indignation the in-
famous lie invented by Gregorovius in his Lucrezt'a Borgt'a, and repeated, parrot-like, by
Brosch and Bishop Creighton. that Piccolomini — later Pope Pius III. — was "the happy
father of no fewer than twelve children, boys and girls." This is by no means the only
instance in which Gregorovius' fertile imagination has travestied the facts of history. We
trust that the learned Bishop of London will be careful to remove this unseemly blemish
from his admirable book in a future edition.
256 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
his archbishopric of Naples, that he could only visit occasionally, a
number of bishoprics and abbeys — Chieti, that he resigned to his
cousin, afterwards Pope; Rimini, Terracina, and so on; and the
famous Abbeys of La Cave and Monte Vergine, which are visited in
these days, not merely on account of their picturesque situation in
the mountains, but also for the sake of the rich treasures contained
in their archives. . . . Few Cardinals have been so popular in
Rome. He deserved this popularity by the use which he made of
his great income, as well as by the courteousness of his character.
He was a very liberal supporter of science and learning; many
youths have been won over by him to the Church and to serious
studies. He built for the Lateran prebendaries the monastery next
to Santa Maria della Pace, that church which was built by Pope
Sixtus IV. to commemorate the peace which he obtained, not by, but
after, the long wars carried on during his government, where
Raphael's Sybils and Bramante's Court are to be admired. He left
his beautiful collection of books to this institution."*
Although Cardinal Carafa passed the most of his time in Rome in
the service of the Holy See, yet he did not entirely neglect his dio-
cese. He built the high altar in the Cathedral of Naples, and also
the magnificent shrine of St. Januarius, before which, at the present
day, the traveler still admires the marble statue of the Cardinal,
which Reumont pronounces as "amongst the best sculptures of
Naples," represented kneeling in prayer. As additional claims upon
our esteem, we may mention that Cardinal Carafa was one of the
earliest and most generous patrons of the newly-discovered art of
printing ; and that he was chiefly influential in forming the priestly
character of his young cousin, John Peter Carafa, who, in the next
generation, ascended the Chair of St. Peter, to begin, as Pope Paul
IV., the long series of Reforming Popes.
The next twelve Cardinals who enter the Conclave of 1492 are the
survivors of the successive creations of Pope Sixtus IV."^ The first
of these, in seniority as in personal worth, is our old friend Giuliafw
della Rovere.
" Tutti lo miran, tutti onor gH fanno."
In his own and the general estimation he enters all but elected ;
only to come out in a few days a bitterly disappointed man. He is
attended by two cousins. Basso della Rovere and Domenico della Ro-
vere; also by a fourth creature of the Sixtine family, the young
Raffaello Riario, whose bloodless cheeks give evidence that he has
not yet recovered from the effects of the shock imparted to his
« Reumont : The Carafas of Maddaloni, Bohn edition, p. 139. » pastor says (vol !▼., p.
416) that the Cardinals of Sixtus present at this Conclave numbered fourteen. But this
is evidently a mistake.
The Election of Alexander VI. 257
nervous system by the awful tragedy of April 26, 1478, in
which he was the innocent and unconscious tool of his uncle,
Girolamo.
Another of the Cardinals of Sixtus is George da Costa, a Portu-
guese of obscure parentage, who by his talents and industry worked
his way upwards to the dignity of Archbishop of Lisbon and the
office of Prime Minister of his sovereign, Alfonso V. But since his
admission into the College of Cardinals, in 1476, Costa has seen little
or nothing of his native land, and he has the reputation of being one
of the wealthiest prelates of his age. As he is a man of considerable
ability, and has prudently kept himself aloof from the intricacies of
Italian politics, there are many who are of opinion that his chances
of election are good.
The eleventh Cardinal on our list is Paolo Fregoso, known as the
Cardinal of Genoa. He may be described as an odd combination of
priest, condottiere and party leader. Belonging to the aristocratic
family of the Campofregosi, he was made Archbishop of Genoa as
early as 1453,® and thereafter took an active part in all the tumults
and revolutions which seemed to be the delight of his native city.
At times he combined the offices of Bishop and Doge ; soon to spend
a more or less extended period in exile. Such had been the vicissi-
tudes of his stormy career, when, in 1480, Pope Sixtus IV., recog-
nizing in his fellow Ligurian a kindred spirit, and desirous of em-
ploying his talents and experience in the defense of Christendom
against the Turks, created him Cardinal and appointed him Admiral
of the Papal fleet destined to aid in driving the invaders from Ot-
ranto. It became apparent, however, that the leader of a municipal
faction was not necessarily ?, great commander. Fregoso's admiral-
ship brought him no laurels ; and we hear little of him from the time
he returned to Rome in disfavor with the Pope, until he reappears a:
the present Conclave.
With two exceptions, the remaining Cardinals of Sixtus IV. are
representatives of the Roman nobility. John Baptist Savelli, a man
of considerable ability, had been designated for the honors of the
purple as far back as 1471, the last year of Paul II. But since that
Pontiff had already exceeded the number to which the jealousy of
the Cardinals wished to restrict the membership of the Sacred Col-
lege, he was forced to keep Savelli and two other candidates in petto.
Paul died suddenly soon afterwards ; whereupon the Cardinals, not-
withstanding they had promised, in the event of his death, to admit
his nominees, now refused to acknowledge their claims. Their oppo-
sition was mainly owing to the unwillingness of the powerful Cardinal
Latino Orsini to give admission to the scion of a hostile family ; for
« Gams, Series Episcoporum, p. 715.
258 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
the Savelli were hereditary aUies of the Colonna, and consequently
in feud with the Orsini. It was not until the year 1480, when Latino
had died, that Savelli finally took his seat in the College of Car-
dinals.
He took his seat together with his friend Giovanni Colonna, son of
Prince Antonio of Salerno, and brother of Prospero, Duke of Pali-
ano. He was also grand-nephew of Pope Martin V., the restorer of
the Papacy after the Great Schism. In the simultaneous elevation
of these two Roman princes, we seem to discover the influence of
Cardinal Giuliano, who no doubt was confident he could count upon
their gratitude.
Either for the purpose of holding the balance fairly between the
two chief factions of the Roman barons, or yielding to the wishes of
Girolamo Riario, Sixtus, in 1483, raised to the Cardinalate Battista
Orsini and Giovanni Conti; and thus "the seeds of party strife were
introduced into the Sacred College."**
History fails to inform us what unusual gifts Sixtus discerned in
Giacomo Sclafenati, or by what extraordinary influences he was in-
duced to bestow the dignity of the purple on this Bishop of Parma at
the early age of twenty-three.
The total absence of any ecclesiastical recommendation, and the
pressure of irresistible political influence, are painfully evident in
the last Cardinal created by Sixtus, Ascanio Maria Sforza. Of him
we may, with full truth, affirm, that which Guicciardini, with more
wit than accuracy, says of Giuliano : "There is nothing priestly
about him, except his cassock." Even the cassock he wears as
seldom as possible ; for he feels more at home, and is oftenest seen,
in the habit and with the environment of a secular prince. He has
been forced to adopt the ecclesiastical calling, for the simple reason
that he is a cadet of the House of Milan. His brother, Lodovico il
Moro, the Regent of Milan, having set his heart upon ousting the
rightful Duke, their nephew John Galeazzo, has at length succeeded,
in the face of strenuous opposition, in obtaining a seat in the Sacred
College for Ascanio, as a first step toward the realization of his ne-
farious design. It will^ not be Lodovico's fault if Ascanio does not
ascend still higher.
We have thus accounted for seventeen of the twenty-three voters.
Next follow the Cardinals created by Pope Innocent VIII. The
first of these is Lorenzo Ci&6, whose elevation, in 1489, aroused a great
deal of adverse comment, since he was a natural son of the Pontiff's
brother, Maurice. The stain of birth is, however, the only blemish
which history has recorded against him ; nor, on the other hand, has
much been said in his favor ; for, like all the Cibos, he is of no great
• Pastor, vol. v., p. 415
The Election of Alexander VI. 259
intellectual calibre, and his principal title to the respect of posterity
is that he will reject with scorn the seductions of Borgia.
Another of Innocent's Cardinals is Ardicino della Porta, who is de-
scribed as "a fit and worthy man."^*^ His subsequent conduct will
prove that the eulogy is not unmerited ; for he will atone, in the peni-
tential garb of St. Romoald, for the fatal error of placing his vote
and conscience in the unscrupulous hands of Ascanio.^^
The next Cardinal on the list is Antonio Pallavicini, a fellow-coun-
tryman of the Genoese Pontiff. Little is known concerning him ;
but that little is creditable. Regarding Giovanni de' Medici, the
future Leo X., it is needless to discourse at length. He is now sev-
enteen years of age, and life lies before him. He has been lucky
in securing his anomalous position before the departure of Lorenzo
and Innocent ; for otherwise his promotion would in all probability
have been indefinitely postponed. How much, by the way, would
the Church have lost by that contingency ?
There still remain two Cardinals whose right to participate in the
Conclave is the subject of serious discussion, for they have not yet
been formally installed. The first of these is Federigo Sanseverino,
son of the famous Robert, General of the Venetian armies. As his
two brothers are in the service of the Duke of Milan, his cause is
warmly advocated by Ascanio, by whose influence he is admitted
to the College. Consequently, when the aged Patriarch of Venice,
the nonagenarian MafFeo Gherardo, arrived, with an energetic de-
mand from the Signory that his rights should not be assailed, his
claims were acknowledged, mainly through the exertions of Giuli-
ano della Rovere, who thought thus to secure his vote ; but, as the
result will show, that able politician has made a serious miscalcula-
tion.
The reader is now in possession of sufficient data to form an intel-
ligent judgment upon the character of the men who composed the
Conclave of 1492. Though they were not ideal princes of the
Church, yet they were far superior to the reputation which "history,"
relying on worthless gossip and exaggerated rhetoric, has hitherto
commonly accorded them. They numbered in their ranks expe-
rienced statesmen, whose equals could not have been found in any
court of Europe. They numbered, moreover, men of deep consci-
entiousness and unfeigned piety. But what caused this Conclave
to come to so disastrous a termination was the fact that the Cardinals
of most commanding genius and influence were precisely the few
who possessed the least either of piety or of conscience.
10 Pastor, vol. v., p. 356. " Raynald. ad annum 1492, n. 3. has preserved an extremely in-
teresting letter written by Porta to Alexander VI., in which he defends his action in re-
nouncing the purple and assuming the lowly habit of the Camaldolese. Alexander had
given his sanction to the step ; but the Cardinals maintained that the consent of the Sacred
College was also needed.
26o American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The proceedings of the Conclave were opened with the exact
observance of all those religious rites whereby Holy Church seeks
to impress the electors with a keen sense of their awful responsi-
bility. The address of Leonello Chieregato, Bishop of Concordia
in the Venetian territory, large extracts from which are given by
Raynaldus, was a masterly exposition of the needs and dangers of the
times, and a fearless appeal to the conscience of the Cardinals. His
peroration would do credit to Savonarola; indeed, viewed in the
wierd light of subsequent events, it might seem that the preacher was
inspired. The reader will thank us for inserting it :
"Sorely is the Church afflicted. But it is in your power, most
excellent fathers, to comfort and console her. Banishing from your
hearts every suggestion of egotism, ambition and party spirit, harbor
no other thought than that of cooperating with the Divine Will in
the selection of a Pontiff eminent for sanctity, learning and expe-
rience. The eyes of the whole Church are fixed upon you. Give
her a Pontiff who, by the very odor of his good name, shall draw all
the faithful after him unto salvation. For it is written in the books
of wise men that the entire commonwealth, as it is infected and
ruined by the lusts and vices of its princes, so, too, is it by their self-
restraint and virtues corrected and preserved. Whatever deteriora-
tion takes place in the morals of princes is followed by a similar
change in the habits of the people ; and the adage is proved true :
That the bad example of rulers is more harmful than their personal
offenses. Choose, then, for ruler the best. Him you will easily
recognize if you hearken to Plato, who enjoins that he only ought
to be chosen who in every period of life has been without reproach,
and whose persevering endeavor it has been to promote the public
welfare ; for otherwise, he teaches, the Deity will doom the commu -
nity to destruction. To the same effect does the Blessed Pope Leo
command that you should elect one whose whole life from earliest
childhood until his ripest years has been devoted to the faithful ser-
vice of the Church ; one whose past career leaves us without appre-
hension as to his future ; and whose elevation to a higher station
must be regarded as the reward justly due to his many labors, his
unsullied morals and his strenuous industry. Shudder at the
thought, most reverend fathers, that the Lord should ever say of
you : 'They have made for themselves a king, but not through me ;
a prince, but with no counsel of mine.' Now the counsel of the
Lord is, if we believe Jerome, that the man most distinguished for
learning and sanctity and most conspicuous by the possession o!
every good quality should ascend to the supreme Pontificate by
pure and upright means, without resorting to intrigues or bribery.
Recall the fate of Abimelech. He did indeed reach the goal of his
The Election of Alexander VI. 261
ambition, and ruled over the people of Israel. But brief and turbu-
lent was his reign, and he came to an ignoble end.
"To sum up my remarks in one short sentence: Imprint upon
your hearts and carry into effect the sacred canons which regulate
the election of the Roman Pontiff and other Prelates. Do this ; and
under the coming Pontiff, the Church will without doubt once more
resume her flourishing estate: Through the mercy of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, Who is blessed forever and ever."
If the eminent dignitaries to whom this stirring appeal was ad-
dressed had obeyed the injunctions of the eloquent orator, it is
quite probable that another Chieregato, the preacher's cousin,
would have been spared the indignities which were in reserve for
him at the Diet of Nurnberg. But, of all men then living, the
worldly-minded Cardinals who composed this Conclave were the
least able to foresee and the least disposed to reck the ultimate con-
sequences of the step they were about to take. They will, however,
have occasion to "recall the fate of Abimelech" — one of them when
he bends, heart-broken, over the mangled corpse of his favorite
son ; others when, during the turbulent years that are to come, they
languish in prison or wander about in exile.
From the moment that a Conclave is closed until the door is
thrown open to announce the election of the new Pontiff, all the
proceedings are supposed to be, and eternally to remain, a profound
secret from those who are without. Viewing the Conclave of 1492
from the standpoint of those who were thus excluded, we must say
that seldom has it happened in the history of the Papacy that an
election has been conducted with a more scrupulous attention to
order, freedom and dignity. During the four days that the Cardi-
nals remained in seclusion, the most inquisitive and keen-scented
envoys of the European powers had absolutely no news to impart to
their respective Courts. They were all equally surprised, though
not similarly affected, when the wicket was thrown open on the
morning of August nth, and announcement was made that the
Vice-Chancellor, Rodrigo Borgia, had been duly elected, and had
chosen the name of ALEXANDER VI.
But divine Clio is too shrewd and fearless a Maid, either to accept
appearances for facts, or to permit official pronouncements to inter-
fere with her inalienable right of ascertaining the truth. To do
justice to her discernment, she no sooner heard the sad news than
she began to form that judgment upon it to which the veteran pen of
Ranke has given definitive form :
"Amidst the universal corruption, it was a universal calamity, and
discreditable to the whole human race, that, in the retired cells of
the Conclave assembled to elect a Pope, amid high and holy cere-
262 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
monies, and among men who had no further wants, and no one to
provide for, it was not the weal of Christendom, so sorely in need,
that determined the election, nor that of a nation — no, nor even
genuine affections and emotions. The highest dignity in the
Church was regarded as the inheritance of all Cardinals ; given, be-
cause, alas ! it was indivisible, to the one who promised the others
most/'^^'
That Borgia secured his election through *'the rankest simony,"^*
is a fact too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. The Cardinals
who had rejected his bribes proclaimed it immediately ; and those
who had accepted them confessed it later on. It is all but officially
stated in the scathing terms with which the Bull of Pope Julius II.,
dated 14 January, 1505, anathematizes and invalidates a Papal elec-
tion obtained by simoniacal means. Besides, what interest is served
by denying it ? It lessens, not increases, the scandal, when we re-
flect that the "thief and robber" entered not by the door, as the legit-
imate outcome of those "high and holy ceremonies" alluded to by
Ranke, but climbed in aliunde.
Sifting the mass of evidence which has been collected by the dili-
gence of Pastor and other investigators, we seem to be able to as-
sure the reader that the following narrative of the proceedings is
substantially correct:
The principal candidates at the beginning of the Conclave were
Giuliano della Rovere and Ascanio Sforza. The claims of the
former were supported by France and Genoa, which were
commonly reported (though this may be only idle rumor) to have
put 300,000 ducats at his disposal ; strange to say, his old-time foe,
now become his firm adherent, Ferrante of Naples, also worked
hard to secure his election. "Naples and France," remarks Pastor,
"though preparing for a final and decisive hostile encounter, sup-
ported meanwhile the same candidate for the Papal Chair."^*
Giuliano's strength was at the same time his weakness. The
favor of France was a poor recommendation in the eyes of the Ital-
ians. On the other hand, not every one was as able or as willing to
forget old grievances as the veteran politician who occupied the
throne of Naples. The consequence was that all those who disliked
or mistrusted the Rovere gathered about Ascanio, whose candida-
ture was urged with vigor and address by his brother, il Moro. An
abortive attempt to compound their differences was made by the
two antagonists in a prolonged interview held in the sacristy of St.
Peter's on August 4th. As no eavesdropper was permitted to hear
their conversation, we can only surmise, from the event, that neither
was disposed to withdraw or compromise.
M Ranke's " I^atin and Teutonic Nations," p. 41. is Pastor, V., p. 385. " Pastor, V,, p. 379.
The Election of Alexander VI. 263
Having tested each other's strength, they were far too shrewd to
permit their names to be brought forward in the earlier Scrutinies of
the Conclave, during which the names of Carafa and Costa were
prominently canvassed. Three days passed in fruitless balloting,
with no prospect of opening the deadlock. We are sufficiently
acquainted with Giuliano to be certain that he would have fought
it out till doom's day before yielding an inch ; it is proverbial with
his ancestral "oak" to break, but not to bend. His rival, though
equally firm and unscrupulous, took a more "common-sense" view
of the situation; he improved upon the lesson taught him eight
years before by Giuliano, and aspired, in his turn, to be "the power
behind the throne." Ascanio will ere long discover that Borgia is
not a Cibo. Our readers will thank us for permitting Dr. Pastor
to give the story in his own words :
"A sudden change came over the whole situation. As soon as
Ascanio Sforza perceived that there was no likelihood that he would
himself be chosen, he began to lend a willing ear to Borgia's bril-
liant offers. Rodrigo not only promised him the office of Vice-
Chancellor" — worth 8,000 ducats a year — "with his own Palace" —
which, to the present day, perpetuates the memory of this shameful
bargain by bearing the name of Palazzo Sforsa-Cesarini — "but in
addition to this the Castle of Nepi, the Bishopric of Erlau, with a
revenue of 10,000 ducats, and other benefices. Cardinal Orsini was
to receive the two fortified towns of Monticelli and Soriano, the
legation of the Marches and the Bishopric of Carthagena ; Cardinal
Colonna, the Abbacy of Subiaco, with all the surrounding villages ;
Savelli, Civita Castellana and the Bishopric of Majorca ; Pallavicini,
the Bishopric of Pampeluna ; Giovanni Michiel the suburban Bish-
opric of Porto; the Cardinals Sclafenati, Sanseverino, Riario and
Domenico della Rovere, rich abbacies and valuable benefices. By
these simoniacal means, counting his own vote and those of the
Cardinals Ardicino della Porta and Conti, who belonged to the
Sforza party, Borgia had thus secured fourteen votes,^' and only one
more was wanting to complete the majority of two-thirds.^® This-
one, however, was not easy to obtain. The Cardinals Carafa,.
Costa, Piccolomini and Zeno were not to be won by any promises,,
however brilliant; and the young Giovanni de' Medici held with
them. Cardinal Basso followed Giuliano della Rovere, who would
not hear of Borgia's election. Lorenzo Cibo also held aloof from
these unhallowed transactions. Thus Gherardo, now in his ninety-
sixth year and hardly in possession of his faculties, alone remained,
1* Not twenty-four, as the English translation makes; him say. Father Antrobus' printer
is vexatiously inexact in his figures, i^ pastor is at fault in his count. It takes sixteen io
make a two-thirds vote, when there are twenty-three electors. The Innsbruck historian has-
overlooked Fregoso, whose vote, no doubt, was cheaply secured.
264 American Catholic Quarterly Review. •
and he was persuaded by tliose who were about him to give his vote
to Borgia."
This vote of the venerable Patriarch of Venice is the very climax
of the whole tragedy. It was the crowning triumph of the power of
darkness, that the voice which elected the unworthy Borgia to the
saintliest dignity of Christendom was the voice of a saint! Not
all Rodrigo's riches, nor all Ascanio's power, could have held that
ignoble phalanx together for a day. The only hope of success
which the two main conspirators could entertain lay in the celerity
with which they cculd rush the election through, before their dupes
had time to listen to the admonitions of conscience, and their oppo-
nents to expose the infamy of their intrigues.
It is commonly stated by historians, on the authority of Infessura,
that Gherardo's vote was obtained by bribery ; and Gregorovius in-
dulges his poetic fancy by representing the aged Patriarch as
"stretching forth his palsied hand to clutch five thousand ducats."
But his saintly life, as a Camaldolese monk, and later as Prelate,
forbid our giving credence to any such enormity. It was surely no
difficult task to circumvent a decrepid old man, who was thinking
more of his speedy dissolution than of earthly matters,^^ in which
he could feel but a remote concern. His unacquaintance with
Rome and the Curia, and the irksomeness of confinement to one
who was at death's door, are quite sufficient to explain his vote.
And now, having placed this painful episode before the reader,
as we have found it in the best authorities, "nothing extenuating
nor setting down aught in malice," we give him time to regain his
breath before we continue our narrative.
J. F. LOUGHLIN.
Philadelphia.
THE MODERN MUSICAL MASS.*
TO one who is accustomed to study the history of art in the
light of the law of evolution the contrast between the reign-
ing modern style of Catholic church music and that of the
Middle Age seems at first sight very difficult of explanation. The
<^rowth of the a capclla chorus, which reached its perfection in the
" Gherardo died, according to Gams, 'on the 14th of the following month. Would that he
had passed to his eternal repose a few weeks earlier! His praises, celebrated by Pietro
Delphino, General of the Camaldolese Order, may be read in Raynald, ad annum, 1492, n. 3*.
•The present article is the continuation of two earlier essays in Thk American Catholic
Quarterly Review, viz., " Music in the Early Christian Church," January, 1898, and "The
Mediseval Chorus Music of the Catholic Church," April, 1899.
The Modern Musical Mass. 265
sixteenth century, may be traced through a steady process of devel-
opment, every step of which was a logical consequence of some
prior invention. But as we pass onward into the age succeeding
and look for a form of Catholic music which may be taken as the
natural offspring and successor of the venerable mediaeval style, we
find what appears to be a break in the line of continuity. The
ancient form maintains its existence throughout the seventeenth cen-
tury and a portion of the eighteenth, but it is slowly crowded to one
fide and at last driven from the field altogether by a style which, if
we search in the field of church art alone, appears to have no ante-
cedent. The new style is opposed to the old in every particular.
Instead of forms that are polyphonic in structure, vague and indefi-
nite in plan, based on an antique key system, the new compositions
are homophonic in structure, definite and sectional in plan, revealing
an entirely novel principle of tonality, containing vocal solos as well
as choruses and supported by a free instrumental accompaniment.
These two contrasted phases of religious music seem to have noth-
ing in common so far as technical organization is concerned, and it is
perfectly evident that the younger style could not have been evolved
out of the elder. Hardly less divergent are they in respect to ideal of
expression, the ancient style never departing from a moderate, un-
impassioned uniformity, the modern abounding in variety and con-
trast, and continually striving after a sort of dramatic portrayal of
subjective moods. To a representative of the old school this florid
accompanied style would seem like an intruder from quite an alien
sphere of experience, and the wonder grows when we discover that
it sprang from the same national soil as that in which its predecessor
ripened, and was likewise cherished by an institution that has made
immutability in all essentials a cardinal principle. Whence came the
impulse that effected so sweeping a change in a great historic form
of art, where we might expect that liturgic necessities and ecclesiasti-
cal tradition would decree a tenacious conservatism? What new
conception had seized upon the human mind so powerful that it
could even revolutionize a large share of the musical system of the
Catholic Church ? Had there b^en a long preparation for a change
that seems so sudden ? Were there causes working under the sur-
face, antecedent stages, such that the violation of the law of con-
tinuity is apparent only and not real? These questions are easily
answered if we abandon the useless attempt to find the parentage of
the modern church style in the ritual music of the previous period,
and by surveying all the musical conditions of the age we shall
quickly discover that it was an intrusion into the Church of musical
methods that were fostered under purely secular auspices. The
Gregorian chant and the mediaeval a.capella chorus were born and
266 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
nurtured within the fold of the Church, growing directly out of the
necessity of adapting musical cadences to the rhythmical phrases of
the liturgy. The modern sectional and florid style, on the contrary,
was an addition from without and was not introduced in response to
any liturgical demands whatever. In origin and affiliations it was
a secular style, adopted by the Church under a necessity which she
eventually strove to turn into a virtue.
This violent reversal of the traditions of Catholic music was sim-
ply a detail of that universal revolution in musical practice and ideal
which marked the passage from the sixteenth century to the seven-
teenth. The learned music of Europe had been for centuries almost
exclusively in the care of ecclesiastical and princely chapels, and its
practitioners held offices that were primarily clerical. The profes-
sional musicians, absorbed in churchly functions, had gone on add-
ing Masses to Masses, Motets to Motets and Hymns to Hymns,
until the Church had accumulated a store of sacred song so vast that
it remains the admiration and despair of modern scholars. These
works, although exhibiting every stage of construction from the sim-
plest to the most intricate, were all framed in accordance with prin-
ciples derived from the mediaeval conception of melodic combina-
tion. The secular songs which these same composers produced in
great numbers — Madrigals, Chansons, Villanellas and the like — not-
withstanding their greater flexibility and lightness of touch, were
also written for chorus, usually unaccompanied, and were theoreti-
cally constructed according to the same contrapuntal schemes as the
church pieces. Nothing like operas or symphonies existed ; there
were no orchestras worthy of the name ; pianoforte, violin and organ
playing in the modern sense had not been dreamed of ; solo singing
was in its helpless infancy. When we consider, in the light of our
present experience, how large a range of emotion that naturally
utters itself in tone was left unrepresented through this lack of a
proper secular art of music, we can understand the urgency of the
demand which, at the close of the sixteenth century, broke down
the barriers that hemmed in the currents of musical production and
swept music out into the vaster area of universal human interests.
The spirit of the Renaissance had led forth all other art forms to
share in the multifarious activities and joys of modern life at a time
when music was still the satisfied inmate of the cloister. But it was
impossible that music aI«o should not sooner or later feel the trans-
figuring touch of the new human impulse. The placid, austere ex-
pression of the clerical style, the indefinite forms, the Gregorian
modes precluding free dissonance and regulated chromatic change,
were incapable of rendering more than one order of ideas. A com-
pletely novel system must be forthcoming or music must confess its
The Modern Musical Mass. 26y
impotence to enter into the fuller emotional life which had lately
been revealed to mankind.
The genius of Italy was equal to the demand. Usually when any
form of art becomes complete a period of degeneracy follows ; art-
ists become mere imitators, inspiration and creative power die out,
the art becomes a handicraft, new growth appears only in another
period or another nation and under altogether different auspices.
Such would perhaps have been the case with church music in Italy
if a method diametrically opposed to that which had so long pre-
vailed in the Church had not inaugurated a new school and finally
extended its conquest into the venerable precincts of the Church it-
self. The opera and instrumental music — the two currents into
which secular music divided — sprang up, as from hidden fountains,
right beside the old forms which were even then just attaining their
full glory, as if to show that the Italian musical genius so abounded
in energy that it could never undergo decay, but when it had gone to
its utmost limits in one direction it could instantly strike out in an-
other still more brilliant and productive.
The invention of the opera about the year 1600 is usually looked
upon as the event of paramount importance in the transition period
of modern music history, yet it was only the most striking symptom
of a radical sweeping tendency. Throughout the greater part of the
sixteenth century a search had been in progress after a style of music
suited to a solo voice, which could lend itself to the portrayal of the
change and development of emotion involved in dramatic repre-
sentation. The folk song, which is only suited to the expression of
a single simple frame of mind, was of course inadequate. The old
church music was admirably adapted to the expression of the con-
sciousness of man in his relations to the divine — what was wanted
was a means of expressing the emotions of man in his relations to his
fellow-men. Lyric and dramatic poetry flourished, but no proper
lyric or dramatic music. The Renaissance had done its mighty
work in all other fields of art, but so far as music was concerned m
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a Renaissance did not exist.
Many reasons might be given why the spirit of the Renaissance had
no appreciable effect in the musical world until late in the sixteenth
century. Musical forms are purely subjective in their conception ;
they find no models or even suggestions in the natural world, and
the difficulty of finding the most satisfactory arrangements of tones
out of an almost endless number of possible combinations, together
with the necessity of constantly new adjustments of the mind
in order to appreciate the value of the very forms which itself cre-
ates, makes musical development a matter of peculiar slowness and
difficulty. The enthusiasm for the antique, which gave a definite
268 American Catlwlic Quarterly Review.
direction to the revival of learning and the new ambitions in paint-
ing and sculpture, could have little practical value in musical inven-
tion, since the ancient music, which would otherwise have been
chosen as a guide, had been completely lost. The craving for a
style of solo singing suited to dramatic purposes tried to find satis-
faction by means that were childishly insufficient. Imitations of
folk-songs, the device of singing one part in a Madrigal, while the
other parts were played by instruments, were some of the futile
efforts to solve the problem. The sense of disappointment broke
forth in bitter wrath against the church counterpoint, and a violent
conflict raged between the bewildered experimenters and the ad-
herents of the scholastic methods.
The discovery that was to satisfy the longings of a century and
create a new art was made in Florence. About the year 1580 a
circle of scholars, musicians and amateurs began to hold meetings at
the house of a certain Count Bardi, where they discussed, among
other learned questions, the nature of the music of the Greeks and
the possibility of its restoration. Theorizing was supplemented by
experiment, and at last Vincenzo Galilei, followed by Giulio Caccini,
hit upon a mode of musical declamation, half speech and half song,
which was enthusiastically hailed as the long-lost style employed in
the Athenian drama. A somewhat freer and more melodious man-
ner was also admitted in alternation with the dry formless recitation,
and these two related methods were employed in the performance of
short lyric, half-dramatic monologues. Such were the Monodies
of Galilei and the Nuove Musiche of Caccini. More ambitious
schemes followed. Mythological masquerades and pastoral come-
dies, which had held a prominent place in the gorgeous spectacles
and pageants of the Italian court festivals ever since the thirteenth
century, were provided with settings of the new declamatory music,
or stile recitativo, and behold the opera was born.
The Florentine inventors of dramatic music builded better than
they knew. They had no thought of setting music free upon a new
and higher flight ; they never dreamed of the consequences of releas-
ing melody from the fetters of counterpoint. Their sole intention
was to make poetry more expressive and emphatic by the employ-
ment of tones that would heighten the natural inflections of speech,
and in which there should be no repetition or extension of words (as
in the contrapuntal style) involving a subordination of text to musi-
cal form. The ideal of recitative was the expression of feeling by a
method that permits t!ie text to follow the natural accent of declama-
tory speech, unrestrained by a particular musical form or tonality,
and dependent only upon the support of the simplest kind of instru-
mental accompaniment. In this style of music, said Caccini, speech
The Modern Musical Mass. 269
is of the first importance, rhythm second and tone last of all. These
pioneers of dramatic music, as they declared over and over again,
simply desired a form of music that should allow the words to be dis-
tinctly understood. They condemned counterpoint, not on musical
grounds, but because it allowed the text to be obscured and the
natural rhythm broken. There was no promise of a new musical
era in such an anti-musical pronunciamento as this. But a relation
between music and poetry in which melody renounces all its inherent
rights could not long be maintained. The genius of Italy in the
seventeenth century was musical, not poetic. Just so soon as the
infinite possibilities of charm -"hat lie in free melody were once per-
ceived, no theories of Platonizing pedants could check its progress.
The demands of the new age, reinforced by the special Italian gift
of melody, created an art form in which absolute music triumphed
over the feebler claims of poetry and rhetoric. The cold, calculated
Florentine music-drama gave way to the vivacious impassioned
opera of Venice and Naples. Although the primitive dry recitative
survived, the far more expressive accompanied recitative was
evolved from it, and the grand aria burst into radiant life out of the
brief lyrical sections which the Florentines had allowed to creep into
their tedious declamatory scenes. Vocal colorature, which had al-
ready appeared in the dramatic pieces of Caccini, became the most
beloved means of effect. The little group of simple instruments em-
ployed in the first Florentine music-dramas was gradually merged
in the modern full orchestra. The original notion of making the
poetic and scenic intention paramount was forgotten, and the opera
became cultivated solely as a means for the display of all the fascina-
tions of vocalism.
Thus a new motive took complete possession of the art of music.
By virtue of the new powers revealed to them, composers would now
strive to enter all the secret precincts of the soul and give a voice
to every emotion, simple or complex, called forth by solitary medita-
tion or by situations of dramatic stress and conflict. Music, like
painting and poetry, would now occupy the whole world of human
experience. The stupendous achievements of the tonal art of the
past two centuries are the outcome of this revolutionary impulse.
But not at once could music administer the whole of her new posses-
sion. She must pass through a course of training in technic, to a
certain extent as she had done in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies, but under far more favorable conditions and quite different
circumstances. The shallowness of the greater part of the music of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is partly due to the diffi-
culty that composers found in mastering the new forms. A facility
in handling the material must be acquired before there could be anj
270 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
clear consciousness of the possibilities of expression which the new
forms contained. The first problem in vocal music was the develop-
ment of a method of technic, and musical taste, fascinated by the new
sensation, ran into an extravagant worship of the human voice.
There appeared in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
most brilliant group of singers, of both sexes, that the world has
ever seen. The full extent of the morbid, we might almost say the
insane passion for sensuous nerve-exciting tone is sufficiently indi-
cated by the encouragement in theatre and church of those out-
rages upon nature, the male soprano and alto. A school of com-
posers of brilliant melodic genius appeared in Italy, France and Ger-
many, who supplied these singers with showy and pathetic music
precisely suited to their peculiar powers. Italian melody and Italian
vocalism became the reigning sensation in European society, and
the opera easily took the primacy among fashionable amusements.
The Italian grand opera, with its solemn travesty of antique char-
acters and scenes, its mock heroics, its stilted conventionalities, its
dramatic feebleness and vocal glitter, was a lively reflection of the
taste of this age of "gallant" poetry, rococo decoration and social
artificiality. The musical element consisted of a succession of arias
and duets stitched together by a loose thread of secco recitative.
The costumes were those of contemporary fashion, although the
characters were named for worthies of ancient Greece and Rome.
The plots were in no sense historic, but consisted of love tales and
conspiracies concocted by the playwright. Truth to human nature
and to locality was left to the despised comic opera. Yet we must
not suppose that the devotees of this music were conscious of its
real superficiality. They adored it not wholly because it was sensa-
tional, but because they believed it true in expression ; and indeed
it was true to those light and transient sentiments which the voluptu-
aries of the theatre mistook for the throbs of nature. Tender and
pathetic these airs often were, but it was the affected tenderness and
pathos of fashionable eighteenth century literature which they rep-
resented. To the profounder insight of the present they seem lo
express nothing deeper than the make-believe emotions of children
at their play.
Under such sanctions the Italian grand aria became the dominant
form of melody. Not the appeal to the intellect and the genuine ex-
periences of the heart was required of the musical performer, but
rather brilliancy of technic and seductiveness of tone. Ephemeral
nerve excitement, incessant novelty within certain conventional
bounds, were the demands laid by the public upon composer and
singer. The office of the poet became hardly less mechanical than
that of the costumer or the decorator. Composers, with a few
The Modern Musical Mass. 271
exceptions, yielded to the prevailing fashion, and musical dramatic
art lent itself chiefly to the portrayal of stereotyped sentiments and
the gratification of the sense. I would not be understood as deny-
ing the germ of truth that lay in this art element contributed by
Italy to the modern world. Its later results were sublime and bene-
ficent, for Italian melody has given direction to well nigh all the
magnificent achievements of secular music in the past two centuries.
I am speaking here of the first outcome of the infatuation it pro-
duced, in the breaking down of the taste for the severe and elevated
and the production of a transient, often demoralizing, intoxication.
It was not long before the charming Italian melody undertook the
conquest of the Church. The popular demand for melody and solo
singing overcame the austere traditions of ecclesiastical song. The
dramatic and concert style invaded the choir gallery. The personnel
of the choirs was altered and women, sometimes male sopranos and
altos, took the place of boys. The prima donna, with her trills and
runs, often made the choir gallery the parade ground for her arts of
fascination. The chorus declined in favor of the solo, and the
church aria vied with the opera aria in bravura and languishing
pathos. Where the chorus was retained in Mass, Motet or Hymn, it
abandoned the close-knit contrapuntal texture in favor of a simple
homophonic structure, with strongly marked rhythmical movement.
The orchestral accompaniment also lent to the composition a vivid
dramatic coloring, and brilliant solos for violins and flutes seemed
often to convert the sanctuary into a concert hall. All this was in-
evitable, for the Catholic musicians of the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries were artists as well as churchmen; they shared the
aesthetic convictions of their time and could not be expected to
forego the opportunities for eflfect which the new methods put into
their hands. They were no longer dependent upon the Church for
commissions ; the opera house and the salon gave them sure means
of subsistence and fame. The functions of church and theatre com-
poser were often united in a single man. The convents and cathedral
chapels were made training schools for the choir and the opera stage
on equal terms. It was in a monk's cell that Bernacchi and other
world-famous opera singers of the eighteenth century were educated.
Ecclesiastics united with aristocratic laymen in the patronage of the
opera ; Cardinals and Archbishops owned theatre boxes, and it was
not considered in the least out of character for monks and priests to
write operas and superintend their performance. Under such condi-
tions it was not strange -that church and theatre reacted upon each
other, and the sentimental style beloved in opera house and salon
should at last be accepted as the proper vehicle of devotional feeling.
In this adornment of the liturgy in theatrical costume we find a
272 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
singular parallel between the history of church music in the transi-
tion period and that of religious painting in the period of the Re-
naissance. Pictorial art had first to give concrete expression to the
conceptions evolved under the influence of Christianity, and since
the w^hole intent of the pious discipline was to turn the thought away
from temporal joys, art avoided the representation of ideal physical
loveliness on the one hand and a scientific historical correctness on
the other. Hence arose the naive, emblematic pictures of the four-
teenth century, whose main endeavor was to attract and indoctrinate
with delineations that were symbolic and intended mainly for edifica-
tion. Art, therefore, although emancipated from Byzantine formal-
ism, was still essentially hieratic, and the painter willingly assumed a
semi-sacerdotal office as the efficient coadjutor of the preacher and the
confessor. With the fifteenth century came the inrush of the antique
culture, uniting with native Italian tendencies to sweep art away into
a passionate quest of beauty wherever it might be found. The con-
ventional religious subjects and the traditional modes of treatment
could no longer satisfy those whose eyes had been opened to the
magnificent materials for artistic treatment that lay in the human
form, draped and undraped, in landscape, atmosphere, color and
light and shadow, and who had been taught by the individualistic
trend of the age that the painter is true to his genius only as he
frees himself from formulas and follows the leadings of his own in-
stincts. But art could not wholly renounce its original pious mis-
sion. The age was at least nominally Christian, sincerely so in
many of its elements, and the patronage of the arts was still to a
very large extent in the hands of the clergy. And here the Church
prudently consented to a modification of the established ideals of
treatment of sacred themes. The native Italian love of elegance u'
outline, harmony of form and splendor of color, directed by the study
of the antique, overcame the earlier austerity and effected a combina-
tion of Christian tradition and pagan sensuousness which, in such
work as that of Correggio and the great Venetians, and even at times
in the pure Raphael and the stem Michael Angelo, quite belied the
purpose of ecclesiastical art, aiming not to fortify dogma and elevate
the spirit, but to gratify the lust of the eye and the delight in the
display of technical skill. Painting no longer conformed to a tradi-
tional religious type; it followed its genius, and that genius was
really inspired by the splendors of earth, however much it might
persuade itself that it ministered to holiness. A noted example of
this self-deception, although an extreme one, is the picture entitle<i
"The Marriage at Cana," by Paolo Veronese. Christ is the central
figure, but His presence has no vital significance. He is simply
an imposing Venetian grandee, and the enormous canvas, with its
The Modern Musical Mass. 273
crowd of figures elegantly attired in fashionable sixteenth century
costume, its profusion of sumptuous dishes and gorgeous tapestries,
is nothing more or less than a representation of a Venetian state
banquet. One painter drew naked young men as a background for
a picture of the Madonna and infant Christ. Another painted a St.
Sebastian for a nunnery, whose physical charms proved a snare, so
that it was removed. Others, such as Titian, lavished all the re-
sources of their art with apparently equal enthusiasm upon Ma-
donnas and nude Venuses. The other direction which was followed
by painting, aiming at historical verity and rigid accuracy in an-
atomy and expression, may be illustrated by comparing Rubens'
"Crucifixion" in the Antwerp Museum with a crucifixion, for ex-
ample, by Fra Angelico. Each motive was sincere, but the harsh
realism of the Fleming shows how far art, even in reverent treat-
ment of religious themes, had departed from the unhistoric symbol-
ism formerly imposed by the Church. In all this there was no dis-
loyal intention ; art had simply issued its declaration of independence,
its sole aim was henceforth beauty and reality, the body as well as the
soul seemed worthy of study and adoration, and the Church adopted
the new skill into its service, not seeing that the world was destined
to be the gainer and not religion.
The same impulse produced analogous results in the music of the
Catholic Church. The liturgic texts that were appropriated to choral
setting remained as they had been, the place and theoretic function
of the musical offices in the ceremonial were not altered, but the
music, in imitating the characteristics of the opera and exerting a
somewhat similar effect upon the mind, became animated by an ideal
of devotion quite apart from that of the liturgy and belied that unim-
passioned, absorbed and universalized mood of worship of which
the older forms of liturgic art are the most complete and consistent
embodiment. Herein is to be found the effect of the spirit of the
Renaissance upon church music. It is not simply that it created
new musical forms, new styles of performance and a more definite
expression ; the significance of the change lies rather in the fact that
it transformed the whole spirit of devotional music by endowing re-
ligious themes with sensuous charm and with a treatment inspired by
the arbitrary will of the composer and not by the teachings of the
Church.
At this point we reach the real underlying motive, however uncon-
scious of it individual composers may have been, which compelled
the revolution in liturgic music. A new ideal of devotional expres-
sion made inevitable the abandonment of the formal, academic style
of the Palestrina school. The spirit of the age, which required a
more subjective expression in music, involved a demand for a more
274 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
definite characterization in the setting of the sacred texts. The
composer could no longer be satisfied with a humble imitation of
the forms which the Church had sealed as the proper expression of
her attitude toward the divine mysteries, but claimed the privilege
of coloring the text according to the dictates of his own feeling as a
man and his peculiar method as an artist. The mediaeval music was
that of the cloister and the chapel. It was elevated, vague, abstract ;
it was as though it took up into itself all the particular and temporary
emotions that might be called forth by the sacred history and articles
of belief, and sifted and refined them into a generalized type, special
individual experience being dissolved in the more diffused sense of
awe and rapture which fills the hearts of an assembly in the atti-
tude of worship. It was the mood of prayer which this music ut-
tered, and that not the prayer of an individual agitated by his own
personal hopes and fears, but the prayer of the Church, which em-
braces all the needs which the believers share in common and offers
them at the Mercy Seat with the calmness that comes of reverent
confidence. Thus in the old Masses the "Kyrie eleison" and the
"Miserere nobis" are never agonizing; the "Crucifixus" does not at-
tempt to portray the grief of an imaginary spectator of the scene on
Calvary ; the "Gloria in Excelsis" and the "Sanctus" never force the
jubilant tone into a frenzied excitement ; the setting of the "Dies-
Irae" in the Requiem Mass makes no attempt to paint a realistic pic-
ture of the terrors of the day of judgment. Now compare a typical
Mass of the modern dramatic school and see how different is the
conception. The music of "Gloria" and "Credo" revels in all the
opportunities for change and contrast which the varied text supplies ;
the "Dona nobis pacem" dies away in strains of tender longing.
Consider the mournful undertone that throbs through the "Cruci-
fixus" of Schubert's Mass in A flat, the terrifying crash that breaks
into the "Miserere nobis" in the "Gloria" of Beethoven's Mass in D,
the tide of ecstasy that surges through the "Sanctus" of Gounod's
St. Cecilia Mass and the almost cloying sweetness of the "Agnus
Dei ;" the uproar of brass instruments in the "Tuba mirum" of Ber-
lioz's Requiem. Observe the strong similarity of style at many
points between Verdi's Requiem and his opera "Aida." In such
works as these, which are fairly typical of the modern school, the
composer writes under an independent impulse, with no thought of
subordinating himself to ecclesiastical canons or liturgic usage. He
attempts not only to depict his own state of mind as affected by tlie
ideas of the text, but he also often aims to make his music picturesque
according to dramatic methods. He does not seem to be aware that
there is a distinction between religious concert music and church
music. The classic example of this confusion is in the "Dona nobis
The Modern Musical Mass. 275
pacem" of Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis," where the composer intro-
duces a strain of military music in order to suggest the contrasted
horrors of war. This device, as Beethoven employs it, is exceedingly
striking and beautiful, but it is exactly antagonistic to the meaning
of the text and the whole spirit of the liturgy. The conception of a
large amount of modern Mass music seems to be not that the ritual
to which it belongs is prayer, but rather a splendid spectacle intended
to excite the imagination and fascinate the sense. It is this altered
conception, lying at the very basis of the larger part of modern
church music, that leads such writers as Jakob to refuse even to
notice the modern school in his sketch of the history of church music,
just as Rio condemns Titian as the painter who mainly contributed
to the decay of religious painting.
In the Middle Age artists were grouped in schools or in guilds,
each renouncing his right of initiative and shaping his productions
in accordance with the legalized formulas of his craft. The modern
artist is a separatist, his glory lies in the degree to which he rises
above hereditary technic, and throws into his work a magical per-
sonal quality which becomes his own creative gift to the world.
The church music of the sixteenth century was that of a school;
the composers, iJthough not actually members of a guild, worked
on exactly the same technical foundations, and produced Masses and
Motets of a uniformity that often becomes academic and monoto-
nous. The modern composer carries into church pieces his distinct
personal style. The grandeur and violent contrasts of Beethoven*s
symphonies, the elegiac tone of Schubert's songs, the enchantments
of melody and the luxuries of color in the operas of Verdi and
Gounod, are also characteristic marks of the Masses of these com-
posers. The older music could follow the text submissively, for
there was no prescribed musical form to be worked out, and ca-
dences could occur whenever a sentence came to an end. The
modern forms, on the other hand, consisting of consecutive and
proportional sections, imply the necessity of contrast, development
and climax — an arrangement that is not necessitated by any corre-
sponding system in the text. This alone would often result in a
lack of congruence between text and music and the composer would
easily fall into the way of paying more heed to the sheer musical
working out than to the meaning of the words. Moreover, in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was no radical conflict be-
tween the church musical style and the secular ; so far as secular
music was cultivated by the professional composers it was no more
than a slight variation from the ecclesiastical model. Profane music
may be said to have been a branch of religious music. In the mod-
ern period this relationship is reversed ; secular music in opera and
276 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
instrumental forms has remoulded church music, and the latter is in
a sense a branch of the former.
Besides the development of the sectional form another technical
change acted to break down the old obstacles to characteristic ex-
pression. An essential feature of the mediaeval music, consequent
upon the very nature of the Gregorian modes, was the very slight
employment of chromatic alteration of notes and the absence of free
dissonances. Whereas in the modern keys the notes themselves
differ (the key of E, for instance, containing notes that are not found
in the keys of C or F), the Gregorian modes do not differ in the notes
employed, but only in the relation of the intervals to the key-note or
final, according to the arrangement of steps and half-steps. Modula-
tion in the modern sense, therefore, cannot exist in a purely diatonic
scheme. The breaking up of the modal system was foreshadowed
when composers became impatient with the placidity and colorless-
ness of the modal harmonies and began to introduce unexpected dis-
sonances for the sake of variety. These sharps and flats were em-
ployed at first without any regularity whatever, except occasionally
to avoid an objectionable progression or to give the effect of a lead-
ing tone in a final cadence. The other chromatic changes that occa-
sionally appear in the old music are scattered about in a hap-
hazard fashion ; they give an impression of helplessness to the mod-
em ear when the composer seems about to make a modulation and
at once falls back again into the former tonality. It was a necessity,
therefore, as well as a virtue, that the church music of the old regime
should maintain the calm equable flow that seems to us so pertinent
to its liturgic intention. For these reasons it may perhaps be replied
to what has been said concerning the devotional ideal embodied in
the calm, severe strains of the old masters that they had no choice in
the matter. Does it follow, it may be asked, that these men would
not have written in the modern style if they had had the means ?
Some of them probably would have done so, others almost certainly
would not. Many writers who carried the old form into the seven-
teenth century did have the choice and resisted it ; they staunchly
defended the traditional principles and condemned the new methods
as destructive of pure church music. The laws that work in the de-
velopment of ecclesiastical art also seem to require that music should
pass through the same stages as those that sculpture and painting
traversed — first the stage of symbolism, restraint within certain con-
ventions in accordance with ecclesiastical prescription; afterwards
the deliverance from the trammels of school formulas, emancipation
from all laws but those of the free determination of individual genius.
At this point authority ceases, dictation gives way to persuasion and
art still ministers to the higher ends of the Church, not through fear,
The Modern Musical Mass. 277
but through reverence for the teachings and appeals which the
Church sends forth as her contribution to the nobler influences of
the age.
The writer who would trace the history of the modern musical
Mass has a task very different from that which meets the historian of
the mediaeval period. In the latter case, as has already been shown,
generalization is comparatively easy, for we deal with music in which
differences of nationality and individual style hardly appear. The
modern Catholic music, on the other hand, follows the currents that
shape the course of secular music. Where secular music becomes
formalized, as in the early Italian opera, religious music tends to fall
into a similar routine. When, on the other hand, men of command-
ing genius, such as Beethoven, Berlioz, Liszt, Verdi, contribute
works of a purely individual stamp to the general development of
musical art, their church compositions form no exception, but are
likewise sharply differentiated from others of the same class. The
influence of nationality makes itself felt — there is a style character-
istic of Italy, another of S. Germany and Austria, another of Paris,
although these distinctions tend to disappear under the solvent of
modern cosmopolitanism. The Church does not positively dictate
any particular norm or method, and hence local tendencies have run
their course almost unchecked.
Catholic music has shared all the fluctuations of European taste.
The levity of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth cen-
turies was as apparent in the Mass as in the opera. The grand uplift
in the musical culture during the last 100 years has carried church
composition along with it, so that almost all the works, produced
since Palestrina, of which the Church has most reason to be proud,
belong to the present century. One of the ultimate results of the
modern license in style and the tendency toward individual expres-
sion is the custom of writing Masses as free compositions rather
than for liturgic uses, and of performing them in public halls or the-
atres in the same manner as oratorios. Mozart wrote his Requiem
to the order of a privat'^ patron. Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis,"
not being ready when wanted for a consecration ceremony, outgrew
the dimensions of a service Mass altogether, and was finished with-
out any liturgic purpose in view. Cherubini's Mass in D minor and
Liszt's Gran Mass were each composed for a single occasion, and
both of them, like the Requiems of Berlioz and Dvorak, although
often heard in concerts, have but very rarely been performed in
church worship. Masses have even been written by Protestants,
such as Bach, Schumann, Hauptmann, Richter and Becker. Masses
that are written under the same impulse as ordinary concert and
dramatic works easily violate the ecclesiastical spirit, and pass into
278 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the category of religious works that are non-churchly, and it may
often seem necessary to class them with cantatas on account of their
semi-dramatic tone. In such productions as Bach's B minor Mass,
Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" and Berlioz's Requiem we have
works that constitute a separate phase of art, not Masses in the
proper sense, for they do not blend with the Church ceremonial nor
contribute to the special devotional mood which the Church aims to
promote, while yet in their general conception they are held by a
loose band to the altar. So apart do these mighty creations stand
that they may almost be said to glorify religion in the abstract rather
than the confession of the Catholic Church.
The changed conditions in respect to patronage have had the same
effect upon the Mass as upon other departments of musical composi-
tion. In former periods down to the close of the eighteenth century,
the professional composer was almost invariably a salaried officer,
attached as a personal retainer to a court, lay or clerical, and bound
to conform his style of composition to a greater or less extent to the
tastes of his employer. A Pope Sixtus V. could reprove Palestrina
for failing to please with a certain Mass and admonish him to do
better work in the future. Haydn could hardly venture to introduce
any innovation into the style of religious music sanctioned by his
august masters, the Esterhazys. Mozart wrote all his Masses, with
the exception of the Requiem, for the chapel of the Prince Arch-
bishop of Salzburg. In this establishment the length of the Mass
was prescribed, the mode of writing and performance, which had
become traditional, hindered freedom of development, and therefore
Mozart's works of this class everywhere gave evidence of constraint.
On the other hand, the leading composers of the present century
that have occupied themselves with the Mass have been free from
such arbitrary compulsions. They have written Masses, not as a
part of routine duty, but as they were inspired by the holy words and
by the desire to offer the free gift of their genius at the altar of the
Church. They have been, as a rule, devoted churchmen, but they
have felt that they had the sympathy of the Church in asserting the
rights of the artist as against prelatical conservatism and local usage.
The outcome is seen in a group of works which, whatever the strict
censors may deem their defects in edifying quality, at least indicate
that in the field of musical art there is no necessary conflict between
Catholicism and the free spirit of the age.
Under these very conditions the Mass in the modern musical era
has taken a variety of directions and assumed distinct national and
individual complexions. The Neapolitan school, which gave the
law to Italian opera in the eighteenth century, endowed the Mass
with the same soft sensuousness of melody and sentimental pathos
The Modern Musical Mass. 279
of expression, together with a dry calculated kind of harmony in
the chorus portions, the work never touching deep chords of feeling,
and yet preserving a tone of sobriety and dignity. As cultivated in
Italy and France the Mass afterward degenerated into rivalry on
equal terms with the shallow, captivating, cloying melody of the
later Neapolitans and their successors, Rossini and Bellini. In this
school of so-called religious music all sense of appropriateness was
often lost, and a florid, profane treatment was not only permitted
but encouraged. Perversions which can hardly be called less than
blasphemous sometimes had free rein in the ritual music. Franz
Liszt, in a letter to a Paris journal, v/ritten in 1835, bitterly attacks
the music which flaunted itself in the Catholic churches of the city.
He complains of the sacrilegious virtuoso displays of the prima
donna, the wretched choruses, the vulgar antics of the organist play-
ing galops and variations from comic operas in the most solemn
moments of the holy ceremony. Similar testimony has come from
time to time from Italy, and it would appear that the most lamenta-
ble lapses from the pure church tradition have occurred in some of
the very places where one would expect that the strictest principles
would be loyally maintained. The most celebrated surviving ex-
ample of the consequences to which the virtuoso tendencies in
church music must inevitably lead when unchecked by a truly pious
criticism is Rossini's "Stabat Mater." This frivolous work is fre-
quently performed with great eclat in Catholic places of worship, as
though the clergy were indifferent to the almost incredible levity
which could clothe the heart-breaking pathos of Jacopone's im-
mortal hymn — a hymn properly honored by the Church with a place
among the five great Sequences — with strains properly suited to the
sprightly abandon of opera bouffe.
Another branch of the Mass was sent by the Neapolitan school
into Austria, and here the results, although unsatisfactory to the bet-
ter taste of the present time, were far nobler and more fruitful than in
Italy and France. The group of Austrian church composers, repre-
sented by the two Haydns, Mozart, Eybler, Neukomm, Sechter and
others of the period, created a form of church music which partook
of much of the dry, formal, pedantic spirit of the day, in which regu-
larity of form, scientific correctness and a conscious propriety of
manner were often more considered than emotional fervor. Certain
conventions, such as a florid contrapuntal treatment of the Kyrie
with its slow introduction followed by an Allegro, the fugues at the
^'Cum Sanctu Spiritu" and the "Et vitam," the regular alternation of
solo and chorus numbers, give the typical Austrian Mass a somewhat
rigid perfunctory air, and in practice produce the effect which al-
ways results when expression becomes stereotyped and form is ex-
28o American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
alted over substance. Mozart's Masses, with the exception of the
beautiful Requiem (which was his last work and belongs in a dif-
ferent category), were the production of his boyhood, written before
his genius became self-assertive and under conditions distinctly un-
favorable to the free exercise of the imagination. The Masses of
Joseph Haydn stand somewhat apart from the strict Austrian school,
for although as a rule they conform externally to the local conven-
tions, they are far more individual and possess a freedom and buoy-
ancy that are decidedly personal. It has become the fashion among
the sterner critics of church music to condemn Haydn's Masses
without qualification, as conspicuous examples of the degradation
of taste in religious art which is one of the depressing legacies of the
eighteenth century. Much of this censure is deserved, for Haydn
too often loses sight of the law which demands that music should
reinforce and not contradict the meaning and purpose of the text.
Haydn's Mass style is often indistinguishable from his oratorio style.
His colorature arias are always flippant, often introduced at such
solemn moments as to be grossly offensive. Even where the voice
part is subdued to an appropriate solemnity, the desired impression
is frequently destroyed by some tawdry flourish in the orchestra.
The brilliancy of the choruses is often pompous and hollow. Haydn's
genius was primarily instrumental ; he was the virtual creator of the
modern symphony and string quartette; his musical forms and
modes of expression were drawn from two diverse sources which it
was his great mission to conciliate and idealize, viz., the Italian
aristocratic opera and the dance and song of the common people.
An extraordinary sense of form and an instinctive sympathy with
whatever is spontaneous, genial and racy made him what he was.
The joviality of his nature was irrepressible. To write music of a
sombre cast was out o: his power. There is not a melancholy strain
in all his works ; pensiveness was as deep a note as he could strike.
He tried to defend the gay tone of his church music by saying that
he had such a sense of the goodness of God that he could not be
otherwise than joyful in thinking of Him. This explanation was
perfectly sincere, but Haydn was not enough of a philosopher to see
the weak spot in this sort of aesthetics. Yet in spite of the obvious
faults of Haydn's Mass style, looking at it from an historic point of
view, it was a promise of advance and not a sign of degeneracy.
For it marked the introduction of genuine, even if misdirected feel-
ing, into worship music in the place of dull conformity to routine.
Haydn was far indeed from solving the problem of church music,
but he helped to give new life to a form that showed danger of be-
coming petrified.
Two Masses of world importance rise from above the mediocrity
The Modern Musical Mass. 281
of the Austrian school, like the towers of some Gothic cathedral
above the monotonous tiled roofs of a mediaeval city — the Requiem
of Mozart and the "Missa Solemnis" of Beethoven. The unfinished
masterpiece of Mozart outsoars all comparison with the religious
works of his youth, and as his farewell to the world he could impart
to it a tone of pathos and exaltation which had hardly been known
in the cold objective treatment of the usual eighteenth century Mass.
The hand of death was upon Mozart as he penned the immortal
pages of the Requiem, and in this crisis he could feel that he was
free from the dictation of fashion and precedent. This work is per-
haps not all that we might look for in these solemn circumstances.
Mozart's exquisite genius was suited rather to the task, in which
lies his true glory, of raising the old Italian opera to its highest pos-
sibilities of grace and truth to nature. He had not that depth of
feeling and sweep of imagination which make the works of Bacn,
Handel and Beethoven the sublimest expression of awe in view of
the mysteries of life and death. Yet it is absolutely free from the
fripperies which disfigure the Masses of Haydn, as well as from the
dry scholasticism of much of Mozart's own early religious work.
Such movements as the "Confutatis," the "Recordare" and the
"Lacrimosa" — movements inexpressibly earnest, consoling and pa-
thetic— gave evidence that a new and loftier spirit had entered the
music of the Church.
The "Missa Solemnis" of Beethoven, composed 1818-1822, can
hardly be considered from the liturgic point of view. In the vast-
ness of its dimensions it is quite disproportioned to the ceremony
to which it theoretically belongs, and its almost unparalleled diffi-
culty of execution and the stupendous grandeur of its choral cli-
maxes remove it beyond the reach of all but the most exceptional
choirs. It is, therefore, performed only as a concert work by choral
societies with a full orchestral equipment. For these reasons it is
not to be classed with the service Masses of the Catholic Church,
but may be placed beside the B minor Mass of Sebastian Bach, both
holding a position outside all ordinary comparisons. Each of these
colossal creations stands on its own solitary eminence, the projection
in tones of the religious conceptions of two gigantic all-compre-
hending intellects. For neither of these two works is the Catholic
Church strictly responsible. They do not proceed from within the
Church. Bach was a strict Protestant ; Beethoven, although nomi-
nally a disciple of the Catholic Church, had almost no share in her
communion, and his religious belief, so far as the testimony goes,
was a sort of pantheistic mysticism. Both these supreme artists in
the later periods of their careers gave absolutely free rein to their
imaginations, and not only well nigh exceeded all available means
282 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of performance, but also seemed to strive to force musical forms and
the powers of instruments and voices beyond their limits in the
efforts to realize that which is unrealizable through any human
medium. In this endeavor they went over the verge of the sublime
and produced achievements which excite wonder and awe. These
two Masses defy all imitation, represent no school and come into
comparison not with works of their own nominal class, but rather
with Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment," Titian's "Assumption of
Madonna" and Dante's "Paradiso." The spirit of individualism in
modern religious music can no further go.
The last Masses of international importance produced on Austrian
soil are those of Franz Schubert. Of his six Latin Masses four are
youthful works, pure and graceful, but not especially significant.
In his E flat and A flat Masses, however, he takes a place in the
upper rank of Mass composers of this century. The E flat Mass is
weakened by the diffuseness which was Schubert's besetting sin ; the
A flat is more terse and sustained in excellence and thoroughly avail-
able for practical use. Both of them contain movements of purest
ideal beauty and sincere worshipful spirit, and often rise to a
grandeur that is unmarred by sensationalism and wholly in keeping
with, the tone of awe which pervades even the most exultant mo-
ments of the liturgy.
The lofty idealism exemplified in such works as Mozart's Requiem,
Beethoven's Mass in D, Schubert's last two Masses and in a less
degree in Weber's Mass in E flat has never since been lost from the
German Mass in spite of local and temporary reactions. Such com-
posers as Kiel, Havert, Grell and Rheinberger have done noble ser-
vice in holding German Catholic music fast to the tradition of ser-
iousness and truth which has been taking form all through this
century in German secular music. It must be said, however, that
the German Catholic Church at large, especially in the country dis-
tricts, has been too often dull to the righteous claims of the pro-
founder expression of devotional feeling, and has maintained the
vogue of the Italian Mass and the shallower products of the Aus-
trian school. Against this indifference the St. Caecilia Society,
founded at Regensburg in 1868, has directed its noble missionary
labors, with as yet but partial success.
If we turn our observation to Italy and France we find that the
music of the Church is at every period sympathetically responsive to
the fluctuations in secular music. Elevated and dignified, if some-
what cold and constrained in the writings of the nobler spirits of the
Neapolitan school such as Durante and Jomelli, sweet and graceful
even to effeminacy in Pergolesi, sensuous and flippant in Rossini,
imposing and massive, rising at times to epic grandeur, in Cherubini,
The Modern Musical Mass, 283
intentionally dramatic and sensational in Lesueur, by turns ecstatic
and voluptuous in Gounod, ardent and impassioned in Verdi — the
ecclesiastical music of the Latin nations offers works of adorable
beauty, sometimes true to the pure devotional ideal, sometimes per-
verse, and by their isolation serving to illustrate the dependence of
the church composer's inspiration upon the general conditions of
musical taste and progress. Not only were those musicians of
France and Italy who were prominent as church composers also
among the leaders in opera (and indeed dramatic and church music
were the only forms cultivated with success in these two centuries
down to Hector Berlioz), but their ideals and methods in opera were
closely paralleled by those displayed in their religious productions.
It is impossible to separate the powerful Masses and Requiems of
Cherubini, with their pomp and majesty of movement, their reserved
and pathetic melody, their grandiose dimensions and their sumptu-
ous orchestration, from those contemporary tendencies in dramatic
art which issued in the "historic school" of grand opera as exampli-
fied in the pretentious works of Spontini, Meyerbeer and Auber.
They may be said to be the reflection in church art of the hollow
splendor of French imperialism. Such an expression, however, may
be accused of failing in justice to the undeniable merits of Cheru-
bini's Masses. As a man and as a musician Cherubini commands
unbounded respect for his unswerving sincerity in an age of sham,
his uncompromising assertion of his dignity as an artist in an age of
sycophancy, and the solid worth of his achievement in an age of
shallow aims and mediocre results. As a church composer he
towers so high above his predecessors of the eighteenth century in
respect to learning and imagination that his Masses are not un-
worthy to stand beside Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" as auguries
of the loftier aims that were soon to prevail in the realm of religious
music. His Requiem in C minor, particularly, by reason of its ex-
quisite tenderness, breadth of thought, nobility of expression and
avoidance of all excess either of agitation or of gloom, must be
ranked among the most admirable modern examples of pure Cath-
olic art.
The aim of Lesueur (1763- 1837) to introduce into church music a
picturesque and imitative style — which, in spite of much that was
striking and attractive in result, must be pronounced a false direc-
tion in church music — was characteristically French and was repro-
duced in such works us Berlioz's Requiem and to a certain extent in
the Masses and Psalms of Liszt. The genius of Liszt, notwithstand-
ing his Hungarian birth, was closely akin to the French in his ten-
dency to connect every musical impulse with a picture or with some
mental conception that could be grasped in distinct concrete out-
284 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
line. In his youth Liszt, in his despair over the degeneracy of
liturgic music in France and its complete separation from the real
life of the people, proclaimed the necessity of a rapprochement be-
tween church music and popular music. In an article written for a
Paris journal in 1834, which remains a fragment, he imagined a new
style of religious music which should "unite in colossal relations
theatre and church, which should be at the same time dramatic and
solemn, imposing and simple, festive and earnest, fiery and uncon-
strained, stormy and reposeful, clear and fervent." These expres-
sions are too vague to serve as a programme for a new art move-
ment. They imply, however, a protest against the one-sided ope-
ratic tendency of the day, at the same time indicating the conviction
that the problem is not to be solved in a pedantic reaction toward
the ancient austere ideal, and yet that the old and new ideals, liturgic
appropriateness and characteristic expression, reverence of mood
and recognition of the claims of contemporary taste, should in some
way be made to harmonize. The man who all his life conceived the
theatre as a means of popular education and who strove to realize
that conception as court music director at Weimar, would also
lament any alienation between the church ceremony and the intel-
lectual and emotional habitudes and inclinations of the people. A
devoted churchman reverencing the ancient ecclesiastical tradition,
and at the same time a musical artist of the advanced modern type,
Liszt's instincts yearned more or less blindly towards an alliance be-
tween the sacerdotal conception of religious art and the general
artistic spirit of the age. Some such vision evidently floated before
his mind in the Masses, Psalms and Oratorios of his later years, as
shown in their subjective and reflective character, together with a
strong inclination toward the older ecclesiastical forms. These two
ideals are probably incompatible ; at any rate Liszt did not possess
the genius to blend them in a convincing manner.
Among the later ecclesiastical composers of France Gounod shines
out conspicuously by virtue of those fascinating melodic gifts which
have made the fame of the St. Csecilia Mass almost conterminous
with that of the opera "Faust." Indeed, there is hardly a better
example of the modern propensity of the dramatic and religious
styles to reflect each other's lineaments than is found in the close
parallelism which appears in Gounod's secular and church produc-
tions. So pliable, or perhaps we might say so neutral is his art, that
a similar quality of melting cadence is made to portray the mutual
avowals of love-lorn souls and the raptures of heavenly aspiration.
Those who condemn Gounod's religious music on this account as
sensuous have some reason on their side, yet no one has ever ven-
tured to accuse Gounod of insincerity, and it may well be that his
The Modern Musical Mass. 285
wide human sympathy saw enough correspondence between the
worship of an earthly ideal and that of a heavenly — ^^each implying the
abandonment of self-consciousness in the yearning for a happiness
that is at the moment the highest conceivable — as to make the
musical expression of both essentially similar. This is to say that
the composer forgets liturgical claims in behalf of the purely human.
This principle no doubt involves the destruction of church music
as a distinctive form of art, but it is certain that the world at large,
as evinced by the immense popularity of Gounod's religious works,'
sees no incongruity and does not feel that such usage is profane.
Criticism on the part of all but the most austere is disarmed by the
pure seraphic beauty which this complacent art of Gounod often
reveals. The intoxicating sweetness of his melody and harmony
never sinks to a Rossinian flippancy. Of Gounod's reverence for the
Church and for its art ideals there can be no question. A man's
views of the proper tone of church music will be controlled largely
by his temperament, and Gounod's temperament was as warm as an
Oriental's. He offered to the Church his best, and as the Magi
brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to a babe born among cat-
tle in a stable, so Gounod, with a consecration equally sincere,
clothed his prayers in strains so ecstatic that compared with them
the most impassioned accents of "Faust" and "Romeo and Juliet"
are tame. He was a profound student of Palestrina, Mozart and
Cherubini, and strong traces of the styles of these masters are ap-
parent in his works. His most famous Mass, the "St. Cecilia," is
inferior in breadth and force to the Mass of the "Sacred Heart."
His remaining Masses and Oratorios display occasional flashes of
extraordinary brilliancy, but their vigor is spasmodic and easily
sinks into commonplace.
Somewhat similar qualities, although far less sensational, are
found in the works of that admirable band of organists and church
composers that now lend such lustre to the art life of the French
capital. The culture of such representatives of this school as Guil-
mant, Widor, Saint-Saens, Dubois, Gigout is so solidly based, and
their views of religious music so judicious, that the methods and
traditions which they are conscientiously engaged in establishing
need only the reinforcement of still higher genius to bring forth
works which will confer even greater honor upon Catholicism than
she has yet received from the devotion of her musical sons in
France.
The religious works of Verdi might be characterized in much the
same terms as those of Gounod. In Verdi also we have a truly filial
devotion to the Catholic Church, united with a temperament easily
excited to a white heat when submitted to his musical inspiration,
286 Amerkan Catholic Quarterly Review.
and a genius for melody and seductive harmonic combinations in
which he is hardly equaled among modem composers. In his
"Manzoni Requiem," "Stabat Mater" and "Te Deum" these quali-
ties are no less in evidence than in '*Aida" and "Otello," and it
would be idle to deny their devotional sincerity on account of their
lavish profusion of nerve-exciting agencies. The controversy be-
tween the contemners and the defenders of the "Manzoni Requiem"^
, is now somewhat stale and need not be revived here. Any who may
wish to resuscitate it, however, on account of the perennial import-
ance of the question of what constitutes purity and appropriateness
ixi church art, must in justice put themselves into imaginative sym-
pathy with the racial religious feeling of an Italian, and make allow-
ance also for the undeniable suggestion of the dramatic in the
Catholic ritual and for the natural effect of the Catholic ceremonial
and its peculiar atmosphere upon the more ardent enthusiastic order
of minds.
The most imposing contributions that have been made to Cath-
olic liturgic music since Verdi's Requiem are undoubtedly the
Requiem Mass and the "Stabat Mater" of Dvorak. All the wealth
of tone color which is contained upon the palette of this at present
unsurpassed master of harmony and instrumentation has been laid
upon these two magnificent scores. Inferior to Verdi in variety and
gorgeousness of melody, the Bohemian composer surpasses the
great Italian in massiveness, dignity and in unfailing good taste.
There can be no question that Dvorak's "Stabat Mater" is supreme
over all other settings — the only one, except Verdi's much slighter
work, that is worthy of the pathos and tenderness of this immortal
Sequence. The Requiem of Dvorak in spite of a tendency to mo-
notony, is a work of exceeding beauty, rising often to grandeur, and
is notable, apart from its sheer musical qualities, as the most precious
gift to Catholic art that has come from the often rebellious land of
Bohemia.
It would be profitless to attempt to predict the future of Catholic
church music. In the hasty survey which we have made of the
Catholic Mass in the past three centuries we have been able to dis-
cover no law of development except the almost unanimous agreement
of the chi f composers to reject law and employ the sacred text of
Scripture and liturgy as the bases of works in which not the com-
mon consciousness of the Church shall be expressed, but the emo-
tions aroused by the action of sacred ideas upon different tempera-
ments and divergent artistic methods. There is no sign that this
principle of individual liberty will be renounced. Nevertheless, the
increasing deference that is paid to authority, the growing study of
the works and ideals of the past which is so apparent in the culture
The Modern Musical Mass. 287
of the present day, will here and there issue in partial reactions.
The mind of the present, having seen the successful working out of
certain modern problems and the barrenness of others, is turning
eclectic. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of musical
culture, both religious and secular. We see that in many influen-
tial circles the question becomes more and more insistent, what is
truth and appropriateness ? — whereas formerly the demand was for
novelty and "effect." Under this better inspiration many beautiful
works are produced which are marked by dignity, moderation and
an almost austere reserve, drawing a sharp distinction between the
proper ecclesiastical tone and that suited to concert and dramatic
music, restoring once more the conception of impersonality, ex-
pressing in song the conception of the fathers that the Church is a
refuge, a retreat from the tempests of the world, a place of penitence
and restoration to confidence in the near presence of heaven. There
can be no question, it seems to me, that this is the true ideal of Cath-
olic church music. Such Masses as the "Missa Solemnis" of Bee-
thoven, the D minor Mass of Cherubini, the "Messe Solennelle" of
Rossini, the '*St Cecilia" of Gounod, the Requiems of Berlioz and
Verdi, sublime and unspeakably beautiful as they are from the
broadly human standpoint, are yet in a certain sense sceptical. They
reveal a mood of agitation which is not that intended by the minis-
trations of the Church in her organized acts of worship. And yet
such works will continue to be produced, and the Church will ac-
cept them, in grateful recognition of the sincere homage which their
creation implies. It is of the nature of the highest artistic genius
that it cannot restrain its own fierce impulses out of conformity to
a type or external tradition. It will express its own individual emo-
tion or it will become paralyzed and mute. The religious composi-
tions that will humbly yield to a strict liturgical standard in form
and expression will be those of writers of the third or fourth grade,
just as the church hymns have been, with few exceptions, the pro-
duction not of the great poets, but of men of lesser artistic endow-
ment, and who were primarily churchmen and only secondarily
poets. This will doubtless be the law for all time. The Michael
Angelos, the Dantes, the Beethovens will forever break over rules,
even though they be the rules of a beloved mother church. Yet
the time is past when we may fear any degeneracy like unto that
which overtook church music one hundred or more years ago. The
principles of such consecrated church musicians as Witt, Perosi,
Tinel and the leaders of the St. Cecilia Society and the Schola Can-
torum, the influence of the will of the Church implied in all her ad-
monitions on the subject of liturgic song, the growing interest in the
study of the masters of the past, and, more than all, the growth of
288 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
sound views of art as a detail of the higher and popular education,
must inevitably promote an increasing conviction among clergy,
choir leaders and people of the importance of purity and appropri-
ateness in the music of the Church. The need of reform in many
of the Catholic churches of this and other countries is known to
every one. Doubtless one cause of the frequent indifference of
priests to the condition of choir music in their churches is the knowl-
edge that the chorus and organ are after all but accessories ; that the
Church possesses in the Gregorian chant a form of song that is the
solid, legal, universal and absolutely unchangeable foundation of
the musical ceremony, and that any corruption in the gallery music
can never by any possibility extend to the heart of the system. The
Church is indeed fortunate in the possession of this altar song, the
unifying chain which can never be loosened. All the more reason,
therefore, why this consciousness of unity should pervade all por-
tions of the ceremony, and the spirit of the liturgic chant should
blend even with the large freedom of modern musical forms and
methods.
The devotee of Catholic music will be wise if he imitates the pru-
dence of the Church in refraining from dogmatic and intolerant
assertion in regard to the style of music proper for worship. All
the historic forms employed in the Christian centuries are not
equally good, but all have had a reason for existence which is to be
found in the inevitable conditions of the periods which produced
them. The students and practitioners of church music will be
greatly aided in the attainment of true catholicity of judgment by
means of the examination of the history of church music through
some such method as I have feebly tried to indicate in the series of
articles now closed. He will be better able to discover and hold to
the good by obeying the apostle's injunction to test all things.
Edward Dickinson.
Oberlin, O.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 289
THOMAS, CARDINAL WOLSEY, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
THE great statesman of the first part of the reign of Henry
VIII., Thomas Wolsey, is one of those characters which
have always fascinated historians. But as Fiddes says:
'There have been few persons, if any, to whom mankind has been
obliged for any considerable benefactions that have met with such
ungrateful usage in return for them as Cardinal Wolsey. It may
be questioned whether in all the histories that are extant a like
instance can be found in any nation of so general a prejudice as that
under which his name has suffered."^ Nor has this prejudice been
confined to Protestant writers. Indeed we may say that in their
hands the memory of the great churchman has suffered less than
in those of Catholics, who, not knowing the real state of affairs,
have attributed to him the disaster of the Divorce with its subse-
quent miseries. But Time brings forth strange revenges. A spirit
is now abroad which considers bare Truth a virtue in itself ; which
does not imagine the cause of Religion can be served by a lie, how-
ever pious may be the intention. This spirit of historical enquiry,
blessed as it is by Leo XIII., who says the Church has nothing to
fear from the Truth, is determined to see things as they were and
not as that misnamed word "Edification" would have them. We
have suffered too much from this policy, and the inevitable result
has come about. Those who initiated and furthered that line of
action are being found out and their credit is going ; and men, no
longer children, are unwilling to be led by such guides. They are
resenting attempts at keeping out the Light which is now pouring
in from all sides. It is not forgotten, to take no other case, how
in England Lingard was made to suffer for his honesty and plain
speaking. And he has had fellow martyrs in the same cause.
Since access has been granted to the Public State Papers, both
in England and abroad, it has become possible to form a true por-
trait of such a man as Wolsey. We have enough to tell us what
the man was doing and why he did it, and to put together from the
scattered remnants of the Past a picture sufficiently intelligible in
all its main features. Wolsey was by far the greatest statesman
England has ever produced ; and it is, perhaps, not going beyond
what records reveal if we say he was the master-mind of his age.
No one could come up to him. Spain was no match, and France
was only too glad to obtain his support. For a time he held the
destinies of Europe in his hand. He raised England from a third
I " The I,ife of Cardinal Wolsey," p. iii. (Ed. 1726.)
290 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
or fourth rate power to the position of arbiter of Christendom, and
had for one of his most glorious titles that of Cardinalis Paciiicus.
Grand in his conceptions and magnificent in his dealings, he was
the truest servant king ever had. The devotion of men like Wolsey
and More to Henry VIII. is somewhat difficult to understand now-
adays. It was something more than personal affection, although
in his earlier days Henry had a character which won all hearts. It
was the fact that he represented the Power from God. He stood
for Peace which had returned at last after the Civil Wars of the
Roses. To oppose him was considered not only disobedience to
the ordinance of God, but risking an opening of old wounds. Henry
was the centre of all English nationalism. "Round him revolved
all parties with unhesitating obedience ; alike those who wished to
see him independent of all spiritual control and his authority en-
listed in favor of the Reformation, as those who believed such
authority was the strongest barrier against dangerous innovation
and the surest safeguard for the Church. So both are concerned to
magnify the royal authority as much as possible and oppose it as
little as they might, not criticizing narrowly Henry's actions or
his wishes, but blindly believing that in serving him they were
serving the highest interests of the Faith which they professed."^
This description of the state of affairs will go far to explain much
that is difficult for us to understand in days when the importance
and rights of the individual are paramount ; and Authority itself is
happily exposed to the search-light of that wholesome Public Opin-
ion which asserts that those who claim to rule should themselves
be worthy of ruling.
But it is not our purpose to consider the secular work of the
great Cardinal of York. This has been done beyond compare by
the late Mr. Brewer in the historical Introductions to the Calendars
of State Papers (1509- 1530) which he edited for the Master of the
Rolls.^ In summing up the character of Wolsey, he says: "In
spite of all . . . the Cardinal still remains and will ever remain
as the one prominent figure of this period. The interest concen-
trated in his life, character and actions is not eclipsed by any of his
contemporaries. The violent calumnies resting on his memory
have in some degree been already lightened by Justice and clearer
views of the events of his times and the character of the chief agents.
It needs not apprehend an examination still more rigid and more
dispassionate. Not free from faults by any means, especially from
the faults and failings the least consistent with his ecclesiastical pro-
fession, the Cardinal was perfectly free from those meaner though
2 Brewer : " The Reign of Henry VIII." Vol. II., p. 456. 3 since Mr. Brewer's death these
Introdnctions have been published separately in two volumes under the title of " The Reign
of Henry VIII." 1509-1530.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 291
less obtrusive vices which disfigured the age and the men that fol-
lowed him — vices to which moralists are tolerant and the world
indulgent."* It is just this "more rigid and more dispassionate"
examination we propose to undertake. One side of the character
of the Great Cardinal, perhaps as was natural, Mr. Brewer did not
understand. And it is this side, the ecclesiastical, with which we
are here concerned. Hitherto Wolsey's name has stood for that
of a great statesman. He has a higher claim, we think, to be known
as a great churchman. "The faults and failings, the least consistent
with his ecclesiastical profession," will be found by the student to
be but results of the circumstances of his age, instead of departures
from the laws of Christian virtue.
As we have given the picture of the political feeling of his age,
we must also rapidly sketch the state of the Church, at any rate as
far as the Popes were concerned. The English Benedictine his-
torian, Dom Gasquet, has recently treated the subject of the "The
Eve of the Reformation" and has given us vivid studies of what the
people in England were thinking and doing before the Crisis came.
To his scholarly pages we refer the reader; and in them he will
find that the state of religion in England, the relations of priests and
people, the intellectual and moral tone, were all excellent ; and that
the rock upon which the English church, driven by the storm of
the Divorce, split, was not that of a need of reformation in the re-
ligion of the English people themselves. We have to bear in mind
that the life of Wolsey was spent under the influences of such Popes
as Sixtus IV. (1471-84), Innocent VIII. (1484-92), Alexander VI.
(1492-1503), Pius III. (1503), Julius II. (1503-13), Leo X. (1513-21),
Hadrian VI. (1522-23) and Clement VII. (1523-34). From this Hst
of unworthy Pontiffs the name of Pius III., who only reigned twen-
ty-six days, may perhaps be excepted, and also that of Hadrian VI.,
who reigned only twenty months and who showed himself alive to
the real nature of the priests of the Church.^ Thus Wolsey's ear-
liest impressions as an ecclesiastic were received during the unfor-
tunate reign of Alexander VI. He saw by the fate of the heroic
Savonarola, the last of the prophets, the answer made by the Curia
to the cries for Reformation of abuses which, for nearly 200 years,
had gone up from a long-sufifering and distracted Christendom.
It will be well to bear this in mind. Moreover, Wolsey saw the
* Brewer: " The Reign of Henry VIII.," Vol. II., pp. 457-8. & Adrian VI. told his nuncio,
Chieregati, to declare at the Diet of Nuremburg (1522) : " We knew that for a long time there
have existed many abominations in this Holy See, abuses of spiritual things, excesses in
jurisdiction (wawrfc/jj); all things in short changed and perverted. What we deplored in
Alexander VI. should be pointed out. Nor need we wonder that corruption has descended
from the head to the members, from the Supreme Pontiff to the inferior prelates. We have
all, prelates and ecclesiastics, turned aside each one to his own way; for none of us have
done well— no, not one." Raynaldus : Annal Ecc, ed. 1755, Vol. XXXI., p. 396, note 667.)
292 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
realities of the Church sacrificed to the lust of temporal dominion
and Popes neglecting that which is God's for what they could get
from Caesar. Writing in the days of the fulness of his power, Wol-
sey says : "I do not see how it may stand with God's will that the
Head of the Church should involve himself in war by joining with
temporal princes. Since these leagues in the Pope's name began
God hath sent affliction upon the Church and upon Christendom.
Contentions to advance particular families have not furthered the
Papal dignity."*
In Ipswich, the county town of Suffolk, there lived in the reign
of Edward IV. (1441-83) two worthy Christian souls, Robert and
Joan Wolsey or, as they spelt it, Wulcy.'' According to tradition,
they dwelt 'in St. Nicholas' parish and street on the left hand going
down at the left corner of a little avenue leading to the church-
yard."* There seems to be absolutely no foundation for the report
that Robert Wolsey was a butcher.* All the evidence goes to prove
that he was a grazier in well-to-do circumstances. Wool at that
time was England's chief export, and Suffolk was one of the centres
of the trade. Giustinian, the Venetian Ambassador, in his report of
1 5 19, when speaking of the Cardinal simply refers to him as of "low
origin."^** The family appears, from a petition of the Cardinal's
nephew to Henry VIII. in 1515,^^ to have been living at Steinfield,
an agricultural village twenty-four miles from Ipswich.
To Robert and Joan Wolsey were born several children, three
sons and one daughter. One, born probably in March, 1471, was
Thomas, the future Cardinal. The exact date of his birth is uncer-
tain. Richard Fiddes, in his "Life of Cardinal Wolsey," gives the
above date and he is corroborated by George Cavendish, sometime
gentleman-usher to the Cardinal. Cavendish (a first rate authority
for what passed under his eyes and who was his master's confidant
in the hour of affliction) says that he was fifty-nine in 1530; and, as
we shall see, gives a particular reason for making that assertion.
In spite of other evidence which disagrees and places the birth
somewhere between 1471 and 1476, we are inclined to hold Caven-
dish's date as being based on an official statement. The day of his
birth is not known, but we offer it as a conjecture that he got his
name from St. Thomas Aquinas, whose feast falls on March 7.
The Grammar School at Ipswich was founded at least in 1477,
•Wolsey to Clerk (16 Jan., 1525.) See Brewer :" State Papers of Henry VIII.," Vol. IV.,
Part I, No. 1017. (Quoted hereafter as "Brewer." ^^ It is not an uncommon name in early
Knglish days and is of Teutonic origin. It is probably the same as Wolseley, the Wolf-
slayer. 8 Gough's Camden's "Brit.," Vol. II., 85. (Ed. 1789.) » It is said that Charles V.
said of Buckingham's execution (1521) that the best " Buck" in England had been slain by a
butcher's dog, Henry being the butcher and Wolsey the servant. This may account for the
idle tale concerning Wolsey's parentage. '" " Calendar of Venetian State Papers," Vol. II.,
p. 560. " Brewer, II., N. 1368.
Thamas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 293
and here we know Thomas began his letters. He seems to have
been a child gifted with talents of the highest order and with the
power of intense application. Such progress did he make that
when only eleven years old he was sent to Oxford. There is no
reason for supposing that any one else than his father paid for his
university expenses, though Anthony Wood speaks of "other good
friends" as helping.
Wolsey entered at St. Mary Magdalen's College," which had
been founded by the pious Bishop Waynfleet some forty years be-
fore. The present building was begun on May 5, 1473, when Wol-
sey was but an infant. Once entered, the boy lost no time, and in
the words of Cavendish : "He prospered so in learning that as he
told me (in) his own person, he was called the Boy-bachelor; for
as much as he was made Bachelor of Arts at fifteen years of age,
which was a rare thing and seldom seen."^^ This was in 1485, two
years after he became master. The old world system of education
by the Trivials and quatrivials was then in full force, and Wolsey
made a name for himself in the art of Disputation which was neces-
sary for taking a degree. He had then to choose either the course
of Law or Divinity to qualify for the doctorate, and it is worth notic-
ing that the one who was destined, as Lord Chancellor, to initiate
many a reform in legal procedure did not follow the course of Law,
but chose the ecclesiastical subject of Divinity and applied himself
so ardently to the study of St. Thomas that he became noted for his
knowledge. Even his arch-enemy, Polydore Vergil, is obliged to
allow he was in Divinis litteris non indoctus. So brilliant a scholar
was an honor to his college and he was therefore elected Fellow.
These fellowships were preparatory to ordination for which they
gave a title. But of the date of his fellowship we are not certain.
For the College records are silent about him till the year 1497, when
in a Liher Nominum, or Dinner-Book, of that date he appears as a
Master of Arts and fourteenth on the list of Fellows ; and as there
are the names of four or five other Fellows after his, it is probable
that he had been elected Fellow some two or three years previously.
In the Liber Computi for 1498 we find his name as holding the posi-
tion of third Bursar.i*
In connection with the College of St. Mary Magdalen was a com-
mon grammar school founded in 1456, and to this Wolsey was ap-
pointed schoolmaster. According to the Liber Computi, he held the
post for only six months and succeeded one Scarbott. But he also-
held the position of tutor in his college, and thus got into the larger
" Prom the imperfect state of the Records it is not known whether he was admitted as «
chorister, servitor, demy or commoner. ^^ " Ivife of Cardinal Wolsey," (Ed. Sinprer) , pp. 4-5 .
" Bloxam's " Register of St. Mary Magdalen's College," Oxford (1857), p. 25.
294 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
world for which his abilities so well qualified him. 'The Lord
Marquis Dorset had three of his sons at school there with him,
committing as well unto him their virtuous education as their in-
struction and learning."^^
Wolsey was already twenty-five when his father died, and at that
time he was not yet a priest. A few days before his father died, in
the autumn of 1496, he made his will, in which he says : "Item, I
will that if Thomas my son be a priest within a year next after my
decease, then I will that he sing^^ for me and my friends by the
space of a year, and he for to have for his salary 10 marks ;^^ and if
the said Thomas my son be not a priest, then I will that another
honest priest sing for me and my friends the term aforesaid, and he
to have the salary of 10 marks." Thomas was appointed one of the
executors of the will, under which he received no other legacy than
the official one. It would seem from this that Wolsey was not yet
in sacred orders. He had reached the canonical age for the priest-
hood, and in those pre-Tridentine days interstices were not ob-
served. It speaks for his righteousness that the bequest did not
make him take any step to secure it. It was "another honest
priest" who said the Masses and received the 10 marks ; for it was
not until the Lenten ordinations of 1498, held in the parish church
of St. Peter at Marlborough by Bishop Augustih Church, titular
of Lydda and suffragan to John Blyth of Sarum, that Wolsey was
ordained priest. In the Register of John Blyth there is entered, on
folio 113, the following: "M. Thomas Wolsey artium magister Nor-
wicen. dioc diaconus socius perpetuus collegii beatae Mariae Mag. Uni-
versitatis Oxon. per literas, etc., ad titulum ejusdem collegii, in presby-
terum, etc."^^
In 1499 Wolsey was elected senior bursar to his college, and un-
der him the tower, so loved by all who know Oxford, was finished.^-*
That same year, 1499, ^^ the Christmas vacation which began on
O. Sapientia"^^ (Dec. 17), he received an invitation from the Marquis
of Dorset to spend the holidays with his pupils at Bradgate Park,
seven miles to the west of Leicester, where in late years that hap-
less victim of others' ambition. Lady Jane Gray, was born. Caven-
dish, in his quaint style, thus relates what occurred: "It pleased
the said Marquis against a Christmas season to send as well for the
schoolmaster as for his children, home to his house, for their recre-
ation in that pleasant and honourable feast. They being then there,
my lord, their father, perceived them to be right well employed in
learning for their time ; which contented him so well that he, having
15 Cavendish, p. 5. is i. e., " Missas canere." " About ;^6o of present money, is xhe Eng-
lish Historical Magazine, Vol. IX., p. 709. w It had been begun in 1492. 20 See " Munimenta
Academica," (RoU Series), II , 447,
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 295
a benefice in his gift, being at that time void, gave the same to the
schoohnaster in reward for his diligence, at his departing after
Christmas upon his return to the University."^^ The living thus
bestowed on Wolsey was the quiet one of Lymington, in the county
of Somerset and Diocese of Bath and Wells. The village is situ-
ated about one and a half miles east of Ilchester, where Roger
Bacon, the famous gray friar, was born.^- As he had to finish the
University year,-'' it was not until October of 1500 that "having the
presentation thereof (he) repaired to the Ordinary for his institu-
tion and induction ; then being fully furnished of all necessary in-
struments at the Ordinary's hands for his preferments, he made
speed without further delay to the said benefice to take thereof pos-
session."-^ He was instituted October 10, 1500.
Hardly had he been inducted and had time to settle down, that
is to say in the summer of 1501, than there happened to the new
parish priest one of those incidences of which the bare fact is known
and the cause is wrapped in obscurity. The fact is related by
Cavendish in these words : "One Sir Amyas Pawlet, knight, dwell-
ing in the county thereabouts, took an occasion of displeasure
against him, upon what ground I know not, but, sir, by your leave,
he was so bold to set the schoolmaster by the feet during his pleas-
ure."25 In other words, the new parish priest was subjected to the
indignity of being set in the public stocks. This is all we really
know of the circumstance. After his fall the friends of the New
Learning in religion, who were also of the Boleyn interest, spared
no means of insulting the great Cardinal's memory. It was said,
and the tale seems to read no further back than Sir John Harring-
ton (i56i-i6i2),2« that Wolsey had been drunk at a village fair.
From all we know of the man, his intense application, power of de-
tail and administration, nay, even his desire to stand well with those
who could advance him, and his incessant bad health, we are at
once led to reject such a tale. At no time, before or after this
event, has drunkenness or the slightest approach to such a thing
ever been brought against him by contemporary witness. Another
tradition of like malice has it he was thus punished for the sin
of incontinency. Sir Roger Wilbraham, master of requests to
Elizabeth, says so, but this is by no means first hand nor is it
an unbiased testimony, for a courtier of Anne Boleyn's daughter
-1 op- cti., p. 5. 22 The church dedicated to St. Mary is of thirteenth century work and has
a nave 87 feet by 24. It is stone-vaulted. A perpendicular tower stands at the west end,
and on the north side is a chantry (dedicated to vSt. Leonard) which belongs to the Gumey
family. An old oak bench is said to exist with Wolsey's cipher carved thereon. 23 His term
of office as Senior Bursar was from 29th September, 1499, to the same day in 1500. 24 Qp ctL,
p. 6. 25 Ibid, p. 6. Hinton St. George, the seat of Earl Poulett, is to the southwest of Ivym-
ington, and Sir Amyas (d. 1537) was the grandfather of the gaoler of Mary, Queen of Scots.
*« " Brief View of the State of the Church of England" (Kd. 1653), p. 184.
296 American Catlwlic Quarterly Revieiv.
is not likely to speak favorably of Wolsey. Moreover, it must be
remembered that in the days of his greatness his enemies never
dared to bring up the subject of the stocks against him. His sub-
sequent action proves also that in the occurrence there was nothing
to his discredit, for when Chancellor of England (15 15) he sent for
Sir Amyas Paulett, "and after many sharp and heinous words en-
joined him to attend upon the Council until he were by them dis-
missed and not to depart without license upon an urgent pain and
forfeiture."^^ Had there been any shameful fault on the part of
the parish priest, Wolsey was far too prudent to have stirred up
muddy waters and far too just to have punished the knight. Neither
would it have been in accordance with the details of the most ordi-
nary common sense had Wolsey been at fault to have kept Sir
Amyas in London at large for five or six years and free to spread
abroad anything to the discredit of the Chancellor. The only pun-
ishment meted out to the knight was the "sharp and heinous
words" and an enforced residence in London, where, in 1521, we
find him holding the honorable position of Treasurer of the Middle
Temple, a post, by-the-bye, he could hardly have held in opposition
to the will of the powerful Lord Chancellor. Whatever the cause
of the indignity may have been. Sir Amyas seems to have admitted
his own fault and to have tried to atone for it in a way soothing to
Wolsey's feelings. During his residence in London the knight re-
built the Gate-house of the Middle Temple and decorated it with
Wolsey's arms, badges and cognizances.^*
What was really the cause of Wolsey being set in the stocks will
probably never be known. We have given the adverse tradition,
but it must be remembered there is also another. Thomas Storer
(1571-1604), in his metrical "Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey,"
says that the parish priest was the injured party :
" Wronged by a knight for no desert of mine."
If we may be allowed to add to the conjectures it was very likely
the result of a quarrel between the rich man and the vicar, such as
are not unknown even in these days. The quarrel increased and at
last the knight won a temporary triumph by inflicting insult by
force. It was probably for some gross injustice like this that Lord
Chancellor Wolsey, who was noted for sternness in dealing with
cases of oppression, thought it well in after years to rebuke him
with "many sharp and heinous words."
No sooner was he inducted into his living at Lymington than
other preferments came upon him. He applied for dispensation to
hold certain extra benefices, ^nd this was granted on November 3,
1500. As Wolsey was a noted pluralist, perhaps a word might not
^' Cavendish, p. 6. 28 The Gate-house was burnt down in 1666.
Thmnas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archhislwp of York. 297
be amiss as to this practice. Pluralism or ecclesiastical bigamy has
always been against the law, but the great offenders were the
Popes of the time, who, to take no other example than England,
were accustomed to reward their Italian agents with benefices in
this country which they never saw. What is known as the Avignon
system of finance became a well developed system of plundering
the Church at large for the benefit of the Roman Curia in its tem-
poral pretensions. The necessary duties attached to benefices were
performed by others who received a small pay, whilst the rest of
the income went out of the country. And it sometimes happened
that money received in this way from one country was lent by the
Pope to help another nation then at war with it.-* So great had
the scandal become that at the Council of Trent a strenuous attempt
was made to declare the obligation of residence a divine precept,
and to put down so many abuses connected with this traffic. But
the first proposition was thwarted by the Italian prelates, who were
in the majority and who acted in accordance with the instructions
received from the Curia. In England long before the time of Wol-
sey the Civil Power had taken the matter in hand and measures
were passed to check the system of Papal provisions. But the na-
tion having vindicated its right, still allowed in practice the Popes
to have a free hand in otherwise disposing of moneys left by Eng-
lishmen for the benefit of religion in their own country. It is
worthy of remark that England always acted towards the Holy
See in a most generous and filial manner, and often to her own
immediate detriment she allowed the Popes, in temporal matters, to
exercise a power which in Spain, in France and Germany was
sternly disallowed. If Wolsey fell in with the prevailing practice
of pluralities, sanctioned and encouraged as they were by the Curia,
who profited by the money the dispensations cost, one can say at
least that he was no worse than his neighbors. And perhaps we
shall find that the moneys accruing to him from pluralities was bet-
ter spent for the purposes of religion than were the wars of Julius
II., which exhausted the Papal treasury.
His patron, the Marquis of Dorset, died September 20, 1501.
Wolsey must have been already known favorably^** to the high dig-
nitaries of the English Church, for, by the end of 1501, we find him
one of the Chaplains of Henry Deane, Archbishop of Canterbury
and Lord Chancellor of England. But this appointment did not
last long. The Archbishop was old. He resigned the Great Seal
July 17, 1502, and seven months afterwards died (February 15,
* Clement VI. lent enormous sums to the French King during the long war. He used ta
say : *' My predecessors did not know how to be Popes," See Pastor's " History of the
Popes" (Knglish Kd.), Vol. I., p. 92. ■'» He knew at Oxford Thomas More, Erasmus and
Grocyn.
298 American Cathalic Quarterly Review.
1503). Wolsey and another were appointed to carry out the funeral
ceremonies of the primate of all England. A short while after
Deane's death Wolsey was at Calais with "Sir John Nanphant, a
very grave and ancient knight, who had a great room in Calais un-
der King Henry VII. This knight he served and behaved so
discreetly and justly that he obtained the special favor of his said
master, in so much that for his wit, gravity and just behavior he
committed all the charge of his office unto his chaplain, and as I
understand the office was the treasurership of Calais, who was in
consideration of his great age discharged of his chargable room
and returned again into England intending to live more at quiet.
And through his instant labor and especial favor, his chaplain was
promoted to the king's service and made his chaplain."^^
It was in 1505 or 1506 that Wolsey first came into direct relations
with the court. The ability he had shown at Calais could not fail
to impress Sir John Nanphant, whose recommendation told with
the king. Truth to tell, Wolsey was a born administrator, and he
knew his powers. There was no false humility about the man.
He felt he had it in him — if he had the chance — to serve his country ;
and he was determined to make the best of any opportunity that
presented itself for his advancement. "For many times he used
to say : If he could get but one foot in the court, he did not doubt
but to obtain anything he could wish for."^^ Some folk would call
this ambition; others a healthy, plain, commonsense view of his
own capabilities.
He became one of the king's chaplains and had to say Mass be-
fore his royal master. "And that done he spent not the day forth
in idleness, but gave his attendance upon those whom he thought
to bear most rule in the Council and to be most in favor of the
king, the which at that time were Doctor Fox, Bishop of Win-
chester, then Secretary and Lord Privy Seal, and also Sir Thomas
Lovell, knight, a very sage counsellor and witty, being master of
the king's wards and constable of the Tower."^*
Wolsey knew how to choose his friends and how to keep them.
The friendship thus begun at court with Bishop Fox, one of the
saintliest prelates of his age, was of a deep and lasting nature ; and
the admiration of the old man in his retirement for the younger
and more able churchman is one of the beautiful side lights of his-
tory. His friends saw his power and recommended him to the
king as a fitting and trusty messenger for a certain mission then
to be sent to the Emperor Maximilian concerning Henry's proposed
marriage with Margaret of Spain (1507). How Wolsey went to
Flanders, executed the mission and returned before the king even
31 op. cit., pp. 8-9. 32 •< xhe Reign ot Henry VIII.," I., p. 298. ^ Cavendish, p. 9.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 299
knew that he had started is a story well known. For his services
he was made Dean of Lincoln (February 2, 1508), and six days
after was presented with one of the most valuable prebends in the
same cathedral, which, however, was soon exchanged for a more
valuable one. He was installed, by proxy, into the deanery on
Lady Day, but not until two years had passed did he personally take
possession. Among the preferments which were showered upon
the rising man was the Rectory of Redgrave in Suffolk by the Ben-
edictine Abbot of St. Edmunds (1506), the vicarage of Lydd in Kent
by the Cistercian Abbot of Tintern (1508), the post of Royal Al-
moner (November 3, 1508), and a prebend in Hereford Cathedral
(July, 1510). His original benefice at Lymington was resigned
some time before July 2, 1508.
Henry VH. died April 22, 1509, and was immediately succeeded
by his second and only surviving son, Henry VHL, then a young
man of eighteen years of age and full of promise. Wolsey was, of
course, known at court; but it seems that it was one of his old
pupils, the young Marquis of Dorset, a favorite of the young king's,
who first introduced him to the particular notice of Henry,'* who
day by day came to appreciate his worth more and more. At
court, where Wolsey was now firmly established, he displayed "that
natural dignity of manner or aspect which no art can imitate and
which no rule or practice will ever be able to form."'^ "Fashioned
to much honor from his cradle," as Shakespeare says, Wolsey by
his handsome face, majestic figure and winning expression of coun-
tenance was sure to make his mark. He was graced, too, with "a
special gift of natural eloquence, with a filed tongue to express the
same, so that he was able to persuade and allure all men to his pur-
pose,"'® a trait happily hit off in the lines :
"He was a scholar and a ripe and sfood one;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken and persuading :
I^ofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But to those that sought him sweet as summer."*?
The first preferment he seems to have received directly from his
new master was on November 2y, 15 10, when he was presented to
the parish church of Great Torrington in the Diocese of Exeter ;'*
the next year saw him Registrar of the Most Noble Order of the
Garter, and February 17, 151 1, canon and prebendary of St. George's
Chapel at Windsor.'® On January 16, 15 12, Cardinal Bainbridge,
then in Rome, made him a prebendary in York Cathedral. Nine
months after, through the good offices of Bishop Fox and the Earl
of Shrewesbury, the deanery of the Collegiate Church of St.
3* Campbell's " I<ives of the Lord Chancellor," Vol. I., p. 445. 35 piddes, p. 11. so caven-
dish, pp. 21-22. 37 "Henry VIII.," act iv., s. 2. 38 Brewer, I., n. 1359. 39 Rymer : " Foedera,"
XIII.. 293.
300 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Stephen's, in Westminster Palace, was Wolsey's ; and on February
19, 15 13, he became Dean of York and received the rich benefice of
the Precentorship of St. Paul's Cathedral. Henry appointed him
Bishop of Tournai, but before taking possession of the see the Dio-
cese of Lincoln became vacant early in 15 14 by the death of William
Smith. The yearly income of the see was worth i896 i8s. id.,,
which equals in the money of to-day considerably more than
i 1 0,000. The bull for Wolsey's appointment to Lincoln was issued
by Leo X., and is dated February 6, 15 14;*** and on the following
day the Pope wrote to the king (who had asked that the heavy
fees demanded by the Curia for the expedition of bulls might be in
part remitted in this case), and informed His Majesty that he could
not comply with the request, as it had been rejected by the College
of Cardinals as detrimental to the Holy See.*^ It was on occasion
of his appointment to Lincoln that Wolsey first appears to have
come into contact with Julius, Cardinal de Medici, afterwards Cle-
ment Vn., who wrote a special letter to say that he rejoiced to hear
of Wolsey's elevation.*^ Wolsey was evidently looked upon as a
rising man, who had to be cultivated ; for, as one of the Popes is
reported to have said: "Truly England is our storehouse of de-
lights, a very inexhaustible well ; and where much abounds much
can be extorted from many."*^ A letter of Sylvester de Giglis, the
English agent in Rome, throws a light upon matters concerning
this appointment. Waiting on February 11, 15 14, to Wolsey, he
says: "The consistory would not listen to the application (for the
diminution of the annates** saying that the church (of Lincoln)
was very rich and had always paid the tax. The Pope, whose por-
tion amounted to 1,700 ducats, asserted that he had nothing except
annates for his support, as he received nothing from ... as
his predecessors did, and is much in debt for his coronation and his
intolerable daily expenses. . . . The Pope, however, will
forego the annates for the deanery of St. Stephen's. The expedit-
ing of the bulls amounts to 6,821 ducats 10 cat. The officials are
angry with him for having brought it down so low."*'
Wolsey was consecrated on March 26, 15 14, by William Warham,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and at once gave up most of his other
benefices. He was never enthroned in his Cathedral, nor did he
personally visit it; for, before the year was out. Cardinal Bain-
bridge, Archbishop of York, was poisoned and the new Bishop of
••*> Rymer, Xni., 390. « Brewer, I., n. 4724. ^ Cotton MS., Vitell. B. II., 64. As soon as Ju-
lius, who was cousin to Leo X., was made Cardinal he wrote at once to offer his services to
the English King. « Matthew Paris: "Chronica Majora," (Roll Series), IV., pp. 546-7.
♦• The first year's income, which the Curia now demanded from every newly appointed
bishop and high official. « Vitell, B. II., 66. The sum comes to about ^17,496 in modem
value.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbislwp of York. 301
Lincoln by August 5 was Elect of York.*' Thus in one year three
bishoprics fell upon Wolsey.
But already, while Bishop of Lincoln, Wolsey was interested in
negotiations Henry had begun at Rome to secure the Cardinal's hat
for his Minister ; and Polydore Vergil, the sub-collector of the Papal
dues in England (May 21, 15 14), wrote to tell him that on return-
ing to Rome he had sounded the Cardinal of Bath and asked him to
use his influence with the Pope to secure his elevation to the Car-
dinalate. Leo thought it would be expedient, as Wolsey had great
authority with the king, to make him a Cardinal. The matter was
so to be arranged that it was to appear that it was the spontaneous
proposition of the Pope.*^ From this letter, if Polydore Vergil can
be trusted, it would seem that Henry did not know of the proposal
which appears to have emanated in the first place from Wolsey him-
self. But it was not long before Henry himself wrote to Leo
(August 12, 1 5 14) requesting that Wolsey should be raised to the
dignity of the Cardinalate, and he bore witness that he esteemed
Wolsey above all his dearest friends and could do nothing of the
least importance without him.**
Elect of York, Wolsey had reached the highest position save one
in the English Church. York was primate of England, while Can-
terbury was primate of All England. There had been a long-stand-
ing quarrel for precedence between the two metropolitans. But
that was an old story in Wolsey's time, and the precedency of Can-
terbury had been settled. The election of Wolsey to York meant
more bulls, and consequently more money to the Curia. As Elect
of York Wolsey entered into a bond (August 18, 15 14) with
Anthony de Vivaldis of Genoa, W. Botry, mercer, and Tho. Ray-
mond, grocer of London, whereby they engaged to pay for Wol-
sey's pallium and the expenses for his promotion in the Court of
Rome the sum of i2,ooo.** In due course, after the fees were paid,
the Pope issued the bulls (September 15, 15 14) and sent the Pall
as the sign of archiepiscopal jurisdiction.^®
But now the matter of the Cardinalate was pressing. Leo wrote
to Henry (September 24, 15 14) in reply to his request, saying the
honor the king desired for Wolsey was surrounded with difficulties.
It was much desired, and admitted the wearer at once to the high-
est rank. He promised, however, to comply with the king's wishes
at a suitable time.*^ What some of the difficulties were may be
gathered from the diary of de Grassis, Papal Master of Ceremonies,
who says: "Men say that an English Cardinal ought not to be
created lightly, because the English behave themselves insolently
«0
«Rymer, XIII., 411. « vitell, B. II., 76. « Add. MS., 15,387, f. 25. « Brewer, I., n. 5334.
Rymer, XIII., 450. " Brewer, I., n 5445.
302 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
in that dignity, as was shown in the case of Cardinal Bainbridge^
just dead. Moreover, as Wolsey is the intimate friend of the king,
he will not be content with the Cardinalate alone, but as is the cus-
tom for those barbarians, will wish to have the office of Legate over
all England. If this is granted, the influence of the Roman Curia
will be at an end ; if it be not granted, the Cardinal will be the Pope's
enemy and will favor France."^^
Already it seems to have been known in Rome that Wolsey,
though a "barbarian," was a man who had the strength of his con-
victions and was able, if need be, to take up a position not agree-
able to the worldly traditions which ruled the Curia. What was
dreaded above all things was a reform of abuses.
Pastor, in his ''History of the Popes," does not hesitate to say
that it was the Italians, whose incomes in great part depended on
abuses, who like a leaden weight impeded every movement in the
direction of reform f^ and he quotes the German Carthusian Jacob
von Jiiterbogk as saying that "no nation in Christendom offers such
opposition to reform as Italy ; and this from love of gain and worldly
profit and fear of losing its privileges."^* Wolsey saw this as well.
He was already in a high position as Archbishop of York, and he
knew quite well that he was hated and feared in the Curia. But
quietly and firmly he put on the screw in the matter of the Car-
dinalate. There were interests of religion in England that de-
manded attention quite as much as the welfare of Italian ecclesi-
astics. He knew very well the sort of people he had to contend
with, and he also knew the only arguments that would have any effect.
And these he used to the utmost. If nothing could be done at Rome
without bribery, one cannot blame those who made use of these
means. The blame lies on those who made it necessary. Leo X.,
who had a personal hatred against the great Archbishop, tried
compromise. How would it be, he suggested, if Wolsey became
Cardinal and lived in Rome ?^^ This would put a stop at any rate
to reformation in England. Then the offer was made that Wolsey
should receive a bull of promotion on condition he did not carry the
insignia publicly.^® But the shifts would not serve. At last, ac-
cording to de GigHs (April 25, 151 5), Leo asserted that the promo-
tion could not take place for the present without the greatest scan-
dal.^^ Meanwhile political reasons made the Pope change his
mind. The French king, Francis, was threatening an invasion of
Italy, and the help of Henry was sorely needed. The Pope had
been informed (July, 151 5) that "the king's grace marveled that he
delayed so long the sending of the red hat, seeing how tenderly, in-
6« Quoted in Creighton's " Wolsey," pp. 39-40. 53 vol. II., ip. 48. "Ibid. 65 "pace to Wol-
sey." Rllis* Original I^etters, II., i, 178. ^ P. R. O. 5? Cotton MS. Vitell, B. II., 138.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 303
stantly and often His Grace had written to His Holiness for the
same ;" and a message had been sent by Wolsey that "if the king
forsake the Pope he will be in greater danger on this day two
years than ever was Pope Julius."^^ Francis was already at Milan,
so by the beginning of August Wolsey knew that Leo had given
way. Early in September Wolsey heard from Rome that "the
Pope was so on fire that he will insist on his promotion in spite of
all the Cardinals,"^^ whom he summoned from their vacations for
a consistory. At last, on September 10, Leo notified Wolsey that
the creation had taken place, and in ten days®" a king's courier ar-
rived in London with the important document. The Cardinal's
hat, together with a valuable ring, was sent over in the care of
Boniface Collis, "S. D. N. Scutifer," and secretary to de Giglis.
With extraordinary pomp and splendor Wolsey received at West-
minster Abbey, on November 18, the insignia of his new dignity,
together with the title of St. Cecilia beyond the Tiber.
So far had Wolsey succeeded. He had been set in a position which
gave him honorary precedence over the See of Canterbury; but
in order to carry out what he seems already to have planned, a far
greater position and powers more ample were needed. His master
mind had seen the disease, and he also saw that the remedy must be
applied by one man. He alone was the one man in England capa-
ble by genius, power and energy of carrying out the work. No
sooner did he know that the Pope had consented to make him Car-
dinal than he applied at once to be made Legate of the Holy See ;
or, if Leo made difficulties in giving Papal powers, his agent was
to press at least for faculties for making a visitation over monas-
teries even the exempt.®^ Were he created legate he would have
supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the land and would super-
sede in authority every other ordinary, including even Canterbury,
the Primate of All England. It was no mere vulgar love of power
which animated the Cardinal. He had set a work before him, and
to do this he had to be unrestricted except by his conscience. He
valued ecclesiastical dignities as so many means for advancing the
end he had in view. They were to him occasions of more work
and more responsibilities. How highly he esteemed the dignity of
a Cardinalate is shown by his reply to the Venetian Ambassador
(January 2, 1516), when he said: "We would prefer not being
honored with the dignity rather than do what is unworthy of it."®^
Meanwhile Leo's dislike of Wolsey increased. In the Spanish
State papers of the period we have reports of the Imperial Am-
^ "Wolsey to de Giglis," ibid, No. 132. 69 No. 160. «> <« Dispatches of Sebastian Giustin-
ian," p. 128. 61 Cotton MS. Vitell, B. II., 153. «2 Calendar of Venetian State Papers, II., n.
671.
304 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
bassador at Rome, in which we catch glimpses of the political shifts
to which Leo was reduced. Writing June 13, 1520, Juan Mainel
says: "The statesmen in Rome are persuaded that the Cardinal
will do what is most lucrative for himself ; and the Pope (said) to
him (the Ambassador) that the Cardinal, who is the governor of the
King of England, is a very strange person and makes the king go
hither and thither just as he likes."®* This is so absurdly in opposi-
sition to all the facts, as they are now disclosed to us, that one sees
what Cardinal Manning said was true three hundred years ago, viz. :
"I hardly know in Rome a man high or low who understands the
position of the Church in England."®* Writing again on the 5th of
July, 1520, he refers to the Pope's dislike of the Cardinal: "Al-
though there is no man on the face of the earth whom His Holiness
detests so heartily as the Cardinal, he will be constituted Legate if
the Pope is given to understand that in no other way can he get out
of the difficulties in which he is placed."®^ And on the same day
he writes again : "The Cardinal of England is much disliked at
Rome."'® And the endeavors of Wolsey to persuade the Pope to
send him a commission empowering him to reconcile the Holy
Father with all the Christian princes instead of pleasing the Vicar
of the Prince of Peace did not even get a civil answer.®^
Leo, who was driven almost mad with fear, was "reputed to be
very feeble in ecclesiastical matters but very constant in political
affairs,"®* now gave himself over to be ruled in all matters ecclesi-
astical and political by the Emperor on condition that his enemies,
the French, were attacked.®* He had no desire for peace, for he
knew that if the negotiations then proceeding at Calais came to
anything neither the Church,'^® nor his person, nor the family of the
Medici would be safe from the attacks of France. He was de-
termined, he said, to spend as much as he had, and even more, to
prevent the Emperor from being so grossly imposed upon and
abused in his dignity by the Cardinal of England f^ and in his fear
tried to kill the cat by proposing that some one should show Henry
what sort of person Wolsey was.'^^
With these feelings against Wolsey, it is no wonder that Leo for a
long time demurred granting the Legateship. The one thing
which did not seem to enter at all into his calculation was whether
the Legateship would be to the advantage of the Church. He only
thought of playing off the Emperor against his enemies, the French ;
and the Legateship was made simply a matter of political advantage.
While he was thus hesitating Wolsey increased his power by receiv-
{ <« Bergoroth's Spanish State Papers, Vol. II., No. 281. »* Purcell : " Life of Cardinal Man-
ning," Vol. II., p. 741- ^ Bergeroth, II.. n. 283. «« Ibid, n. 2S4. «^ Ibid, 285. «»Ibid, n. 312 ;
288. «9 Ibid, 286. -^ That is of course the local Churcli of Rome, ^i ibid, 2358. -2 Ibid, 359-
Tltomas, Cardinal IVolsey, Archbishop of York. 305
ing, on Christmas Eve, 151 5, at the king's express command, the
great Seal of England as Lord Chancellor in succession to Warham,
who, of his own accord, resigned the charge. It has been the
fashion to insinuate a rivalry between these two illustrious men.
We have not been able to find any real grounds for such a supposi-
tion ; on the contrary, Warham, an old man, and wearied out with
secular employment, was only too glad to retire to a learned and
scholarly retreat. From the documents that remain we can see the
excellent and more than friendly terms upon which they stood one
towards the other. The new position Wolsey had, and was to have,
in law made him supreme ; and no doubt, in asserting it, as he was
obliged to do, official difficulties arose which their mutual friend-
ship soon settled. But naturally there were officious friends of
Warham's, or rather enemies of Wolsey's, who did their best to set
one Archbishop against the other. But without success. Each
was too magnanimous to bear jealousy, and if, at times, the older
prelate doubted or hesitated about accepting the more energetic
doings of the younger man, this was only in the nature of things.
Leo still held back about the Legateship. In November, 15 17,
a bull was issued to Wolsey relating to the building of St. Peter's
and the appointment of a banker for the money received by the
preaching of indulgences. Warham and the Bishop of St. David's
were appointed Papal commissioners for this purpose.'^' Henry
had something to say to this business. He would not allow the
Indulgence to be published in England unless he received a com-
mission on the same. In this he was only following the practice of
other countries. Negotiations were entered into with the Pope on
the matter ; and while Leo was willing to allow the king one-fourth
of the proceeds, Wolsey stood out for one-third, and successfully.
Whether this Indulgence, which was the cause of Luther's protest^
would have been entirely devoted to the building of St. Peter's,
seems somewhat uncertain. Leo was in pecuniary difficulties. Five
days after the issue of the bull to Wolsey the Pope wrote (Novem-
ber 6, 15 17) to Warham tliat he had called Henry's attention on
various occasions to the expenses of the Papal See and the debts
incurred by his frequent wars. Therefore he hopes that the Eng-
lish clergy will comply with the request shortly to be laid before
them for a subsidy to the Holy See.^* The Pope then announced
his intention of sending a Legate to England on the ostensible busi-
ness of raising funds for an expedition against the Turks and for
establishing a five years' truce between Christian princes. This
was Wolsey's opportunity. According to English law no Legate
could come into the country without the king's consent and express
" Brewer, II., Part 2, No. 3768. ?< ibid, No. 3776.
3o6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
knowledge of the limits of the legation. Henry refused to allow
the Legate to enter unless Wolsey was joined with him in the Le-
gateship and, indeed, made first Legate. After much haggling this
was agreed to, and on May 17, 15 18, Leo X. wrote to Wolsey to
announce that Cardinal Campeggio was coming as Legate and that
Wolsey was associated with him."^^ Three days after Wolsey's faith-
ful agent, de Giglis, notified that his master was appointed Senior
Legate. Campeggio, who had been detained at Calais by Wol-
sey's orders until the Pope had become amenable to circumstances,
arrived in England on July 23, 15 18; and Wolsey entered upon his
Legateship. In the following month he received from Rome a
bull for the visitation of monasteries. We now see the great aim
Wolsey had in view when demanding the Legateship ; and we can
also gather the cause for alarm that existed in the Curia.
The Cardinal had gathered up power into his own hands in order
to bring about a general reformation of ecclesiastical affairs in the
country. He was fully alive to the necessity of the day. The Re-
naissance had brought in a new spirit. He had seen its effects in
Italy, where the supineness of churchmen had allowed it to drift into
a semi-paganism. The Church, to do its work, had to rise to a
consciousness of the times. The torrent of New Life then rolling
through men's intellects was too mighty a force to be dammed.
But a wary and skilful hand might turn it to the good of re-
ligion instead of allowing it to sap the foundations of Faith and
morality. In order to do so, it was necessary to raise the priest-
hood up to the level of the needs of the time and to renew the spirit
of their holy calling. Such and no less was the Cardinal's grand
object and Dne which he planned and worked for, and in great
measure, effected in spite of the obstacles met with from quarters
which should have rather helped on such noble attempts. To do
such work properly required time and a slow process. It was
largely an educational measure, both for old and young, and such
is not the work of a day nor of a year. The first obstacle Wolsey
had was the knowledge that at any moment his power might be
snapped by the withdrawal of his legatine faculties. We find him,
therefore (March 25, 15 19), writing to his agent in Rome, asking
that, when Campeggio leaves, he may retain the Legateship with
increased faculties, not for extorting money, but for effecting re-
forms among the clergy."^" But Leo was in no humor to do this.
He would not be disturbed with such business during holiday time,
and put off the matter of the reforming of the clergy on the plea
that it would supersede the authority of the Bishops. Moreover,
he said, Rome (and this was the real point) had not received an
» Rymer, XIII., 606. »• Martene : " Mon. Ampl., II. 1285.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 307
equivalent for doing such an extraordinary thing. The Pope was
sore that he had not yet received the oft-promised subsidy J^ At
last, however, Leo was forced into granting the extension of the
legatine authority for three years. In writing to thank him, the
king says (January 20, 1520) that he was sorry it was not for an in-
definite period as it would have enabled the Cardinal to prosecute
with greater vigor the reformation of the clergy."^® The Legate-
ship was continued to Wolsey for varying periods by both Leo X.
and Hadrian VL, and was subsequently confirmed for life by
Clement VIL
It is in the role of an Ecclesiastical Reformer that Wolsey owes
his right to the title of a Great Churchman, and this aspect of his
character has been strangely neglected by historians or only at-
tended to in the most casual way. What Wolsey planned and what
he executed would have certainly, as far as one can judge, saved
England from the defection in Faith had not that fatal Divorce, with
all its side issues, intervened. Mr. Dixon, in his "History of the
Church of England," remarks : "A clerical Reformation, a reforma-
tion without meddling with the Catholic faith, had been attempted
already by the best sort of the clergy throughout Europe. Three
great Councils had been held to bring it about within the last hun-
dred years, and to each of these Councils England had sent repre-
sentatives. The defeat of this attempted reformation by Councils,
which was effected by the intrigues of Rome and above all by the
skill of the last of the great Popes, Martin V., is the most mournful
event of modern history. It caused despair ; it gave weight to the
clamors that no reformation was to be expected from the Church
herself ; and thus it opened the way for the invasion of the temporal
power and for the doctrinal revolution which presently overswept
Europe."^* How Wolsey's proposal of effecting a reformation of
discipline was regarded by such prelates as Fox, of Winchester, can
be gathered from the following beautiful letter^** in reply to an offi-
cial notice of a legatine measure :
"Great was the contentment and joy, most reverend father, which
I received from your recent letter, which told me that your Grace
is set upon reforming the whole body of the clergy, and that you
had notified and fixed a day on which the work shall be begun and
proceeded with. This day I have truly no less longed for than did
Simeon in the Gospel desire to see the Messias waited for by all
men. And on reading this letter of your Grace's, I persuade myself
and have in a manner a clear setting forth of a more entire and
whole Reformation of the Ecclesiastical hierarchy of the English
" Cotton MS., " Vitell," B. IV.. 3. ^s Martene : " Mon AmpH," III., 1304. ts op. tit., I., pp.
23-24- *> The origpinal is in I^atin.
3o8 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
people than I could expect or even hope to see brought about or
even so much as attempted in this age. As in duty bound, I indeed
did strive to carry out that same design within the limits of my own
small jurisdiction which your Grace will soon bring about in the
two provinces of this kingdom. For the space of three years this
great affair was the object of my studies, labors, watchings and tra-
vail, till I discerned, what I have not before thought of, that all
things pertaining to the primitive integrity of the clergy, and es-
pecially to the monastic state, were perverted either by dispensa-
tions or corruptions, or else became obsolete and depraved by the
iniquity of the times and being antiquated. As this, in a declining
life, increased my will and desire, so it took from me all hopes of
ever seeing a renewal even in my own diocese. But I do now
gather from your Grace's most welcome letter an assured hope and
full expectation of seeing a reformation both entire and public. For
I am fully persuaded by many instances that whatsoever your
Grace at any time may design or undertake, as it will be wisely
concerted, so with prudence and resolution you will accomplish it
without difficulty or delay. For so surprising is your skill of things
both Divine and human, so extraordinary is your favor and author-
ity with our Sovereign Lord the King and His Holiness the Pope,
an advantage your Grace has in such a manner improved, that you
have gained the highest renown in the whole world ; and certainly
an account of your most illustrious Legateship — ^by your sole con-
duct you have composed the differences and settled peace among
Christian princes, and now you have determined to employ it in
reforming and settling the ecclesiastical state and discipline. By
this you will deserve solid and undying honor from God and from
all posterity, and will be distinguished by a name so far beyond that
of any other who in memory of man hath been sent here as Legate
from the Pope, as Peace is more to be desired than War and
the Clergy ought to be more holy and reverend than the Lay-
folk.
"For if, while the names of several other Legates are forgotten,
these two whose decrees were only drawn up and left imperfect by
their early return to Rome, are still justly celebrated and esteemed
by all men, what Time or Envy will be able to erase or dim the
lustre and fame of your Grace's name, when you shall restore to
dignity and integrity the whole clergy and religious of England,
and enact laws for their preservation and lasting establishment? —
laws which you shall cause to be confirmed and recommended by
being carefully and conscientiously observed.
"I doubt not but that your Grace will with less difficulty and
greater success carry out this business, since our most Christian
Thomas, Cardinal IVolsey, Archbishop of York. 309
king, by whose exhortations, encouragement and advice (as I
think) you have undertaken this task, will even lend his authority
and aid to your godly desires; and the prelates, especially the
Bishops, will heartily concur by their best endeavors ; and as I judge
by myself and so far as my own mind suggests, this Reformation
of the clergy and of religious persons will so abate the calumnies
of the laity, so advance the honor of the clergy and so reconcile our
Sovereign Lord the King and nobility to them and be so much
more acceptable to God than all the sacrifices we can offer, that I
intend to devote to its furtherance the short course of my life I
have now to run, as I shall more openly declare to your face on the
day fixed by your letters, if it be granted to me to see it, living and
well. Meanwhile, whilst I live I shall daily and constantly in my
Mass pray our good God to keep your Grace and to further all
your projects both happily and prosperously."*^
This letter of the aged Bishop shows the high hopes that Wol-
sey's Legateship inspired in those who had the true interests of the
Church at heart. "In their eyes it appeared to be a supreme effort
to carry the clerical reformation. The extraordinary power of a
Legate exercised by an Englishman and always limited by the su-
preme power of the Crown, was not repulsive to the nation."'^
From Wolsey much was expected, and as far as we can gather
from what he did, his scheme of Reformation seems to have been
laid on the following lines. He proposed : (i) To hold a general
visitation of the monasteries and of the whole clerical body by an
authority which could not be resisted. The purpose of this visita-
tion was to restore sound discipline and morals and to enforce the
due performance of the duties of each state, (2) To provide the
means for higher education for the clergy, both in the colleges and
universities. (3) To found new bishoprics in the larger towns. (4)
To guard the nation against the poisoning New Learning in re-
ligion by strengthening their faith and by the solid work of educa-
tion.
This was the great work he tried to do in England and which he
aspired to do for the world at large by means of the Papacy. If
in that evil hour of the Church's need the cool, far-seeing Wolsey
had sat in St. Peter's chair and ruthlessly set his knife to cut away
abuses, might not the religious history of Europe have been a
brighter page instead of a harrowing and disheartening remem-
brance ?
We must now proceed to investigate Wolsey's work of Reforma-
tion, and for convenience sake we will follow the above plan.
" Fiddes : " Collections." p. 85. ^ Dixon, Op. cit., I., p. 38.
3IO American Catholic Quarterly Review.
I. TH^ VISITATION OF RELIGIOUS AND OF THE CLERGY.
To touch the clergy and religious and to speak of Reform in con-
nection with these bodies is always an invidious task ; for Protestant-
ism has had such an effect that the word Reformation at once con-
notes immorality; whereas such a conclusion is unwarranted by
any impartial view of the whole case. Clergy and religious may
stand in need of a reformation, and yet have nothing, or but little,
against them on the score of morals. It may also very easily hap-
pen that highly organized bodies, jealous of privileges granted in
the course of centuries, are content, perhaps too content, to enjoy
these privileges to the letter and to allow the spirit to take care of
itself. All such bodies are in danger of an excess of conservatism ;
and the closer the bond which binds the members to each other the
more do they suffer from the abuse of the esprit dc corps. To bring
them up to the needs of the present requires a strong hand and a
firm one ; and he who sets his hand to the work is sure to be unpop-
ular with those whose repose he has troubled. That such should be
the case both with clergy and religious is no wonder. If the cleri-
cal state, in se, is of Divine institution, the same cannot be said of
the religious state ; and of neither can it be predicated as regards
their artificial methods of organization. They therefore come un-
der the universal law of Decay, and hence the necessity, from time
to time, of Reformation.
Our first attention must be directed to the religious bodies. We
find two great divisions. The first was the English Benedictines,
who by a thousand years had become native to the soil, and as a
body managed their own affairs. They had outside England no
superior, save the Pope, the Abbot of Abbots. This is the normal
Benedictine constitution; and any attempts at interfering with it
have always been made at the cost of efficiency. Then there was
the large body of friars of various colors — ^black, gray, white and
parti-colored, with Cistercians, Carthusians, Cluniacs, Gilbertines
and the Black and White Canons, i. e., the Augustinians and Pre-
monstratensians. There were also many other smaller bodies. All
these were, as a rule, of thirteenth century introduction and more
or less under the jurisdiction of foreign superiors.
Wolsey seems to have had a great belief in the old English order
of St. Benedict. And besides being Abbot (1521) in commendam
(the only known example of this practice in England) of the first
monastery, that of St. Albans, he held letters of fraternity in others.
The great proof of the reality of his interest was that the Benedic-
tines trusted him and in many cases put into his hands their most
cherished and sacred right, the election of Abbots. As Legate he
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 31 1
had the rights of visitation over these houses ; and he secured also
the right of visitation over the few (six at most) which beyond St.
Benedict's idea were removed from episcopal jurisdiction.
According to Polydore Vergil,*^ in 15 18, that is as soon as he
became Legate, he summoned the various religious orders before
him and after expressing his good will to them, spoke very plainly
of their defects and of the desire he had of seeing them live accord-
ing to their rules, attending more to education in letters and good
deeds. He announced his intention of taking the matter himself in
hand, lest their orders should become extinct. In accordance with
this warning he seems to have made a surprise visit to the royal
monastery of Westminster in that very same year, where, according
to the same author (who is, however, never to be trusted either when
he praises or dispraises the Cardinal), the monks were treated with
considerable rigor. Truth to say, the Westminster monks, perhaps
on account of the court, were not a favorable specimen of Benedic-
tine energy. They had been removed, too, from the healthy super-
vision of their Bishop, and no doubt they needed a stirring up. But
we need not take too literally Polydore Vergil's words :
"De statu monachorum severe cognoscit, intemperanterque omnia agit,
miscet,turbat,ut terreat cceteros,ut imperium ostendat, ut se terribiliorem
proebeat."
On January 20, 1524, Richard Beere, Abbot of Gloucester, died;
and, by act of the prior and community, the election of his successor
was put into Wolsey's hands. The delegates of the Abbey met in
Wolsey's private chapel at York Place** on March 3 of the same
year, and there met the Cardinal on this business. After mature
deliberations and consultations with learned and prudent men, as
he said, he elected Brother Richard Whiting, of that same mon-
astery, to be the Abbot thereof. He was a man, said Wolsey, who
was provident and discreet, commendable in life, morals and knowl-
edge, circumspect in spiritual and temporal matters, with the knowl-
edge and power of safeguarding the interests of the Abbey.*^' How
well the Cardinal judged history tells. When the evil days fell
upon Glaston, no fault could be found with the monks of Whiting's
house. "They were kept so straight," and the Abbot laid down his
life in defense of the rights of his Church and is one of the Blessed
Martyrs of the order.
We find other Benedictine houses, such as Gloucester, Peterbor-
ough, Aldeney, besides Cistercian and other houses, putting the
elections into his hands. And how in the case of the Abbess of
Wilton®* he went directly against the king's desire and the Boleyn
*3 Cf. Polyd. Verg. "Aug. Hist.," (ed. 1555), p. 657. *» Now known as Whitehall. * Heame :
"Adam de Domerham," Vol. I., pp. 97-103. '^' ITie nuns at Wilton were obstreperous.
312 American CatJwlic Quarterly Review.
influence, and appointed one who would rule discreetly and strictly,
is a story that can be seen in the State papers of the period. He
also knew how prejudicial to the discipline and welfare of a house
old and feeble superiors were. There are many instances of his urg-
ing such to resign. Not that his eflforts always were successful at
once. Richard, Abbot of Hyde (New Minster), was an example.
He had been Abbot thirty-eight years when he received a letter
from the Cardinal in which, after being complimented upon order-
ing his house discreetly, he was told that now from old age and im-
becility he was unable to attend to it and was therefore urged to
resign. While thanking the Cardinal for his commendations, the
Abbot assures him that he is not so aged or impotent of body or wit
but that he is able to exercise his office to the pleasure of God, in-
crease of good religion and wealth of his house. He has no inten-
tion of resigning, and trusts that Wolsey will rather conserve and
aid him than "experiment any sharper means" to remove him. He
seems to have kept to his office till his death. The Abbot of Peter-
borough was another case. The Bishop of Lincoln reports (June 14,
1527) to Wolsey that the Abbot will not resign, but says he will
keep his office, as he is as able as ever for it, and that he will ride to
London town to Wolsey to prove it. Whether he died or was de-
posed is not clear. The next Abbot was appointed in 1528 by Wol-
sey, to whom the election was committed by the monks.
In 1524 Wolsey summoned all the black monks of St. Benedict
to a chapter. Former Legates, such as Otho (1236-7), had done so.
They did not realize the English Benedictine spirit, and had for-
gotten the discretion which characterizes the rule and which leaves
so much to the decision of the local superiors. These Italian Le-
gates tried to force a discipline, easy enough in Italy, upon a more
northern nation. This was especially in the matter of perpetual
abstinence from flesh meat. The result was always the same. Ben-
edictines bow to authority ; they tried over and over again to under-
take the perpetual abstinence and failed, and dispensations had to
be obtained from Rome.*' Wolsey seems to have read the decrees
Thomas Bennet, Wolsey's commissary, writes to his master (i8th July, 1528) that he has
used every effort to bring the nuus over to Wolsey's wishes, but finds them so untoward that
three or four of the " captains" had to be put into ward. iOuly the new abbess-elect and her
sisters were compliant. On the same day the abbess writes to the Cardinal that since his
coming home she had followed the advice of Bennet and urged her nuns to be more " re-
clused within the monastery against which they showed many considerations. She hopes
in time to order herself according to his pleasure, and to rule her sisters according to their
religion, without any such resort aslhas of late beenjaccustomed."' (Brewer. IV., n. 4528-4529).
The new abbess-elect, Isabel Jordane, had been prioress and had been reported to Wolsey as
being "ancient, wise, and discrete." The question of reform was evidently nxainly that of
a due observance of the law of enclosure, which results from the Benedictine law of obe-
dience. 87 On the whole question of eating meat the reader can be referred to the author's
" Knglish Black Monks of St. Benedict," Vol. I., p. 16, where it is found that in the days of
St. Dunstan the eating of flesh meat was allowed.
Tlwmas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 313
of these other Legates and determined to enforce them. He drew
up certain constitutions and laid them before the assembled chapter.
We can only judge what he proposed by the reply the chapter made
to him. After thanking him for his book of statutes and saying
that many of his regulations ought to be received by all good
monks, they point out that others were too austere for the times,
and that as the number of monks and monasteries in England was
too great to allow of them being enforced without exciting mur-
murs, the fathers of the chapter begged the Cardinal so to modify
the reformation of their order as not to drive the weak into flight,
apostasy or rebellion, nor to keep away those who wished to enter
the order. They fear that if the Reformation be conducted with
too much austerity there will not be sufficient monks left to inhabit
the monasteries.** From this interesting document we can gather
that the Benedictine chapter was quite willing to be brought up to
the level of the needs of the day, if they were not already in that
position. This has always been their characteristic. But they had
had plenty of experience in the past of the ill effects of a tinkering
legislation by those who did not in the least understand their spirit.
As far as we know, Wolsey had the wisdom to see this and did not
reform them away. But the good eflfect of his interest in the order
is to be seen when the Dissolution came and the black monks stood
out conspicuously among the religious men as having their houses
thoroughly in order.
In the year 15 19 he began the work of reforming the Black
Canons of St. Augustine. There were several bodies of Black
Canons, and these Wolsey formed into a congregation modeled
after the fashion of the English Benedictine Congregation, which,
in its turn, is the only one which has followed the Church's legisla-
tion as laid down in 121 5 at the Fourth Lateran Council.
Indeed, Wolsey seems to have taken bodily the greater part of his
Augustinian Reform from the famous Bulla Benedictina of Benedict
XII. (1334). He added, however, certain regulations of his own,
and one on the regulation of divine service is worth quoting. After
saying that the Office was to be said neither too quickly nor too
slowly, and that each one was to be present at the services, espe-
cially at matins and the principal Mass, the Cardinal enacts : "And
with all ecclesiastics, and especially religious, that method of singing
is divinely approved which is not intended to gratify the ears of
those present by the levity of its rhythm nor to court the approval
of worldlings by the multiplicity of its notes. But that which in
plain song raises the minds of the singers and the hearts of the
hearers to heavenly things." Therefore plain song is to be used,
88 Brewer. Vol. IV., n. 953.
314 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
and the use of the Cantus fractus vel divisus, called "prick-song,"
is forbidden except at Our Lady's Mass and such like non-conven-
tual offices at which lay singers are allowed in most religious houses.
On Sundays and feast days the canons, if they can do it themselves,
may use some simple melodies at Mass and Vespers, provided that
all the words be sung and the music express the sense. There were
also wise rules, besides those of discipline, which secured the intel-
lectual life of the body and brought them into touch with the na-
tional universities.*®
These constitutions were to last till 1521, when the General Chap-
ter of the body would consider and ratify them.
Wolsey, as it was clearly impossible for him to visit in person all
the religious houses, delegated his power to various Bishops. For
instance, when he was in France, on his way after the famous meet-
ing known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, he wrote to the Bishop
of Salisbury (October 20, 1521) empowering him as his deputy to
visit the nunneries of his diocese and proceed against such as were
guilty of "misgoverance and slanderous living," and to remove the
nuns into other places of the same order as he best and most con-
veniently can.**^ Many of the smaller houses, especially of women^
had become disorganized through want of members ; and discipline
had necessarily fallen where there were only three or four to keep
up an observance which required at least twelve. One of these
convents, Bromehall Priory, in which there were only two or three
nuns, was dissolved December 5, 1521.
At the beginning of January, 1524, Clement VII., then newly
elected, confirmed Wolsey's Legateship and granted it him for life
with all faculties, "which was never heard of before."®^ Wolsey
when thanking the Pope (February 24, 1524) says it was "an im-
mense addition to his obligations to Clement, and that he will de-
vote every effort to fulfilling the Pope's commands and omit no
opportunity of forwarding his interests with the king." The Car-
dinal promises solemnly that he will execute his office with "as
great care for the honor of the Holy See as for his own
safety."»2
Wolsey then turned his attention to the other class of religious,
that is to the friars. The Dominicans or Black Friars took the
proposed visitation sensibly. Wolsey's agent, Clerk, writes from
Rome (July 28, 1525) that they are content to submit their suits to
the Pope and sue to Wolsey. The general of that order, a very
wise, learned and virtuous man, was about to communicate with
Wolsey on the matter, and Clerk advises the Cardinal to "deal some-
» Wilkin's " Concilia," IV., pp. 683-88 » Fiddes, p. 224. »» Clerk to Wolsey, 9th January,
1524. Cotton MS., " Vitell," B. VI., 17. « Add. MS., 15. 387 f. loi.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 315
what better with them as they take their way."^' The White Friars
or Carmelites also submitted. But the Gray Friars, or Francis-
cans, were not so minded. Even before Wolsey, in accordance
with his faculties, announced his intention of holding a visitation of
the Gray Friars there seems to have been a great outcry. The
Pope himself was in fear. He remembered the rebellion of the
Friars Minor against John XXII., and that their dispute went
from theology to secular politics. He wrote (July 7, 1524) to Wol-
sey that the Order of Friars Minor Observants seems to suspect
that he was about to visit and reform them. While Clement is sure
that Wolsey will act with wisdom, he begs him not to attempt any-
thing on account of the magnitude of the order and the estimation
in which it is held throughout the world ; for though good may be
done in England, it would occasion disturbances elsewhere. The
Pope reminds him that the friars could not have obtained their
present position without God's blessing and their own good works,
and he is to remember that in these troublesome times their good
will and the opinion of others about them can do a great deal.
They might indeed bear Wolsey's visitation quietly, but they would
fear that the same thing would be attempted elsewhere, which they
could not stand, as they have rules and superiors of their own. He
therefore asks Wolsey to think of the good of Christendom rather
than that of England and to make use of gentleness and tact rather
than severity in admonishing them.®* The real motive of this letter
will be seen a little later on.
The Cardinal Protector of the order also writes the same day to
beg Wolsey to give up the visitation on the ground that while they
have no personal feeling against him they are afraid of creating a
precedent.®'* What Clement did not put in his letter he, how-
ever, did not hesitate to say to Wolsey's agent. Clerk, and bade
him write to Wolsey (August 31, 1524) and tell him "for God's sake
to use mercy with those friars, saying that they be as desperate
beasts, past shame that can loose nothing by clamor."®*
Wolsey, however, was not the man to be frightened away from
what he considered the good of religion. He promised the Pope
that he would use his legatine authority with such moderation that
no complaint should arise.®^ But still the friars troubled, and ad-
vantage was taken by their General Chapter held in July, 1525, at
Rome to urge the Pope to exempt them altogether from Wolsey's
control. Again, by Clement's order. Clerk writes to his master in
the Pope's name "to deal moderately with them, for they are clamor-
ous, importunate, bold and passed shame because they have noth-
«Cotton MS., "Vitell," B. VII., 178. »* Brewer, IV., part i,n.477. '•* Cotton MS., " Vitell,"
B. VI., 96. »« Ibid, n. i8o. ^ Theiner, p. 544.
3i6 American Catholic Quarterly Review, '
ing to lose, have great assistance here in court and credit every^
where among the lay folk." Clerk told the Pope that "no lucre,
nor glory, nor envy" would move Wolsey to do anything against
them, for they were poor, evil and few and of little estimation com-
pared to other religious in England. Clement said he knew this
right well and had put the matter off until the General came to
Rome. Clerk hereupon said that it concerned Wolsey's honor that
the Pope should not too easily credit their vain and untrue com-
plaints. The Pope, of course, had to listen to both sides; but he
promised that all he should do would perhaps be to write some breve
to Wolsey to exhort him to be kind to the friars, but that there
should be nothing derogatory to the Legate, whose honor he would
rather increase than decrease.®* The friars so far gained the day as
to secure a two years' restraint upon Wolsey's power, but their
triumph was of short duration: within a few weeks it was with-
drawn. A matter which has never yet received attention seems to
be one connected with this visitation of the Friars Minor. Their
General was the famous Quigiiones, afterwards Cardinal. He was
also Charles V.'s agent in the matter of the Divorce.
As Wolsey stood or fell with the success or failure of Henry's
case and as the Franciscans were strenuous opponents of the Di-
vorce, one is tempted, knowing how many things influence the
mind of man and how rare simple intentions are, to ask whether the
attitude the Friars Minor adopted may not have had something in it
of a personal revenge on the great Cardinal who brought them un-
der the power of his visitation. We shall better be able to judge
this when we know exactly what was the Cardinal's attitude in the
matter of the Divorce.
As regards Wolsey's project of reforming the clergy, we have
already seen the way in which such prelates as Fox regarded it, and
it is not saying more than the facts of case warrant when Mr.
Blunt, in his "Reformation of the Church of England," says : "It
may reasonably be thought that if the Reformation had been fully
developed under Wolsey's continued guidance many of the misera-
ble divisions which ensued would have been avoided by his astute
statesmanship and the barbarities of each side checked by his hu-
mane policy."®*
The provincial constitutions he issued for the Province of York
in 1518 (1515?), while showing that he did not neglect his own dio-
cese or province, are models for ecclesiastical government. Wisely
he mainly contents himself with reinforcing the salutary enactments
of his predecessors and draws them up into one body of constitu-
tions. The greatest care is taken that the people are properly in-
« Cotton MS., " Vitell," B. VII., 178. » Vol. I., p. 43.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, 317
structed in the essentials of their religion, and it is worthy of re-
mark that the course of instruction laid down is supremely solid and
to the purpose. Four times in the year every priest with cure oi
souls had to explain to the people *'in the vulgar tongue, and with-
out any subtility or fantastic turning about of words," the fourteen
articles of faith,*^* the ten commandments of the Law, the two.
Evangelical precepts of charity, the seven works of mercy, the seven
capital sins, the seven opposing virtues and the seven sacraments
of Grace. Residence was enforced on all clerics with loss of in-
come unless they had Papal dispensation or were absent with the
Bishop's leave for purposes of study, or otherwise engaged in his
service. Special arrangements were made for securing the sanctity
of the houses of God which are to be kept as places for prayer and
for humbly asking forgiveness of sins. As regards the private lives
of the clergy, the Cardinal renews the enactments of Archbishop
Greenfield prohibiting them from attending unlawful spectacles, es-
pecially from duels, tournaments and other sport in which blood
might be shed ; and as the life of priests should be distinguished
from that of lay folk so ought they to be in dress and deportment.
On the question of morality, excommunication and the power of the
secular arm are threatened. The whole document is published in
Wilkins' "Concilia," and is worthy of study.^'^^
This Provincial Constitution will show upon what lines Wolsey
desired to proceed as Legate of the whole of England. No sooner
did he receive this office than he set about preparing for the general
reform. His measures had stirred up the Archbishop of Canter-
bury to summon his suffragans to Lambeth to keep a general coun-
cil for "the reformation of enormities." Warham seems to have
based his action on some advice of the king's. As the right of
holding councils now appertained to the Legate, whose jurisdiction
in England was universal, it was necessary formally and at once to-
vindicate his position. Wolsey, therefore, wrote a dignified re-
monstrance to Warham saying that he was assured the king wilt
not have him (the Cardinal) so little esteemed as Legate that "you
should enterprise the said reformation to the express derogation of
the said dignity of the See Apostolic and otherwise than the law
will suffer you without mine advice, consent and knowledge, nor
ye had no such commandment of His Grace, but expressly to the
contrary; and that will appear where His Grace and Highness
willed you to repair to me at Greenwich sitting in administration of
divines in the quire." He therefore summoned the Archbishop to
explain his disobedience to the king's commands, and courteously
Seven as regards the Blessed Trinity and seven as regards the Sacred Humanity.
Vol, IV„ p. 662.
3i8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
proposes that they should meet at Richmond, "which shall not be
much incommodious" to the old Archbishop.^^- This letter is un-
dated, but it was probably in the midsummer, for Wolsey had sum-
moned a Legatine Synod to meet at Westminster on September 8,
1 518; but on account of the "sweating plague," which was then
raging, it was prorogued first to December 8 and then to the first
Monday in Lent, 15 19. The decrees or acts of this synod have
not yet been discovered. It was probably a preliminary meeting,
as we know that Wolsey had not yet obtained from the Pope a free
hand for his proposed reform. It was at this period when he was
asking for increased faculties that he was met with the significant
reminder that Rome had not received an equivalent for doing so
extraordinary a thing as to supersede local authority in the reforma-
tion of the clergy.^^^ Warham, urged on by those who repre-
sented Wolsey as his adversary and "the great Tyrant," took ad-
vantage of the delay in the arrival of the Legate's full powers to
cause the official of the Province of Canterbury in the Diocese of
Worcester to propose to visit the monks of that Cathedral Mon-
astery. They refused to admit his visitation, as the duty belonged
to Wolsey, and were excommunicated by the official in return.^***
But extended powers came in 1523 from Hadrian VL, who is re-
ported to have had more confidence in Wolsey than in all the other
prelates in the world. He also expressed a great wish to see the
Cardinal and to confer with him about the state of Christendom.^®*
Strype, quoting from York Registers, says that in 1523 Wolsey
summoned the clergy of both provinces to treat of reformation.
They were to come before him at Westminster. Like a wise pre-
late he desired to take the clergy themselves into his confidence and
to secure their cooperation. We know at this time Warham had
summoned the Convocation of Canterbury to meet at St. Paul's.
There was a grant to the king to be levied. Wolsey ordered them
to attend his Legatine Assembly instead, and issued a special sum-
mons to this effect. What was done there in the way of Reforma-
tion we do not know. But evidently Wolsey disturbed by his vigor
the calm and serenity of some of the clergy. It was probably a
cleric who wrote (May 14, 1523) that the Cardinal on the first day
of Convocation when Mass was finished at St. Paul's cited the
clergy to appear before him at Westminster. There was another
Mass, and within six or seven days the priests proved that the Con-
vocation was void because they were summoned to appear before
My Lord of Canterbury. Wolsey, therefore, sent out new cita^
tions for eight days after the Ascension : "and then I think they
should have the third Mass of the Holy Ghost. I pray God the
^<a Wilkins, IV., p. 660. «» cotton MS., " Vitell," B. TV., n. 3. ^o* Ibid, n. 131. »» Ibid, n. 169.
Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 3 19
Holy Ghost be among them and us both." "I do tremble/' says
he, "to remember the end of all these high and new enterprises.
For oftimes it hath been that to a new enterprise there followeth a
new manner and strange sequel. God of His mercy send His
Grace into such fashion that it may be for the best."^"®
We shall see better in the course of this study what it was that
Wolsey did, and so we can make up for the loss of the acts of his
synods and convocation. He seems to have urged the Bishops to
revise their Cathedral statutes and to have them confirmed by his
authority. In 1526 the statutes of Lichfield Cathedral were re-
vised and submitted to him by the Bishop and Chapter. He held a
visitation of St. Paul's Cathedral in 15 18, when he made salutary
decrees to free the chapter from the heavy burthen of debt then
weighing upon it.^®^ From a letter of the Bishop of Ely (December
28, 1520) we can see that he ordered the prelates to attend at their
cathedrals at the times for holding ordinations, and in his own
Diocese of York ordinations were duly held. He received from the
Pope (May 12, 1528) special faculties to degrade unworthy clerics.^***
He set about a reformation of the spiritual courts, making strenu-
ous efforts to put the provincial courts, the Courts of Arches and
Audience, upon proper and new footings and tried to introduce an
altogether simpler form of legal procedure.^®"
The consideration of the reform of the clergy leads us to the sub-
ject of the way in which he sought to bring it about. And this was
mainly by the process of intellectual development.
II. THE FOUNDING OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
There are two ways of bringing about a reform where it is needed,
and they can be summed up in two words — "Don't" and "Do."
It is easy enough to issue prohibitory laws, and it is just as easy to
evade them. This Wolsey seems to have realized, and one notices
the absence of such decrees in all his work. He wanted to build
upon a more reasonable and lasting foundation to teach men to
know and then to work. He felt that it was ignorance that was at
the root of most of the mischief of the day. Educate men, and
they will know better. This accounts for the treatment he often
meted out to those who were brought before his Legatine Court
accused of heresy. For instance, when Tavener, organist of St.
Frideswide's, at Oxford, was brought before him on that charge,
Wolsey set him free, excusing the man and saying he was "only a
musician."^^^
'« Cotton MS., Titus, B. I., 112. ^w Dugdale : "History of St. Paul," Appendix, p. 53.
»« Rymer, XHT., 239. »<» Dixon, p. 17. "« A. Wood, "Althene," I., 338.
320 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
In the educational foundations which cover the Cardinal's name
with undying fame, it must be distinctly remembered that they were
for the education of the clergy. His own words were that they were
for scholars "to be brought up in virtue and qualified for the sacer-
dotal dignity."^" It was part of his reform to secure for England
a priesthood that should be in the front rank of learning and whose
lips should guard wisdom.
In the beginning of 1518 the Cardinal attended Queen Katherine
on a visit to the University of Oxford. He was already held there
in the highest estimation and seems always to have kept up the
friendliest relations with his old college,^^* and since June, 1515,-
the University had decreed that every one preaching before it
should pray publicly for the good estate of the Archbishop of York,
and after his death for his soul among the dead.^^^ After assisting
at an entertainment at Magdalen College he went to the Convoca-
tion House, where he harangued the University and professed his
willingness to serve it in all noble offices. They trusted him. He
began his plans for colleges at least as early as April, 15 18, and in
June the University by a solemn decree of convocation surrendered
all their privileges and statutes, except those of the colleges, to be
by him disposed and reframed. Whether he ever did have time to
reform the University statutes so as to do away with a great deal of
worn out and antiquated machinery is not certain ; but he founded
seven lectureships, viz. : Theology, Civil Law, Physics,^^* Phil-
osophy, Mathematics, Greek, together with Rhetoric and Humani- .
ties. The readers he appointed were all men of the first ability:
Thomas Brinknell, reader in Divinity, wrote against Luther in the
name of the University; Ludovicus Vives read in Law and Hu-
manity, Thomas Musgrave in Physics, Richard Catelin in Mathe-
matics, Calphurnius in Greek, with Clement and Lupset.
One of Wolsey's plans was to found at Oxford a great college ta
be called "The College of Secular Priests," conceived on the largest
scale and to hold more than five hundred students, all of whom
would be future priests. And as a feeder for this, as Eton was to
King's and Winchester to New College, he determiixcd to found a
large school likewise. His birthplace, Ipswich, was to be the seat
of this home of learning. But such grand and important schemes,
regulated with all that magnificence and detail which the Cardinal
knew how to value as an attraction, was a most costly undertaking.
'" Brewer, IV., 5212. "2 jn jcp-j the Fellows had a present of venison from him (Bloxam,
28), and again in 1520. »« Bloxam, p. 24. "* Wolsey also was the chief promoter of the
establishment of the College of Physicians in 1518. "To check the boldness of those men
who prefer physic more out of avarice than any confidence of a safe conscience, to the great
damage of the ignorant and credulous people." See Goodall's "Royal College of Physi-
cians " (ed. 1684), p.6.
Thomas, Cardinal W/olsey, Archbishop of York. 321
•
Its object was for the benefit of the Church to provide a higher edu-
cation for the clergy. It was, therefore, but right and proper that
the Church should supply the greater part of the means. And it
was in carrying out this that Wolsey has reaped undeserved ob-
loquy.^^'* Looking round England, he saw that many of the relig-
ious houses were suffering from the dire effects of the Black Death.
The number of the communities had decreased and those who re-
mained were often crippled by debt. It was an open question
whether such houses, in spite of old associations and local interests,
were of any real benefit to religion at large, and whetluer, as the
inmates could not or did not fulfil the conditions under which they
received their benefactions, a use could not be found for the goods
to the greater benefit of the Church. Also with the greater ''solemn
monasteries" a like question arose. Did they expend sufficient of
their wealth in the wider interests of the Church, or did they look to
home too much ? The way that Wolsey acted shows the solution
he gave to the problem. He procured bulls from the Pope^^* to
dissolve such smaller houses as were reduced to the number of six
inmates. The rights of the existing members were not neglected,
and provision was made for their support. Their property was
made use of for the College at Oxford and the School at Ipswich.
Likewise with the abbeys, Wolsey, by course of visitations and
other influences, made them know that they would have to exert
themselves for the general welfare of the Church in England, and
that they were bound to work for the common- good of the country.
However, we find the abbots and other religious persons propitiat-
ing the great Cardinal with presents of money and plate for his
foundations. Undoubtedly it often happened that the agents Wol-
sey employed in this affair acted harshly and without due considera-
tion for those they were dispossessing. Wolsey had to bear the
blame, and his enemies were quite ready to seize upon the slightest
occasion of damaging his reputation with the king. Henry, who
had written (October 10, 1524) to thank Clement VII. both for the
extension of Wolsey's legatine authority and for the faculties
granted him for suppressing certain monasteries on behalf of the
"* As an example of the hatred and calumny the Cardinal incurred by touching the mon-
asteries we may take what Warham says in a letter he wrote (14 July, 1526) to Wolsey, say-
ing that when he was last in Canterbury a white monk {Cistercian) of Sutton reported that
Wolsey had suppressed that house and expelled the religious, taking away their lands and
goods, so that they were obliged to beg or use some craft. He offered to sew at a tailor's
and other occupations. Warham examined him and the other White Monk confessed that
he had spread the report and that it was untrue. (Brewer, Vol. IV.) ^^^ Ghinucci wrote to
Wolsey (21 August, 1526) that the Pope was much interested in the details of Wolsey's Col-
lege and feels sure that the Cardinal will not omit Greek literature, though there was no
mention of it in the account Wolsey sent of his plan. The Pope requests that there may be
at least two Greek lectures established in the New College. (Cotton MS., " Vitell," B.
VIIL, 113.)
322 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
•
new college,^^^ now on the adverse reports causes the Cardinal to be
informed of these by Sir Thomas More.
Wolsey promptly wrote to the king (February 5, 1525) ''touching
-certain misorders supposed to be used by Dr. Allen and other my
officers in the suppression of certain exile and small monasteries
wherein neither God is served nor religion kept. These, with your
gracious aid and assistance, converting the same to a far better use,
I propose to annex unto your intended College of Oxford." He
then tells the king that though "some folk which be always more
prone to speak evil may have informed the king otherwise, I have
meant, intended, or gone about, nor also have willed mine officers
to do anything concerning the said suppression, but under such
form and manner as is, and hath largely been, to the full satisfac-
tion, recompense and joyous contentation of any person which hath
had or could pretend to have, right or interest in the same ;" and he
concludes by saying he would be wrong to acquire anything ex
rapinis in the foundation of his colleges which were intended for the
king's honour, the advancement of learning and the weal of his
own soul."^^*
In a letter of Henry's to Wolsey (July 14, 1528) about the elec-
tion of the Abbess of Wilton,^^'' after saying : "I understand which
is greatly to my comfort that you have ordered yourself to God-
ward as religiously and virtuously as any prelate or father in
Christ's Church can do. Wherein so doing and persevering there
can be nothing more acceptable to God, more honour to myself nor
more desired of your friends, amongst whom I reckon not myself
the least," he then refers again that many "mumble it abroad" that
the goods for building the colleges "are not best acquired and come
from many religious houses unlawfully the cloak of kindness to-
wards the edifying of your college."^***
Wolsey replied Quly 15, 1528): "I humbly thank you for your
great zeal in desiring the purity of my conscience and that nothing
should be done by me in the matter of my college or otherwise
which should give occasion to others to speak ill of me. I have
received from many old friends and exempt religious persons vari-
ous sums of money, but not so much as is reported ; nor has any
been corruptly given, as I shall be ready to prove to Your Grace.
But to avoid all occasion for the future I promise Your Majesty
that if I should be compelled to sell all that I have, neither I nor
"'' Add. MS., 15,387, f. 123. "8 Harleian MS., 7035, f. 174. "^ As regards Anne Boleyn's
nominee, her sister-in-law, Henry writes to her and says that Wolsey had examined her and
that she had confessed to immorality. "Wherefore I would not for all the gold in the
world cloake your conscience nor mine to make her a ruler of a house which is of so un-
godly demeanour ; nor I trust that you will not that neither for brother or sister I should
so distain mine honour or conscience:" (Brewer, IV., 4477.) i» Fiddes, p. 174.
.1
Thomas, Cardinal Wolscy, Archbishop of York. 323
any other by my consent, shall take anything for the use of my col-
lege, however frankly offered, from any religious person ; purposing
so to order my poor life that it shall appear that I love and dread
God and also Your Majesty."^^^
His colleges were started. That at Oxford, which was to be
known as the College of Secular Priests, had its name changed by
the king to Cardinal's College; but on the fall of Wolsey the college,
with all its rich and sumptuous furniture, was seized by the king ;
and, perhaps in answer to Wolsey's piteous appeals "for his poor
college," the institution was reformed on a much smaller scale and
Henry took to himself all the credit of the foundation, changing the
name to King's College, which is now known as Christ Church.
The school at Ipswich was entirely destroyed and was never re-
founded. All that remains of Wolsey's munificence is the gateway.
Sic transit gloria mundi}^^ The noble plans for building up a
learned and prudent clergy, which had been Wolsey's aim, came to
naught through no fault of his. But Oxford still cherishes the
great Cardinal as one of her most illustrious sons and, as Convoca-
tion wrote to him, "not so much as a founder of a college, but of
the University itself."^^*
III. TO FOUND NEW BISHOPRICS IN THE LARGER TOWNS.
Wolsey knew that in the immediate action of the episcopate lies
the strength of the Church, He would have had but little sympathy
with those who try to exalt the Papacy at the cost of the episcopacy.
He felt, doubtless, as Nicholas V. said, that the Roman Pontiffs had
^'stretched out their arms too far," and had "left scarcely any power
to the other Bishops," and that he "hoped the better to uphold his
own jurisdiction by not assuming that which was foreign to him."^**
We shall have to deal later on with Wolsey's attitude to the Holy
See ; and shall show that his conduct was always that befitting his
high dignities and offices of Archbishop, of Cardinal and of Legate.
But here we must examine his work of reform and compare what
•existed in his day with his magnificent and statesmanlike plan.
For hundreds of years England had been divided into two his-
toric provinces, and the names of Canterbury and York are dear to-
<iay. Canterbury, with its primatial Benedictine chapter, numbered
1" Brewer, rv., 4513. 1*2 gver witness for him,
Ipswich and Oxford ! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it ;
The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and yet so rising.
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
"Henry VIII. ,^' act iv., s. 2.
i«« Wood, " Annales," II.. 27. 12* Pastor, Vol. II., p. 30 (English ed.)
324 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
among her suffragan churches Rochester (Benedictine), Winchester
(Benedictine), Norwich (Benedictine), Worcester (Benedictine), Ely
(Benedictine), Bath and Wells (a double chapter, Benedictine and
secular), Coventry (also a double chapter), London (secular), Chi-
chester (secular), Exeter (secular), Sarum (secular), Hereford (secu-
lar), Lincoln (secular) and four small Welsh dioceses. In all six-
teen, out of which six had purely Benedictine chapters, two had a
double and ten (including the four important Welsh dioceses) had
secular canons. ^^^ The province of York was much smaller in
number. Besides the Metropolitan Church of York (secular) there
were only the Benedictine Cathedral of Durham and the Augustin-
ian Cathedral of Carlisle.
Wolsey's plan was taken from existing examples. He mapped
out the country, and where there was a great abbey and a lar^e
town there he determined, to set up a bishopric. It is more than
probable that Henry VIII. followed the plan drawn up with his con-
sent by Wolsey when he made a part restitution of his ill-gotten
goods after the dissolution of the monasteries. Thirteen new sees
were arranged for, though only six, viz. : Westminster,^^'' Oxford,
Chester, Gloucester, Bristol "and Peterborough, were actually
founded. And within recent years, when the authorities of the
Anglican Church were increasing the number of bishoprics, they
followed out the plan traced by Wolsey. But he never saw it real-
ized. The difficulties he had to contend against in this necessary
work of reform may be seen by the following extracts from the State
papers :
From Casale to Vannes. (October 30, 1528.) [Rome.]
The erection of the Cathedrals was proposed in the Consistory,
and all seemed ready to consent to the king's desire ; but as it is a
matter of the greatest importance it should be granted with greater
authority than could be done then. The matter was therefore re-
ferred to the Legates (Wolsey and Campeggio), and then for them
to report to the Pope.^^^ This was, of course, to gain time. The
matter having already been settled in England, and all that was
asked was for the Pope's authority, the next step the Curia took
was to issue (November 12, 1528) a bull empowering Wolsey to do
what he had already done.^^^ Perhaps from a letter of Casale t >
Wolsey (December 17, 1528) one may see what was at work.
Wolsey had been lately appointed to Winchester. Casale says:
"The Cardinals are very much offended seeing how much they have
126 The system of monastic chapters which was once so marked a feature in the pre-Refor-
mation days is almost peculiar to England and is a mark of the debt which the country
owes to the Black Monks of St. Benedict. i«6 Westminster ceased to be a bishopric from the
days of Mary Tudor, who restored the church to the Black Monks. Her sister made it a col-
legiate church and a " peculiar." i27 Cotton MS., " Vitell," B., X., 119. !» Rymer, XIV., 273.
Cardinal, Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 325
lately suffered at the remission of fees required by the Cardinal for
the expedition of Winchester bulls."^^" On January 28, 1529, Gre-
gorio Casale writes to Vincent Casale that : ''Many of the Cardi-
nals are contented that everything should be done in England and
the Bishops elected there; but that the biretum and the rochet
should be conferred from Rome. Cardinal de Monte showed him
an article which he had found, of a previous license to create
Bishops in England. "^^^ Evidently from this, as we see in his ar-
rangements for Ireland, Wolsey wanted to do away with the per-
nicious system of Papal Provisions, which was the result of the
Avignon System of Finance and was also against the law of the
land. He was probably going to act as Francis, by his concordat
with Leo X. had secured for France, or to revert to the older Eng-
lish way of capitular election. Formerly it was only the election of
an Archbishop that required to have Papal confirmation; and, as
Papal representative, the metropolitan had the right of confirming
the capitular election of Bishops without resorting to Rome. Pope
Honorius I. in 634 gave to the Archbishops of Canterbury and
York the right of conferring the pall upon new Archbishops with-
out recourse to Rome.^'* It was when the Curia found the expedit-
ing of bulls a profitable office, and that annates were not only worth
having, but could be got, that the old system was done away with
and the Pope himself "provided" the Bishops.
Casale carries on the account in a letter to Wolsey (January 30,
1529) and says: "The difficulty about the bull for erecting abbeys
into Cathedrals arises from this, that most of the Cardinals think
it will detract from the honour of the See of Rome if Bishops are
created except at Rome or receive their investiture from any oni
except the Pope." But all were agreed on one thing : the annates
must be paid.^'^ It was not until May 29, 1529, that Clement issued
the bull erecting certain abbeys into Cathedral churches,^'* but
does not mention the names. It was left to the Legate to decide
whether these new Cathedrals were to be served by religious or
seculars. But it came too late for Wolsey to make any use of it.^**
i» Cotton MS., "Vitell," B. X., 164. !» Ibid, 46. 181 Bede :" Ecclesiastical History" (Bk.
II., c. 17 and 18.) 132 Cotton MS., " Vitell," B. XI., 50. Spain had, however, by this time set-
tled the matter in its own way. 1^ Rymer XIV., 291. 1^4 jsj-Qr did Wolsey confine his atten-
tion to England only. The Lordship of Ireland shared in his solicitude, and a paper of
" Remembrances for Ireland" shows part of his scheme for giving peace to that distracted
portion of Henry's dominion. In this paper Wolsey notes that : As the bishops and clergy
of the Irishry give most help to the rebels, be it provided that no clerk be promoted to any
bishopric there unless he be of English birth or of the English nation and language. The
bishoprics are so poor that " no honest and learned man" of England will accept them ; for
while in England there are but two archbishoprics and nineteen bishoprics, there are in
Ireland four archbishoprics and above thirty bishoprics. The Pope should be applied to to
unite the sees, so as to make but two archbishoprics and nine or ten bishoprics. Also : That
the churches of Ireland be built and repaired, the ministers reformed and that no temporal
man have any spiritual benefice, and no provision from Rome be henceforth allowed. And :
326 American Catholic Quarterly Reviciv.
We must now consider Wolsey in his capacity of Guardian of the
Faith. Some have ventured to look upon him as a favorer of the
Reformation in matters of Faith. This is an utterly untenable
theory ; for the Cardinal was perfectly orthodox in Faith. He was,
as we are showing, a great Reformer ; but only of abuses. He was
seeking to reform the Church from within ; and without laying sacri-
legious hands upon the Deposit of Faith, he was eager to cleanse
the Church from the ill effects of human passions. We have
already seen how zealous he was that the people should be instructed
in the knowledge of their Religion and how he labored that they
should have worthy pastors. It remains now to consider how he
guarded them against the teachers of the New Learning, who came
from Germany and revived the smouldering embers of an almost
expired Lollardy.
How Martin Luther began a legitimate protest against abuses,
abuses by-the-bye which for the most part the Council of Trent
reformed, and how from protest he went into revolt, it is not neces-
sary here to tell.^^*^ A letter, however, from Rome to Wolsey
throws some little light on the subject. The Bishop of Worcester,
Wolsey 's agent in Rome in 1520, writes (May 28) that six months
ago the writings of Friar Martin arrived. Much of their contents
was disapproved of by the theologians of Rome on account of the
scandals to which they might give rise ; and part they condemned
as heretical. After long debates it was decided by the Cardinals
to declare Martin a heretic ; and the Bishop announced that a bull
was in preparation on the subject.^^' The bull was published in
Rome July 15, 1520, and Wolsey wrote, as one of the official ad-
visers of the Holy See, to oflFer his counsel for remedying the evil.
He forbade at once the circulation of Luther's writings in England ;
and for this Leo X. wrote to thank him (March 16, 1521).^^^ He
wanted, however, to show by a public act that the English king and
Church equally condemned the false doctrine. On May 12, 1521,
Wolsey held a solemn service, surrounded by the Bishops and
Abbots, at St. Paul's, where a sermon was preached at the Cross in
That Wolsey as l,egate of England and Ireland appoint some bishop there as his substitute
(about 1524.) (See Brewer.) From Wolsey's point of view he seems to have had reason for
his proposal, for the Archbishop of Dublin wrote (23 February, 1528) to the Cardinal, telling
him of the lamentable decay of the land, both in good Christianity and in other things, for
lack of good prelates and curates in the Church, and that he would do well to promote good
men to bishoprics to be examples, etc. (Ibid, p. 3952.) '^^ The various treatments Luther
met with are instructive. After a cultured and good-humored contempt for the barbarian
friar, L,eo X. anathematized him. Clement VII. is reported to have been willing to make
him Cardinal to quiet him, provided he chose to accept the grade. (" Calendar of Venetian
State Papers," III., 796.) While the F<mperor Charles in 1525, when threatening to bring
Clement VII. to his knees by invading Italy, told the Florentine Ambassador : " Some day
or other perhaps Martin Luther will become a man of worth." (Ibid, IV., n. 920.) The Re-
formation in Germany, as in England, was mainly an affair of secular politics, i'" Brewer,
III., n. 847. '" Brewer, III., 1197.
Cardinal, Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York. 327
the churchyard by Bishop Fisher, of Rochester, against the New
Learning in religion ; and during the sermon Luther's books were
burnt.^"
The Cardinal issued orders that every one possessed of any of the
incriminated writings should deliver them up within two weeks, and
he caused the Bishops to punish the refractory with the sentence of
excommunication.
But though stern towards heresy and clearly alive to the danger,
the great minded Cardinal had no taste for controversy and had
pity on the poor wretches who, through ignorance, had become in-
fected. Not one of the many brought before the Legatine Court
on the charge of heresy was burnt. And this Christian tolerance
on the part of Wolsey is all the more creditable to him when we
recall the hideous butcheries which prostituted the name of Religion
in the later years of Henry and the reigns of his daughters, Mary
and Elizabeth. When Henry VHL wrote his book against
Luther the Cardinal seems to have doubted its use. Pace writes to
him (June 24, 15 18) that the king "is very glad to have noted Your
Grace's letter that his reasons be called inevitable considering Your
Grace was sometime his adversary herein and of contrary opin-
ion.^'® When, a few years later, Luther entertained hopes of se-
curing Henry to the side of the Reformation through the Divorce,
he wrote a humble letter of apology for his virulent attack on the
king's book and says that he had been under the impression that
Wolsey, "that monster, the public hate of God and man, that plague
of your kingdom," had been the author, and he offers to make a
public recantation if the king will signify in which way he wishes it
to be done.^*^ But it was not then a wise thing to abuse Wolsey.
Henry, in reply to Luther, says that the Cardinal is too prudent a
man to be moved by Luther's abuse, and that he will be dearer to
the king the more he is hated by Luther and those like him.
Though he calls the Cardinal "the plague of England," the king-
would have Luther to know that the country owes him many bene-
fits, not the least being his opposition to heresy.
At that time Lutheranism was, as Jansenism in the following cen-
tury, a favorite charge to make against opponents. Many of the
learned men favored by the Cardinal and introduced into his foun-
dations were so accused by his enemies. But without any real
cause. A pleasing note is his attitude towards one who, though
afterwards joining the reforming party, remained the sincerest and
truest man of the number. Latimer had Wolsey's leave to preach
'® See Roscoe : " 1^0 X.," Vol. II., Appendix 9. i39 Brewer. II., n. 209. »*> " Rpist. I^u-
theri," III., 24. This offer was probably the result of Charles V.'s more favorable attitude
o Luther.
328 American Catholic Quarterly Revietv.
throughout the kingdom; and this proves, as Mr. Dixon remarks,
that the great Cardinal considered him not as a Lutheran or heretic,
but as one inclined to help forward a constitutional and proper
reformation, such as he would have carried out if he had been
allowed.^*^
Dr. Barnes, who afterwards, in 1541, was burnt at Smithfield,
seems to have taken scandal at the magnificence affected by Wolsey
and preached a sermon in Cambridge against it. As this savored
somewhat of LoUardy, officious persons summoned Barnes before
the Cardinal, who good-naturedly reasoned with him and asked
him if he thought it good and reasonable that he should lay down
the silver pillars and poUaxes and other paraphernalia with which
he, as Legate, Cardinal and Chancellor, appeared in public, and
whether it would be better to coin them into money for the poor.
On receiving an affirmative answer, Barnes tells us that the Car-
dinal said : "Then how think you were it better for me (being in
the honour and dignity that I am) to coin my pillars and pollaxes
and to give the money to five or six beggars than to maintain the
Commonwealth by them as I do? Do you not reckon (quoth he)
the Commonwealth better than five or six beggars ?" It opens to
ns, as Dr. Wordsworth justly remarks, some part of the philosophy
upon which the Cardinal defended the fitness of the pomp and state
w^hich he maintained.^*^ The Cardinal only dismissed him, saying :
''Well, you say very well." There was nothing heretical, but only
a matter of opinion, and Wolsey was tolerant.
P>om his death bed at Leicester Abbey, almost his last words
were to send to the king a message by "Master Kingston," who
was taking him under arrest to the Tower, about the danger of
heresy. This had been his dread all during the Divorce; for he
knew that the Boleyn faction were inclined to Lutheranism. The
dying Cardinal said: *^And say furthermore, that I request His
Grace in God's name that he have a vigilant eye to depress this
new pernicious sect of Lutherans, that it do not increase within his
dominions through his negligence, in such a sort as that he shall
he fain at length to put harness upon her back to subdue them."^**
And he brought forward many examples of the evils that come to a
kingdom in temporal matters through supineness in dealing with
false teachers.
One thing remains to be said on this point. While Wolsey had
power heresy made no way in England, and as soon as he fell and no
longer could guide the English Church then the floodgates were
opened. He read a lesson, too, to kings, churchmen and people
that false teaching is best put down by true teaching, and that the
>« Cf. O/. ctl., I., p. n8. i« Cavendish (ed. Singer), p. 47—8 note. »« Cavendish, p. 321.
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 329
safety of the Church is not to be found in persecution by fire and
sword, but in the blessings of education.
We have now drawn out the picture of Wolsey in his role of Re-
former. To finish our study of the Great Churchman we shall have
to see him in his relation to the Papacy, in his attitude in the Di-
vorce, in which he alone (saving Katherine) emerges with clean
hands, in his personal piety and, greater still, in the hour of his fall.
But these are beyond the limits of the present article, and must be
dealt with another time. With them the picture of Thomas Wolsey,
Cardinal and Archbishop, will be complete and he will take his
rightful position as the greatest Churchman of his times.
Ethelred L. Taunton.
lyondon.
UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL IN THE LATE SPANISH
COLONIES.
TOO little attention is bestowed by the press and the teaching
class on the periodical literature issued from the Depart-
ment of Education. People for some inscrutable reason
instinctively avoid official documents whenever possible. The air
of formality about them, the idea of statistics and departmental data
.and bloodless recital, make one shrink from their examination. This
is a very grave mistake. Matter of the highest importance and
utility is not infrequently to be found between rigid and cold-looking
official covers.
Before touching specifically on what interests Catholics most in
the latest Report from the Commissioner of Education, it is per-
missible to say a word with regard to the manner in which such volu-
minous work is done. Each report is a miniature library on peda-
gogics in itself. The year's progress in education all over the area
of civilization is as a rule presented for review. Nor is it a mere
cursory glimpse that is afforded. Clear synopsis and ample detail
always accompany each separate statement. The early genesis and
development of the schoolmaster's science is»shown in the cases of
countries whose chronicle had not been previously presented. Data
are collected in every available field of study. Pedagogic conditions
are examined from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. The remotest parts
330 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of the Far East, such as Corea and Kamtschatka, are explored ia
search of information bearing on the progress of letters and ethics.
Each year's Report consists of two large volumes containing in all
about two thousand five hundred quarto pages of closely printed
matter. The gathering, arrangement and proper classification of
such an enormous stock of facts and figures and historical review
is a colossal task for one year, in any one department. Every
State in the Union has its own separate report each year. This in
itself would be, one would think, sufficient work for any single
bureau. But the rest of the world comes in for an equal share of
attention — if not in the one report, at least in seriatim instalments.
It may be doubted whether any other government possesses so com-
plete an annual chronicle as this. Its scope and completeness are
fully in keeping with the vastness of the country and the daring-
character of its enterprises in all things, public or private.
Nor is it merely that the bird's-eye view of the mental field here
presented is both exhaustive and minute. There is a breadth and
a philosophical grasp of the subject revealed in the preliminary re-
view by the Commissioner such as could only be shown by one who
not only understands his theme, but is in closest sympathy with the
higher aims and ends of study. Only a ripe scholar and profound
thinker could offer such a review year by year, going over much
the same ground every time and carefully noting the progress made
as well as the directions in which further progress is possible and
desirable.
One great drawback to the value of Reports claiming to be com-
plete was the regular omission of reference to the work of the Cath-
olic schools. This remarkable omission was lately brought under
the notice of the Department by some of the Catholic organs, and
the Commissioner immediately set to work to correct the anomaly.
In the Report issued last year there appeared an exhaustive state-
ment of the Catholic effort to provide education for children of this
faith. In the promptitude with which the omission was rectified
and the generous spirit in which the paper was drawn up were shown
the enlightening influence of true scholarship and the judicial qual-
ity of mind which a position of such high responsibility requires
for its proper discharge.
The feature of importance in the Report for 1897-98, so far as
Catholic interests are concerned, is a statement of the educational
conditions in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, by R. L.
Packard. As a vast amount of misconception, based not only on
ignorance, but deliberate misrepresentation, has been prevalent in
respect to the work of Spain in these widely separated regions, it
is useful to have some statement, accepted by authority, on the sub-
University and School in the Late Spanish Colofiies. 331
jcct. The statement here presented does not claim to be more than
an approximate one on many important points. Its purview em-
braces many localities concerning which but little specific informa-
tion can be had. It stretches away into a past period over which the
dust of antiquity has too deeply settled to allow things to be seen
in their proper light. Any one who has had the ordinary experience
of searching a parish register for the entry of a certain birth, or
marriage, or death can witness how difficult a thing it is to get at
the truth in modern days, when orderly methods are more in vogue
in all the concerns of the world's bookkeeping than they used to
be before the days of the Social Science Association and the Ber-
tillon system of measurement. When we consider how primitive
must have been the methods of the tropical colonies in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, the wonder must be not that statis-
tical information is not the pink of perfection, but that any useful
sort is available at all.
While it is of supreme value to the cause of truth and the verdict
of the future that Spain's real work be made known in those dis-
tant colonies, at a period when other colonies were being utilized
only as penal settlements by nations who rail against Spain as des-
potic and unprogressive, the more practical immediate is involved
in the disposition of our present Government toward the educa-
tional claims of the late Spanish possessions. This is the period
of transition in those places. The old order has vanished ; the social
fabric is in the dangerous condition of haphazard reorganization.
New people, new language, new ideas are surging in. Sub-tropical
languor is disturbed by the feverish haste of a strange civilization
which despises the midday siesta and feels a felicitous aptitude in
the institution of "quick lunch."
From the most ignoble of motives the policy of Spain and the
objects of Spanish conquest and civilization have been deliberately
held up, on this continent as well as in England, to popular execra-
tion. Enslavement of the conquered people in spirit and in body,
it was sought to be shown, was the primary object ; the superimpo-
sition of ignorance upon barbarism one of the means by which the
thraldom was to be established and confirmed; the cultivation of
superstition as a substitute for true religion the main desire of a
gross, sensual and designing clergy. All these untruths have been
dinned into the public ear, without fear of contradiction and without
remorse or compunction, by a long series of historians and poli-
ticians, either from sordid motives looking to the eventual acqui-
sition of Spain's colonies as the result of a popular clamor against
the Spanish system, or else to gratify the rancorous spirit of reli-
gious dislike. But the truth is great and difficult to repress or bury
332 American Catholic Quarterly Rcviezu.
away even under mountains of falsehood. Mr. Lummis, in his valu-
able work, "The Awakening of a Nation," brings forward an over-
whelming mass of proof of the nobility of Spanish effort to educate,
to uplift and to make free the Indians whom the conquests of Cortez
and Pizarro and the other great but unscrupulous adventurers had
brought under the yoke of Spain. Beside the Cross in Mexico were
planted the university, the industrial school and the printing press,
a century before ever either school or university was heard of in
the English settlements here. These are hard facts for non-Cath-
olic writers to have to face, and it is not all of them who can write
on the subject when they are called upon with the frankness and
magnanimity of Mr. Lummis. Mr. Packard, the author of this
present paper in the Education Report, is obliged at the outset of
his historical introduction to admit the vast difference between the
early Spanish explorers and the English ones who followed them
to other portions of our continent. "We observe," he says, "the
contrast between the Spanish conquistadores, the utterly bold, de-
termined, large-minded adventurers, and the English and Dutch
colonists of the next century on the northern seaboard. These
latter had little of the conquering spirit about them. They left
their native country to better themselves in a quiet way and to trade,
and their ideas were principally limited to the unambitious parts
they had to play. Their natural leaders stayed at home to attend
to the promoting and financiering of the colonial interests instead
of leading exploring parties in the wilderness. This contrast crops
out in many ways. Governor Winthrop wanders three or four
miles away from his companions and passes an anxious night alone
in the hut of a friendly Indian. A hundred years before a Spanish
monk thought nothing of undertaking an expedition of a thousand
miles in a wild country abounding in savages, and the English
never undertook any such expedition as Coronado's march."
Mr. Packard is painfully overweighted with the consciousness of
the Puritan's shortcomings in the matter of benevolent intentions
toward the aborigines, and he endeavors to make the most of the
very slender capital their records show in this regard, though not
a little at the expense of truth and justice. Here, for instance, is
a passage which must have required some nerve to indite : "There
was one point of resemblance between the Spaniards of the six-
teenth century and the English of the seventeenth. Both felt a
responsibility for the lost souls they fancied they had found, and
were zealous for the conversion and, incidentally, the education ol
the Indians."
The evidences of such a sense of duty on the part of the early
English settlers have been, as a rule, so carefully concealed as to be
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 333
almost irrecoverable. It seems that Mr. Packard has either over-
looked or forgotten what such historians as Mr. Parkman had to
say on the subject, or else is confounding labors of the French
missionaries with the efforts of the Puritan settlers to convert bad
Indians into good by means of a well-known formula.
Great allowance must be made for a man in the position of Mr.
Packard, called upon to make out a case in favor of a system which
has little claim upon the respect or gratitude of mankind and whose
effects upon the aborigines have been much the same as those of the
Egyptian plagues. Neither salvation nor education was the mo-
tive of English action in regard to the Indian population, but some-
thing that seemed more compatible with the principles of modern
political economy. He appears to have been haunted with the
consciousness of New England shortcomings all the time he was
searching up and examining the proofs of Spain's vast services in
the other direction. There was no necessity for referring to New
England or the Dutch, so far as the reader can see. The subject
was Spain in the Spanish settlements and what Spain's priests and
educators and statesmen did therein from the time of their dis-
covery until we laid violent hands upon them. But, like the ghost
of Banquo, they will keep on looking in at the feast unbidden, even
"with twenty mortal murders on their crowns." To offset their
manifest shortcomings it is necessary to say something by way of
disparagement on the other side, lest it might feel vain-glorious over
the praise which justice had compelled at the outset. Something
is due to the spirit of the Pagan Renaissance, injured and depre-
ciated by the bare act of justice rendered a more unselfish source
of learning. Thus painfully labors Mr. Packard :
"Wherever the Spaniards went they carried the university with
them. No matter how narrow and perverted the education of the
monks may have been, there was still in it a reminiscence of the
humanities, if in nothing else than the monkish Latin they used,
and some of the conquistadores themselves were imbued with let-
ters. Even the private soldier Bernal Diaz was able to write his
recollections of the mighty deeds he had witnessed, and he left an
account which historians have used as an authoritative document.
Like superiority of birth, superior education gave (as it still gives)
an intellectual superiority of view, which was due to the European
university, whose root fibres, when traced, will be found to pene-
trate that buried civilization from which all modern civilization has
sprung, which once dominated the world with grandeur and mag-
nificence and yet filled it with beauty and taste."
Here the question arises : Was it "the humanities" which brought
the monks, with their "narrow and perverted" education, or the
334 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
monks who brought the humanities ? A tree is known by its fruits.
If a "broader" system has been at work among the aboriginal as well
as the exotic peoples brought under the sway of New England ideas,
its tangible results ought to be in evidence, either in the morals,
the literature or the institutions of the country or the manners of
its inhabitants. The Spaniard brought not only the university with
him ; the Cross was the first thing he planted on the soil. If the
conquistadore was cruel and selfish, the priest was there beside him
to stay the hand of murder and rapine and teach mankind who is
one's neighbor. This arrangement, in the eyes of political econ-
omy and the Pagan Renaissance, may appear "narrow and per-
verted," but for the Christian and the philanthropist it will serve.
Mr. Packard makes a laudable attempt at impartiality when he
comes to review the facts of the beginnings of education in the
Spanish colonies. Although he prefaces these by a very long and
analytic historical resume by the eminent authority, Blumentritt,
having little apparent relevancy to the special subject of education,
he sets out his own synopsis by a glance at the backward condition
of education in the leading European countries down to the end of
the last century. As a means of helping us to a knowledge of the
facts he offers an extract from the diary of President Ezra Stiles,
of Yale, A. D. 1794, telling how on that day (July 17) he had had
a visit from M. Talleyrand Perigord and M. Beaumez, deputy for
Arras. Talleyrand explained to him a scheme he had for public
education in France. President Stiles asked what was the propor-
tion of those who could not read in that country. M. Beaumez said
he thought twenty millions out of the twenty-five milHons of popula-
tion. Talleyrand corrected this estimate; he thought the propor-
tion was about eighteen milHons.
A Cuban gentleman, Aurelio Mitjanes, has written a history of
the development of education in that island. By its light we are
enabled to gather what the much-anathematized Spanish Govern-
ment did for the promotion of the liberal arts in the "pearl of the
Antilles," and if we contrast it with, say, what the English did in
Ireland for the same cause, within the same period, it requires no
temerity in assertion to declare that the record of Spain is one of
Boreal brilliancy beside that of the nation which this public has
been taught to regard as incomparably superior. Mitjanes' history
is founded upon two much earlier ones, those, respectively, of Arrete
and Bachiller. As early as the year 1522, or nearly a hundred years
before the University of Dublin, otherwise known as Trinity College,
was founded, a Bull of Pope Adrian VI. established the Scholatria
of Santiago de Cuba, for the teaching of Latin ; and in 1571 a school
was founded in Bayamo out of funds left by a Spanish military gen-
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 335
tleman, Captain Francesco de Paradas. At Havana, in 1689, the
College of San Ambrosio, with a dozen bursarships for the education
of young men for the Church, was established, but was ultimately
condemned by the Bishop of Havana, because it did not prove capa-
ble— probably for lack of teachers — of carrying out its programme.
At the Convent of La Merced also a chair of elocution and literature
had been founded by Fr. Jose Maria Penelvar in 1788, but this, too,
failed to reahze its object, and was ultimately relinquished.
At a time when the cause of education in Cuba seemed to be in
low water, the Jesuits appeared upon the scene and with character-
istic energy addressed themselves to the task of recovering lost
ground. The municipality of Havana early desired to have the
sers^ices of the order in the establishing of a college, but the differ-
ences between the Jesuits and the resident prelates for a long time
prevented the realization of the project. At length, in 1717, a
wealthy citizen of Havana, Don Gregorio Diaz Anget, donated forty
thousand dollars toward the establishment of a college, and seven
years afterwards the institution was opened, under the name of the
College of San Ignacio, and with it was incorporated the older foun-
dation of San Ambrosio, which, since 1689, had been carried on
tinder the management of the Jesuit order. But the desire of the
Havanese ior higher education did not stop here. To obviate the
necessity of young men of the wealthier class going to Spain to gain
the advantage of a liberal education, the City Council had, as far
back as the year 1688, appealed to the home government for a
charter for a university. The request was forwarded, with an en-
dorsement by Bishop Valdes ; but it was not until the year 1721 that
the desire was gratified. In that year there came a letter from Pope
Innocent XIII. authorizing the fathers of the Convent of San Juan
Latran to found a university. It was not, however, until seven
years later that the institution opened its doors ; but for some years
prior to that time its work was being partially done; the Domini-
cans had been teaching in the chairs of morals, philosophy and
canon law even before there was any money available for the pur-
pose. From the beginning the principal offices in the university
were given into the hands of the Dominicans, and this arrangement
was the cause of discontent and rivalry down to the year 1842. The
first rector was Father Tomas de Linares, and he received his ap'
pointment, in 1728, from the King; but all his successors were
elected in the constitutional way by the university authorities. Mr.
Packard states that the university was never very successful as to
results, and only served to enable Spain to boast that she had intro-
duced her civilization into Cuba; but he adds that in Spain itself
the university ideal was antiquated, inasmuch as it stuck to the
: , . m
336 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
Aristotelian philosophy, and the philosophical system was the scho-
lastic. We may take his opinion for what it is worth. It has to
be demonstrated yet that the Aristotelian system was inferior to the
Baconian, which was at that time the gospel of Oxford; and
if by the ''scholastic philosophy" the writer means the Thomist
system, we fear he might find some difficulty in demonstrat-
ing a superior one in any of the English or American richly-
dowered institutions. He is on more rational ground when he as-
signs as a reason for the indifferent results of the university in
Havana the dearth of competent teachers. Not many of these, it
may well be believed, were to be found in Cuba — at least in the early
days of the university. A striking instance of the extent to which
this dearth prevailed is found in the fact that the chair of mathe-
matics was for a long time vacant at Havana because there was no
competent man to fill it. Many attempts to reform the system
of the university were made from time to time, but it is said that
the Spanish Government usually threw cold water on the proposals.
This, of course, is set down as one of the sins of Spain ; but we would
ask any one who knows, and who is impartial-minded, how many
attempts were made in our own time to reform the system of Dub-
lin University and open its doors to the people at large, instead of
keeping it as a close borough and a fat prize for the favored Pro-
testant few, and in how many cases these were successful. If we
had any means of instituting a fair comparison it is likely enough
that the University of Havana might prove to have as good a record
for intellectual progress in the island as that of Dublin in Ireland.
Besides the institutions named above, there was founded also in
Santiago the Seminary of San Basilio Magno for ecclesiastical stu-
dents. This was started by the same Bishop Valdes already referred
to. Institutions somewhat but not altogether similar in their scope
were the college and seminary of San Carlos and San Ambrose, in
Havana. These had, in their later period, courses in philosophy, the-
ology, law and mathematics.
A great impetus to education and literature was given in Cuba
under the administration of Don Luis de las Casas — a generous and
enlightened administrator whose name is still held in high honor
in the island. He was the founder of a famous association for the
advancement of learning and literature, the Sociedad Economica.
His efforts were ably seconded by Archbishop Penalver and several
other men of wide reputation in different fields of letters and science.
This society was, by royal order, given charge of the educational
interests of the whole island. It received great help from the reli-
gious orders in the work of founding new schools — particularly of
the school of the Beneficenzia and the Ursulines. It found that
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 337
whatever gratuitous education was being given in places outside
Havana was altogether owing to the exertions of the religious or-
ders. The society labored in the field of secondary as well as pri-
mary education. In the year 18 16 we read that a regular depart-
ment of education was formed and a grant of $32,000 was
made by the home government in aid of primary education. We
do not believe that any other European country could be shown to
have done so much at that comparatively early period — certainly
not England, where grants for educational purposes by the State
are things of very recent date. Again, in the year 18 18, the
Spanish Government ordered that the science of political economy
be taught in all the universities, and the Sociedad Economica ac-
cordingly established a chair in the San Carlos seminary.
Political disturbances exercised later on a disastrous influence
upon education throughout the island. Still the Government from
time to time took steps to improve the general condition of educa-
tion, both primary and secondary, and to place the university courses
on a level with those at home. The practical character of the edu-
cation aimed at elicits the approbation of Mr. Packard.
Regarding primary education in Cuba, as early as the year 1821 it
was declared free and general by order of the Spanish Cortes. The
decree which made this a law ordered that a public school be estab-
lished in every town of 100 inhabitants, and that there should be
one school for every 500 inhabitants in cities. This antedated the
passage of the similar law in France by twelve years. Besides the
foregoing, the royal decree of February 23, 1883, made primary edu-
cation obligatory for all Spaniards. The fathers and guardians or
others having charge of children should send them to the public
schools from their sixth to their ninth year of age unless they gained
the same grade of instruction at home or in some private school.
As early as the year 181 3 the Spanish Cortes proposed to make
reading and writing a condition of citizenship, a measure which
excited Jefferson's admiration.
Many things conspired to hinder the spread of popular education
in Cuba. The political troubles of the island have been a serious
drawback. The natural disposition of the populace was one not
less formidable. The lower classes are indolent, and careless about
either work or education. They do not see life as people in the
United States see it. The system of large plantations, where chil-
dren were widely scattered and where large numbers of them were
found useful to their parents in field work, was particularly unfavor-
able to the spread of education. Then, again, the chronic impecuni-
osity of Spain proved a terrible stumbling-block. For months and
sometimes years there was a hiatus in the payment of teachers' sal-
33 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
aries. A still more deadly obstacle was found in the frequently-
recurring insurrections on the island. During those years of trou-
ble, the chief anxiety of the Cuban Government was to find money
for the payment of troops to put down the insurgents, and large
numbers of schools were entirely shut. What the actual condition
of elementary education now is throughout the island there is no
present means of determining.
The latest tables available for a knowledge of present conditions
relate to the year 1893-94. The population given for that year was
1,175,000. The pubHc and private schools numbered 1,255, ^^^^
the attendance in these was set down at 47,752 — a proportion of one
school to every 824 inhabitants.
Concerning the position of higher education the particulars are
more definite. The Royal University of Havana had in the year
1892 a total of 1,083 students. The expenditure in 1889 was 126,859
pesos. Much of the income was derived from fees. In 1880, for
the advancement of secondary education, an institute, incorporated
with the central one at Havana, was established in the capital of
each province. In Havana 28 colleges were affiliated ; in Matanzas,
8; in Santa Clara, 18; in Puerto Principe, i; in Pinar del Rio, 3;
in Santiago, 12. Besides these there is a superior normal school for
male teachers, another for female teachers, a "professional" school
in Havana, a provincial school for artisans, a large number of "col-
leges for primary instruction" for boys and girls and Sunday schools
for poor servant girls and other young women. Thus it will be seen
that for higher and secondary education generous provision was made.
On this subject a writer in the National Quarterly Review in 1866
said: "Far from being behind the age in the provision which it
made for education, there is not one of our cities, not even the
modern Athens, which excels it in that respect. Boston, Philadel-
phia, New York and one or two other American cities have, indeed,
better public schools than Havana. They afford better facilities
for the education of the poor. But the higher educational institu-
tions of Havana are on an extensive and liberal scale. We must
admit on due examination that we have no institutions that are
equal to their free school of design and painting, or their free school
of mathematics. The professors in each of these schools have been
selected for their superior qualifications in different countries of
Europe, a large proportion of them being Germans, French and
Italians. If it still seems incredible that Havana has some educa-
tional institutions which are superior to those of Boston or New
York, we ask is the fact more incredible that the same city has a
fine botanical garden in which botany is taught in all its branches
by professors who have graduated at the famous Jardin des Plantes,
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 339
in Paris, and other similar schools, while we have no botanical gar-
den worthy of the name ? The capital of Cuba has also a first-class
university, one which may be compared to that of the city of New
York, and which has separate chairs for jurisprudence, medicine,
chemistry, theology, comparative anatomy and agricultural botany."
In Havana, as in most other large Catholic centres, the Jesuits lead
in the work. Mr. James Anthony Froude went to Havana in 1887,
and thus describes a visit to the Jesuit college of that city and its
famous observatory, conducted at that time by the eminent Father
Viiiez: "They have a college there where there are 400 lads and
young men who pay for their education; some hundreds more are
taken out of charity. The Jesuits conduct the whole, and do it all
unaided on their own resources. And this is far from all that they
do. They keep on a level with the age ; they are men of learning ;
they are men of science ; they are the royal society of Cuba. They
have an observatory in the college, and the Father Vifiez, of whom I
have spoken, is in charge of it. His name is familiar to students
of meteorological science, and he has supplemented and corrected
the accepted law of storms by careful observation of West India
hurricanes."
One of the most usual bills of indictment brought against the
rule of Spain is her alleged neglect of the education of people
brought under her dominion. Looking at the situation in Cuba as
a whole, and taking into account the conditions which have pre-
vailed there, the charge falls to the ground. Free popular educa-
tion is an idea of modern days. It did not begin to be realized in
the most progressive countries until very recently. Spain appears
to have been as early in the field with it as any other power, and
if local circumstances interfered with her purposes, it is not fair to
lay the blame altogether upon her shoulders. Again contrasting
the rule of England in Ireland with that of Spain in Cuba, it will
be found that down to the middle of the last century the position
of the Irish masses as regards education must have been on a par
with that of Cuba, for all the Government did for them, were it
not for the splendid services of the Christian Brothers. There were
no public schools until after 1840, and these when started had so
strong an anti-Catholic bias that the people shunned them. As for
higher education, there is no comparison whatever possible between
the two cases. To the present hour the British Government stub-
bornly refuses to propose a grant for a Catholic university, or to give
any support whatever to higher education for Catholic purposes.
Bearing in mind the slow pace of general education on the two
great continents and the European islands which lead the way, no
one will be astonished to read of Puerto Rico that until the year
340
American Catholic Quarterly Review.
1837 education of all kinds was greatly neglected, and that many of
the towns were without a primary school. The same thing might
be written with perfect truth of many countries whose geographical
position was a million times more favorable for the reception of the
early impulses of the" mind-wave which breathed over the world only
when the eighteenth century had passed into the vortex of the had-
been. But what does really astonish one to read is that in that re-
mote dependency, where plantation life and agricultural pursuits
formed a constant clog on intellectual effort, by the year 1861 there
was in every town in it a public school, besides private ones in the
towns of the higher grade ! There were no fewer than six public
schools in the one town of San Juan in that year, besides four pri-
vate ones, together with a seminary which boasted of three pro-
fessorships, with teachers of French, English, mathematics and de-
sign. In the year 1879 Don Manuel Quinisna y Corton published a
text book on Puerto Rico in which he gave particulars of the school
conditions, there being at the time an estimated population of seven
hundred thousand on the island, one-half being whites, the rest pre-
sumably plantation negroes. In that year there were three hundred
and sixty-three public schools in operation, with an attendance of
more than twelve thousand pupils. Various tables and statements re-
garding the rate of educational progress are presented in the Report
now under consideration, some representing the condition of affairs
as deplorable, others putting forth such facts and figures as are
calculated to produce the very contrary impression. The impartial
reader, after weighing the contradictory testimony, cannot, how-
ever, resist the conviction that from the period when the educational
impulse was first felt in Puerto Rico — namely, about the year 1861 —
down to the time when it passed from under the dominion of Spain,
the rate of progress has been tolerably good. A brief tabular state-
ment from the report of the Governor of the island, through his
secretary, to the Madrid Government, covering the period from 1864
to 1881, will give a better idea of the energy with which the move-
ment was taken up once a beginning had been made :
Year.
1864
1867
1869
1878
1880
Public Schools.
Attendance
Boys I Girls | Total I Boys | Girls | Total
74
240
246
238
328
48
56
67
91
104
122 I
296 I
329 I
2,396
7,543
6,192
7,523
432 I 10,736
1,0921 3,488
1,929! 9,472
1,937 I 8,129
3,474 I 11,097
4,482 1 15,218
Expendi-
tures.
36,857
90,834
88,133
129,456
191,158
262,669
1881 I 384 I 117 I 501 I 18,025 I 6,095 I 24,120
There is a big'hiatus in the official reports — from what cause does
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 341
not appear — nothing being shown in the way of school statistics
from 1 88 1 down to 1898, when Dr. Carbonnell, secretary of an in-
stitution called "Fomento," in Puerto Rico, prepared some for the
United States Government. His figures give a total of five hundred
and ten public schools and forty-four private ones, with a total at-
tendance of twenty-eight thousand, and entailing a total outlay of
over three hundred thousand pesos. The number of children
(white and black) left without school accommodation in the same
year was close on ninety-four thousand. In considering the large
disproportion of children thus left out in the cold, so far as school
was concerned, we must not forget the fact that the war with Spain
had arisen to disturb conditions in the island, and that with the
cessation of the Spanish system came a breakdown in various
sources of sustenance for the public schools as well as for religious
and charitable purposes. There had been more agencies at work,
however, for the education of the people of Puerto Rico than those
enumerated in these tables. In a work published in 1878 by Don
Manuel Ubeda y Delgado, a Spanish military officer, we read :
"In the capital also we find several charitable institutions where
gratuitous instruction is given, notably (i) the Casa de Beneficencia,
constructed in 1841-1847 with donations from the people of the
province, and which gives asylum to an average number of 140
boys and 120 girls, who are given primary instruction as well as
taught music and for whom there are workshops in which they
are taught shoemaking, carpenter work, tailoring and cigar making
for boys, and" needle work, washing, etc., for the girls, under the
direction of eighteen Sisters of Charity. (2) The College of San
Ildefonso, erected by the charitable efforts of benevolent bodies,
occupies a vast edifice, in which poor girls to the number of 36 are
educated up to the age of 20 years, and there is room for 24 boarders
besides outside scholars, all under the direction of the Sisters of
Charity. Under their guidance also is the school for infants, in
which an average number of 150 children of both sexes are in-
structed, the age limit being from three to seven years. There is
klso a military school with the captain general as director and the
chief of battalion occupying the barracks as sub-director."
True to their policy of always leading the van, the Jesuits appear
to have been foremost in the work of education in Puerto Rico from
an early period. Their professors taught in the college of secondary
instruction, and with the most excellent results. Those who took
the degree of bachelor of arts in this institution, remarked Don
Manuel Ubeda y Delgado, ranked with the best of those who enter
universities. The list of studies he enumerates shows, indeed, that
the intellectual fences to be taken by the contestant were high stone
342 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
walls and water jumps. They included Latin and Spanish gram-
mar ; Latin analysis and translation ; Greek translation ; psychology,
logic and moral philosophy ; rhetoric and poetry ; Christian doctrine
and sacred history; Spanish history, descriptive geography; Latin
and Spanish composition; general history; arithmetic and algebra;
elements of geometry and plane trigonometry; elements of physics
and chemistry; outlines of natural history.
A tolerably good attempt at both trivium and quadrivium, one
may say, looking over this programme of essentials. Besides the
college wherein these studies were carried on, the Jesuit professors
also conducted a special seminary wherein a few students were
trained for particular professions.
In any exegesis of the educational conditions of Cuba and Puerto
Rico account must be taken of the indolent character of the Creole
population. Temperament has much to do with the natural desire
for intellectual advancement. A proof of the enormous power of
this sort of vis inertm is found in the small attendance of children
in the Puerto Rican schools, even now that the law of compulsory
education is supposed to be operative.
It is useful here to pause and contrast, so far as the relative con-
ditions enable us to contrast, the efforts which Spain made to edu-
cate her colonial Indian population with those made by England
among similar populations elsewhere. England has been nearly as
long the dominant power in the East Indies as the Spaniards had
been in the Western ones when we expelled them. It is remarked
by Professor Reimer, in a paper on "Education in India" given in
the same Report, that England paid no attention to the educational
status of her dependency until the year 1781, when Warren Hastings,
the notorious Governor General, founded the Calcutta Madrasa for
the education of Mahommedans, and incidentally gave some help
toward educating Eurasians and Hindoos. The world has been
making gigantic strides forward in the same direction since then,
but it can hardly be said that either the East India Company or its
successor, the British Government, did much to enable the Indian
people to keep pace with the leaders. There is not even now any
general system of education, nor any compulsory law of school
attendance. No doubt there are peculiar difficulties in the way,
owing to the multiplicity of races, religions, philosophical systems
and languages, and, most formidable of all, the all-pervading and
all-paralyzing caste system. But this apology or excuse may be
met with the rejoinder that where it has been found feasible, with
all these difficulties, to establish a generally operative and uniform
system of taxation for revenue purposes, it ought not to be found
altogether impracticable to provide for the public school. But how
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 343
disproportionate to the magnitude of the object were the efforts
made by the British rulers of India may be gleaned from the few
facts on the present situation set forth synoptically by Professor
Riemer :
"From the census of 18 13 it was discovered that on the average
in British territory one person in thirty-nine, including women, could
read. In the native States of Northwestern India in 1849, before
England annexed those provinces, one in forty-one males could
read.
"In the year 1822 Sir T. Munro, then governor of Madras Presi-
dency, distressed at the rapid decline of literature and the arts, began
a series of investigations in his province on educational lines. From
his report, made in 1826, we give this summary: The number of
schools and colleges, so called, in the Presidency is 12,498 and the
population is 12,850,941, which supplies a school for every 1,000
people. But the governor argues that half the people are women,
who are not regarded by the Hindoos as proper subjects of educa-
tion, so that existing schools are in the ratio of one to every 500 of
the people.
"The Board of Revenue, commenting on this matter, concluded
that only one in sixty-seven of the population is receiving any edu-
cation whatever. It then proceeds to halve the population, enu-
merating only males, then it reckons only those boys between the
ages of five and ten years, or school age, then it adds the number
of private pupils discovered by the census, and thus makes as its
final result that one boy out of three of school age is receiving in-
sttuction. Naturally we demur at such juggling with figures.
"Later investigations were made by Lords Bentinck and Elphin-
stone in the Calcutta and Bombay Presidencies. The general result
arrived at by these worthy investigators was that on the average
about one boy out of every ten of the proper age was, in 1820-1840,
receiving some kind of indigenous education."
Much is now being heard in the way of comparison between the
civilizing power of England and that of any other of the colonizing
nations. We may very well place the policy of the much-anathe-
matized Spaniard beside that of the Englishman on many matters
connected with relation to outside races, and ask any candid critic
which of the two really deserves to be regarded as an exponent of
civilization. That much-abused word should never be judged by iso-
lated instances, but from the plane of broad historical permanency.
Not long ago an unimpeachable Irish witness, Mr. Alfred Webb,
making a tour of India, found in many hotels a notice hung on the
wall requesting guests "not to beat the servants" — a striking com-
ment upon the present attitude of the people who for three hundred
344 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
years have been introducing the ways of European refinement into
the Indian peninsula. In all the countries settled by Spain, on the
other hand, the absence of distinctive barriers between the different
races is the chief fact which challenges the attention and compels the
admiration of every truth-seeking traveler. The bringing about of
such a state of mutual contentment among different races was in
itself an educational achievement, if the end of education be to
soften natural antagonisms and allay the jealousies and suspicions
of man toward his fellow. Not the faintest notion of striving for
such a result has the British Government, so far as India is con-
cerned, ever entertained. The mutual hatred of the different races,
the scorn of caste toward caste — the irreconcilable feuds of moun-
tain tribes — these discords are her towers of strength and imperial
citadel.
Perhaps the paper devoted to the Philippines is the most valu-
able of Mr. Packard's trilogy, as indicating the frame of mind in
which he approached the general subject. The postscript, as in a
good many other cases of literary composition, contains the motive
of the whole. The author concludes that "the few Spaniards in
the Philippines, while they have not made a radical or decided
change in the customs and habits of thought of the natives, have
nevertheless imposed their religion upon them to a considerable
extent, have taxed them successfully and have them under military
control." This is one of the conclusions arrived at, and before pro-
ceeding to examine any of the others, it is useful to take the fore-
going sentence asunder and observe the volume of self-stultificatory
assertions it succeeds in cramming into a couple of score words.
How can it be possible, one may ask, to impose a new religion like
the Christian upon a people formerly steeped in paganism without
making a radical change in at least their "habits of thought ?" Of
tlie "customs" of such a people there can be nothing useful said,
since of what these customs were previous to the arrival of the
Spaniards there is nothing known beyond the broad facts that slavery
was an institution in the archipelago, that piracy prevailed wherever
opportunity presented itself, that the natives worshiped sun,
moon and stars, thunder and lightning, the trees, the rocks, the
rivers and springs, the sea, the clouds and other things of nature.
But these general statements give no clue to the customs which
pertained to institutions and beliefs. In the absence of such knowl-
edge it is safer to say that if the Spaniards succeeded in imposing
their religion upon such a people, they made as radical a change
in their "customs," when these included barbarity and immorality,
as they did in their habits of thought. The Spaniards might not
have atternpied to break down the rude political system — a sort of
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 345
tribal one — which they foujid existing in the islands when they
came ; but we have unquestionable evidence, in the shape of numer-
ous royal decrees on the subject, that the first great reform to
which the Government devoted its attention was the abolition of
slavery in the archipelago, so far as their jurisdiction extended. In
the voluminous evidence cited by Mr. Packard as proof of their
action this fact is more than once prominently brought forward.
How any dispassionate chronicler can reconcile such a reform with
the statement that no change of any consequence followed the in-
troduction of Spanish rule and the Spanish religion it is not easy
to divine. It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that such clumsy
reasoning is the consequence of a desire to make wild theories of
prejudiced and ill-informed writers fit in with the indisputable
facts of the present situation in the Philippines, both as to
religion and education. It is the old hackneyed myth, so
often urged by jaundiced rivals, that the great spiritual conquests of
Loyola, Xavier and the illustrious bands who followed in these
great souls' wake were mere slapdash feats — baptism without in-
struction, alteration without conversion. One of the authors relied
upon by Mr. Packard (Semper: "Die Philippinen und ihre Bew-
ohner") puts this scandalous charge very plainly in the case of the
islanders. "The ceremonial of the monks," he says, "appealed for
several reasons to the imagination of the natives, and they were
eager to adopt or assimilate the religion which it represented. With
comparatively few exceptions they have never understood the sym-
bolism, but have remained half Christian and half pagan to this day."
Many other authorities are cited by Mr. Packard in support of
this favorite theory of Spanish success in the conversion and civili-
zation of aboriginal races. It is needless here to adduce more.
What we have reproduced serves to indicate the spirit in which he
has approached his subject. Weighing it all and recalling the fact
that the grand ruling principle in most American pedagogic minds
in the secular world is the dissociation of religion from education,
one is naturally inclined to ask why it is that in this inquiry so
much care is taken to implicate one with the other, as if in the
writer's mind they are and should be interdependent, the sins of
the one being traceable to the inactivity or neglect of the other?
But in refutation of the charge that the religion of the mass of the
Philippine islanders is only skin-deep, we may appeal to one preg-
nant sentence from a Protestant writer, Mr. Peyton, of the Brother-
hood of St. Andrew, who recently returned from a considerable tour
of the region : "They are the most religious and moral people in
all the world."
When one takes into consideration the numerous formidable
346 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
obstacles which had to be surmounted by those heroic religious
who undertook the civilizing of the Philippine tribes, even the most
prejudiced must admit that the results are astonishing. The tribute
paid by Mr. Peyton is perhaps the highest that can be extorted, if
we concede that the chief end of education ought to be to make peo-
ple exemplary in their lives and pious in their hearts. Letters are
but a means to this end — in themselves valueless, save as stepping-
stones to the higher life of thought and spirit. The distinguished
German ethnologist, Blumentritt, who made a prolonged study of
the Filipinos, arrives at the conclusion that inherently they pos-
sessed a high capacity for education, and rates their intellectual
qualities above those of the best race of American Indians. This
fact explains in some measure the very large percentage of the Fili-
pino masses who are able to read and write. No doubt this high
natural capacity was greatly favorable to the religious orders when
they set about their task of instructing the natives ; but over against
this advantage must be placed the obstacle arising from the multi-
tude of dialects spoken in the archipelago. These dialects — or more
properly speaking, languages — are no fewer than thirty-one. The
seemingly partial writer previously quoted (Semper) asserts that
before the Spaniards came the natives could read and write in alpha-
bets of their own, and that consequently the task of teaching them
was easy. He does not adduce any authority for this statement,
and the reader is therefore entitled to take it at his own valuation.
Seeing that Semper also tries to show that the conversion of the
natives to Christianity was little more than the giving new names
to old forms of pagan superstition, one is justified in attributing a
jaundiced motive to his writings on religion and education in Cath-
olic countries. The large percentage of natives who availed them-
selves of the secondary schools and the university, as soon as the
Spaniards placed such superior facilities within their grasp, confutes
the argument of Blumentritt (who, too, seems utterly unable to say
a good word for Catholicity or Spain) that ''the whole Spanish
colonial system signifies a policy which makes great promises and
wakens ambition, but does not keep its promises and disappoints
the aroused ambition." From the Philippine colleges and universi-
ties have come forth many bright living refutations of that invidious
charge. The author who advances it himself furnishes the names of
the most illustrious — statesmen and soldiers like Dr. Rizal, Marcelo
H. del Pilar, Mariano Ponce; artists like Juan Luna y Novicio,
whose great painting, "Spoliarium," was reproduced in the Leipzig
lUustrirte Zeitung; ethnographers like Isabel de los Reyos y Floren-
tino, and linguists like Pedro Serrano Laktar — men whose reputa-
tion is world-wide amongst learned circles.
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonies. 347
As in South America, the first thing to which the Spanish re-
ligious orders devoted themselves, beside the salvation of souls, was
the erection of the school house and the establishment of the college.
Mr. Packard quotes from numerous authoritative works an array
of facts which speak eloquently for the sincerity and celerity of the
Spanish orders in the prosecution of this noble aim. He shows how
early the work was begun, after the establishment of Spanish rule,
which could not be said to be permanently done until the close of
the sixteenth century; yet as early as the year 1585 the Spanish
King ordered that a college should be established in which the
sons of the Spaniards of the archipelago could be educated under
the direction of the Jesuits, but the institution — the college of San
Jose — was not opened until 1601. Its first students were sons or
relations of the early authorities of the country. In 1630 the col-
lege of San Juan Latran was founded by a charitable individual for
the orphans of Spaniards. The founder became a Dominican, and
the institution remained in charge of that order. Besides the
orphans, a large number of boarders, both "Indians" and mestizas,
received instruction there until both it and the college of San Jose
were included in the institute in 1870. In 1632 the college of San
Isabel, for Spanish orphan girls, was founded, in charge of the Sis-
ters of Charity. In 1694 a mestiza named Ignacia del Espiritu
Santo founded the Beaterio de la Compafiia, which still exists, and
which was soon attended by many Indian girls and mestizas. , Other
beaterios came into existence later. The convent school Santa
Potenciana was founded as early as 1589. The college of Santo
Tomas was founded by the Dominicans in 161 1 and was formally
opened in 1619. Pope Innocent X. conferred the title of university
upon it in 1645 with the two faculties of theology and arts, which
were subsequently enlarged by Clement XII. by the addition of the
faculty of law in 1734. The King became the protector of the uni-
versity in 1680, and it received the additional title of "royal" in 1785.
Its courses and faculties were reorganized in 1870 with the title of
University of the Philippines. It had 581 students in 1845 ^.nd
nearly 1,000 in 1858. Senor Agoncillo, representative of Aguinaldo,
the insurgent leader, himself a graduate of the university, says that
the total number of graduates is 11,000.
As in every other place where they established themselves, the
Jesuit Fathers were foremost in the great work of education. They
had set up in Manila and Cavite four colleges, one each in Cebu,
Mindanao and Iloilo and two in the Marianne Islands, when the
order was expelled in 1767. They were reinstated in 1862 and have
now a dozen colleges in charge. Besides they supervise the scien-
tific department of the renowned University of Manila. The ob-
348 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
servatory there is one of the most valuable institutions of its kind in
the whole world. The work done in this establishment would in
itself furnish material for several articles; hence it must for the
present suffice to mention it merely here.
Regarding the condition of primary instruction in the Philip-
pines, while no specific data regarding its present working are
available, the fact that Semper finds that "every village in the prov-
ince has its public school" speaks volumes. The larger towns ap-
pear to have an abundance of schools. That these schools are pre-
sided over by the local priests, of course affords to this and other
writers a source of complaint, although for what reason it is not
deemed necessary to say. To writers of this bias there is no
virtue in any teaching that is not wholly secular.
The latest date at which any statistical information regarding the
public schools was obtainable was the year 1890. Then there were
in operation 1,016 schools for boys and 592 for girls in the Philip-
pine archipelago, with a total attendance of 98,761 boys and 78,352
girls. That the boys and girls are not educated in the same build-
ings appears to be another grievance in the minds of secular com-
mentators. The government, in the year named, appropriated the
sum of $404,731 for public education.
Besides primary, intermediate and university education provision
was made by the Spanish Government for other special lines. By
royal decree of October i, 1890, the School of Arts and Sciences
was established at Manila. Here were taught languages, book-'
keeping, higher mathematics, chemistry, natural history, mechanics,
political economy, mercantile and industrial legislation, drawing,
modeling, engraving, wood carving and all the trades. A school
of agriculture was established at Manila July 2, 1889, for the pur-
pose of giving such natives as had acquired a common school train-
ing a theoretical and practical education in agriculture and horticul-
ture. Similar schools were also established in the provinces of
Isabela de Luzon, Ilocos, Albay, Cebu, Iloilo, Mindanao, Leyte and
Jalo. They were supported entirely by the government and man-
aged by the clergy.
From this necessarily brief summary it will be easily discerned
that no charge of neglect in the field of education, so far as the Phil-
ippines are concerned, lies at the door of the power which until
lately ruled over them. Whatever the faults of the Spanish colonial
system, no one can charge that it endeavored to keep the light of
knowledge from the aborigine or degrade him because of the color
of his skin.
It cannot but be admitted that the Commissioner of Education is
fully sensible of the magnitude of the work done by those who
University and School in the Late Spanish Colonics. 349
brought this civiHzation to the Philippines, though he is conserva-
tive in his comments upon the subject. He makes a number of
recommendations respecting the hues upon which the work should
be taken up by the American Government, and we have no doubt
that his views will carry weight. The general principles he lays
down do not exclude religion from the purview of the pedagogue.
The ends of civilization, for instance, he thus summarizes :
''Civilization enables man to conquer nature and make it his ser-
vant ; to command the services of heat, light, electricity and of all
inorganic elements ; to command the plant world of vegetation for
his uses ; to command also the animal kingdom for the same service ;
in short, to command the services of nature for food, clothing and
shelter. Besides this control over nature, civilization should give
man access to the history of his race, access to its literature, access
to its scientific discoveries, access to its various inventions, and,
above all, access to its moral and religious ideals. Civilization, in
short, should give man command of the earth and likewise com-
mand of the experience of the entire race. This shows the goal
ahead of us and not merely our partial realizations."
The clause here italicized (by us) is very significant. "Above all"
the moral and religious ideals of a people are those barred out by
the public school policy of this country, so far as the school house
is concerned. They may be striven for outside by the pupils and
their friends, if they are desired ; but if they are not, they may be
relegated to the planet Mars. They had full place in all the Span-
ish system, and the effect of this generous policy is seen in the splen-
did moral qualities of the people of the Philippine archipelago. Will
our Government have the wisdom to follow this large-minded pol-
icy ? Will it have the courage to shake itself free from the fetish of
secularism and allow those Catholic peoples, who have been always
accustomed to the name of the Deity and all holy things in their
school houses, to continue this salutary system ? This is the ques-
tion which demands more judgment and statesmanship than that of
tariffs, taxation or navigation laws. It will not do to insist that
"American" principles must determine it. While it is proposed to
omit American principles from the form of civil government about
to be introduced in those possessions, no one can consistently de-
mand that such principles shall be imposed in the sole matter of the
people's education ; for such a course would be merely to stultify
those who would have the hardihood to propose it.
John J. O'Shea.
Philadelphia.
350 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
THE STORY OF THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION.
I. LOWERING CLOUDS.
IN a former number of this Review the present writer endeavored
to show that the movement known as the Reformation of
Rehgion in Scotland was principally political rather than reli-
gious. It was pointed out that Henry VIII. and the traitor nobles
of Scotland plotted in concert to serve their individual ends, and
that the weak party of reformers were enabled to work the mischief
they had in view under shelter of their powerful and unscrupulous
patrons in the temporal order.
The havoc they wrought is evident to this day; yet how it was
brought about, considering the means employed, cannot but be
matter for surprise. There is little doubt that the reforming party
alone would never have been successful without the help of the
nobles; while these latter were the hands as compared with the
directing brain power — brute force, incompetent if not guided. Yet
still there remains scope for wonder that, spite of even the most
powerful means, a whole nation could be turned as one man to
execrate what they had hitherto held sacred; as though another
and an unholy Remigius had mockingly repeated that historic
apothegm, "Burn what thou hast hitherto worshiped: adore what
thou hast hitherto burned."
Not that the whole nation did so turn ; the sequel will witness to
the contrary ; yet to the superficial reader of history — especially as
set forth by Protestant historians — it would appear as though it
really did. So seemingly sudden and so appalling the catastrophe
that the mind stands aghast at the contemplation of it. For, grantT
ing that the Scottish nation as a whole were not willingly and
easily led into deadly heresy, yet it is beyond dispute that the re-
formers, in the long run, won over both a powerful and a numerous
following.
What, then, was the reason of this apparently sudden change?
It was not so much that the doctrines promulgated during the
Reformation period were welcomed ^yith avidity by the people as
that the teaching of Knox and his fellows fructified speedily in a
soil already prepared by heretics of a century earlier. This is a
fact to be steadily borne in mind, for it helps to explain what would
otherwise be inexplicable.
The history of England abundantly testifies that the first serious
revolt against the authority of the Catholic Church was that insti-
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 351
tuted by Wickliffe and his Lollards. The principles which these
heretics introduced blossomed eventually into the overthrow of reli-
gion under Henry VIII. "Out of the floating mass of opinion
which bore the name of Lollardry," says Green, "one great faith
gradually evolved itself, a faith in the sole authority of the Bible
as a source of religious truth."^ For it should be borne in mind
that in spite of continued repression the heresy of Wickliffe con-
tinued to flourish in England up to the Reformation itself. Speak-
ing of the reign of Henry VI., the historian already quoted remarks :
"Lollardry still lived, in spite of steady persecution, as a spirit of
religious and moral revolt."^ Lingard, referring to Henry VIII.,
says : "In his third and thirteenth year the teachers of Lollardism
had awakened by their intemperance the zeal of the bishops."^ But
better proof than all, Protestants such as Foxe in England and Knox
in Scotland gloried in claiming the Lollard "martyrs" as their
pioneers in the diffusion of "gospel light." Of this, more hereafter.
The precise period at which the Lollards gained a hearing in
Scotland is not evident. "The seeds of freedom'' as Froude puts
it, "were scattered simultaneously in England and Scotland, and
the initial symptoms of growth in both countries are visible to-
gether."* It seems not unlikely that some of the preachers of this
heresy came to Scotland in the train of the Duke of Lancaster, their
patron, who was compelled to seek refuge in Edinburgh at the time
of Wat Tyler's insurrection, in 138 1. If such were the case, the
favorers of Lollardism followed out their opinions in secret for
some years ; for it was not until 1407 that they dared to promulgate
their errors more openly.
It was during the regency of the Duke of Albany, while the
young monarch James I. was being detained at the court of Henry
IV., that the English priest, John Resby, was denounced to the
ecclesiastical authorities as a teacher of heresy. A council of clergy
under Lawrence of Lindores, a distinguished doctor of theology,
proceeded to examine the case. Resby was charged with having
upheld forty erroneous propositions. Bower, the historian, only
specifies two of these — that the Pope de facto was not the Vicar of
Christ, and that no one could be Christ's Vicar who was not a man
of personal sanctity. From other sources we learn that he denied
the Sacrament of Penance and necessity of confession. Lindores
is allowed by even Protestant historians to have successfully refuted
the arguments of the heretic, and since Resby refused to recant, he
was handed over to the secular power. The regent is described by
Wyntoun thus :
1 "Short History of the English People," chap, v., sect. v. * Ibid, chaj
* " History of England," vol, y., p. 113. * Froude : " History of England," vol
sect. V. * Ibid, chap, vi., sect. i.
iv., p. 57-
352 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
" He wes a constant Catholyke ;
All lyOllard he hatyt and heretike.'"'
It is, therefore, not surprising that Resby underwent the recog-
nized punishment of the law as it then existed, and was burnt at the
stake at Perth, together with his condemned books and writings.
As this was the first instance of the infliction of capital punish-
ment for heresy in Scotland — for it seems probable that legislation
on the subject had only recently been made, following the example
set by England — it may be well to discuss briefly a mode of pro-
ceeding which has been so severely criticized by Protestant writers.
Some of these seem to lose sight of the fact that at the age in
question the crime of heresy was universally held as deserving the
extreme penalty of the law, and that not only by Catholics, but by
Protestants as well. If Lollards and Lutherans suffered under the
Lancastrians and the Tudors, so also did Catholics under Tudors
and Stuarts. It is, therefore, unfair to judge the matter from the
point of view of the present century, when men's feelings, princi-
ples and ideas are all opposed to the theory of punishing spiritual
offenses by secular penalties. Men, their manners and institutions
can only be rightly judged by the standard of their own times, and
at the period in question the justice of the practice of treating what
was regarded as heresy as a crime against society was recognized
everywhere.
Not that all men in those days advocated the extreme penalty in
such cases as most expedient; we have instances to the contrary.
When, for example, in Mary's reign the old laws against Lollards
were revived and put into execution, Alphonso di Castro, a Spanish
friar and Philip's own confessor, dared to raise his voice in protest.
In a sermon preached before the court he denounced the handing
over of heretics to the civil power as contrary to the spirit and text
of the Gospel. By mildness, not by severity, the intrepid preacher
declared, were men to be brought back to Christ's fold.^
Such sentiments would meet with the approbation of both Cath-
olic and Protestant in these days, and yet, after all, they justify no
one in the wholesale condemnation of men who acted according to
the principles in vogue at the period in which they lived. Surely
Protestant bigotry has much to do with the sweeping denunciations
of the burners of heretics ; for in a Protestant land such as England,
as late as the reign of George III., the crime of stealing a sum of
money greater than one shilling was actually punishable with hang-
ing ; yet the fact has scarcely provoked comment.
Again, it is a manifest injustice to judge the conduct of Cath-
olics with regard to religious toleration by the standard of Protestant
6 " Cronykil," bk ix., 1. 2773. « I4ngard : " History of England," vol. v., chap, vi., p, 469.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 353
principles. Catholics recognize the doctrinal authority of the
Church as one which all are bound to obey; Protestants allow no
such authority in this world. In the case of a Catholic, every wilful
departure from the fixed standard of truth is a culpable error which
deserves punishment; according to Protestant principles, the only
standard of truth and falsehood as regards faith is the opinion of
each individual. In the one case, a theory of punishments for such
offenses is at least conceivable ; in the other, it is a contradiction of
fundamental principle. But enough has been said on the subject to
justify a practice always condemned with more or less vehemence
by Protestants, and treated with reticence by timid Catholics.
The execution of the heretic Resby did not, unfortunately, pre-
vent the spread of Lollard doctrines. The University of St. An-
drews found it necessary, in 141 6, to impose upon masters of arts an
oath to defend the Church against the attempts of the Lollards;
later on, in 1425, Parliament passed a special act against the sec-
taries. Legislation, however, had no power against the spirit that
was abroad. Bower tells us that the doctrines which Resby had
preached were secretly cherished by his disciples, only to reappear
later on in renewed strength. In 1433 ^ second preacher suffered
the fate of Resby. This was Paul Crawar, a Bohemian, who, under
cloak of exercising his profession of physician, came to Scotland to
carry on the teaching which Resby had been instrumental in spread-
ing so widely. Arrested in his turn and arraigned before the eccle-
siastical authorities, he proved an able and courageous defender of
his views and an acute opponent of the learned Lawrence of Lin-
dores. As Crawar obstinately refused to give up his erroneous
opinions, he also was handed over to the civil power, and was led
to the stake at St. Andrews. The Bishops of Glasgow and Moray,
the Abbot of Arbroath and many Scottish nobles had only lately
returned from attendance at the Council of Basle, where the errors
of Wickliflfe and Huss had received special condemnation, and this
fact probably tended to rouse the prelates of the Church to fresh
vigilance and zeal in the suppression of heresy.
In 1494 we hear of the renewal of proceedings against Lollards.
The district of Kyle, in the Diocese of Glasgow, became notorious
from the prevalence of heretical teaching, and thirty persons, includ-
ing several women, were summoned before Archbishop Blackadder,
their diocesan, to give an account of their belief. Knox, who had
access to records of the process which have since been lost, enu-
merates thirty-four charges brought against them. From these it
is evident that their belief was practically identical with that of
Lutherans. They are accused of denying the Real Presence in the
Holy Eucharist and the necessity and value of sacramental con-
354 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
t'ession, of refusing to allow prayers to the Blessed Virgin and the
saints, of forbidding any honor to be shown to rehcs or images, of
maintaining that priests ought to marry and of using scandalous
and irreverent language concerning the Pope, bishops and clergy.
Some quotations from these charges, which are often interlarded with
abusive remarks by Knox himself, will give an idea of the spirit of
these heretics, with whom the later reformers were proud to iden-
tify themselves/ Here are some of them :
"That every faithful man or woman is a priest."
"That the Pope is not the successor of Peter, but where he said
'Go behind me, Satan.' "
"That the Pope exalts himself against <^od and above God."
"That the Pope is the head of the Kirk of Antichrist."
"That the Pope and his ministers are murderers of souls."
"That the blessings of bishops (of dumb dogs they should have
been styled) are of no value." (The interpolation is Knox's own.)
"That they which are called princes and prelates in the Church
are thieves and robbers."
"That Christ at His coming hath taken away power from kings
to judge."^
The spokesman of the party, Adam Reid, seems to have defended
his belief and that of his companions with much skill. For some
reason, which has never been explained, the Lollards were not pun-
ished, but merely cautioned "to take heed of new doctrines and con-
tent themselves with the faith of the Church."^ Knox relates a
dialogue between them and the King (James IV.), which even a
Protestant historian casts doubt upon. "The scoffing remarks of
the accused as given by Knox," says Grub, "could hardly have been
tolerated by King James, and, it is to be hoped, are exaggerated in
the narrative. "^^
No more notice seems to have been taken of Lollards or their
doctrines, and for the next thirty years nothing is heard of them.
But, unhap])ily, heresy was to raise its head still more defiantly and
to prove itself an adversary to be feared. As early as 1525 it was
found necessary to pass an act of Parliament forbidding the impor-
tation of Lutheran books into the kingdom ; for constant intercourse
with the continent had brought the tenets of the German reformer
before the notice of the educated. The first to preach publicly the
new error, which seems to have long been spreading secretly among
a considerable number of the community, especially in the northern
^ " By these articles, which God of His merciful providence caused the enemies of His
truth to keep in their registers, may appear how mercifully God hath looked upon this
realm, retaining within it some spark of His light, even in the time of greatest darkness."
Knox: "History of the Reformation," (ed. 1644), p. 54. 8 jbid. ^ Spottiswood : " History
of the Church of Scotland," Vol. I., p. 121. 10 << Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," Vol. !.•
p. 389 (note.)
The Story of the Scottish Re format ion. 355
part of the kingdom, was Patrick Hamilton. He was connected
both with the royal family and with the powerful house of Arran.
In early youth, according to the prevailing custom, he was made
titular Abbot of Feme ; but there is no direct evidence, beyond the
assertion of Frith, the English reformer, that he was ever ordained
priest; indeed, his youth would seem to militate against the possi-
bility, for he was not twenty-five when he died. Being suspected
of heretical leanings, he judged it prudent to leave the country,
and entered the University of Wittenberg. Here he made the ac-
quaintance of Luther and Melancthon and became an enthusiastic
convert to Protestantism. Returning to his native country, he
began energetically to promulgate the doctrines he had ac-
cepted.
It was not long before his zeal brought him before the notice of
Archbishop James Beaton, the Primate, and Hamilton was sum-
moned before an ecclesiastical tribunal at St. Andrews. He was
accused of holding, among others, the following heretical tenets:
That the corruption of sin remains in infants after baptism; that
man is justified by faith alone ; that auricular confession is not neces-
sary to salvation ; that there is no purgatory ; that the Pope is Anti-
christ. Remaining obstinate in his opinions, he was sentenced to
be deprived of all ecclesiastical dignities and privileges and was
handed over to the secular power. In accordance with the rigorous
laws of the period he was condemned to be burnt at the stake, and
suflfered in front of St. Salvator's College at St. Andrews, February
29, 1528.
The execution of one so nobly connected created a great impres-
sion in the country. Sympathy inclined to the side of the heretic,
a man of deep religious feeling, who had in the first years of man-
hood met his fate with constancy and courage, and his example
tended to fan the flame of heresy. Knox relates an anecdote which
illustrates the state of things. "A merry gentleman named John
Lindsey," he says, "familiar to Bishop James Beaton, standing by
when consultation was had (i. e., concerning the punishment of
heresy) said : "My Lord, if ye burn any more, except ye follow my
counsel, ye will utterly destroy yourselves ; if ye will burn them, let
them be burnt in hollow cellars ; for the smoke of Mr. Patrick Ham-
ilton hath infected as many as it blew upon.' "^^
As yet the bulk of the nation were free from infection, but it is
evident from the continual enforcement of the laws against heresy
at this time that the new opinions were gathering strength. A few
years after Hamilton's execution other heretics began to pay the
penalty of their obstinacy in unbelief. The years 1533- 1539 saw
" Knox : " History," (ed. 1644), p. 63.
356 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
many such called to account and punished. The first victim after
Hamilton was a Benedictine monk named Henry Forrest. Knox
says that he was put to death *'for no other crime but because he
had a New Testament in English."^^ Foxe, however, who was also
a contemporary, relates that Forrest declared that "Master Patricke
Hamelton died a martyr, and that his articles were true."^^ As
these "articles," which have already been alluded to, were decidedly
heretical, such a statement might well condemn Forrest.
Following the trial of the Benedictine came that of a layman,
David Straiton, of the house of Lawrieston, and of a priest named
Norman Gourlay. They were brought before the Bishop of Ross,
acting for the Primate ; James V. himself, "all cloathed in reid,"^*
was present. Both of the accused were condemned and burned "at
the Rude of Greenside, between Leth and Edinbrug, to the intent
that the inhabitants of Fife, seeing the fire, might be stricken with
terrour and feare.'*^° Their execution took place on August 27,
1534. Several other heretics suffered during this period; among
them were Thomas Forret, a canon regular of Inchcolm ; Duncan
Simson, a priest of Stirling; a layman named Forrester and two
Dominican friars named Beveridge and Keillor, who were all burned
at Edinburgh in 1539, while a friar minor named Jerome Russell,
and a layman, Kennedy by name, suffered at Glasgow in the same
year. It should be borne in mind that all these executions were
sanctioned by the provisions of an act of Parliament passed in 1535,
renewing the old prohibition against heresy and forbidding the keep-
ing of heretical books.
Many of those accused of holding Protestant opinions "burned
their bill," or recanted, when brought to justice. The phrase orig-
inated in the practice of publicly burning a dry fagot, in token that
the heretic destroyed the instrument which would have caused his
death. Others fled to the continent at the approach of danger.
Among these were Alexander Aless, a canon of St. Andrews, who
afterwards became a prominent Protestant theologian in Germany,
and Gavin Logic, principal of St. Leonard's College at St. Andrews,
besides some of the canons regular of Cambuskenneth. Alexander
Seaton, a Dominican, confessor to James V., was a preacher of
heresy and a violent denunciator of the bishops. He managed to
escape to England, but is said to have retracted his errors before
his death. The perversion of any friar or religious is recounted
with especial joy by Knox. "Light burst out in the midst of dark-
ness," he says, "for the truth of Christ Jesus entered even into the
cloisters, as well of friars and monks as of canons. John Lyn, a
" Knox : " History," (ed. 1644), p. 66. is Foxe : " Book of Martyrs," bk viii. " Pitcaim :
" Grim. Trials," Vol. I., p. 210.* The red robes were the judicial dress of the period, is, ibid.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 357
gray-friar, left his hypocritical habit and the den of those murderers
the gray-friars."^^
Cardinal Beaton, who succeeded his uncle in the primacy, con-
tinued the same policy with regard to the promoters of false doc-
trine, and won the lasting hatred of Henry VIII., as well as of all
the Scottish sectaries. It was his zeal for the defense of the Catho-
lic faith no less than his patriotism which eventually led to his assas-
sination by some of the reforming faction at the instigation of the
English monarch. Still, compared with the many who had suffered
for their opinions under his predecessor, the number condemned to
capital punishment during the Cardinal's primacy were few — not
more than seven in all. The last of these, George Wishart, whose
suspected part in the plot against the Cardinal's life has already been
discussed, ^^ was one of the prominent members of the Protestant
sect. His death created a profound impression in the country. "No
single event," says Grub, "during the persecution in Scotland
seems to have caused such a deep feeling in the popular mind as the
burning of Wishart. . . . The Cardinal became an object of
hatred to a large proportion of the people, and those who held the
new opinions increased in number and influence."^^ Yet even now,
as Knox himself is forced to confess, "the most part of the nobility
of Scotland had either given him their bands of manred, or else were
in confederacy and promised amity with him."^*
The only obstacle to the victory of the English party and their
allies the reformers was removed by the dastardly murder of Car-
dinal Beaton. It was at this crisis that Knox came prominently
forward as a representative of the cause, in place of his former mas-
ter, Wishart. By his presence in the Castle of St. Andrews, in com-
pany with the Cardinal's murderers, he identified himself with the
English party; he had long taken part in the spiritual side of the
movement. It was during the fourteen months that he spent in
that stronghold that Knox, at the earnest request of his companions,
as he says, consented to take upon himself the office of preaching.
He had already received priests' orders in the Catholic Church, but
had now for some four years professed himself a Protestant. Hence-
forth he was to figure as the champion of the new religion in Scot-
land. When, by the help of French allies, the rebels inside the
castle were forced to capitulate to the Scottish party, Knox, to-
gether with the others, was conveyed to France and condemned to
the galleys. Liberated after three years by the intercession with the
" Knox :" History of the Reformation," (ed. 1644), p. 68. ^''American Catholic Quar-
terly, April, 1899, P- 74- ^* " Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," Vol. II., p. 27. i9 " History
of Reformation," (ed. 1644), p. 98. Manred or manrent was the bond of engagement to a
superior to take his part in disputes and appear in arms at his call. Vide Jamieson's
"Scottish Dictionary."
35^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
French King not only of Edward VI. of England, but also of Mary
of Guise, the reformer repaired to the court of his Protestant bene-
factor, and for some five years he did not trouble Scotland, spend-
ing his time either in England or in one or other of the reformed
continental countries.
Meanwhile Mary of Guise, the Queen Mother, succeeded Arran
as Regent in 1554, and her authority was recognized by the estates
of the kingdom. A woman of ability and sound judgment, and a
conscientious Catholic, she set herself to heal the religious and
political divisions which were causing such trouble to the nation,
and succeeded in preserving external peace and in gaining the re-
spect of all. It was her policy to tolerate the reforming party as
long as they conducted themselves as peaceable subjects; indeed,
she has incurred the unjustifiable reproach of having privately
favored the new doctrine. Such a charge can hardly stand in face
of the constant revilings which Knox heaps upon the head of this
much-enduring Queen. He alone of both Catholic and Protestant
historians has dared to make the vilest insinuations against her
moral character.
The peace which reigned in Scotland till 1555 was broken by the
return of Knox from Geneva. His presence helped to rouse the
sectaries from their quietude. He thus relates the state in which
he found them. "At the first coming of the said John Knox, he
perceiving divers, who had a zeal to godliness, make small scruple
to go to the Mass or to communicate with the abused sacrament
in the papistical manner; began, as well in privy conference as in
preaching, to shew the impiety of the Mass, and how dangerous a
thing it was to communicate in any sort with idolatry; wherewith
the conscience of some being affrighted, the matter began to be
agitate from man to man."-**
The consequence was that Protestantism began again to assert
itself openly. Many of the nobility attached themselves to the
cause, among them being the Lord James Murray, titular prior of
St. Andrews, the illegitimate son of the late King, Lord Erskine,
Lord Lorn and others. Knox went from place to place, preaching
and "ministering the Lord's table." The Earl of Glencairn became
one of his notable patrons. "Divers from Edinburgh and from the
country about assembled, as well for the doctrine as for the right
use of the Lord's table, which before they had never practised."^^
The report of these proceedings reached the ecclesiastical authori-
ties, and Knox was summoned to give an account of himself before
the bishops in the Black Friars' Church, Edinburgh. For some
unexplained reason this summons was recalled, and on the very day
» Knox : " History of the Reformation," (ed. 1644), p. 117. 21 ibid, p. 118.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 359
when he should have appeared before his judges, the reformer pub-
hcly preached in the capital to "a greater audience than ever before
he had done in that town."--
Emboldened by circumstances, Knox, at the instigation of the
reforming nobles, addressed an audacious letter to the Queen Re-
gent, in which, after declaring that the Catholic religion was "a cup
invenomed, of which whosoever drinketh (except that by true re-
pentance he after drink of the water of life), drinketh therewith
damnation and death,"-" he goes on to persuade her to embrace the
grace offered, to accept the religion he preaches. The Queen read
the letter, but mortally offended the writer by a mocking remark
upon it, which eventually reached his ears, to one of the Catholic
prelates.
Although the reformer was bold enough in writing, scrupling not
to apply to black friars the title of "black fiends," to the bishops
that of "dumb dogs," and to priests generally the name of "Baal's
shaven sort," with many other choice epithets, yet he seems to have
thought "discretion the better part of valor" when, in 1556, an invi-
tation arrived from Geneva asking him to become pastor to the
Protestant community there. His "apology for our departure,"
written at the time, shows that he was in fear of his life when he
accepted this way out of his difficulties. "Judging with all charity,"
says a Protestant historian, "it must be admitted that whilst his
writings at this season had all the impassioned zeal, his conduct be-
trayed some want of the ardent courage of the martyr."^* Knox
had scarcely left Scotland when he was again summoned by the
bishops. Although he failed to appear, he was tried and judged
guilty of heresy, and was burnt in effigy in the market place at
Edinburgh. These proceedings led to his "appellation of John
Knox from the cruel and most unjust sentence pronounced against
him by the false bishops and clergy of Scotland." The very title is
evidence of the arrogance with which he assumed the position of
sole teacher of truth. Besides defending himself against the right
of the bishops to condemn him, Knox in this lengthy document lays
down the proposition that prophets and preachers divinely appointed
by Christ (Knox, of course, being one) might appeal from the judg-
ment of the visible Church to the civil authority, and maintains,
moreover, the duty of every member of the commonwealth to punish
idolatry and similar crimes with death. The latter argument seems
put forward as a justification of the murder of Cardinal Beaton.
The bold appeal of their leader encouraged the Protestant party
to greater publicity in their preaching. The Regent, anxious to
» Knox : " History," p. ii8. -^ Ibid, p, 401. 24 Fraser Tytler : " History of Scotland," Vol.
II., p. 84, note.
360 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
keep peace, especially among the nobles, would suffer no steps to
be taken against them for some time ; at length, under pressure she
summoned Methven, a baker of Dundee, and one of the prominent
preachers to appear before a council of clergy. He came attended
by such a rabble that the Regent was alarmed, and issued a procla-
mation that all who had no lawful business in the city should de-
part for the Border, the seat of war at the time, for fifteen days. A
number of the Protestants in spite of this forced their way to the
Queen's presence at Holyrood and boldly stated their grievances,
their spokesman, Chalmers of Gaithgirth, covertly alluding to the
coming bribery of the nobles by church property to take the side
of the reformers in the words : "We avow to God we shall make a
day of it. They (the bishops) oppress us and our tenants for feed-
ing of their idle bellies ; they trouble our preachers and would mur-
der them and us ; shall we suffer this any longer ? No, madam, it
shall not be." Knox's description of the scene adds : "And there-
with every man put on his steel bonnet." The Regent endeavored
to pacify them by gentle words. "There is something touching,"
says Dom Hunter-Blair, "in Mary's gentle appeal, in her simple
broken Scotch, to these rude invaders of her privacy : 'My joys, my
hearts, what ails you? We mean no evil to you, nor to your
preachers. The bishops shall do you no wrong. Ye are all my
loving subjects. . . . We will hear the controversy that is be-
twixt the bishops and you ; they shall do you no wrong. . . . O,
my hearts, should ye not love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your mind, and should ye not luif your neighbours
as your self esT Knox's charitable comment on this is: 'O; crafty,
flatterer!'""
The mildness of the Regent still further encouraged the Protest-
ant party. The statue of St. Giles in his church at Edinburgh had
been desecrated and destroyed by the reformers. On the feast of
the saint, who was the patron of the city, another image was pro-
cured and borne in procession, the Queen being present. "Who
was there to lead the ring," says Knox, "but the Queen Regent her-
self, with all her shavellings, for honour of that feast?" When the
Queen had retired, the mob, instigated by the reformers, seized "the
idol," as Knox terms it, and broke it in pieces, and a riot ensued.
The reformers and the nobles who favored them, growing bolder
at their increase of power, invited Knox to return ; they stated that
persecution had ceased, that the friars were losing favor with the
Queen and nobility and that they had a firm hope that God would
speedily increase "his flock."^* Knox replied in the following Octo-
« " History of the Catholic Church of Scotland," Vol. II., p. 231, note. » " History," p. 121.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 361
ber, 1557. He rebuked them sharply for their lack of courage and
tardiness in action, and urged them to bear in mind "that the refor-
mation of religion and of public enormities doth appertain to more
than the clergy or chief rulers, called kings."^^ Spurred on by this
epistle, the Protestant leaders assembled for consultation, and on
December 3 of the same year signed the bond or covenant which
played so important a part in the whole subsequent conduct of these
men. In it they solemnly engaged to do all in their power to ad-
vance the "Congregation" (as their party was henceforth styled)
and to "forsake and renounce the congregation of Satan, with all
the superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof."^^ By the "con-
gregation of Satan" was meant, of course, the Catholic Church.
"The Solemn League and Covenant" having been formed, the
reformers proceeded to carry out their designs. They forced the
"Book of Common Prayer," lately drawn up for England, upon the
parish churches wherever they had the power, ejecting parish priests
who refused to allow of the innovation and replacing them by Pro-
testant preach ers.2° The revolutionary character of the movement
was now apparent. "Observe," says Bishop Keith, himself a Pro-
testant prelate, "how these men give orders to the whole realm.
Such an act would be justly adjudged high treason now; I know
not what it might be then."^^
The Lords of the Congregation were but applying the principle
that Knox had all along inculcated upon his followers. The old
Lollard doctrine had been furbished up by the new heretics ; no man
had a right to rule or to teach whose life was not eminent for godli-
ness, and Knox and his followers arrogated to themselves the power
of judging between the godly and the ungodly. They constituted
the "true Church ;" all others belonged to the "synagogue of Satan"
or "the Church of Antichrist." Who can blame the Catholic pre-
lates and nobles if, stung by the virulent tongues of the reformers
and irritated at their unprecedented arrogance, they should at times
have allowed their zeal to go beyond bounds in punishing these de-
linquents against the laws of both God and man?
The execution of the last Protestant who suffered death for reli-
gion in Scotland was certainly impolitic and, as it seems to us at
the present day, uncalled for. Walter Milyn, an old man of eighty,
had renounced his priesthood and married when he accepted the
Protestant teaching in Cardinal Beaton's days. Thrown into prison
by that prelate, he had escaped, and after years of retirement began
to preach his new belief publicly. He was seized, tried, condemned
and executed, his death still further exasperating the growing party
" Knox: "History," p. 122. » Knox: "History," p. 124. 29 Ibid, p. 125. so " History of
Affairs of Church and State," p. 66.
362 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
of heretics. The leaders of the Congregation used every effort to
fan the flame of dissatisfaction which the death of Milyn had en-
kindled among the people. Their agents moved everywhere, en-
listing adherents throughout the country and gaining popular sup-
port by every means in their power. Emboldened by success, the
Congregation ventured to petition the Regent for toleration. They
demanded the privilege of meeting publicly or privately for prayer,
at which meeting any qualified person might interpret hard pas-
sages of Scripture, and also of administering Baptism and the Lord's
Supper in the vulgar tongue.
The Catholic clergy were willing to grant the liberty of prayers
and baptism in the vernacular, provided that everything took place
in private; they required, however, that the Catholic teaching re-
garding the Mass, purgatory, prayers for the dead and the invoca-
tion of saints should be upheld. This did not satisfy the reformers.
The Regent eventually promised toleration on the two points
named in the petition, on condition that no public assemblies of
Protestants should be held at Edinburgh or Leith. The fact was,
she was anxious to avoid a conflict between parties till the marriage
of her daughter, Queen Mary, with the Dauphin Francis, and the
recognition of that Prince as King-consort had been ratified by Par-
liament. Her action towards the reformers, therefore, was dictated
by policy merely, and not from any sympathy with their particular
views, as Knox would fain have us believe. As a proof of this we
have her subsequent refusal to accede to their wishes, when they
were anxious to petition Parliament for the suspension of the laws
against heresy and the protection of the Congregation in the matter
of freedom of teaching.
It is not necessary to dwell here upon a subject which was dis-
cussed in a former article,^^ and enquire how it was that the com-
mon people were so easily led. An attempt to remedy the neglect
of systematic religious teaching — a neglect of which all writers com-
plain— was made by the bishops of the Scottish Church, in the au-
thorized Catechism drawn up at the command of the Provincial
Council held in 1552. Besides this work another was published in
1558 with the authority of the Primate; this was stigmatized by
Knox "The Twapenny Faith," probably on account of the price at
which it was sold. It comprised an instruction on the Mass and
Holy Communion. Another work which produced a great effect
and induced many waverers to renew their allegiance to the Church
was Abbot Kennedy's "Compendious Tractate." This was a clear
and detailed explanation of the doctrines of faith and a refutation of
the errors then prevalent. Quintin Kennedy was abbot of the
31 American Catholic Quarterly Review, April, 1899.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 363
Cluniac-Benedictine House of Crossraguel, in Ayrshire. He was
not only one of the most learned ecclesiastics of his time, but also
one of the most pious and exemplary. The abbot employed his
skill in argument in another manner. In March, 1559, an apostate
friar named Willock preached in Ayr, where he had formerly been
an inmate of the Dominican Convent.^^ His subject was the Mass,
which he maintained had been condemned by SS. Irenaeus, Hilary,
Chrysostom and other Fathers. Abbot Kennedy, hearing of these
sermons and suspecting that Willock was trading upon the ignor-
ance of his hearers, offered to show by the Word of God, according
to the judgment of the most approved doctors, that whosoever as-
serts the Mass to be idolatrous is himself a heretic. Willock ac-
cepted the challenge and proposed a discussion in St. John's
Church. He, however, stultified himself by declaring that he could
only abide by the authority of the said doctors as far as they were
in accordance with the Scriptures. As it was impossible to accept
such slippery conditions, the affair came to nought.
In the month of January, 1558-9, an extraordinary document was
found affixed to the gates of all houses of friars, giving warning
in threatening language of the treatment they were to expect at
the hands of the reformers. The friars, be it noted, were the most
fervent of the clergy in preaching the truths of faith, and conse-
quently were proportionately hated by the heretics. The document
in question bore j;he name of /'The Beggars' Warning." It was
drawn up in legal form ; its title ran thus :
"The blind, crooked, bedridden widows, orphans and all the poor
so visited by the hand of God as cannot work : to the flocks of all
friars within this realm, we wish restitution of wrongs past and refor-
mation in times coming for salvation."^^ After stating that the
alms of Christian people belonged to the poor alone, the deed went
on to declare that the friars, "whole of body, strong, sturdy and able
to work," had stolen them for their own use; that they had built
for themselves "great hospitals" to dwell in, and that these of right
belonged to the poor. It then called upon them to give up their
ill gotten goods that the rightful owners might enter in "betwixt
this and the feast of Whitsunday next ;" failing to leave, they, the
poor, would enter "in whole number (with the help of God and as-
sistance of His saints on earth) . . . and eject" the present pos-
sessors utterly. It is difficult to avoid seeing in this effusion the
determination to carry out, by force what was actually accomplished
almost exactly at the date foretold.
It was now evident that a struggle was imminent between the
'2 Lesley, the earlier writer, says that Willock was a Dominican ; Spottiswood, who lived
a generation later, calls him a Franciscan. 33 Knox : " Historj'," p. 130.
364 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
opposing parties in religion^ The cry of the reformers against the
unworthy lives of some of the clergy had been dinned into the ears
of the people till it began to be accepted by the unlearned as a
maxim that the truth of the Church was to be tested by the moral
character of her ministers. It is extraordinary how Knox and his
followers continually seized the opportunity of driving home this
sophistry. Some extracts will illustrate this. "The pride, ambi-
tion, envy, excess, fraud, spoil, oppression, murder . . . that
is used and maintained amongst that rabble of priests, friars, monks,
canons, bishops and Cardinals cannot be expressed. I fear not to
affirm, neither doubt I to prove, that the papistical Church is fur-
ther degenerate from the purity of Christ's doctrine, from the foot-
steps of the Apostles and from the manners of the primitive Church
than was the Church of the Jews from God's holy statutes, what
time it did crucify Christ Jesus."^* Again, he promises the people
of Scotland that he will "prove the religion which amongst (them)
is maintained by fire and sword to be false, damnable and diaboli-
cal."^'^ In the first petition to the Queen Regent drawn up by
Knox, after complaining of the "cruel tyranny" of the clergy, the
reformers state that they "seek the amendment of their (the church-
men's) corrupted lives and Christ's religion to be restored to the
original purity." All through his writings Knox continually in-
veighs against the "idolatry" of the Catholic Church and immedi-
ately attacks the morals of the clergy as though immorality and
false doctrine were inseparable companions. But such sophistry is
not peculiar to Knox or to the period in which he lived.
On their part the clergy, in their frequent assemblies, initiated
the necessary reforms, and could the salutary decrees of the Council
of Trent have been suffered to extend to Scotland, the result would
have been that the Church in that country would have undergone
reformation rather than destruction. But measures were taken too
late to prevent the catastrophe now imminent.
Knox had been nearly three years on the continent before he
made any serious effort to resume his disastrous work in Scotland.
During that time he had been occupied in ministering, in company
with Whittingham, afterwards Dean of Durham, to the English con-
gregation at Geneva. The boldness which always characterized his
writings, if it did not always appear in his actions, was not wanting
during this period. The accession of Mary Tudor to the English
throne stirred up all his bitter hatred of the Catholic Church, and
he burst forth into the slanderous attack styled "The First Blast
of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women." In
«*"Appellationof John Knox." "History," (ed. 1644), p. 365. ** Ibid. p. 367.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 365
it he maintained that "To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority,
dominion or empire above any realm, nation or city is repugnant
to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to His re-
vealed will and approved ordinance and, finally, the subversion of
good order, of all equity and justice."^^ The tract abounds in abuse
of Mary Tudor, whom the writer alludes to in such phrases as
"cursed Jezebel of England, with the pestilent and detestable gen-
eration of papists," "that horrible monster Jezebel of England,"
"the monstrous empire of a cruel woman," and the like. He lays
it down as binding upon "the nobility and estates by whose blind-
ness a woman is promoted to remove from honour and authority
that monster in nature ; so call I a woman clad in the habit of man,
yea, a woman against nature reigning above man." Moreover, he
maintains that those who presume to defend "that impiety" (i. e.,
of female rule) are worthy of death, and it is a duty "not to fear
first to pronounce and thereafter to execute against them the sen-
tence of death."^^ This incitation to rebellion, though ostensibly
directed against the English Queen, was equally applicable to the
young Queen of the Scots and her mother the Regent, and was
doubtless intended to be so read.
After the formation of the "Congregation" in 1557, the leaders
once more tried to induce Knox to return to Scotland. He did not,
however, think it expedient to do so, and the Scottish reformers
begged Calvin to use his influence to persuade Knox to accede to
their wishes. In November, 1558, Mary of England died, and
Protestant exiles began to flock home from the continent. Knox
at length resolved to take up the work he had begun in Scotland,
and accordingly left Geneva in January. His treatise on female
government was naturally as obnoxious to Elizabeth as it had been
to Mary, and Knox was refused admission to England. He accord-
ingly set sail for Leith, where he landed in May, 1559.
It was a critical moment. The Regent had publicly avowed her
determination to prohibit the public exercise of Protestant worship,
and to suppress any violent opposition to the established religion.
A proclamation was issued forbidding any one to preach or admin-
ister the sacraments without leave from the bishops. Some of the
reformers had openly disregarded the prohibition, and had been
summoned to answer for their contumacy at Stirling. The Easter
of that year, as though to emphasize the policy which the Regent
intended to pursue, was kept by the court with unusual sol-
emnity of ceremonial — the Queen receiving Holy Communion
publicly.
Yet, in spite of the apparent intention of the government to pro-
» " History," p. 137. " " Blast of the Trumpet," " History," (ed. 1644), p. 421. 38 ibid, p. 434.
366 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tect religion and to repress heresy with a firm hand, the storm which
had been long gathering was soon to break in all its fury over un-
happy Scotland.
DoM Michael Barrett, O. S. B.
Fort Aug:u9tus, Scotland.
THE CHURCH AND THE CHURCH PROPERTY IN THE
ISLAND OF CUBA.
THE withdrawal of the authority of Spain from the island of
Cuba, effected on the ist of January, 1899, left the Cuban
territory in the hands and under the power and control of
the United States of America. But this holding by us of that
island, different from the holding by us of Puerto Rico or the Phil-
ippine Archipelago, is not to be permanent, or in full, as a result
of the exercise of sovereign rights, acquired by conquest and con-
firmed by cession in the Treaty of Peace ; but temporary, limited,
and merely in trust for the Cubans, until they may become able,
under the guidance of the United States, "to attain," as set forth
by President McKinley in his Message to Congress of December
5, 1899, "to that plane of self-conscious respect and self-reliant
unity, which fits an enlightened community for self-government
within its own sphere, while enabling it to fulfill all outward obliga-
tions."
How long that schooling will last, or, in other words, how many
years will have to pass before the United States can feel justified
in launching into the family of nations a "regenerated Cuba,"
capable of complying satisfactorily with all her duties, national and
international, no man can tell. But the fact is settled, however,
and President McKinley has put it as forcibly as possible, that the
United States will not "turn adrift a loosely framed Commonwealth
to face the vicissitudes which too often attend weaker States whose
natural wealth and abundant resources are offset by the incongrui-
ties of their political organization and the recurring occasion for
internal rivalries."
The duration, therefore, of the American control of Cuba will
depend to a great extent upon the Cubans themselves; but no
matter how little responsive they may be to the demands of their
situation, or how incapable they may prove of comprehending the
grave responsibilities which the United States have assumed in
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 367
freeing them from Spain, the fact cannot be overlooked, or under-
estimated, that the historical moment of the appearance of the "new
Cuba," as a separate, free and independent State, assuming among
the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the
laws of nature and of nature's God entitle it, is bound to arrive
some day.
The joint resolution of Congress, approved April 20, 1898, and
the Presidential Message of December 5, 1899, leave no doubt on
the subject. Congress declared, and its declaration, through the
approval of the President, became a law, binding upon the people
and the Government of the United States, as long as it remains
unrepealed or tmamended, that the United States disclaimed any
disposition or intention "to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or
control over Cuba, except for the pacification thereof," and that it
was their determination when that end was accomplished to "leave
the government and control of the island to its own people." The
President, in his turn, declared also that "the pledge contained in
the said resolution is of the highest honorable obligation and must
be sacredly kept." It is, therefore, doubtless that no matter how
long it may take for "the future to determine in the ripeness of the
events" when the coming of the "new Cuba" will take place, that
coming will not fail — in the present state of the case — to be,
sooner or later, an accomplished fact.
Under these circumstances the question arises naturally whether
the condition of the Church in Cuba, after the establishment of the
Cuban State, will be better or worse than it is now under the
American control of the island, or was before during the Spanish
domination, and whether any dangers are, or are not, in store for
the Church, her ministers or her property, when the American in-
terregnum ceases and Cuba becomes de facto as well as de jure an
independent Commonwealth.
What has been seen in Mexico ever since 1842, what was wit-
nessed in Spain herself during the first fifty years of this nineteenth
century, and what, in greater or lesser scale, has taken place here
and there in some other countries, under the influence of so-called
"liberal" ideas, might justify the apprehension that, unless the
American training proves to be very efficient and thorough, the
future of the Church in the island of Cuba is far from being cloud-
less.
In Puerto Rico, on the contrary, nothing of serious moment can
be feared by the Church. Ever since the 12th of August, 1898,
when the Peace Protocol was signed at Washington by the repre-
sentatives of the United States and Spain, Puerto Rico became an
American possession, sold by Spain and purchased by the United
368 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
States, in consideration of the amounts of money represented by
the expenses of the war and by the claims of citizens of the United
States against Spain arising out of wrongs done to them in Cuba,
from the day of the outbreak of the Cuban insurrection of 1895
to the day of the promulgation of the Treaty of Peace. When this
Treaty was concluded at Paris (December 10, 1898) the cession of
Puerto Rico by Spain was formally confirmed in its second article.
And as that Treaty was approved and ratified and proclaimed on
April II, 1899, there is no doubt whatever that Puerto Rico, al-
though separated by the sea from the United States, is for all
•effects and purposes an integral part of the national domain of the
United States, and that at present, until otherwise determined by
Congress, that island is as much under the exclusive control and
jurisdiction of the Federal authority as the District of Columbia,
or any place or territory, large or small, purchased by the United
States under the provisions of No. 17, Section 8, Article I. of the
Constitution of the United States, is or may be. If it should hap-
pen for Puerto Rico, in the future, to be admitted to all the rights
and privileges of American statehood, such an admission will do no
more than rivet the American character of the island.
This being the case, nothing in the way of persecution of the
Church or her ministers, or of confiscation of her property, can be
apprehended at all in Puerto Rico on the part of the Government.
And if it is true that the so-called union of Church and State, which
apparently, and no more than apparently, existed there under the
Spanish rule, might be said to have terminated from the very mo-
ment in which Puerto Rico became an American possession, if the
provisions of the Constitution of the United States were made ap-
plicable to it, it is true, also, that the Church in Puerto Rico will
be, under the new regime, as free and as full of life and activity and
energy, as it is everywhere else within the limits of the United
States. Her action and her influence will never be hampered or
restricted by civil official interference ; and if she will have to look
only to herself for material means of support (which in reality al-
ways happened to her) she will be free, in exchange, to acquire all
kind of property, to hold it, to manage it and to use it according to
her discretion, and her right to do so will never be disputed or suc-
cessfully interfered with by the authorities.
The writer of this paper is not unaware of the fact that the Amer-
ican Commissioners, Mr. Robert P. Kennedy, Mr. C. W. Watkins
and Mr. H. G. Curtis, appointed by the President to make "in-
vestigations into the civil aflfairs of the island of Puerto Rico,"
submitted a report on the 27th of May, 1899, in which, after recom-
mending that "the Constitution and laws of the United States
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 369
locally applicable shall have the same force and effect in the island
of Puerto Rico as elsewhere in the United States" (Report, page 62)
they felt justified in suggesting that "all property (of the Church),
including cemeteries, ... be declared the property of the
Government, except that churches, used for religious worship ex-
clusively, be allowed to remain in the possession of the congrega-
tion now occupying the same" (Report, page 66) ; that "priests and
others who have taken the vow of celibacy may be permitted (in
Puerto Rico) to renounce said vows and enter into marriage rela-
tions the same as other persons," and that in order "to remedy the
evils of concubinage on the island . . . such cohabitation in
good faith be declared binding as a common law (or civil law) mar-
riage, and the children legitimate."
But the just discredit incurred by these strange utterances from
the very first moment in which they were made public renders their
refutation at the present moment unnecessary. Nothing as un-
American and anti-American as such Jacobinical ideas will ever be
permitted to flourish in the United States ; and the fact is self-evi-
dent that in the event, more than improbable, of any hostile move-
ment, either on the lines suggested by the Commissioners afore-
said, or on any other lines, being ever attempted in this country, an
appeal to the Catholic vote, a vote so strong and so much needed,
would suffice to restore all things at once to the proper tracks of
righteousness and legality.
The future of the Puerto Rican Church, even in regard to ma-
terial wealth and prosperity, seems to be assured. The Puerto
Ricans are Catholic, and Catholic zeal, stimulated and sharpened
by the invigorating influence of American ideas and institutions,
will work in Puerto Rico the same wonders it has worked in the
United States, even in those localities which thirty years ago were
distinctive strongholds of bigotry and intolerance. There is no
reason to apprehend that the Puerto Rican Church, having be-
come, as she has, through the effects of war and diplomacy, a mem-
ber of the great American Church, and being placed, as she is,
through the same instrumentalities, on exactly the same footing as
all the other Churches which constitute the vast and potent unity ot
the American hierarchy, will not be regulated and conducted as
all her sisters are, in so far as all outward manifestations are con-
cerned, in the same manner and according to the same plans,
methods and ideas. She will not be less brilliartt than the Churches
of Massachusetts, Louisiana or any other within the vast area of
the United States of America, and the wonderful vitality and po-
tency which characterize those Churches will be equally hers.
This might serve to demonstrate, if demonstration were neces-
370 American Catholic Quarterly Reviczv.
sary, the wisdom and foresight of the Holy Father in appointing
for the Bishopric of Puerto Rico an American Prelate, American
by birth, by education and by intelligent and disinterested attach-
ment to American ideas and institutions. What the. Right Rev.
Bishop Blenk can do, and will do, in Puerto Rico for the good of
the Church, the Puerto Rican people and the people of the United
States, do not need to be explained or commended to them. His
responsibilities are certainly grave; but his prospects are bright.
At all events he is eminently fitted and equipped to bear his bur-
dens gracefully.
In the Philippine Archipelago the situation might be the same as
it is in Puerto Rico were it not for the state of war in which un-
fortunately one at least of its islands is plunged at present. Every-
thing is to be feared from soldiers when engaged in hostilities
against people whose language they are unable to understand and
whom they consider their inferiors ethnically and in all other re-
spects. The prospect in those islands is therefore very dark, and
if the press reports and even the public utterances of over-zealous
officers are to be taken as guides, a large amount of trouble is in
store for the noble missionaries, whether Augustinian Fathers or
Jesuits, to whom all the Christian civilization to be found in that
extensive territory, inhabited by not less than 9,000,000. people of
different races, customs and ideas, is exclusively due. But as the
Philippine Archipelago is now, through purchase, as much an
American possession as Alaska or Puerto Rico, the hope may be
entertained and cherished that the Washington Government will
not lose sight of the fact that by not protecting the Church, or by
permitting her to be persecuted or ignored, it will simply throw
away, to its own disadvantage, what always was considered with
reason the most potential element for the preservation of peace and
public order.
The action of the Holy Father in sending to those remote islands
as Delegate Apostolic the same eminent prelate who represents
his supreme authority in respect to Cuba and Puerto Rico, so well
fitted in all respects for his mission, so thoroughly conversant with
American ideas and sentiments and with the ideas and sentiments
of the people who for convenience sake are called Latin — the Most
Rev. P. L. Chapelle, Archbishop of New Orleans — ^while illustrat-
ors again that admirable wisdom to which reverent reference was
made before, furnishes a guarantee that the interests of the Churcli
and the interests of the United States, as well as the interests of
the Philippine people, will be blended together.
Turning now our eyes to the island of Cuba, as required by tljc
necessities of the present paper, we shall find, from the very first
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 371
moment, as stated before, that the condition of things in regard to
the Church and her property is full of danger and perplexities.
That embarrassing condition of things which President McKinley
made an effort to avoid,^ resulting from the creation in Cuba of n
dual status, one American for all practical effects and purposes, but
pro tern, and indefinite ; and another, Cuban, prospective, theoretical
and full of contingencies of all kinds, confronts the Cuban Church
in the most alarming degree. To all the dangers which are usually
in store for Religion when revolutionary ideas, through some
strange combination of circumstances, succeed in subverting,
whether permanently or temporarily, an order of things which had
lasted for centuries, and when infidelity and indifferentism are of-
fered opportunities, never dreamed of before, to do their evil work,
some other dangers, not less serious, exclusively depending upon
this limitation of the American control of Cuba, must be added.
But while it is true that, generally speaking, the powers of the
American Government in political and administrative matters and
in matters concerning changes of legislation or other changes of
fundamental character, are, and must be, limited by what the At-
torney General of the United States very properly called "the re-
versionary rights of the future Government of Cuba" (Opinion of
March 25, 1899, in the case of the application of the Commercial
Cable Company to land a cable in Cuba), it is also true that in mat-
ters of justice, especially when, as in the case of the Church in Cuba,
the faith of the United States is pledged by treaty, no opportunity
for coquetting with evil or temporizing with injustice can be al-
lowed for a moment. In matters of that kind the authority of the
United States is supreme, as the obligation on their part is sacred,
to fulfill their engagements.
Under Article X. of the Treaty of Peace between the United
States and Spain, signed at Paris on December 10, 1898, and pro-
claimed at Washington on April 11, 1899, the Government of the
United States bound itself solemnly to protect in the island of
Cuba, as well as in all the other islands to which that instrument
refers, the free exercise of the Catholic religion. "The inhabitants
of the territories," so the article reads, "over which Spain relin-
1 " Nor from the standpoint of convenience," President McKinley said, "do I think it
would be wise or prudent for this Government to recognize at the present time the indepen-
dence of the so-called Cuban Republic. Such recog-nition is not necessary in order to enable
the United States to intervene and pacify the island. To commit this country to the recog-
nition of any particular grovernment in Cuba might subject us to embarrassing condition of
international obligation toward the organization thus recognized. In case of intervention
our conduct would be subject to the approval or disapproval of such government. We
would be required to submit to its direction and to assume to it the mere relation of a
friendly ally." (Message to Congress of April ii, 1898.) The prudent advice of the Presi-
dent was not followed, afld the United States became the friendly ally and guardian of a
" free and independent" people, bound to be left some day to itself.
372 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
quishes" (the case of Cuba) "or cedes her sovereignty" (the case of
the other islands) ''shall he secured in the free exercise of their
religion."
The learned negotiators of that treaty, all of them men of exceed-
ingly vast information as well as ability and patriotism, were fully
aware of the meaning and true import of these words. They all
knew what securing the free exercise of a religion means, and they
knew also, as everybody does, that that religion, the exercise of
which the United States bound themselves to secure in Cuba, was
de jure and de facto the Roman Catholic religion. They knew that
it was so, de jure, because they knew that the Constitution of Spain
of 1876 was the fundamental law of Cuba, and that Article 11 of
that Constitution reads : "The Roman Catholic apostolic religion
is the religion of the State : the nation binds herself to support its
clergy and pay the expenses of worship." They knew also that it
was so, de facto, because they knew that Protestants in Cuba are
rara avis, and that the Cubans are always either Catholics or noth-
ing. At present, after fourteen months of American rule, the Pro-
testant churches of Havana, according to the Havana Directory
just published, are not more than three : one Baptist, one Evangeli-
cal and one belonging to the "Christian Union."
The negotiators of the Treaty of Peace were also aware, as
they had to be, that neither the security guaranteed by Article X.
of the instrument nor any other obligation contracted either there
or elsewhere by the United States in relation to Cuba, could escape
the contingency of reversion by the future Cuban Government,
which the Attorney General of the United States so distinctly fore-
saw. In order to meet that emergency they drew up Article XVI.
of the compact in the following manner: "It is understood that
any obligations assumed in this treaty by the United States with
respect to Cuba are limited to the time of its occupancy thereof;
but it will, upon the termination of such occupancy, advise any
government established in the island to assume the same obliga-
tions."
In addition to these solemn engagements, the Government of the
United States entered into another (Article VIII. of the Treaty of
Peace), by which it promised that "the relinquishment, or cession
(of the Spanish sovereignty), as the case may be, cannot in any re-
spect impair the property, or rights which by law belong to the peace-
ful possession of property, of all kinds, of provinces, municipali-
ties, public or private establishments, ecclesiastic, or civic, bodies, or
any other association having legal capacity to acquire and possess
property in the aforesaid territories renounced or ceded." It is,
therefore, self-evident, under the plain language of this article,
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 373
that the Government of the United States bound itself to protect
the Cuban Church in the possession of the property belonging to
her, and to prevent her rights from being impaired by the change
of sovereignty.
Unfortunately for all, neither the wise, strong conservatism
which is characteristic of the American people and Government,
nor the foresight and righteousness of the negotiators of the Treaty
of Peace, has proved so far of any avail for the Church. It might
be stated, on the contrary, that, as far as the Catholic Church is
concerned, the first year of the American occupation of Cuba has
been disastrous.
The fact cannot be ignored, no matter how sad and deplorable,
that the distinguished General who established his headquarters at
Havana on the ist of January, 1899, and was in command of the
island until the latter part of December, never seemed to realize the
true import of the provisions of Articles VIII., X. and XVI. of
the Treaty of Peace, nor to have had any desire or power to comply
with them. Political necessity may, perhaps, have caused him to
throw himself entirely into the arms of revolutionists, whose ex-
tremely radical ideas, or desire of revenge for supposed wrongs,
found ready expression in measures of extreme hostility to the
Church, her property and her doctrine ; and the spectacle has been
given of an American high official, personally amiable and intelli-
gent, representing the highly liberal and enlightened Government
of the United States, authorizing with his approval and signature
real acts of persecution.
See, for instance, his order of May 31, 1899, in regard to mar-
riages. What necessity he could have had for legislating on this
subject and changing the wise provisions of the Spanish law, it is
difficult to perceive. Article 42 of the Civil Code, in force in
Cuba ever since November 6, 1889, reads as follows: "The law
recognizes two forms of marriage: the canonical marriage, which
is the one which all persons professing the Catholic religion ought
to contract, and the civil marriage, which shall be solemnized in the
manner and form provided for "by this Code." But General Brooke
came forth and said : "Hereafter civil marriages alone shall be
legally valid. The contracting parties may comply with the pre-
cepts of the religion professed by them in addition to performing
the formalities necessary for the solemnization of the civil mar-
riage." In Article III. of the same order General Brooke per-
mitted clergymen to solemnize marriages according to "their re-
spective religious beliefs," but, he added, "the performance of this
ceremony shall have no civil effect."
When the fact is considered that in the forty-five States of this
374 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
American Union, and in the District of Columbia, and in the Ter-
ritories of the United States, there is not a single locality in which
a marriage solemnized by a clergyman is not civilly valid, as valid
as any other marriage legally solemnized in any other manner or
form (A Report on Marriage and Divorce in the United States by
Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor, page 51), the novelty
of the reform introduced by General Brooke in a country so essen-
tially Catholic as Cuba means simply an insult.
To make it still graver, General Brooke said: "Article IV.
Marriages heretofore solemnized in the island of Cuba shall be
deemed and adjudged to be valid, and the validity thereof shall in
no way be affected by any lack of authority in the person solemniz-
ing the same. . . . Provided, that such marriages be duly re-
corded (at a certain civil office) within one year to be counted from
the date of this order." How this recording all marriages previous
to 1899 was to be made in Cuba, and on what evidence, was left
(Article VI. of the order) to the discretion of the Secretary of ]us-
tice and Public Instruction.
The readers can imagine the effect produced in Cuba among
Catholic husbands and wives by an order which compelled them to
go to a civil officer to cause their marriages, no matter how old in
date, or how strongly sanctioned by the Church and the law, to be
graciously validated, and which exposed their children to run the
risk of being declared illegitimate.
In addition to this rude attack against the sanctity of the Cath-
olic home and marriage, the spectacle has also been witnessed in
Havana during this first year of American control of some other
attacks not less rude against the property of the Church.
A house in Havana, No. 40 Cardenas street, belonging to the Con-
vent of St. Augustin, of that city, lawfully acquired by it through
inheritance under the last will and testament of Mrs. Maria Teresa
Entralgo, entered and registered as its property on the books of
the Registrar of Property since July 19, 1896, and held and pos-
sessed by it without opposition of any kind from any quarter what-
ever, was suddenly seized and appropriated to the use of the Gov-
ernment on the 29th of April, 1899. The case has been presented
and is now being examined by the War Department, and justice
will, no doubt, be done without difficulty.
One of the main supports of the Church in Cuba consists in what
is called "capellanias," ecclesiastical livings or investments, secured
by privileged mortgage and strongly resembling the "ground
rents" of the United States. It was in former times and is still
frequent among Catholics in Cuba to set apart by a "deed of foun-
dation," or by their last will and testament, a certain sum of money,
The Church and the Church Properiy in the Island of Cuba. 375
to be permanently invested in such a way as to secure an interest,
never exceeding 5 per cent, per annum, to be used either in ahns for
Masses for the repose of the soul of the founder or of some other
person, or in religious festivities, devotions or other pious pur-
poses.
Under the laws of Spain and the repeated decisions, which in ex-
planation thereof have been rendered by the Supreme Court at
Madrid, the said "capellanias" are held to be "ecclesiastical prop-
erty" from the very moment in which what is called their "canonical
erection" by the respective Diocesan takes place. As soon as this
auto de ereccion canonica is entered on record and published, no au-
thority other than the Diocesan himself has, under the laws, both
canon and Spanish, jurisdiction over them. But those laws have
been ignored on the ground that they are incompatible with the
present condition of things in Cuba, and in spite of the earnest re-
monstrances and protests of the Right Reverend Bishop of Ha-
vana, whose communications have often been left unanswered, the
civil tribunals have taken hold of the matter, a number of "capel-
lanias" have been pronounced "free," the Diocesan has been for-
bidden to exercise his rights and watch over the interests of the
Church entrusted to his care, and under the erroneous notion that
"by the extinction of the Spanish sovereignty in Cuba the Church
and the State there became separated," the Church has been al-
lowed to sustain considerable losses and injury. Through pro-
ceedings, merely ex parte, called in the Spanish law of "voluntary
jurisdiction," the Church may be, as she has already been, deprived
of a large part of her revenue.
Things have gone to the extreme of even disputing and ignoring
the right of the Diocesan to appoint an officer for the collection of
the revenues of capellanias and other property belonging to the
Church. By judicial decisions of November 10 and December 8,
1899, a decree of the Right Reverend Bishop of Havana, dated
December 7, 1897, appointing a collector of Church revenue and
ordering all payments to be made to him, it has been held that "said
episcopal decree, whatever its efficiency might have been at the
time in which it was issued, lacks now moral force (fuersa moral),
because by virtue of the extinction of the Spanish sovereignty in
this island the Church has become completely separated from the
State."
The idea does not seem to have ever occurred to the courts which
so argued, that from the fact of the extinction of the Spanish sov-
ereignty in Cuba, or from the fact of the establishment of a republic
in the same island, it does not follow at all that the Church and the
State have to be separated. The Spanish sovereignty was extin-
376 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
guished in all the countries which are now called Spanish-Ameri-
can Republics, and neither the extinction of the Spanish sov-
ereignty, nor the establishment in them of a republican form of
government, brought about ipso facto the aforesaid separation.
On the contrary, all the original Constitutions and laws of those
nations were strongly Catholic; and even now the Constitutions
and laws of most of them, including the richest and the most
powerful, as Chile and the Argentine Republic, emphatically pro-
vide, from the outset, that the Holy Roman Catholic religion is the
religion of the State, to the exclusion of all others, and that the
State ought to support it and aid it.
Not many days ago the French Republic, which has in Rome
ah Ambassador representing her government near the Holy
Father, and which gives the first place in the foreign diplomatic
body at Paris to the Papal Nuncio, refused by an overwhelming
vote in her Parliament to expunge from the appropriation bills the
provisions intended for the support of the Church.
In this matter of "capellanias" which, owing to its various as-
pects, religious, legal and financial, is of great importance, clouds
of dangerous character seem to have been gathering on the horizon
of the Cuban Church. Whether the storm will burst, or will be
dissipated, or whether, if it burst, its rage will be felt before or
after the advent of the Cuban State, it is difficult to predict. But
the black points are there, and prudent men are forced to look at
them with concern.
In the "special report" which General Leonardo Wood, Gov-
ernor of the department comprising the Cuban provinces of San-
tiago de Cuba and Puerto Principe — now Military Governor of
the whole island — submitted October 5, 1899, to the War Depart-
ment, on the condition of things in the territory, which was then,
and is now, placed under his authority, the following statements
are made :
"Another species of ecclesiastical property which bids fair to
cause considerable trouble before the settlement of the country can
be effected is found in what are called 'capellanias.'
"A 'capellania' is a perpetual annuity, payable out of the income
of the real property on which it is charged, usually established by
testamentary provision and payable to a certain church or certain
•ecclesiastics, as provided by the will of the founder. It amounts to
a perpetual estate in the realty so charged, although provision has
been made by law for the redemption of 'capellanias' and the re-
leasing of the property from the incumbrance. The arrears of an-
nual payment due and unpaid accumulate as a lien on the property
charged. So many of these 'capellanias' have been created on
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba, z'jy
properties in these provinces and payments have fallen so much in
arrears by reason of the continued disturbances in the country
that the amounts now due in some cases are in excess of the value
of the incumbered property. The efifect of this condition is to
retard, if not prevent, the rebuilding or reconstruction of properties
which have been destroyed or damaged during the war."
The report does not say how or in what manner the removal of
such an obstacle to the reconstruction of Cuba can be secured.
Certainly no American official, and least of all General Wood,
whose superiority of intellect and governmental ability are recog-
nized without difficulty, will ever advise measures of revolutionary
character, ignoring the rights of property or coquetting with base
subversive feelings of a communistic or socialistic character; and
more certainly still no measures of that kind, if advised or adopted,
would ever stand for a moment the indignant condemnation of the
American people.
On the other hand, the provisions of Article VIII. of the Treaty
of Peace, which the special report seems to have overlooked, would
prevent the United States from impairing the rights of the Church
in regard to that property, even if it were as obnoxious and pro-
ductive of evil results as intimated.
There is one feature, however, in General Wood's report which,
if noticed in due time by its distinguished author, might probably
have caused all his sayings on this subject to be either omitted or
modified. And that feature is, that while the report dwells, with
almost undisguised antagonism, on the "capellanias" belonging to
the Church and now held by the Church, it maintains a prudent
silence in regard to the "capellanias" of the same character taken
away from the Church and now held by the State. If this kind of
property is obnoxious, because it prevents the reconstruction of
the country, it is not less obnoxious when it is in the hands of the
government than when it is in the hands of the Church. The
Church at least has not the means of coercing payment of arrears, in
the shape of heavy penalties and forced sales, which the government
has, and to which at this very moment it is mercilessly resorting.
The American authorities of Cuba are now holding (and collect-
ing and using the revenue derived from them) seventy (70) "capel-
lanias," representing a principal of $46,844, and seven hundred and
fifty-six (756) "censos," representing a principal of $309,090.08,
belonging to the Church, in the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba,
and eight hundred and ninety-seven (897) "capellanias," represent-
ing a principal of $578,214.11, also belonging to the Church, in
the Diocese of Havana. The interest on all this money is relig-
iously collected by the American authorities of Cuba, and as late as
378 American Catholic Quarterly Rcviezv.
in the first week of the month of January of the present year 1900
an official advertisement was pubHshed in Havana caUing all the
debtors for interest on these "capellanias" to come and pay into the
Treasury, in Spanish gold, within the period of fifteen days, all that
was due by them, with the understanding that the failure to do so
would make them incur the penalties established by law.
It seems that the rule of alleged public interest which would work
against the Church if she would try to enforce the collection of the
annual payments due to her, ought to work with the same strength
against the American authorities. The obnoxiousness of the reve-
nue does not change when the beneficiary thereof is the American
Government instead of the Church.
Those "capellanias" belonging to religious orders of men were,
as will be seen hereafter, in the hands of the Spanish Government,
riot in ownership, but in usufruct, and in consequence of arrange-
ments under which the government collected and used the revenue,
but supported, in exchange, and within certain limits, the original
owners. When the Spanish rule ceased they were transmitted and
transferred, such as they were, to the American Government. If
the American Government enjoys this revenue, as Spain did, it has
to pay, as Spain did, its equivalent to the religious orders to which
they lawfully belong.
It is perfectly clear that if it proves to be true that the accumu-
lation of arrears of interest will entail, if the payment thereof is un-
charitably enforced, the ruin of the present owners of the estates,
the Church will be the first to recognize, as always, the great truth
which is involved in the principle simimum jus, summa injuria, and
be ready to display that moderation and kindness which are in-
herent in her nature.
But one thing is to yield and to condone, by voluntary act, and
for considerations of public good, what is ours and what is due to
us, and another thing, very different, is to impair by legislation, or
still worse by military orders, the obligations of the contracts.
The gravest blow, however, which during this first year of Amer-
ican control of Cuba has been aimed against the Church of that
island has been the stopping at once, without notice, as if it were a
matter of course, and in spite of the provisions of Articles VIII.
and X. of the Treaty of Peace, of the payment of the amounts an-
nually due to the Church by the government under laws which
were in force in Cuba when the Americans took possession of her
territory — laws which have not been repealed thereafter and which,
owing to their own nature as involving contractual obligations, can
never be repealed or amended.
As will be seen hereafter, in order to obviate the difiiculties which
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 379
might have arisen out of the necessity to return at once to the
Church, as ordered by the Concordat of March 16, 185 1, all the
property which had been taken away from her during the period
of persecution which preceded that solemn compact, laws were
enacted tinder which the government was allowed to retain certain
property which could not be easily returned, on condition, how-
ever, that the title of the Church to that property should not be
impaired by the retention, and that the government should pay to
the Church, in compensation for the use of that property and out
of the revenues thereof, if sufficient, a certain amount of money to
be determined annually by agreement between the Right Reverend
Archbishop of Cuba, the Right Reverend Bishop of Havana and
the Governor General of the island.
By virtue of these provisions the sum of $461,411 was disbursed
by the government in 1 890-1 891 and other fiscal years for the so-
called "support" of the Cuban Church : $125,840 for the Archdio-
cese of Santiago de Cuba and $335,571 for the Diocese of Ha-
vana. The total amount disbursed in 1896 for the two dioceses
was $403,149.
The sudden stoppage of these payments might have done to the
Church all the harm which was probably contemplated and en-
joyed beforehand by her enemies, if the Providence of God had not,
as always, been on her side. The delinquency of the American
authorities in refusing to pay these sums, which were not by any
means a present made by the government or a subsidy or assist-
ance granted to the Church by the government, but an equivalent
in money for the use made by the government of buildings or of
revenue or property belonging to the Church, has been productive,
of course, of considerable distress and anxiety among the clergy in
Cuba, specially in the high ranks of the hierarchy; but it has not
succeeded in stopping the "free exercise" of the Catholic religion,
or in diminishing the splendor of Divine worship.
Under thjs new regime, which is in violation of the Treaty of
Peace, in violation of the laws of Cuba, in violation of contractual
obligations and in violation of all principles of justice and equity,
the priests have been reduced to a condition of poverty which they
had never known before, but which they have borne with that forti-
tude which becomes their ministry. As intimated before, only the
heads of the Church, the Right Reverend Archbishop of Santiago
de Cuba and the Right Reverend Bishop of Havana may be said
to have been left, as far as their personal support is concerned,
either to their own individual resources or to the love and religious
zeal of the faithful.
It is confidently expected that the American Government, when
380 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
fully impressed with the idea that it cannot secure the free exercise
of the religion of the country in Cuba by tending to make any
proper exercise of the said religion impracticable, and when fully
convinced that it cannot consistently continue to retain and use
the Church property and cease to pay for it, will hasten either to
return to the Church what is hers, or to enter into arrangements
with the respective Diocesans to pay for its use.
Let it be said here, and repeated as persistently and reverently as
possible, that if the prudence and wisdom of the Holy Father have
been so strikingly illustrated by his appointments for the See of
Puerto Rico and his personal representation in the Philippine
Islands, those made by him for Cuba are in excess of all praise.
The selection of a Cuban by birth, and such a learned, pious and
venerable Cuban as the Right Rev. Francisco de P. Barnada, for
the Archiepiscopal See of Santiago de Cuba, and of a Prelate so near
to his august person, so conversant with American matters and
with the diplomacy of the Church, so learned in law and ecclesiasti-
cal sciences, so strange to any contention between Cubans and
Spaniards or Cubans and Americans, so universally respected for
his tact, his exemplary virtues and his piety, as the Right Rev.
Donato Sbarretti, for the Episcopal See of Havana, are certainly
calculated to secure the result, that whatever the storm may be
through which the Church must pass in Cuba, she will come out,
in the end, as she always does and has done, gloriously triumphant.
In all questions relating to the property of the Church in Cuba
a distinction must be made between the property belonging to
the Church as represented by the secular clergy and the property
belonging to the Church as represented by the religious orders.
The laws and precedents regarding each one are different, and no
intelligent solution of any problem relating thereto can be given
without first understanding that difference.
During the long period of 323 years intervening between the
erection at La Asuncion (Baracoa) in 15 18, of the episcopal see,
which was transferred four years afterwards to Santiago de Cuba,
and was the second See erected in the New World, the first having
been that of La Espafiola or Haiti, and the importation into Cuba
of the novelties introduced into Spain under the influence of revo-
lutionary ideas interfering with the Church, her ministers and her
property, the condition of the Church in Cuba, as far as property
and material resources are concerned, was one of independence
and ease. The Church lived and flourished, securing as she did
a glorious record out of her own revenue without assistance of any
kind from the government.
That most important part of the organization of the Church
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 381
which constitutes its main body and is represented by the secular
clergy and their work depended for its support on revenues de-
rived from the following sources :
(i) Tithes, originally a right to the tenth part of the product of
lands, and stock upon lands, and subsequently a right to collect
a pecuniary tax on the same at the rates and in the manner pro-
vided by law.
(2) "Capellanias" and "censos."
(3) Voluntary contributions, donations, legacies and pious funds
and endowments.
The royal decree of September 9, 1842, took pains to explain, and
the explanation is, therefore, authoritative, interpretatio authentica,
that the obligation of the landowners to pay tithes was founded
upon contract, and could therefore be enforced without resorting
in the least to any consideration of religious duty. In corrobora-
tion of this doctrine the royal decree set forth that the conces-
sions of land in Cuba had been granted by the Crown upon the
express condition that tithes should be paid.
This doctrine of the Spanish Government has been, de facto at
least, endorsed by its successor the Government of the United
States, as it has continued to collect the tax in the same form and
manner as Spain left it when giving up her sovereignty. There
is, nevertheless, a great difference between what was done in this
respect by the Spanish authorities and what is now done by the
American. As will be seen hereafter much more in full, the Span-
iards took possession of this revenue and made it a State revenue,
but this was done on condition that the Church should be paid
out of it a certain amount of money. The Americans have suc-
ceeded the Spaniards in the collection, use and enjoyment of the
revenue; but the idea has not as yet occurred to them that they
must also succeed their conquered foes in making the payments
to which that revenue was previously devoted.
The other important part of the organization of the Church
which constitutes that noble branch, so powerfully instrumental to
the evangelization of the people and the diffusion of Catholic doc-
trine, practices and habits, and is represented by the religious or
monastic orders, or, as it is said in Spanish, El Clero Regular, de-
pended for its support on revenues of its own derived from the
following sources :
(i) "Capellanias" and "censos," founded in favor of their re-
spective houses or convents.
(2) Voluntary contributions in money or property, donations,
legacies and pious funds and endowments of various classes.
The fact is well known that the monastic orders, whenever and
382 American Catholic Quarterly Reviciv.
wherever established, have always succeeded in securing a firm
hold in the hearts of the people. The essentially democratic char-
acter of most of them and the unbounded religious zeal and charity
characteristic of all have placed them at all times in close contact
with the people and have allowed the work of the Church to be
efficiently done, even in quarters which the secular clergy cannot
easily reach. But in Cuba, where Franciscans, and Dominicans,
and Augustinians, and Belemites, as well as the sons of St. John
of God, and others, became so conspicuous from the very first
days of the settlement of the country for their staunch defense of
the rights of the people, for their uncompromising opposition to
tyranny and cruelty, for their efforts to propagate public instruc-
tion, whether by teaching gratuitously in their own convents or
by opening primary schools free to all, rich or poor, Spaniard or
native, white or colored, and crowning the whole structure with
the establishment of the Dominican Fathers of the University of
Havana, as high in rank and efficiency as the highest in the world,
and for their practical ardor, zeal and self-denial in ministering
to the poor and the afflicted, by creating homes and asylums for
the orphan, the destitute, the leper and the insane, hospitals for
the sick and the convalescent and charitable institutions of all
kinds, the attachment and love of the people to these orders was
intensified to the extreme. The result was that almost from the very
beginning the Cuban convents were placed by the people in a con-
dition, if not of great wealth, at least of independence, which rendered
all assistance on the part of the government entirely unnecessary.
But the wave of ''reform" which had been raging in Spain ever
since the importation into her territory of the principles and ideas
of the French Revolution of 1789, and had culminated in the iniqui-
tous drastic laws of 1837, succeeded in reaching Cuba in 1841, and
caused the state of things just described to be changed completely.
Had the "reform" been allowed to have full sway in the island, as it
had had in the mother country, the harm done to the Cuban Church
might perhaps have been irreparable. But Providence permitted
that at the critical moment, owing to that strange power of the
Governors General of Cuba — a power which in other respects has
been so prolific of evil results — in the exercise of which they could
suspend the execution of any law or order of whatever kind or de-
scription emanating, from the home government which they, in
their own discretion, might consider obnoxious or in opposition
to the best interests of the Crown or of the people — facultades om-
nimodas — an obstacle was raised against which the whole move-
ment was compelled to stop and then divide its force and mitigate
its fury. Over three years were necessary to bring about a set-
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 383
dement. Noble work was then done in favor of the Church and
the country by an eminent Cuban, Don Claudio Martinez de Pini-
Ilos, Count of Villanueva, who, through his talents and his merits,
had succeeded in reaching the position which he held at that time,
second only in importance to that of the Governor General, of
Superintendent General of the Royal Treasury of Cuba. Through
his efforts and those of many other distinguished officials, Cubans
as well as Spaniards, the compromise which is known under the
name of "the arrangements of 1841-1843" was made and accepted,
and became for the time being the law of the country. These
"arrangements" consisted in a series of measures by which the
most odious and malignant features of the Spanish "reform" were
wiped out, and the new status of apparent dependence of the
Church upon the State was made take the place of the absolute and
fully avowed independence which had formerly existed.
One of these compromise measures, the vital importance of
which cannot be exaggerated, because it affects the main support of
the secular clergy, from Diocesan to simple priest, was raised soon
afterwards to the higher dignity of a formal enactment by means
of a royal decree dated September 9, 1842, which, while providing
that all former laws relating to tithes and turning them from a
purely ecclesiastical revenue into a government revenue, should
continue to be in force, temporarily, interinamente, directed that
the government should thereafter pay to the Church, out of funds
derived from the said tithes, which were to be primordially affected
to meet this obligation, and if not sufficient, out of any other funds
of its own not otherwise appropriated, whatever sums of money
might be found to be necessary for the support of the secular
clergy and the payment of the expenses of divine worship in the
Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba and the Diocese of Havana, as
estimated by a Board or Junta, which by the same royal decree
was established. The government assumed this obligation towards
the Church in compensation of the use of the Church revenue,
which it assumed to collect and manage temporarily. Con obliga-
cion, the royal decree says, de satisfacer las congruas y demds dota-
ciones que para la manutencion del culto y clero de sus diocesis se esti-
maren necesarias par la Junta ^ue al efecto se mando crear par el
articulo noveno.
This arrangement, which as will be seen hereafter, was made per-
manent by royal cedula of September 30, 1852, created the condi-
tion of things which General Brooke found in the island of Cuba
when, on the ist of January, 1899, the Spanish flag was pulled down
and the flag of the United States of America hoisted in its place
at the Government's palace at Havana.
384 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
It was a situation of do ut des, or of capio ut capias — of contractual
character, involving mutuality of relations and rights — in which
the Government of the United States is bound to-day, as Spain was
before, either to continue to pay the stipulated amounts or to re-
turn the revenue which had been seized and held upon" the express
condition that such payments should be made.
Another important "arrangement," subsequently ratified by a
royal cedula issued on the 26th of November, 1852, and carried at
once into effect with universal satisfaction of the Cuban people,
was the one relating to the religious orders or monastic institu-
tions of the island of Cuba. It consisted chiefly in excluding from
the operation of the "reform" laws of Spain, for all effects and pur-
poses, whether in relation to persons or to property, the commu-
nities of nuns and Sisters of whatever class, and in permitting said
laws to be enforced with regard to the communities of monks and
friars, only in a modified form, which, while preventing said com-
munities from increasing their membership, either through novi-
tiate or accession, and from managing and using the revenue law-
fully derived from their property, allowed the said communities
to remain in their convents, under the name of "Congregaciones
Religiosas," reduced to a fixed number of members, their personal
expenses and the expenses of divine worship in their respective
churches to be paid by the government.
With the exception, perhaps, of the magnificent Church of Saint
Francis, in Havana, upon whose portal the inscription can yet be
read : Non est in toto sanctior orbe locus, no other church was allowed
to be closed to the public in the Diocese of Havana. The convent
to which it was attached and the Convent of the Third Order of
St. Francis, which formed part of the structure, the former being
held sacred among some other things from the fact that St. Fran-
cis Solano had been for a time one of its inmates, were also the
only ones which the government was allowed to retain completely.
The Church, owing to its vast dimensions and to its situation on
the very edge of the Havana harbor, was taken by the govern-
ment for Custom House purposes, and the convents gave room
to the general archives of the island, to some government offices
and even to private lodgings for some favorite employes.
All other convents for men, even when partially taken by the
government for public or official purposes, had a portion reserved
to accommodate their former inmates, as members who were now
of the "Congregacion Religiosa" therein established. As to the
church or chapel attached to the convent, it was left in the hands
and under the care and control of the same "Congregacion."
Each one of these communities was allowed to retain its own
The Church and iJtc Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 385
name, to live according to its own rule, to wear its own habit and
to act in all outward respects as if nothing had been changed. But
its respective membership could not exceed certain limits, and even
the number of attendants or servants was fixed. The superior of
each house became its "president." And if the number of friars
existing in one convent was larger than the one which the "Congre-
gacion" was allowed to have, those forming the surplus were to
have positions, if possible, in the secular clergy, as pastors of
churches, etc., etc., with permission, however, to continue to wear,
if they wanted, the habit of their order. If the number was found
to be smaller, the lawful membership should be completed by bring-
ing priests of other orders or, if practicable, of the secular clergy.
The "Congregaciones" which General Brooke found in Cuba in
1899, and whose members are now laboring under circumstances
of stress and poverty almost intolerable, were three in the Archdio-
cese of Santiago de Cuba, namely, the United "Congregaciones"
of Franciscans of Bayamo and Santiago de Cuba, that of the
Fathers of the Pious Schools (Escolapios) and that of the Fathers
of La Merced ; and nine in the Diocese of Havana, formed respec-
tively by Carmelites, Franciscans, Paulists, Dominicans, Augus-
tinians, Jesuits, Escolapios, Passionists and Trinitarians.
The personal expenses of these priests and those of the cult in
their charge were to be met, and met, up to the time of the Amer-
ican occupation, out of the revenues derived by the government
from the property belonging to each order, which the government
was allowed to retain, in usufruct, but subject to that condition.
The salary of the president of each "Congregacion" was $600 per
year. That of each "congregado," $480. Sextons, attendants and
servants had respectively from $240 to $180 per year.
The expenses of divine worship in these churches were met by
a lump sum, varying from $1,200 to $5,180 a year, payable by
monthly instalments. The reason of the difference was because
those churches receiving more money had also to perform a greater
number of religious duties, as otherwise certain donations and
bequests made in their favor which the government was interested
in keeping alive would have been forfeited.
This was the state of things which existed in Cuba when, on the
i6th of March, 185 1, a solemn Concordat was concluded between
the Holy See and the Crown of Spain, and the provision of that
compact, subsequently ratified and affirmed by the Convention of
August 25, 1859, were made applicable to Cuba and all the other
dominions of Spain. All the seizures of property belonging to the
Church, whether made under the crude name of "confiscation" or
under the disguised ones of "commutation," "permutation," "na-
386 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tionalization," or something else, were openly condemned and repu-
diated. Whatever property of this kind was found in the hands
of the government was ordered to be returned to the Church, or
to the respective diocesans in her behalf, *'at once and without
delay." Indemnification, to be paid in registered bonds of the
three per cent, consolidated debt of Spain, was to be made for the
property which had been destroyed or sold or which for some other
reasons could not be easily returned. Justice was made at last,
and peace, so long disturbed in Spain between the Church and the
government, was finally restored and reestablished.
The provisions of the Concordat, when tried to be enforced in
Cuba, were met by an obstacle which was not easy to surmount.
Owing to certain reasons, the enumeration of which is not neces-
sary, the government did not deem it advisable — perhaps it was
impossible for it to do it — to pay the Cuban Church with those
three per cent, registered bonds of the consolidated debt the value
of the property which had been taken away from her and could
not be returned without great inconvenience.
It was no doubt very difficult to vacate the Church and Con-
vent of St. Francis of Havana and leave the Custom House and
the Archives and the other offices established in those large and
magnificent buildings entirely homeless. It was not an easy thing
to dislodge the University, the Museum, the Public Library and
other Government institutions, which had been accommodated with
decent quarters in portions of other convents. It was also very
difficult, if not at all impossible, for the government to command
at that time, after the operations of the same kind made in Spain,
such a number of bonds as were required to pay the Cuban Church
the proper indemnity. Perhaps it was deemed better to leave Cuba
and the Cuban people entirely unconnected with the Spanish con-
solidated debt. Be it as it may, the fact is that the government,
while carrying into effect, in its spirit as well as in its letter, in the
island of Cuba the provisions of the Concordat, thought it neces-
sary to do so by means of certain orders of local application cal-
culated to remove or obviate whatever difficulties might present
themselves.
The first measure of this kind was the Royal Cedula,or ordinance.
of September 30, 1852, relating to tithes. It was provided by it,
(i) that the arrangements made or approved by the royal decree of
September 9, 1842, above referred to should be maintained and
continued, or, in other words, that the government should con-
tinue to collect and use the tithes revenue, but on condition to
pay the Church certain stipulated amounts; (2) that out of the
moneys derived from that source by the government or, if not suffi-
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 387
cient, out of any other moneys in the Treasury of Cuba not other-
wise appropriated, the salaries of $18,000 per year each should be
paid to the Right Rev. Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba and to the
Right Rev. Bishop of Havana, both Prelates to have besides, until
some other final arrangements could be made, $1,000 the former
and $4,000 the latter, to pay house rents ; (3) that out of the same
sources salaries, ranking from $4,500 to $2,000 a year, should be
paid the Deans and other members of the respective Cathedral chap-
ters ; (4) that all laws and decrees abridging or interfering with the
right of the respective Archbishop and Bishop to dispose by will
or otherwise of their own property or levying tipon those Prelates
any kind of extra burden or taxation should be at once invalidated
and repealed; (5) that the same system of classification of parishes
as had been adopted in Spain, dividing them into three classes
called respectively de ingreso (entrance or admission in the pas-
torate), de ascenso (promotion or elevation in rank) and de termino
(end or completion of the career), with salaries of $700, $1,200 and
$2,000 a year, should be adopted in Cuba; (6) that in Cuba, the
same as in Spain, the fees collected by the curates for baptisms,
marriages, etc., should be divided into two parts, one of them to
be used for what is called la fdbrica, that is to say, repairs of the
church building and other expenses of that kind, and the other to
go to the curate himself, but to be imputed and charged to his
salary account; (7) that the sums of $300, $400 and $700 a year
should be paid to each church, according to its respective cate-
gory, to attend with it to the expenses of divine worship ; and fin-
ally (8) that some other arrangements to complete what was called
the "putting of the secular branch of the Church on a firm and
stable foundation," arrangements which the royal cedula minutely
describes, should be carried at once into effect.
The second measure came out in the shape of another Royal
Cedula or ordinance of the same date, and related especially to the
Seminary of each Cathedral, to the Cathedrals themselves and to
some matters of detail which had been omitted in the preceding
enactment.
The third measure was also a Royal Cedula, bearing the same
date, in which the ecclesiastical division of the island was carried
into effect, the names of each parish, whether de mgreso, de ascenso
or de termino, in each diocese, being given in full.
The fourth measure, in the shape of another Royal Cedula or ord:-
nance, dated November 26, 1852, referred to the religious orders,
and after paying to them a great and well deserved tribute, and
reiterating that under Article 38 of the Concordat all the
property belonging to them held by the government and not sold
388 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
should be at once released and restored to them or to the respective dio-
cesans in their behalf, provided (Article 5) that, "in compliance with
such a solemn promise," the Governor General of Cuba, "with the
advice of the Superintendent General of the Royal Treasury and
the proper intervention of the respective Diocesans, should proceed
at once to form an inventory of all the "censos," houses, lands and
other property, real, personal or mixed, belonging to the religious
communities and not sold or disposed of," . . . and that "as
soon as this inventory is made the formal obligation should be en-
tered in writing by the Superintendent General of the Royal Trea-
sury, in my Royal name, in favor of the Church as represented by
the respective Archbishop or Bishop, to set aside the proceeds of
the said property to satisfy the necessities of the Church and to
attend, preferently to all other things, to the maintenance and sup-
port of the religious houses to which the Cedula refers." Se ex-
tienda par el Superintendente en mi Real nombre obligacion formal a
favor de la Iglesia y en su representacion de los respectivos Dioce-
sanos . , , de invertir sus productos en sus necesidades y con pre-
ferencia en la manutencion y sostenimiento de los institutos religiosos a
que se contrae la presente Cedula.
These religious houses were those of the Paulists (the Spanish
Paulists or clergymen of St. Vincent of Paul, clerigos de San
Vicente de Paula) the Escolapios, the Jesuits and the Franciscans.
The other orders which, in the shape of "Congregaciones religio-
sas," had survived the "reform" were, of course, respected and
allowed to continue their work without hindrance.
During the forty-seven years elapsed between the dates of these
Royal Cedulas, which might be called the fundamental charter of
the modern Church of Cuba, and the ist of January, 1899, when
General Brooke took up his official residence at the palace of the
Governors General of Cuba, no substantial alteration was made to
the provisions just described. • Some orders were transferred from
one convent to another, when in the opinion of the Diocesan such a
transfer was necessary. The Augustinians, who were few in num-
ber, were, as it might be said, concentrated in the building belong-
ing to their Third Order ; and the Franciscans, who were more nu-
merous and who, according to the Royal Cedula of November 26,
1852, were to be given preferent recognition, not as a single "con-
gregacion," but as a regular monastic order, were given the
main convent of St. Augustin. Some other minor changes took
place. But the principle was always maintained that the property
of the Church which was held by the government was property of
the Church, and that whatever money was paid to the Church by
the government was money of the Church derived from property
The Church and the Church Property in the Island of Cuba. 389
retained by the government in usufruct, and when practicable
under inventory, the title on which had never been divested from
the Church.
The present Governor of Cuba, Major General Leonardo Wood,
when speaking about the provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Puerto
Principe in his special report of October 5, 1899, above cited, ex-
plained the situation as follows:
"The property of the Catholic Church, as formerly established
in Cuba, was held by the Spanish Government as a part of the prop-
erty of the State, the administration of public worship being con-
sidered a part of the duty of the government in consideration of
the surrender to the State of such ecclesiastical properties.
"The government charged itself with the payment of all the ex-
penses of religion and public worship, including the salaries of the
clergy. On the withdrawal of Spain from the island these pay-
ments, of course, ceased to be made.
"It is now claimed on behalf of the ecclesiastical authorities that
the properties used for religious purposes should revert to the
possession and ownership of the Church by reason of the failure of
the Spanish Government to meet or to fulfill the obligations con-
tracted when these properties passed into the possession of the State.
"On the other hand, it is claimed by some of the representative
Cubans that the Church property may be regarded as any other
public property, the Church having parted with all claims to owner-
ship or use when the property was surrendered to the government.
"Pending a settlement of this question by competent authority,
the ecclesiastical authorities remain in possession of the churches
and worship is held in them, the expenses being defrayed by the
voluntary contributions of the worshipers." With the exception of
some slight inaccuracies, this presentation of the case is fair.
It is inaccurate to say, for instance, that the property of the Church
held by the government in Cuba was held as part of the property
of the State, because, as it has been shown by the Concordat and by
the Royal Cedula of 1852, it was held as property of the Church, was
managed and administered as such, under inventory, and by a special
branch of the government organization, and was specially affected,
preferently, if not exclusively, to the payment of the expenses of re-
ligion and worship.
It is also inaccurate to say or intimate that Spain ever failed to
meet or to fulfill the obligations contracted when these proper-
ties passed into the possession of the State. The truth is that that
failure is chargeable alone to the American authorities, which
stopped at once the payments without stopping simultaneously
the possession of the property and the enjoyment of the proceeds.
390 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
But the distinguished soldier and statesman upon whom the des-
tinies of Cuba are now practically depending was fair enough to
avoid taking sides with "the representative Cubans" to whom he
alludes, and recognized without difficulty that an important ques-
tion is involved in this matter and that that question has to be set-
tled, if not settled arbitrarily, by competent authority.
It is unnecessary to say that the allegation of those "represen-
tative Cubans" that the Church parted with all claims to owner-
ship or use of property when the government took possession
of it has no foundation at all, either in fact or in law. In fact, be-
cause it is clear, as abundantly shown by the record, that the Church
never made that parting, and that the government, after having
repudiated and repealed and condemned all attempts to confiscate
the Church property, ordered it to be returned to the Church. The
State was not permitted to retain it, except when the restitution was
attended with difficulties, and the retention was then to be merely
in usufruct, and subject to the obligations which have been ex-
plained. In law, because it is well known, and nobody can doubt it,
if versed in these matters, that the Church cannot part with the
ownership of the property of churches and convents or of pious funds
and endowments specially created for religious purposes.
It is to be expected that the Government of the United States
will see without difficulty, that it is its plain duty to release and
return to the Church, through the respective Archbishop and
Bishop, every piece of property belonging to the Church in Cuba,
which was transmitted to it by the Spanish Government, and to pay,
furthermore, such indemnification as may be found to be proper
for the use of that property since it fell into its hands.
It is also to be expected that the Government of the United
States, being true to its word, will not allow any property rights
or any rights of any other kind belonging to the Church in Cuba
to be impaired, either by its own officials or by the Cuban authori-
ties, on the pretext that the relinquishment of the Spanish sover-
eignty in Cuba has operated changes which would be in conflict with
and in opposition to the provisions of Article VIII. of the Treaty
of Peace: that it will practically secure the free exercise in the
island of the Catholic religion; and that when the day comes, if
ever, for the United States to leave Cuba to herself, it will impress
efficiently upon the Cuban Government that the obligations con-
tracted by the United States before the civilized world in regard
to the religion and the Church of the island must be, to the credit
of all the parties concerned, literally and strictly respected.
J. I. Rodriguez.
Washington.
JVas St. Paul in Spain? 391
WAS ST. PAUL IN SPAIN?
IN connection with our recent war it is interesting to know, in
general, something of the origin of Christianity in Spain; in
particular, just how probably St. Paul carried his teachings
to the homes of the silver miners and grape growers of that historic
land. On what grounds do such church historians as Pearson,
Hug, Olshausen,^ Neander,^ Fleury,^ Darras,* Hergenroether,'*
Renan,® Bunsen,^ Conybeare and Howson^ base their belief that St.
Paul made a Spanish journey, while Baur, VVieseler, Schenkel and
Schaff either doubt or deny it altogether ?**
It is our purpose briefly to state two explicit and as many implicit
proofs, with the views of competent critics, about this subject. In
St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (ch. xv., v. 24) it is said : "When
I shall begin to take my journey into Spain, I hope that as I pass I
shall see you and be brought on my way thither by you." Did
he go?
Again, in the Acts (ch. xxviii., vs. 16 and 30), we read that St.
Paul came to Rome. Bleek, commenting on this, says : "We may
therefore regard it as certain that St. Paul really did labor in the
parts referred to {i. e., Spain), for the Acts were surely written some
years after the Apostle's second year in Rome, and the way they
end hints not of his martyrdom, which should have been mentioned,
but rather of his liberation."^'*
So from the inspired writings, St. Paul, above all things a man of
determination and untiring physical as well as mental energy, in-
tended to go to Spain; and, moreover, there is no denial of his
going. Such being the state of the question, is there no compe-
tent and trustworthy witness to fill out the unfinished accounts in
the Epistle to the Romans and in the Acts of the Apostles ?
I. St. Clement,^ ^ third Bishop of Rome after St. Peter, who wrote
his Epistle to the Corinthians not later than the end of the first
century, is such a character. Living at Rome, probably a disciple
of St. Paul, and acquainted with St. Paul's projects, he writes that
his master "preached the Gospel in the east and in the west . . .
had instructed the whole world" [i. e., Roman], and had gone to
"the extremities of the West" (^« r-^'ia rr^^ r'y<rzw ).i^
^ Schaff's *' Apostolic Church," p. 398. 2 " General Church History," Vol. i., p. 116. 3 "His-
toire de I'ERlise," liv. II., g 10. * " General Hist, of the Church," Vol, I., p. 47. 6 << Histoire
de I'ERlise," Vol. II., p. 197, ed. 94. ^ •• L,' Anti-Christ," p. ic6. ^ " Hippolytus," I., p. 27, sec-
ond edition. * "St. Paul," p. 802, popular edition. ^Schaff's "Apostolic Church," p. 398.
1^ " Introduction to N. T.,' Vol. II., p. 60. " Though some deny C. of Phil, iv., 3 is C. Ro-
manus, yet all admit the epistle was written in the first century. ^- 1. Elpis. to Cor., ch. v.
392 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
If any commentary on these words be asked Lightfoot should
stand first. "In the Epistle to the Romans (xv., 24) S. Paul had
stated his intention of visiting Spain. From the language of Clem-
ent here it appears that this intention was fulfilled. . . . But it
is incredible that a writer living in the metropolis and centre of
power and civilization could speak of it as 'the extreme west/ and
this at a time when many eminent Latin authors and statesmen were
or had been natives of Spain, and when the commercial and pas-
senger traffic with Gades was intimate and constant."^^
Bunsen says: "It appears to me very arbitrary to deny a fact
for which we have the explicit evidence of Paul's disciple and com-
panion, Clemens.""
Conybeare and Howson, in their "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"
say: "In a Roman author the 'extremity of the west' could mean
nothing short of Spain."^^
And Neander adds: "Since the Roman Bishop Clemens says
that St. Paul went to the very boundaries of the west, we cannot
imagine this expression to allude to Rome, and our thoughts
naturally turn to Spain. Clement was probably himself the disciple
of St. Paul, and this is a matter on which we can hardly suppose
him to have been deceived !"^^
Conybeare and Howson admit that: "Against this unanimous
testimony of the primitive Church there is no external evidence
whatever to oppose. "^^
Despite these fair and able critics, Schaff contends that: "As
Clement wrote to the Corinthians he may, from their geographical
standpoint, have called the Roman capital the end of the west."^^
But from the citations above it is clear that the burden of the criti-
cism of St. Clement's ra repiia T7j? dutreoi^ is decidedly on the
side of St. Paul's having gone to Spain.
II. A century and a half ago the learned Italian Muratori printed
his "Antiquitates Italicse," containing, amongst other things, a man-
uscript of the ninth century. In this old manuscript was imbedded
a fragment of a manuscript written some time between the year 160^''
and 190.-'' In the thirty-ninth of its eighty-five lines it speaks of
"Paul's setting out from the city [of Rome] for Spain." Schaff
quibblingly says : "This is merely a conjecture, as the verb omittit
has to be supplied."-^ But evidently the substantial sense is clearly
something about the fact of Paul's setting out for Spain. So that
this seems truly a second though less clinching explicit testimony
in favor of Paul's going to Spain.
Every student of Church History highly values and dearly loves
"Coriuthians ch. v., note 6. " " Hippolytus," second edition, Vol. I., p. 127. i^ Page 801.
'• Neander's •' Hist, of Fii-st Three Centuries of Church," pp. 49-50. i^ " St. Pau',' p. 802.
"SchaflPs "Gen. Ch. Hist.," I., p. 332. i9 Westcott. 20 Muratori. 21 Schaff's C. C, I. p. 333-
Was St. Paul in Spain? 393
the "pater familias" of all Church historians — Eusebius of Caesarea,
by far the most learned man of his age, every inch an historian and
a lover of the olden days and matters of fact. In the twenty-second
chapter of the second book of his Church History we read: "Thus,
after he had made his defense, it is said that the Apostle was sent
again upon the ministry of preaching, and that upon coming to the
same city a second time he suffered martyrdom."
This apparent proof of Paul's freedom after his two years in
Rome and, therefore, of his easy chance of fulfilling his purpose of
going to Spain, is criticized rather severely by Neander: "The
tradition in Eusebius is not sufficient evidence, because it was then
too much the fashion to establish facts from incompetent presump-
tions, conclusions and suppositions, and so perhaps Romans xv., 24
may have given rise to this report."^^ But although Eusebius did
write two hundred and fifty years after the event, and although his
words are vague (loyo^ -y.^i), and although contrary to his custom
— he quotes no authority, yet his testimony gains a consideration
with many, and offers a third though indirect and less cogent proof
of Paul's journey to Spain.
"The best proof of this concluding [missionary] work are the
pastoral epistles."^ It is now admitted by nearly all those who are
competent to decide on such a question, first, that the historical
facts mentioned in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus cannot be
placed in any portion of St. Paul's life before or during his first im-
prisonment in Rome, and, secondly, that the style in which those
epistles are written and the condition of the Church described in
them forbid the supposition of such a date."-* Moreover, it is now
conceded that in the first Christian century there were many Jews
in Spain, and consequently St. Paul would wish to reach them with
his good news formerly told in the Areopagus of Greece.
That Gelasius says Paul was not able to go to Spain for a certain
time we admit ; but he is one witness, and a late one, against many
like Athanasius, Cyril, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Theodoret and
Jerome, who say he did go.
That Innocent I. is another who says that "None of the Apostles
but Peter taught the faith in Spain and the west" we admit ; but the
comm.on belief, even when Innocent wrote this, was in favor of
Paul's having been in Spain. Or, again. Innocent may have for-
gotten or overlooked Paul, or used "Apostles" in the sense of the
first and original tzvelve, excluding Paul.
That if Paul were in Spain we should hear of it in his works needs
no refutation, for much of Paul's labors are undescribed ; while we
*5" History of Christian Religion and Church During First Three Centuries," p. 49.
" SchaflPs " Gen. Ch. Hist.," Vol. I., p. 333. ^ Conj^beare and Howson, op. cit., p. 803.
394 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
have nothing at all told us in Scripture of the late labors of many
of the Apostles.
That there is no Church of St. Paul in Spain claiming foundation
by Paul has, if substantiated, some weight as an objection. How-
ever, even Schaff concedes: "These post-apostolic testimonies,
taken together, make it very probable, but not historically certain,
that Paul was released after the spring of 63."^^ And Cony-
beare and Howson say in conclusion that: "The evidence 0:1
this subject, though not copious, is yet conclusive as far as it goes,
and it is all one way."^^ Therefore, it seems that in this much-
mooted and still unsettled question the probability is that the great
Apostle of the Gentiles really did not stop his missionary labors till
he reached the border lands of the wild Atlantic, ^o- rspixa ny? duffsw,^
of the pre-Columbian world.
Louis O'Donovan.
Petersville, Md.
Sdenttfic Cbrontclc*
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN MAY 28, 1900.
The total eclipse of the sun, which will occur on May 28, is of
more than usual interest to the people of the United States, because
the shadow path of totality runs most conveniently across the East
Gulf and Middle Atlantic States. The path of the eclipse enters
the United States at New Orleans, La., and runs in a northeast
direction, leaving the States at Norfolk, Va. Thus such cities as
New Orleans, La., Mobile, Ala., Montgomery, Ala., Raleigh, N. C,
and Norfolk, Va., besides very many small towns, lie well within
the path of totality. Thousands of persons may thus view this
eclipse, if the weather be favorable, without making long journeys
to do so.
In the United States the eclipse occurs during the morning hours,
beginning at New Orleans at about twentv minutes past 7, and
ending at Norfolk about 9 o'clock. All along the line of the
eclipse the totality, or the time that the sun is totally obscured, is of
short duration. In a solar eclipse totality may last five or six
minutes, but such eclipses are of rare occurrence. In the present
*6 SchaflPs op. cit., I. p. 333. 20 Conybeare and Howson, op. cit., p. 8co.
ScientiHc Chronicle. 395
case totality lasts from i minute 13 seconds to i minute 42 seconds.
The shortest duration corresponds with the entrance of the shadow
at New Orleans, and the duration increases as the shadow moves
eastward until it reaches its maximum in the United States at Nor-
folk. As seconds are precious on such occasions, observers who
wish to obtain all the data they can from this eclipse will locate their
stations as far eastward as possible. To enable observers to locate
their stations where the weather conditions will in all probability
be most favorable, the United States Department of Agriculture has
issued as a bulletin of the Weather Bureau, a pamphlet by Mr. Frank
H. Bigelow, giving the results of observations made during the last
three years at from sixty-six to eighty-eight stations along the path
of the eclipse in the United States. The object of the observations
was to determine the prevailing average cloudiness in the districts
covered by the path of the eclipse. The observations were made at
each station between 8 and 9 o'clock in the morning, the time at
which the eclipse will occur.
These observations were two-fold, first on the general state of the
sky and secondly on the state of the sky near the sun. At first
sight it might appear that the low altitude of the sun at the time of
the eclipse would indicate an unfavorable position for observation
on account of mist or clouds along the horizon. When, however,
the results of the observations were summed up and reduced for
comparison it was found that in the second case, the sky near the
sun, the percentages for cloudiness ran smaller than in the case of
the general condition of the sky. This shows that in the Southern
States the position of the sun at the time of the eclipse is more likely
to be clear at that hour than the rest of the sky. Another conclu-
sion arrived at from the discussion of the observations of 1899 is that
the percentages show a decrease of cloudiness from the Atlantic
coast near Norfolk, Va., toward Georgia, and also from the Gulf
coast at New Orelans, La., toward the same point. From which it
is concluded that Eastern Alabama and Central Georgia, about
south of Atlanta, is the most favorable region for avoiding the
tendency to cloudiness. Here, then, is the best place to locate the
eclipse stations as far as this consideration is concerned. The
report of the Weather Bureau already referred to is most painstak-
ing and will prove of great value to the number of scientists who are
preparing to observe the coming eclipse.
A total solar eclipse gives an opportunity of making a number of
interesting and important observations. The observation of the
times of the four contacts of the sun and moon, which serve to
correct the tables of their motions. Then there are telescopic and
spectroscopic observations of the corona and prominences and the
396 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
photographing of the same. In addition there will no doubt be a
sharp lookout for intra-mercurial planets. To the ordinary ob-
server so situated as to command a view of the distant western
horizon the approach of the moon's shadow is a most interesting
spectacle. It advances like a thunder-storm with surprising swift-
ness. The moon advances along its orbit at the rate of about 2,100
miles per hour. This would be the rate at which the shadow would
travel if the earth did not rotate on its axis. The earth is rotating
eastward in the same general direction as that in which the shadow
is moving. At the equator the surface of the earth moves at the
rate of about 1,040 miles per hour. This reduces the speed of the
shadow to about i,o6o miles per hour. In higher latitudes, where
the velocity of the earth's rotation is smaller, the speed of the
shadow is higher. In the present case the velocity will be about
1,300 miles per hour.
Should the weather conditions prove favorable we may expect
good results from the observations made during the coming solar
eclipse.
DAVID E. HUGHES, F. R. S.
The death of David E. Hughes, which occurred on January 22
last, removes a well-known figure from the scientific field. A short
notice of Professor Hughes will be of interest to our readers, since
his first great work was brought out in America. He was of Welsh
descent and was born in London on May 16, 183 1. When he was
seven years old his father emigrated to the United States and settled
as a planter in Virginia. When the boy grew up he became a citizen
of the United States. He never abandoned his citizenship, and
this, according to a notice of his death in Nature, is probably the
reason why the English Government never recognized his eminent
scientific services. The boy early developed a talent for music, and
at the age of 19 was appointed professor of music in the Presby-
terian Academy, Bardstown, Ky. Shortly afterwards he was ap-
pointed to the chair of natural philosophy in the same institution.
This was a period of rapid telegraphic development, and Hughes
became interested in the nascent art. At the age of 24 he invented
his celebrated Roman type-printing telegraph, which was first pat-
ented in this country in 1855. In the hands of such men as Peter
Cooper and Cyrus Field it soon went into practical use, passing
ultimately into the control of the Western Union Telegraph Com-
pany. His instrument was based on synchronism, and each letter
was struck bv one current.
Scientiiic Chronicle. 397
He went to England in 1857 to introduce his apparatus. The
time was not favorable, as the telegraph was in the hands of private
companies and their capital was locked up in promoting other
patents. In i860 his system was adopted in France, and he was
made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Similar honors were
conferred on him in Italy, Russia, Austria, Turkey, Bavaria, Wur-
temburg and Spain. The system was adopted in these countries as
well as in England, Prussia and Switzerland.
For an interesting account of Professor Hughes' early days when
he was engaged on his first great invention, the writer is indebted
to Rev. Walter Flill, S. J. It is in the subjoined letter of Mr. J. W.
Muir, vice president of the banking house of Wilson & Muir, Bards-
town, Ky., to Father Hill :
"I knew Hughes well. He boarded in the same house I did. I
was frequently in his room with him during his leisure hours, when
he was engaged at his invention. He taught music on the harp at
the Bardstown Presbyterian Academy. He was regarded as a bril-
liant performer on that instrument and a fine teacher. Hughes
was a very diminutive man in his physical proportions, but of won-
derful energy. He had in his room the works of an old brass
clock, to which he attached a small wooden cylinder, into which
with the aid of his penknife and a small chisel, he inserted ordinary
printing type. This cylinder was made to revolve, and by means
of keys worked by the fingers he would print whatever he wished
on slips of paper passing under the type. His companion at this
time was Mr. Hast, a German, who gave music lessons on the
piano. The two boarded at the same house and ran their instru-
ments late into the night, much to the discomfort of the other
boarders. Hughes was then a poor young man, but said that
although he was so small in physical build he would yet astonish the
world and live in history. I met him afterwards on the streets of
Louisville, and he told me that he had a medal from Napoleon HI.
as a reward for his printing telegraph."
The adoption of his instruments in every country in Europe
brought him honor and wealth. Being a man of simple habits and
of few wants, his expenditure was small, but his income great.
According to published reports he has been most generous in en-
dowing various scientific institutions and hospitals with large sums
of money.
In 1879 Professor Hughes brought out the microphone. The
same year he showed how to eliminate the effects of mutual induc-
tion from lateral wires by twisting the wires around each other in a
metalic circuit. This was followed by the induction balance and a
series of researches in magfnetism and inductance.
398 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Some of our Catholic papers have announced lately that Pro-
fessor Hughes was a Catholic and a priest ; that he taught music in
St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, and that afterwards he was ap-
pointed to the chair of natural sciences in the same institution. All
this is stated without giving a single authority by which the truth
of the statements might be verified. The statement that he taught
at St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, is not true. This is asserted on
the authority of Rev. Walter Hill, S. J., who was stationed at St.
Joseph's at the time young Hughes was at Bardstown. Father Hill
writes : 'The Mr. Hast mentioned in Mr. Muir's letter was a Cath-
olic and came with his brother to the college frequently to play
music with Father Miles and myself. Had Hughes been a Cath-
olic he would undoubtedly have come to the college with his com-
panion to meet the musical experts found there. This he never did
to my knowledge."
Mr. Muir, whom we have already quoted, again writes: *T have
no reason to believe that when Mr. Hughes resided in Bardstown he
belonged to any denomination of Christians. He was a man of fine
moral character and demeaned himself as a high gentleman." The
funeral service over the remains was conducted according to the
ritual of the Church of England.
Professor Hughes was not a mathematician, nor was he deeply
versed in scientific literature. He jumped by intuition to facts
which he was most ingenious in verifying by means of the most
ordinary appliances. Pill boxes, nails, sealing wax, knitting
needles, tumblers, old cans and cheap copper formed quite a suffi-
cient outfit for him. His success in his chosen field is a bright ex-
ample of what can be achieved by talent well and patiently directed.
As he determined when a poor lad at Bardstown, he will live in the
history of science.
THE CATALYTIC PROCESS FOR THE MANUFACTURE
OF SULPHURIC ACID.
In the whole range of chemical manufacture the most important
branch is the production of sulphuric acid. Sulphuric acid is as
necessary for the chemical industries as iron for the mechanical. So
great is the demand for this acid that it is claimed that the annual
consumption of this acid is a good indication of the material pros-
perity of a country. A mere mention of a few of the uses of sul-
phuric acid will show that this claim is well founded. It is used in
refining petroleum, and it is estimated that 90 per cent, of the acid
manufactured in the United States is used for this purpose. It is
Scientific Chronicle. 399
consumed in large quantities in making acid phospriate of lime for
fertilizing purposes. The storage battery business consumes yearly
large quantities of it, while the drug and chemical trade demand a
great amount of it. The nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose industries
demand a good concentrated sulphuric acid. This short and very
incomplete enumeration will suffice to give some idea of the ex-
tensive use of sulphuric acid.
The old process of manufacturing sulphuric acid is known as the
"chamber process." It consists, first, in burning in a suitable fur-
nace either crude sulphur or sulphide ores, such as iron pyrites, so
as to form sulphurous anhydride, a gas made up of one atom of
sulphur to two of oxygen. A large excess of air is mixed with this
gas, and the mixture is fed in a constant stream into a chamber
lined with lava or chemical brick, substances not acted upon by the
acid. This chamber is filled with closely packed pieces of similar
material or quartz. The mixture passes up through this packing
and many impurities brought over from the furnace are mechani-
cally removed and the mixture is cooled. At the top of this cham-
ber or tower a supply of nitrous anhydride, a gas containing nitro-
gen and oxygen in the proportion of 2 to 3, is given the mixture
and the chemical process begins. The nitrous anhydride gives
some of its oxygen to the sulphurous anhydride, converting it into
a mixture of sulphur and oxygen in the proportion of i to 3. Just
as this action begins the gases are carried into the first of a series
of large leaden chambers, into which jets of steam are blowing to
keep up the action just begun. These chambers are kept as cool
as possible, and in them the steam, which is a vapor containing
hydrogen and oxygen in the proportion of 2 to i, unites with the
compound of sulphur just mentioned and gives a new compound
made up of hydrogen, sulphur and oxygen in the proportion 2, i
and 4. This compound is sulphuric acid, which forms as a mist in
the chamber and condensing on the walls flows to the floor, whence
it is drawn off. The air in the operation is taxed to keep up the
supply of oxygen that replenishes the nitrous anhydride for the part
it plays, which was already referred to. The operation is usually
carried on in a series of three chambers, but the acid as it comes
from these chambers is quite dilute and must be drawn off into lead
and costly platinum pans, where the water is driven off and the acid
obtained in its strong or concentrated condition.
The new process does away with the cumbersome lead cham.bers
and also with nitrous fumes as oxygen carriers. This is done by
the use of the catalytic power of platinum or ferric oxide or other
substance that has that power. By catalysis is meant that peculiar
influence by which certain substances, without undergoing any
400 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
apparent change themselves, help to resolve other substances in
contact with it into new compounds. This is often termed the
action of presence. This reaction was known as far back as 183 1,
as appears from a British patent granted in that year to Phillips.
It was, however, principally worked out by German chemists such
as Dobereiner, Magnus, Wholer, Plattner, Clemens, Winkler, Mes-
sel and others. Its application, however, seems not to have ex-
tended beyond the preparation of Nordhausen fuming acid. Now,
however, comes the news that the process has been applied to the
manufacture of ordinary sulphuric acid, and that the price is so
cheap that the old lead chambers are disappearing and that the new
process is supplanting the old.
The keystone of the new process is the fact that sulphurous anhy-
dride, or SO2 gas, combines readily with oxygen to form sulphuric
anhydride, or SO3 gas, when the mixture is passed at the proper
temperature over a contact substance such as platinum black. There
is a drawback just here which had to be overcome in the new pro-
cess. The combination of these two gases generates a great amount
of heat, and the new gas is broken up into the two gases that form
it at a temperature not much in excess of that at which it was
formed.
The generation of heat by the union of gases in the presence of a
contact substance is illustrated by a simple experiment. Light an
ordinary Bunsen burner and heat a small spiral of platinum wire in
it for a few seconds. Then turn off the gas. When the platinum
is cool — and it takes only a few seconds — turn on the gas again,
holding the cold platinum in the current of gas. The gas and the
oxygen of the air meeting at the platinum combine and the heat of
the combination is sufficient to raise the platinum to incandescence
and ignite the gas. This is the same principle as that applied in the
Dobereiner hydrogen lamp.
This excessive heat, in the first step in the manufacture of sul-
phuric acid, is removed from the contact substance and the appa-
ratus by means of external cooling. The gases as they come from
the furnace are first purified, washed and dried according to com-
mon methods and raised to the temperature at which the chemical
action begins. The gas is then forced into the contact tube. This
tube contains the contact mass, which consists of some inert sub-
stance which is coated with platinum in a finely divided state, dis-
tributed in thin layers resting on perforated plates arranged in
layers one above the other in such a way that the gas is forced to
pass through the contact mass. This part of the apparatus is kept
cool by the circulation of a current of cool air or furnace gas.
Liquid baths may also be used. The most economical way is to use
Scientific Chronicle. 401
the gases themselves, which while cooling the contact tube are
raised to the proper temperature for the chemical action. This
cooling action prevents the breaking up of the sulphuric anhydride
formed by the union of the sulphurous anhydride and the oxygen in
the presence of the contact substance. The cooling must be regu-
lated, for too low a temperature would prevent the union of the
two last mentioned gases. This is usually done by regulating the
temperature or the velocity of the cooling gas. The sulphuric
anhydride thus formed passes into a chamber, where it is absorbed
by concentrated sulphuric acid, the fuming acid thus formed being
afterwards diluted to the required strength.
The development of the new process to its present stage of com-
mercial success seems to be due to the untiring efforts, during the
last ten years, of the Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik Company
of Germany. Their methods are covered by patents. Patents have
also been granted in England to the Farbwerke vormals Meister,
Lucius und Bruning, of Hoechst-am-Main. The Elberfelder Far-
ben Fabriken Company after investigation have installed a plant for
the new process. It is said that these three concerns are among
the largest, the most wealthy and most progressive concerns in the
world. This is an argument in favor of the new process. They
would not in all probability adopt a method which was not a com-
mercial success. It is reported that these three companies together
employ about five hundred chemists on experimental work.
The interesting question at present is whether in this country the
new process will supplant the old. It is admitted by all that for
weak acids, up to say 63 per cent, of sulphuric acid, the chamber
process is as cheap as the new process. When, however, strength
and purity are required the catalytic process is by far the most
economical. We cannot expect the new process to be introduced
except by new firms who intend to install new plants. The old
firms, especially as the price of acid is high, will be deterred by the
cost of the new installation and the royalties that must be paid.
The use of oxygen in a more concentrated form than it is found
in ordinary atmospheric air may still further improve the process.
Here, then, we may find a new field for liquid air. The improve-
ment in the manufacture of sulphuric acid is already a great ad-
vance, but the development that it may occasion in other branches
can only be conjectured.
LAKE NICARAGUA.
While our lawmakers are discussing the importance of building
the Nicaraguan Canal as a matter of national policy, scientists are
402 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
interested in the matter from another standpoint, namely, the as-
sumed inconstancy in the level of Lake Nicaragua. This lake is
the source of the San Juan river, and is intended as the feeder of
the proposed canal. The determination and regulation of its level
is then of vital importance to the success of the canal.
The foundation on which the assumed inconstancy is based is the
observed fluctuations of the level, together with the great variety
in the figures given for the level in the surveys of different com-
petent and trustworthy engineers. In 1781 the Spanish engineer
Galisteo found the level of the lake to be 133. 11 feet above low water
on the Pacific side. From the same level Lieutenant Baily in 1838
measured 128 feet 3 inches to the level of the lake. Colonel Childs
in 185 1 determined the altitude above Pacific low tide to be iii feet
5 inches. Commander Hull in 1873 gave for the altitude of the lake
102.28. Colonel Childs puts the fluctuation in level at not more
than five feet. The Nicaragua Canal Board increase the range of
variation to 14 feet, and this at not distant intervals. Other surveys
show like fluctuations in the level of the lake and a growing
tendency to maintain the lower levels.
Descriptions of the Estero Panaloya, the northwestern termina-
tion of the lake, suggest an actual lowering of the lake level. At
the time of the Baily survey and in 1849, when Squier made his plan
for a canal, the Estero was open to free navigation with from 5 to 15
feet of water in it. Colonel Ludlow in his report states that in the
dry season at least the channel of the Estero is also dry. Changes
in the height of the San Juan river also point to a varying supply
of water from the lake, just what would be expected from fluctua-
tions in its level. In 1850 Squier compared this river to the Hud-
son and the Connecticut, saying that for most of its course it was
capable of being navigated by our largest river steamers. Of this
same stream CoUinson, an English engineer, says, in a report made
to the Royal Geographical Society in 1867, that the water was so
low that small stern-wheelers drawing only ten inches of water
could hardly grope their way along it.
There seems to be a change of level of such amount that it must
be attributed to something more than the ordinary changes in rain-
fall from year to year, although these are very great. The change
in level was attested by CoUinson, and in the report above referred
to he suggests an explanation which may be the true one. He says
it may be due to an increased draining of the lake due to a differen-
tial rise or tilting of the land surface, which would increase the
gradients of the river, and thus creating a more rapid flow of water
would reduce the level of the lake. Whether this be true or not, it
is clear that the lake is situated in a volcanic region, where such
Scientific Chronicle. 403
changes in land elevation are known to occur, and this lends some
probability to the explanation. It seems certain that the level of
the lake is inconstant, and it is more readily believed that the level
of the lake has dropped 15 to 20 feet in little more than half a
century than to admit that the numerous surveys were inaccurate.
This question is a vital one, and must be taken into consideration in
the discussion of the feasibility of the canal.
THE CANALS OF NEW YORK.
Among valuable engineering documents the report of the com-
mittee on the canals of New York, lately presented to Governor
Roosevelt, will long hold an important place. A good idea of it
may be formed from the abstracts given in the Engineering News
and in the Engineering Record. The conclusions reached are of
interest to those who remember all that the magazines and the
papers, both daily and scientific, published not long ago about
building a ship canal through New York State so that ocean-going
vessels might, on reaching New York, proceed at once to the Great
Lakes, and receive their cargo at once without the necessity of
reshipment at the seaport, which the use of a barge at present
necessitates.
The first point considered by the committee is one that concerns
the very existence of the canal as a means of transport. If the rail-
roads can ever transport grain, coal, lumber and such like freight
at a rate lower than is possible by means of a canal, then the latter
will surely be abandoned. This is a question into which the com-
mittee went, with the following result : The present rate of trans-
portation for such freight across the ocean is half a mill per ton-
mile. On the lakes, where the vessels are smaller and the waterway
restricted at places so as frequently to cause congestion of traffic,
the rate is slightly higher, amounting to 0.6 of a mill. The canal
rates under present conditions, namely, size of the canal and of the
locks and of the use of animal power, which is the only power
employed at present on the Erie Canal, amount to 2 mills per
ton-mile. The ocean traffic is the same, whether the freight be
brought to the seaport by rail or by the present method. So the
competition is between the railroads on the one side and the lakes
and canal on the other. If the length of the waterway of the lakes
was just equal to the length of the canal, the rate for transportation
by water under the present system, from the figures given above,
would be 1.3 mills per ton-mile. The lake route is, however, much
404 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
longer, and hence the rate is much lower than that given. This
practically means that if the railroads wish to supplant the canal
they must come down to a rate of i mill per ton-mile. A general
enquiry into present railway freight rates as well as special informa-
tion obtained from the presidents of three of the main roads which
handle such freight, show that there is no probability of a rate of i
mill per ton-mile, but, on the contrary, there is every indication
that the rates will be higher. Hence under present conditions, even
the waterway can hold its own against the railroads.
But the prospect is still brighter for the waterway if the sugges-
tions of the committee are followed. They are as follows : That
all restrictions upon the capitalization of canal transportation be
removed; that mechanical traction be introduced instead of the
present animal power, and that the locks and lifts be operated by
new and approved mechanical means. It is also suggested that a
competent engineering staff have charge of all the works of the
canal. With such changes, together with a feasible increase in the
capacity of the canal, its locks and lifts, so as to accommodate barges
of I, GOO tons cargo, the canal rate, according to the committee,
could be reduced to % of a mill per ton-mile, thus securing it
against all railroad competition.
The report also compares the advantages of a ship canal for sea-
going vessels and a barge canal with reshipment at the seaport.
The conclusion is in favor of the barge canal. While the former is
a most attractive project, there are enormous difficulties in the con-
struction of such a waterway, and the cost is almost prohibitive.
Again, the character of the navigation on the sea, the canal and
the lakes varies, and it is a question whether one vessel can economi-
cally be adapted to such varying conditions. The answer is in the
negative. The cost of the ocean steamer is about $71 per net ton
of carrying capacity ; the lake steamer $36 per ton, while construc-
tion of equal capacity for canal traffic can be had for $7.31 per net
ton. To use the higher priced vessel for the lower priced service
would cost more than breaking bulk at each end of the canal. The
conclusion of the report is in favor of an improved canal.
Denis T. O'Sullivan, S. J.
"Woodstock, Md.
Book Notices. 405
Booh 1Rev(ew0,
Via Crucis. A Romance of the Second Crusade. By Francis Marion Crawford. i2nio.,
pp. 396. Illustrated by Louis Loeb. New York : The Macmillan Co.
Mr. Crawford's story was announced a year before it came from
the press, at the time when his "Roma ImmortaHs" had sprung into
popular favor. It was expected to be a companion piece for the
latter work, because the first announcement was vague. The read-
ing public knew only that Mr. Crawford would write about one of
the Crusades as he had written about Rome. With that unreason-
able way of reasoning peculiar to the public it jumped to the con-
clusion that the newer work would be on the same lines as the older
one. When it appeared it was seen to be altogether different. The
book on Rome is made up of studies from its chronicles, historical
and descriptive ; the work on the Crusade is a historical romance.
It deals with the second attempt to recover Palestine from the Mus-
seulmans which was made by Louis VII. of France and Conrad III.
of Germany between 1145 and 11 50. This expedition was due to
the zeal and energy of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who figures in the
story.
The hero is Gilbert Warde, a young Englishman of Norman an-
cestry, who after being robbed of his rightful inheritance and title
through the treachery of his own mother, leaves England and at-
taches himself to the court of France and to the French army during
the Crusade. In the meantime Gilbert's mother had become the
wife of the slayer of her husband, whose lover she had been before,
and Gilbert is in love with the daughter of his stepfather. This
would have been complication enough, but the author really de-
votes little attention to the hero and heroine and their relations to
each, but goes out of his way to bring Queen Eleanor, the wife
of Louis VII., to the front. Throughout the story Gilbert is
tempted and crossed by the Queen and her unholy love for him.
We are told not once or twice only, but many times that she is the
most beautiful woman in the world, but unfaithful to her husband.
Her wickedness is constantly thrust forward until it becomes very
annoying. It might have been passed with a single sentence. We
think that Mr. Crawford has marred his story by dwelling on the
picture of a queen who is unfaithful, and who despises her husband
because he is a pious man, and who speaks of him contemptuously
as a monk and not a king. There is no necessary connection be-
tween this unsavory chapter in history and a story of the Crusades.
406 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
It is to be regretted more because the story is in every other way
so good. Mr. Crawford is in love with the subject, had evidently
prepared very carefully for the work, and he brings to bear on it
all that skill of the novelist which has distinguished him on so many
other occasions. His descriptions of characters, scenes and inci-
dents are all glowing with life and carry the reader away to distant
times and lands in the most charming manner. While reading
them we really seem to be part of the expedition. We see the
gay banners, the bright uniforms and the flashing arms; we
hear the blare of trumpets, the beat of horses and the shout of
failure or triumph. We are about to place the book in the hands
of our young men and maidens, when across its beautiful pages
walks again and again the unfaithful Queen with a history that is
not suited to the light.
The theme punishes Mr. Crawford for touching it so often. To-
wards the close of the story, when he wishes to tell us that she
really left her lawful husband and married Henry Plantagenet, after-
wards King Henry H. of England, he places in the mouth of Count
Raymond, the Queen's uncle, whom she had consulted in regard to
her divorce, these words : "The King, he said, was surely
Eleanor's cousin and within the prohibited degrees of consan-
guinity, so that the marriage was null and void, and the Pope would
be obliged against his will to adhere to the rule of the Church and
pronounce it so. They were cousins in the seventh degree, he said,
because the King was descended from Eleanor's great-great-great-
great-grandfather, . . . and the seventh degree of consan-
guinity was still prohibited, and no dispensation had been given, or
asked for."
As a divorce was afterwards granted, and both parties married
again, the reader will probably conclude that Count Raymond was
right, and that the Church approved of the whole transaction.
Such was not the case, and this divorce has become such a cause
celebre that we think it advisable to furnish our readers with a con-
cise statement of its merits. This can best be done in the words of
Hefele, who treats the matter with his usual precision and accuracy
in the fifth volume of his "Councils," page 530, second edition :
"Soon after the death of Suger, on the Tuesday before the Pascha
Floridum (Palm Sunday) of the year 1152, a Synod at Beaugenci
separated King Louis VH. from his consort Eleanora. We have
seen above how scandalously she had misbehaved at Antioch during
the second crusade. She is even reported to have carried on an
amour there with a Turk. She maintained that the extreme con-
tinence of her husband gave her a right to compensation elsewhere ;
for, as she was wont to say, 'she had not married a king, but a
Book Notices. 407
monk/ Pope Eugene III. had indeed made an effort to reconcile
the royal couple at Tivoli, upon their return from Palestine. He
had forbidden them, in the severest terms, ever again to bring for-
ward the plea of consanguinity as an impediment to the validity of
their marriage; he had confirmed their union anew, and had in-
hibited their proposed divorce, upon any pretext whatsoever, under
penalty of excommunication. All the more surprising, therefore,
is the dissolution of this marriage pronounced by the Synod, in
presence of the four Archbishops of Rouen, Rheims, Sens and Bor-
deaux, as well as of many other French prelates, precisely on the
ground of consanguinity, sworn to by numerous witnesses. As
soon as her marriage was declared invalid Eleanora espoused the
young Prince Henry Plantagenet, later King Henry H. of Eng-
land."
The incident is "pregnant with instruction." First, the Catholic
Church, so far from sanctioning the divorce, had forbidden it,
through her supreme authority, in the sternest and most uncompro-
mising manner. As well might we make the Church responsible
for the action of Cranmer and the other English prelates in the case
of Henry VHI. Secondly, it emphasizes the immortal truth that
only a Pope can curb the passions of princes, and that most wisely,
at a later date, did the Roman Pontiffs reserve to their own tribunals
the matrimonial complications of monarchs. Thirdly, it brands
anew with the stigma of sycophancy the miscalled "Galilean liber-
ties."
If we inquire wherefore the Popes did not proceed to extreme
measures against the refractory pair and their abettors, there is a
twofold explanation. First of all, since neither party to the divorce
appealed to the Holy See, the matter did not come before the Papal
Court officially. In the second place, the intrigues of Arnold of
Brescia and the despotism of Barbarossa kept the Pontiffs fully
employed, without permitting them to go out of their way to court
further embarrassments. That they had not lost sight of the in-
iquitous proceedings at Beaugenci, they proved to demonstration
when, in the next generation, Philip of France and John of Eng-
land presumed to imitate the conduct of their respective parents.
Was Savonarola Really Excommunicatkd? An Inquiry by Rev. J. L. O'Neil, O. P.
Boston : Marlier, Callauan & Co.
The title chosen for his book does not clearly state the nature of
the question which Father O'Neil undertakes to answer. There is
no doubt about the reality of the censure issued by Pope Alexander
4o8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
VI. against the Florentine friar ; it is, in fact, given in extenso by our
author on page yy. It was duly and solemnly published; was
known throughout Christendom ; was submitted to for a time by
Savonarola until he mustered up courage to defy it. Father
O^Neil's contention is that the said excommunication was invalid,
and that consequently the friar was justified in contemning it. In
his endeavor to establish these theses the author displays much
erudition and casuistic skill ; nevertheless, we fail to see that he has
accomplished much in the way of vindicating his hero from the
grave charge of disobedience to the Holy See. We are far from
believing that he intends to hold up Savonarola as a safe model for
men and women who have bound themselves by vows of religion.
What would become of monastic discipline, if the commands of
superiors, and especially of the Vicar of Christ, were subjected to
all these refinings and hair-splittings?
The chivalrous attempt of the author to save the honor of Alex-
ander VI. in the affair of Savonarola is a serious detriment to his
argument. Certainly no such attempt was made by the friar when
he at length overcame his scruples and launched out on the des-
perate course which brought him to the scaffold. The true ex-
planation of his defiant conduct is, that, as time went on, he per-
suaded himself more and more that Alexander, having obtained
the tiara by simony, was not a legitimate Pope. In this opinion
(whether true or false we need not now determine) he did not by
any means stand alone. Three years before eighteen Cardinals,
with Rovere and Sforza at their head, had demanded the deposition
of Alexander at the hands of the French King. This threat of
deposition was so often repeated by all those who sought to intimi-
date the Pontiff that it became a serious menace to the unity and
tranquillity of the Church. Alexander was marvelously indifferent
to public opinion and showed little resentment when personally
reviled. But when the friar presumed to write letters to the powers
of Europe demanding a new Pope, and claiming to act by divine
authority, the limit of endurance was certainly passed. It was the
following letter that sealed the death warrant of Savonarola. We
quote from Villari, vol. ii., p. 292 :
"The moment of vengeance has arrived ; the Lord commands me
to reveal new secrets, and make manifest to the world the peril by
Avhich the bark of St. Peter is threatened, owing to your^ long
neglect. . . . Wherefore, the Lord is greatly angered, and hath
long left the Church without a shepherd. . . . Now, I hereby
testify, in verba Domini, that this Alexander is no Pope. Nor can
he be held as one; inasmuch as, leaving aside the mortal sin of
•He is addressing the sovereigrns of France, Spain, England, Germany and Hungary.
1
Book Notices. 409
simony, by which he hath purchased the Papal Chair, and daily
selleth the benefices of the Church to the highest bidder, and like-
wise putting aside his other manifest vices, I declare that he is no
Christian, and believes in no God," and so forth.
In whatever light we choose to regard the writer of this bold
challenge, we cannot deny that, from the standpoint of the assailed
Pope, he was an audacious rebel, whose annihilation was of supreme
importance.
Thk Eve of the Reformation. Studies in the Religious Mfe and Thought of the English
People in the Period Preceding the Rejection of the Roman Jurisdiction by Henry VIII.
By Francis Aidan Gasquet, D. D., O. S. B. New York : G. P. Putnam's vSons.
A new publication by the learned Benedictine who has already
enriched our literature with such standard works as ''Henry VIII.
and the English Monasteries," "Edward VI. and the Book of
Common Prayer," and the "Old English Bible," is truly an event
deserving to be chronicled throughout the entire English-speaking
world. We lost no time, therefore, in purchasing a copy of his
latest book, notwithstanding the almost prohibitory price of two
dollars and eighty cents, at which it is offered by the Putnams to the
American public. We deeply regret that these exorbitant figures
will greatly restrict the sale of a book which ought to be found in
every home and library.
Some years ago, when reviewing a volume of Janssen's History,
we expressed the wish that some learned Englishman would do for
England that which the German historian had so successfully ac-
complished for the Fatherland ; that is, to delve among the moun-
tain of historical documents, either recently brought to light or
previously left neglected, in order to be able to give a true and un-
varnished statement of the religious condition of the country at the
outbreak of the Protestant Revolution. This is precisely what
Father Gasquet has set about to do, with a diligence not unworthy
of Janssen, and without burdening his pages with that apparatus of
erudition and minuteness of detail which repels the ordinary reader
of the German author. Taking up in separate chapters the various
legends which form the mass of Protestant tradition regarding the
religion of their Catholic forefathers, he proves by contemporary
evidence that they are baseless and valueless. He first nails the lie
that the attitude of English churchmen on the eve of the great
reUgious changes was "one of uncompromising hostility to learning
and letters ;" whereas, "the chief ecclesiastics of the day, Wolsey,
Warham, Fisher, Tunstall, Langton, Stokesley, Fox, Selling, Gro-
cyn, Whitford, Linacre, Colet, Pace, William Latimer and Thomas
Eupset, to name only the most distinguished, were not only ardent
4IO American Catholic Quarterly Review.
humanists, but thorough and practical churchmen" (p. 36). In the
three succeeding chapters he discusses the attitude of the laity of
England towards the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, towards the Holy-
See and towards their clergy ; and he proves beyond the possibility
of a doubt that, until the unfortunate question of divorce came to-
disturb the nation, the English laity were loyal and attached to their
ecclesiastical superiors.
In this connection we may say that we have an intense dislike of
the phrase "ecclesiastical system," which the author seems to have
borrowed from Bishop Creighton, and uses occasionally as synony-
mous with the Catholic principles of faith and government. It
smacks of the haphazardness and instability of Anglicanism, and is
quite intelligible on the page of the Bishop of London. All the
same, it grates on the Catholic ear ; and we remember that the ob-
jectionable word "system," when employed in the Acta of a certain
Council, was ordered to be corrected by the Holy See.
In his sixth chapter the author gives what we must designate as
a roseate and optimistic account of that literary mountebank of
Reformation period, Erasmus of Rotterdam. That Erasmus was
not a Lutheran, Father Gasquet most superabundantly proves.
But we were unaware that any one believes he was. The proper
place of this wretched egotist is in the third Canto of Dante's
"Inferno" among that worthless crew,
A Dio spiacenti ed a' nemici sui.
Instead of wasting fifty-three valuable pages on him, it would,
have been better "to look and pass him by."
In chapter vii. it is demonstrated that Protestantism was not
native to English soil, but was imported from Germany. The com-
mon impression that Lollardry survived to be merged into Luther-
anism is shown to be utterly false ; for the last relics of Wycliffism.
had long perished. The progress of modern error, it is proved, was
slow and tardy. After an interesting chapter on "The Printed Eng-
lish Bible," the author refutes the oft-repeated calumny that the
pre-Reformation clergy in England had neglected the duty of in-
structing the people in Christian doctrine and had left them in com-
plete ignorance. After reading the provisions made for the carefuL
instruction of the people, we are filled with amazement at the un-
natural brutality of those Protestant writers and declaimers who for
generations have gloried in the alleged degradation of their fore-
fathers. What a powerful bond of union is the Catholic faith!'
Even those of us who drank in a hatred of English tyranny together
with our mothers' milk, are nevertheless infinitely nearer in sym-
pathy to the English of Catholic days than their own apostate
children.
Book Notices. 411
After two more chapters, in which the author describes the be-
nign provisions made for the support of religion and charity, he
ends with an interesting account of the popular devotion to pilgrim-
age and relics.
We have simply said enough to whet the appetite of our readers
for this very important contribution to our English Catholic litera-
ture ; for which we return sincerest thanks to the learned and dili-
gent author.
Leaves from St. Augustine. By Mary H. Allies. Edited by T. W. Allies, K. C. S. G.
Second edition revised and corrected. lamo, pp. 483. I^ondon : Washbume & Co. New
York : Benziger Brothers.
This book is a companion volume to "Leaves from St. John
Chrysostom," by the same author. They both belong to the same
family as the Characteristics of Manning, Wiseman and Newman.
Indeed, the latter title seems to express more clearly the character
of the book. This is indicated by a passage in the preface of the
present volume, which says that the author wishes her readers to be
able "to form some notion of the personal character, the doctrine,
the faith, the hope, the charity of the man who ranks among the
Fathers of the Church as St. Paul among the Apostles."
The work of compiling this volume was very great. The Edin-
burgh edition of St. Augustine's works consists of fifteen octavo
volumes. The Oxford translation is even larger, but both together
do not contain all that has been preserved. If the author had used
these editions she would have lightened her labors a great deal ; but
she does not even refer to them. The work is entirely her own :
choice of passages and translation.
She divides the book into four parts, headed respectively, "Per-
sonal and Philosophical," "Doctrine in Daily Life," "The Kingdom
of Our Lord on Earth" and "Eternity." It will be seen at a glance
that under these divisions a summary may be made of the great
Doctor's writings. It was a great task, but it has been success-
fully done. Such books are very valuable. Bad books are gen-
erally short and attractive. It is so easy to deny facts in history,
or to distort them. One word or a sentence is enough to throw
doubt on some doctrine, whereas full treatises or whole volumes
may be required to correct these errors. Thousands may learn the
false lesson for the one who has time to learn the true. Compara-
tively few persons have the time and ability to read the works of the
Fathers and Doctors of the Church, or of their followers and pupils,
like Wiseman and Newman and Manning. But in books like the
one before us the task is made easy and pleasant. Only those who
have used such books know how well they answer the needs of the
412 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ordinary student. It is best always to go to the original — the foun-
tain head — but for the great majority that cannot do so, books like
this one are very valuable and very useful.
BlLDER AU8 DER GESCHICHTE DER ALTCHRISTLICHEN KUNST UND lylTURGIE IN ITAHKN.
Kow Siephan Beissel, S. J. Freiburg and St. I^ouis : Herder. Price, $2.50.
This book may be called a series of illustrated lectures on the
relation of ancient Christian art in Italy to the divine worship. It
is addressed more especially to priests and ecclesiastical students,
although the educated laity may also derive great profit from the
perusal of it. It is not a history of art for its own sake, but has the
practical purpose of giving the reader a better understanding of the
liturgy and ceremonies of Holy Church. It would be difficult to
crowd so much valuable information into the compass of 328 pages
as this veteran teacher has accomplished. The 200 illustrations
which accompany the text make what might otherwise be of interest
only to antiquarians pleasant and easy reading to any one who
takes up the book. It will be of especial interest and instruction to
those who contemplate a visit to Italy. We congratulate the firm
of Herder upon the typographical excellence of the volume, and
look forward eagerly to the companion volume on mediaeval art
which is promised by the author.
Souvenir of Loretto Centenary, 1799-1899. October 10, 1899. 8vo, pp. 405. Copiously
illustrated. Cresson, Pa.: Swope Brothers, printers.
"This work is simply what its title indicates — a souvenir of the
centenary of this parish, the oldest in Western Pennsylvania. It
makes no pretence to originality, but is merely a compilation of
papers, facts, names and dates, which show forth the progress made
during the century just closed, and furnish valuable and interesting
data for the future historian of the Church in this diocese."
In these modest words the rector of St. Michael's Church, Lo-
retto, Pa., presents his valuable historical work to the public. The
opening words of his preface, which we have quoted and which are
apologetic in form, might be used boastfully. No stronger recom-
mendation could be given to any book of history than to say that it
is a true compilation of papers, facts, names and dates. It is desira-
ble that these shall be linked together and set forth in such attrac-
tive form as to charm while instructing ; but as history is very often
distorted and made useless or harmful in order to make it charming,
it is far better to limit it to the bare statement of facts.
Book A'ofices. 413
Father Kittell brings to his work all the requirements for suc-
cess. He is learned ; he is a student of history ; he has a rich field
in Loretto, and he loves the work. The result is a very valuable
contribution to the history of the Church in Pennsylvania. It will
be best appreciated in the future, when a fuller history shall be
written and the opportunity to gather facts here brought together
shall have passed. Students of history would do well to secure
copies of this work at once.
Oxford and Cambridge Conkerences, 1897-1899. By Joseph Rickaby, S. J. lamo., pp.
413. lyOndon : Bums & Gates. New York : Benziger Brothers.
"On the 2d of April, 1895, the Holy See decided to tolerate the
residence of Catholic laymen at the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge. A condition was appended that there should be estab-
lished for their benefit regular courses of lectures or conferences by
Catholic professors, in which philosophy, history and religion were
to be treated with amplitude and solidity. An instruction, embody-
ing this decision, was sent out by the Bishops of the Province of
Westminster, August, 1896. All that has been found practicable
hitherto has been to assemble the Catholic undergraduates on Sun-
day mornings by themselves in an oratory, where Mass is said and
half an hour's conference addressed to them. These conferences
(in the book before us) represent the author's share in the work.
They are republished with some slight revision."
These conferences have been published before in separate form,
but they are now brought together for the first time. They form a
very useful collection for all persons, but especially for young men
who are coming in daily contact with the world and its false max-
ims. They are an excellent antidote for the sneers and misrepre-
sentations that do so much harm to religion and its true repre-
sentative, the Roman Catholic Church. They should be read by
our young men who are students of non-sectarian schools and uni-
versities, so-called, for there are no such institutions in fact. The
very same dangers that confront Catholic students at Oxford and
Cambridge exist in our secular schools, but in an exaggerated form.
The prudence which moved the Holy Father to require the safe-
guards of these conferences for the more ancient institutions would
advise them also for the more modern, if it were possible to intro-
duce them. We hope, at least, that the publishers and agents of
this and similar volumes will use every means in their power to
bring them to the attention of Catholic students.
The present volume contains twenty-two conferences held at Ox-
414 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ford and twenty-three held at Cambridge. The subjects embrace
philosophy, theology, history and liturgy. In them the learned
author defends truth and combats error in that clear, straightfor-
ward style that is characteristic of him and that is irresistible.
Nbw Footsteps in Wkll-Troddkn Ways. By Katherine E. Conway. Boston : The Pilot
Publishing Company.
The "pledge" which Miss Conway took "not to write a new
book" on her recent trip to Europe, was one of those rash resolu-
tions which one "sins in making, and would sin more grievously in
keeping." We are pleased, therefore, that she good-naturedly
"yielded to the solicitation of circumstance." Her notes of travel
are just such as we might have expected from a pious Catholic lady
of her culture, independence of thought, American wide-awakedness
and journalistic experience. Her previous reading had well equip-
ped her for a profitable trip to the European capitals. She knew
with precision what she wished to see, and saw more in a few
months than an ordinary tourist would have seen in years.
My New Curate. A Story Gathered from the Stray I^eaves of an Old Diary-. By the Rev.
/*. /I. 5'A««Afln, P. P. Doneraile (Diocese of Cloyne). i2mo., pp. 480. Hlustrated. Boston:
Marlier, Callanan & Co.
Most of our readers are, probably, familiar with this story in its
serial form in the American Ecclesiastical Review. It was begun in
that magazine very quietly, without any previous announcement or
promise of its merits, and without the author's name. From the
first it was seen to be the work of a master hand. The characters
were true to nature ; they were introduced naturally and developed
gradually in the midst of the proper surroundings and as occasion
demanded their presence. The scenes of action were so clearly
described as to produce that atmospheric effect which artists try so
hard to get without success. Each character taught a lesson, with-
out at all giving offense or lessening the interest of the story, al-
though novelists generally hold that this cannot be done. Alto-
gether the story in the Ecclesiastical Review sprang into instant favor
and attracted widespread attention. There was a general demand
for it in book form, and it was sold as fast as it came from the press.
Already the fifth edition is on the market.
It is very attractive in its new dress. It is excellently printed on
good paper. The illustrations are generally disappointing. Not
in workmanship, but in conception. This is particularly true of
Book Notices. 415
those which picture the parish priest and the curate. They are not
the Daddy Dan and the Father Letheby whose acquaintance we
made in the pages of the Ecclesiastical. The artist has surely failed
to see through the eyes of the author. This may not strike the new
reader so strongly as it does the old one, because the former has
the assistance of the artist in forming his conceptions, but very
rarely, indeed, does a portrait satisfy one who has seen the original
or formed a mind picture of him from a good description.
"My New Curate" will last. It is a distinctive work without a
rival. It is so well done that later comers of the same kind, and
very likely they will appear, cannot displace it.
tHK Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Travels and Kxplorations of the Jesuit
Missionaries in New France, 1610-179X. Vol. LX. Lower Canada, Illinois, Iroquois,
Ottawas : 1675-1677. 8vo, pp. 323. Cleveland : The Burrows Brothers.
This great work is progressing steadily and rapidly. It was a
big undertaking, and many had doubts about its completion ; but
the steady progress made up to the present time is a guarantee of
ultimate success. The work is intensely interesting and immensely
valuable. It was never published before in the originals with trans-
lations, and very likely it will never be published again. When we
consider that the seven hundred and fifty copies which make up the
whole edition will be scattered over the world, and allow for loss by
.accident and natural decay, we can easily understand the enor-
mously increased value of the work in future years.
The same standard of excellence is followed in this volume that
was followed in preceding volumes. We have the same simple,
straightforward, truthful narration of facts with every detail, that
is more interesting than fiction and more valuable than imagination.
Each new volume is a new story, or series of stories, which have
never been equaled, and the happy possessors of the work await
each addition to it with great interest while they hope for its com-
pletion.
Orestes A. Brownson's Middle IvIfe. From 1845 to 1855. By Henry L. Brownson. 8vo,
pp. 646. Detroit : H. L,. Brownson.
This is the second volume of the "Life of Dr. Brownson." The
first was called "Brownson's Early Life." The present volume
begins with his entrance into the Catholic Church, as in the pre-
vious book the reader was brought down to that period. Every
part of Dr. Brownson's life is interesting, but probably the period
embraced in this volume is the most interesting of all. It shows the
4i6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
active mind, strong intellect and indomitable will at work for the
first time without doubt or hesitation in the true Church of Christ.
The time was most propitious. It was at a period when such a
champion was needed to combat the senseless ravings of Know-
Nothingism. Brownson was the man for the occasion, and right
valiantly he gave battle.
The book is a valuable contribution to history, and when the
succeeding volume has appeared, the work will be a necessity for ail
who would understand rightly the events of the years during which
Brownson labored for the true and the good.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
Die Heiligen Sacramente der Katholischen Kirche. Fuer die Seelsorger dogmatisch
dargestellt von Dr. Nikolaus Gihr. Second volume treats of Penance, Kxtreme Unction,
Orders and Matrimony. Freiburg and St. Louis : Herder. Price, $2.35 net.
Vespers and Compline. A Soggarth's Sacred Verses. By Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J.,
author of " Idyls of Killowen," etc. i2mo., pp. 155. Price, $1.00. I^ondon : Burns &
Gates. New York : Benziger Brothers.
Meditations for Retreat. Taken from the Writings of St. Francis de Sales. Arranged
by St. Jane Frances Fr^raiot de Chantal. i6mo.,pp. 202. Price, 75 cents. New York :
Benziger Brothers.
Des Apostels Paulus Brief an Die Philipper. Ueberstetzt und erklaert von Dr. theol.
Karl Joseph Mueller, Professor, Geistl. Rath in Breslau. Freiburg and St. I^ouis : Herder.
Price, $2.50 net.
Die Genesis nach dem I,iteralsinn erkliert. Von Gottfried Hoberg, Doctor der Philosophic ,
und der Theologie. Freiburg and St. t,ouis : Herder. Price, $3.10 net.
The Story of the Divine Child. Told for Children in Pictures and in Words. By Very
Rev. Dean A. A. Lings. i6mo., pp. 256. New York : Benziger Brothers.
The Blood of the I^amb. By Kenelm Digby Best, of the Oratory. i2nio.. pp. 180. Price,
$1.00. lyondon : Bums & Gates. New York : Benziger Brothers.
The Morrow of Life. Translated from the French of the Abbd Henry Bolo. i2mo.,pp.
253. New York : Benziger Brothers.
St. Anthony of Padua and the Twentieth Century. By Rev. Francis Dent. i2mo.,
PP- 253. New York : P. J. Kennedy.
The Room of the Rose, and Other Stories. By Sara Trainer Smith. i2mo., pp. 266.
Philadelphia : John Joseph McVey.
Chronicles of "The Little Sisters." By Mary E. Mannix. i2mo., pp.378. Notre
Dame, Ind.: The Ave Maria.
Over THE Rocky Mountains to Alaska. By Charles Warren Stodi.urd. i2mo.,pp. 16S.
St. Louis : B. Herder.
THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC
QUARTERLY REVIEW
" Contributors to the Quarterly will be allowed all proper freedom in the ex-
pression of their thoughts outside the domain of defined doctrines, the Review not
holding itself responsible for the individual opinions of its contributors.' '
(Extract from Salutatory, July, 1890.)
VOL. XXV.— JULY, 1900— No. 99.
PENlTEiNTIAL DISCIPLINE IN THE EARLY CHURCH.
AFTER the Eucharistic celebration in its various forms and
developments nothing has occupied through Christian
ages a more important place in the external life of the
Church than the Discipline of Penance. To be reconciled to
God and admitted afresh to the hope of heaven was, naturally,
the greatest concern of sinners alive to their condition, while
it was that of the Church to secure to them as fully and
effectively as possible so essential a benefit. Her action in
this regard is interesting to observe at every period ; it is particu-
larly so in the first ages of her existence, when her doctrines were
being evolved and her discipline was still in course of formation.
Hence the close attention with which writers of Church history and
students of dogmatic theology are wont to examine the principles
enunciated and the practices followed in these early times. Since
the beginning of the seventeenth century large tomes have been
devoted to describing and discussing them,^ and the results which
have been reached are briefly set forth in our manuals of Church
1 We may mention among others Sirmundus, S. J., "Historia Pcenitentiae Publicse ;" Pe-
tavius, "Animadvers. in S. Ephiphan.;" Dom Martene, "De Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus," but
above all the Oratorian Joan. Morinus, " Coramentarius Historicua de Administratione Sac-
ramenti Poenitentise" (16S2); Dom Chardon " Histoire des Sacraments," chiefly a summary,
clear and interesting, of Morinus' great work, to be found in vol xxi. of Mignes' " Cursus
Completus Theologise." Among recent writers we may mention Dr. Funk, professor of
history in the University of Tubingen, especially in his article in the " Kirchenlexicon."
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1899, by Benjamin H. Whittaker, in the
Office of the I,ibrariau of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
4i8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
history and theology. But a consecutive study of the subject down
to the present day remained to be carried out and it has been under-
taken at length, not by a Catholic theologian or cleric, but by a
non-Catholic and a layman.
I.
It is now nearly four years since Henry Charles Lea, LL. D., of
Philadelphia, published in three large volumes "A History of Auric-
ular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church." The work
contains much more than its title suggests ; in fact, it comprises a
historical presentation of the whole penitential system which pre-
vailed from the beginning down to the present day, with an attempt
to describe its working and to determine its ultimate consequences.
The names of "Auricular Confession" and "Indulgences" were
doubtless selected for the title as being more likely to catch the pub-
lic ear, although anything like popular success would seem to have
been entirely absent from the mind of the writer. Such an end he
might easily have reached with one-tenth of the materials accumu-
lated in his volumes and of the labor bestowed upon them. But
Dr. Lea is evidently above all things a scholar. He reads and he
writes chiefly for his own satisfaction. He is deeply interested in
the history of the Catholic Church, and loves to go back to the
sources in order to study the nature and working of her institutions.
Having satisfied himself as to their real character and value, he pro-
ceeds to impart to those who are interested in them the curious facts
he has come across and the conclusions they have suggested to him ;
the whole with a multiplicity of quotations and an absence of rhetoric
equally welcome to the student and uninviting to the general reader.
It is in this way that, besides some earlier historical studies, he has
given to the public in succession "A History of Religious Celibacy,'*
"A History of the Inquisition" and, last of all, the history of peniten-
tial discipline with which we are presently concerned. The two
former works awakened a certain amount of interest and reached a
second edition. The last, appealing to a much more limited class
of readers, seems to have attracted less notice. Few reviews, so far
as we know, have discussed its contents ; yet to our mind Dr. Lea's
most recent work is by far the most valuable of the three. Not only
is its subject the most important, but it must have cost the writer
incomparably more labor and research.
The "History of Auricular Confession" is visibly the product of a
scholarly mind working for years amid a rich and rare collection of
Penitential Discipline in the Early Chut Ji, 419
theological books. One is amazed at the number of authorities to
which the writer appeals at each step. Every page has its abundant
footnotes of references and quotations. Fathers, Popes, Councils,
historians, theologians are called up in evidence on each detail, and
with an accuracy of quotation which the present writer has never
found at fault. In short, by the wealth of his erudition as well as by
the evident love of his work, Dr. Lea forcibly reminds one of those
great Benedictine scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies to whose untiring industry subsequent generations owe so
much. Unhappily there have been wanting in him some of those
qualities which enabled these learned men to give abiding value to
their worth and weight to their judgment; in particular, special
learning, thoroughness and an open mind.
Special work demands special preparatory training, and, first of
all, a thorough knowledge of the sciences implied in the subject un-
der consideration. A geologist, for example, needs to be familiar
with the various forms of living nature. An astronomer requires a
knowledge of physics and mathematics. No man who is not a
lawyer will attempt to write a general history of criminal law ; only a
soldier will undertake to describe the gradual transformation of
military tactics. In the same way, to write a history of the disci-
pline of penance in the Catholic Church, it takes not only a scholar
acquainted with the sources of Church history, but also a profes-
sional theologian, or at least one perfectly familiar with the doctrines
of the Church which always underlie her discipline and can alone
give a key to it. Short of this, the most learned of men, with all the
facts at his fingers' ends, is sure to lose himself. \
And this is just what happens to Dr. Lea in his "History of Auri-
cular Confession." He knows the facts; he is not unacquainted
with the doctrines of the Catholic Church, but he knows them only
in an abstract, external, incomplete way. Points familiar to every
enlightened Catholic escape him. He cites as peculiar to a writer
what is admitted by all ; he is surprised and shocked at what, prop-
erly understood, is but natural and simple. We are told of the great
French historian, Thiers, that he succeeded in giving his wonder-
fully clear and vivid descriptions of battles and campaigns by con-
stantly associating with military men. How often while reading Dr.
Lea's history have we regretted, for his own sake and that of his
readers, that instead of getting information on Catholic subjects
from books only, he did not choose to consult occasionally some
living authority. A few conversations with a Catholic theologian
would have sufficed to preserve him from a number of mistaken
420 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
conceptions which mislead his uninitiated readers and detract con-
siderably from the value of his work. They would also have un-
doubtedly led him to treat his subject more thoroughly.
For a vast accumulation of quotations and facts does not suffice
to give thoroughness to a work. It requires, besides, a close com-
parative study of them in order to determine their meaning as well
as a clear statement and discussion of the position and proofs of
those who hold opposite views. Dr. Lea, it is true, tells us in his
preface that he has sought to write a history, not a polemical
treatise. But in this he has attempted more, perhaps, than was
possible in dealing with such a subject. Some definite construction
had to be put on the evidence, taken as a whole, and in the one
chosen by Dr. Lea he antagonizes from beginning to end the claims
and beliefs of the Catholic Church. Yet nowhere can the reader
find the latter fully and candidly stated, while the proofs upon which
they rest are either conveniently ignored or treated with a freedom
and ease unworthy of a serious writer.
Thus, for example, the power of the Church to forgive sins in the
tribunal of penance is chiefly based on the words of the Risen
Saviour: Whose sins you forgive they shall be forgiven, etc. (John
XX., 22). What meaning does Dr. Lea attach to these words?
How does he account for the special solemnity with which Christ
chose to surround them ? How can he explain the fact that all the
churches, so independent of each other in these early times, so dif-
ferent and often so divided, yet all believed in appealing to the power
of the keys in order to obtain the remission of sin, and that they have
persevered in the practice down to the present day ? He quotes the
words of Christ, but does not stop to inquire what they may mean ;
he admits the facts, but he makes no serious attempt to account for
them. Surely the free use of the term sacerdotalism is no sufficient
explanation, and yet Dr. Lea supplies no other. If the power of the
Church over sin shows itself faintly at an early date, it is "the begin-
ning of sacerdotalism ;" if, later on, it reveals itself more distinctly,
it is "the growth of sacerdotalism ;" if, finally, it becomes the unde-
niable belief and practice of the whole Christian world, it is "the
triumph of sacerdotalism." And that is all.
The truth is that Mr. Lea, while loth to be unjust to the Catholic
Church, and striving sometimes to be fair, yet lacks that openness
of mind, still more that sympathy which we are told a historian
needs to understand and to describe properly individuals or institu-
tions. At no time, if we may judge by his previous writings, has he
had love or leaning for the Catholic Church. All he could see in
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 421
her was a human institution, born of a false conception of Christ's
teachings, sustained chiefly by ambition, and flourishing at the ex-
pense of human ignorance and weakness. Entering in such a frame
of mind on the study of the Church's penitential discipline, we must
not be surprised that he misunderstood so completely its meaning
and misinterpreted so many of its facts. Putting together his various
statements, we are led to this conception : that Christ never gave the
Church the power of forgiving sins ; that such a power was not
thought of at all in the beginning ; that the discipline of penitence
and reconciliation practised by the Church was purely external ; that
in these early times she merely exacted signs of sorrow and prac-
tices of atonement from the sinner, solemnly prayed for him, and
finally, when she deemed him sufficiently repentant, readmitted him
to communion. That was all. Only later on, with the growing in-
fluence of ecclesiastical authority, did the belief of a mysterious
power over the guilty soul arise and spread, until it finally became
one of the distinctive doctrines of the Catholic Church.
To substantiate this position no formal demonstration is attempt-
ed ; but proofs are suggested right through the work, chiefly, as is
natural, of a negative kind, the position of Dr. Lea being mainly a
denial of the claims of Catholic theology. All the same he never
fails to quote positive testimonies or facts which seem to run counter
to CathoHc belief. Yet we know that on the one hand silence is no
evidence unless in circumstances in which a writer must have spoken
had he known, and on the other hand, that his mind, when he does
speak, should not be gathered from a stray sentence, ambiguous or,
it may be, unaccompanied by limitations which the reader, espe-
cially if he be a contemporary, is supposed to supply. Such are the
canons of intrepretation universally admitted, yet Dr. Lea shows a
constant disregard for them. In the present paper there is no room
for particulars ; but if the reader wishes to see our historian's
methods set forth in detail he need only turn to the able discussion
of them by Rev. P. H. Casey, S. J. ("Notes on a History of Auricular
Confession" — McVey, Philadelphia), in which the learned professor,
though confining himself to the dissection of a single chapter, gives
a key to the prevailing methods of the whole book and enables to
judge of its argumentative value. There are times when one would
be strongly tempted to question the good faith of the writer ; but it
is pleasanter to think that he is only prejudiced and unfriendly.
After all, it happens to him only what happens to men of undoubted
honesty when they start on a study, having made up their minds
beforehand as to what it is to lead them to. They go along noticing
422 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
all that makes for their beliefs, leading them unconsciously into what
is vague or ambiguous, overlooking or putting the most unnatural
construction upon what seems to contradict them. What else can
they do, unless they are prepared to relinquish their original posi-
tion, to which they may feel constrained to hold on ? Theologians,
anyhow, should be among the last to claim that such methods imply
a lack of good faith.
In reaHty, the whole question, studied in its sources, is far less
clear and satisfactory than in our manuals of theology. Few ques-
tions, indeed, in Christian antiquity are more confused and entangled
than the doctrine and practice of penance. Nor shall we find any-
thing strange in this if we consider the extreme complexity of a
process in which God, the Church and the repentant sinner have all
an important share, and, at the same time, the varying character of
the discipline through many ages. To one or the other of these two
causes may be assigned most of the obscurities and discrepancies,
apparent or real, which we meet in the statement of fact or doctrine
which came down to us on the subject from the first four or five
centuries. Thus at one time we are told that the Church forgives
sin, at another that God, being the offended one, alone forgives, or
again that guilt is washed out by the tears of the sinner. We may
add that the vocabulary remains long imperfect, the same term being
employed to signify things not perhaps entirely unlike or having
nothing in common, yet striking us chiefly by their differences.
Thus such familiar and constantly recurring words as Penance, Recon-
ciliation, Communion, Confession, Forgiveness, Peace, etc., have a vari-
ety of meanings unsuspected by the ordinary modern reader and not
easily determined in many cases by the student. Amid all this
nothing is easier than to lose oneself, or, if one is so minded, to find
materials for building up the most opposite theories. Even Cath-
olic theologians, with the clue of traditional doctrines to guide them,
are far, as we shall see, from putting the same construction on many
particulars, and in the points in which they are in agreement they
find a striking contrast between the ancient methods and the familiar
aspects of the institution as it is applied in our day.
A rapid sketch of the discipline, such as our space will allow, will
not be out of place here, especially as it will allow us to show, as we
proceed, the weakness of Dr. Lea's positions, and at the same time to
throw some light on the historical difficulties that still cling to the
subject.
11.
Already before the coming of Christ, indeed from the beginning
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 423
of the world and through the whole history of the chosen people,
God showed Himself "compassionate, merciful, ready to forgive,"
but always on condition of genuine repentance, shown princi-
pally by a change of life and by works of self-humiliation and atone-
ment. Now it is remarkable that in the earliest references to the
subject in the new dispensation nothing else is mentioned. St.
Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians (ch. vii. and viii.) brings
together the promises of the Old Testament to encourage the sinner
by the great fact that "from generation to generation the Lord has
granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted to
Him." In the "Didache," or Doctrine of the Apostles, belonging,
as many think, to the close of the first century, repentance is also
referred to as the remedy of sin. All through the "Pastor" of
Hermas (A. D. 150) nothing but repentance is spoken of, so that
if we were entirely dependent on these early documents, we should
be led to believe that no new methods or conditions of forgiveness
had been introduced under the Gospel. Even fifty years later Ter-
tullian, though dealing expressly with the subject in his short
treatise, De Poenitentia, gives little additional information. For
him, too, repentance is almost everything. Already, he says, in
baptism it is a necessary condition of forgiveness. But this sacra-
ment for which it prepares should mark the end of a guilty life.
Yet there are those who fall again ; some into sins of deed, others
into sins of thought or desire. Both need a remedy, and it is found
once more, but only once, in penance or repentance. Tertullian
mentions this "second plank" with reluctance, lest it become an en-
couragement to fresh sins. He describes the process as an acknowl-
edgment of guilt made to God, like that of the prodigal son to his
father, and represents the repentant sinner as wearing a penitential
garb, fasting, praying, casting himself at the feet of priests and pious
people to solicit their intercession. He exhorts the sinner to con-
quer his pride, and since shame has not k »pt him from sin, not to let
shame keep him from acknowledging ar.i expiating it. Neither
should he be deterred by the hardships of the penitential life, for
men are ready to face worse to secure temporal advantages, and
no sacrifice is too great to escape the torments of hell.
The discourse of Tertullian is not a didactic treatise ; it is an ex-
hortation; therefore many particulars may have been omitted as
not bearing on the object of the writer, or as sure to be supplied by
his readers. Indeed, we have in it a clear suggestion of something
more than what we might call the natural course of atonement. The
process has to be gone through publicly, and it can be availed of
424 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
but once, both which circumstances point to a positive discipHne
already established and enforced in the Church.
What that discipline was we learn more in detail from the ecclesi-
astical writers who follow next in order of date, Origen and St.
Cyprian ; after whom all the essential features of penance stand out
with growing distinction, such as we find them in the Cathc.'c
Church at the present day.
At every step we are confronted with the conviction that private
repentance, however deep and sincere, does not suffice to do away
with grievous sin, even though secret; that forgiveness is secured
only by acknowledging one's guilt to the Church, by submitting to
her treatment, severe but salutary, and by receiving finally at her
hands reconciliation and peace, of which the supreme and final
pledge consisted in admission to the Eucharist. In a word, we have
Confession, Satisfaction and Absolution ; and all the testimonies col-
lected by Dr. Lea cannot obscure this great fundamental fact.
But they bring out forcibly that other fact already felt in the
schools of theology, that much obscurity still surrounds the particu-
lars of the institution as practised in the early period of its history.
As regards its first element, some sort of confession seems to have
been a common practice among the faithful from the very begin-
ning. St. James, after referring to the anointing of the sick (v. 13),
adds the recommendation : Confess therefore your sins one to another ,
and pray one for another that you may be saved.
St. John, too (I. John i., 9), speaks of confession, but although one
would like to see in his words an allusion to the sacrament, it cannot
be shown that he means anything more than an acknowledgment of
one's guilt before God. The ''Didache" (ch. Iv.) is much more ex-
plicit. "In the church thou shalt confess thy transgressions and
shall not come forward for thy prayer with an evil conscience."
And again (ch. xiv.) : ''On the Lord's day do ye assemble and break
bread and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions in order
that your sacrifice may be pure." Here we see confession resorted
to as a purifying process, but no mention being made of a penance
imposed or priestly prayer of forgiveness uttered, we can hardly sup-
pose that the practice possessed a sacramental character, and must
only see in it a custom, similar to that of religious in chapter, and
for the same purposes of purification and salutary self-abasement.
But when we come to Origen, St. Cyprian and those who follow,
the case is clear. We are in presence of a necessary avowal, reliev-
ing the soul, as the removal of undigested food or corrupted matter
relieves the body ; to be made, furthermore, not to God only, but to
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 425
those who preside in the Church (Orig. in Psalm xxxvii.). In his
commentary on St. Luke xvii. Origen is still more explicit. *'If we
reveal our sins not only to God, but also to those that can cure them,
they will be blotted out by Him who saith : Whose stns ye forgive,
etc." And on Numbers x. : ''They who feel their wounds go to the
priest to be healed. . . . He becomes holy who appeals to the
bishop for the remission of his sin."
Testimonies of a similar kind abound in the treatise of St,
Cyprian, De Lapsis, in the two books De Poenitentia of St. Am-
brose and many other writings of the fourth century, all familiar to
the student of theology. We will confine ourselves to recalling
the sermon of St. Augustine {serm. 351), in which the whole process
of recovery from sin as understood in his time is so clearly set forth
that it cannot fail to interest the reader.
There are three kinds of penance, he says, one which prepares the
soul for baptism, another which blots out our daily faults, a third to
be practised by those who have fallen into sins that exclude from
the kingdom of heaven. In regard to these last the sinner has to be
severe to himself if he would secure indulgence from above. Let
him, then, erect a tribunal in his own soul, listen to the accusing
voice of conscience and, recognizing his guilt, pronounce against
himself the strict but necessary sentence of exclusion from the Body
and Blood of the Lord.
But this is only the beginning. "When the sinner," continues St.
Augustine, '*has thus administered to himself a severe yet beneficent
correction, let him turn to those who hold in their hands the keys
of the Church and let him receive from them the measure of his
atonement, in which account must be taken not only of what is
profitable to himself, but also of what is necessary for the edificatiort
of others, so that if they have been scandalized by his oflfenses, they
may be edified by his public expiation."
Ill,
It will be noticed that during all these early ages only those who
were conscious of having committed grievous faults thought of ap-
pealing to the keys of the Church. Confessions of devotion were
unknown. Not only saints, like Ambrose or Augustine, but all
those who lived up to the essentials of the Christian law went
through life purifying themselves of their daily faults by prayer and
good works, and renewing their strength by the frequent reception
of the Eucharist, but never thought of appealing to the power of
the keys. And these for a long time formed the great majority of
426 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the Christian community. Many were won to the faith or received
baptism only after — sometimes long after reaching manhood, and
they sought it only when they had resolved to lead a truly Christian
life. Furthermore, their earnestness was tested by the discipline
of the catechumenate, which was a sort of novitiate of the Christian
profession. During that period of probation they learned to look
back with horror on their past sins and to fashion themselves to the
spirit and practices of the new life. When admitted at length, they
were bound to avoid the occasions and occupations of life which
most exposed to sin ; they lived under the eyes of the clergy and of
the brethren, ever ready to remind them of their obligations. In
this way comparatively few fell into grievous sins. If guilty of a
crime that entailed public penance, they were often slow to turn to
the appointed remedy. Its severity deterred them, and so they put
it off from year to year, as others put off the reception of baptism.
Like baptism, public penance could be available but once, and this
was an additional inducement for them to reserve it for the end.
Meanwhile, unless excommunicated, they attended the celebration
of the Holy Mysteries, but they abstained from communion. Some,
however, yielding to human respect, feared not to approach with the
rest of the faithful.^ S. Pacian and St. Augustine refer to the fact,
but declare themselves unable to prevent it, for lack of proof against
those guilty of the sacrilege.
From all this it is easy to see how limited was the practice of con-
fession in the -early ages of the Church, and how natural that so
little trace of it should be met in the rare and brief documents which
have come down to us from the first and second centuries. There
are those who would narrow it still more. In a remarkable essay
suggested by Dr. Lea's work, a professor of the Catholic University
of Paris, Dr. Boudinhon, proposes the view that, like many other
particulars appertaining to the sacraments, our Lord may have left
to the Church to determine what sins should be submitted to the
power of the keys, and that as a fact for a long time only three
kinds were thus submitted : idolatry, impurity and murder.^
It is perfectly true that the discipline of public penance was long
confined to these three categories. On the other hand, it is difficult
to discern any other form of penance during the first four centuries.
Surely if secret sacramental penance was practised side by side with
the other, it could not have been applied to the same sins, else the
2 The common custom up to the fifth century, and in many places later, was that all pres-
ent at the Holy Sacrifice received communion, unless positively unworthy. Those who,
failed to do so were naturally suspected of some grievous fault. ^ " Revue d'Hist. et. Mtter
Relig," July, 1897.
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 427
«nore rigorous discipline would have soon disappeared. But there
is no question of it even in connection with less grievous sins, and
hence the conjecture of the learned professor that it was but grad-
ually and after a considerable time that these sins were submitted
to the keys of the Church. But such a position can hardly be re-
conciled with the formal declaration of the Council of Trent (sess.
xiv., Cap. V. and can. vii.) that confession of all mortal sins is a divine
institution, and consequently independent of the power of the
Church. At most it may be held that the law had not been
-everywhere thoroughly understood and practised from the begin-
ning. Certainly the distinction between mortal and venial sins,
while obvious in many cases, was far from clear in many more,
especially to consciences that had been originally trained outside the
influence of the Gospel. The language even of some of the Fathers
and ecclesiastical writers sounds strange to our ears. Tertullian
(De Pudicitia ix), though a rigorist, speaks with leniency of faults
to which all are exposed, of sins of anger, striking, cursing, rash
oaths, unfaithfulness to engagements, lying through shame, faults
of the palate, of the ears, of the eyes. S. Pacian of Barcelona invites
to public penance — the only one he seems to know — those guilty
of any one of the three great crimes. ''Other sins," he says, "are
cured by the compensation of better works — niggardliness by liber-
ality, slander by satisfaction, perverse ways by upright conduct,"
€tc. ("Paroenesis ad Poenit," ix.) Later on St. Cesarius of Aries in
a sermon long attributed to St. Augustine and still printed in the
appendix of his sermons (serm. 257) exhorts his hearers to do pen-
ance, not only for their grievous or capital sins, but also for those
lesser faults, minuta peccata, which he thus describes :
"Consider that even if you are exempt from more grievous sins,
the lesser ones which you think nothing of are so numerous that
if all were put together your good works would scarce suffice to
compensate for them. Think of all you committed since you came
to the use of reason by cursing, by swearing, by false oaths, by
slander and idle talk, by hatred, by anger, by envy, by evil desires,
by gluttony, by sloth, by impure thoughts, by unchaste looks, by
listening to improper discourses, by disregard for the poor, for the
traveler, for the prisoner, by failing to reconcile enemies, by neglect-
ing to fast on fasting days, by talking in church and failing to heed
the divine office," etc.*
* Cogitemus ex quo sapere coepimus quid pro juramentis, quid pro perjuriis, quid pro ma-
ledictis, quid pro detractionibus, quid pro odio, quid pro ira, quid pro invidia, quid pro con-
cupiscentia mala, quid pro gula, quid pro somnolentia, quid pro sordidis cogitationibus,
quid pro concupiscentia oculorum, quid pro voluptuosa delectatione aurium, quid pro ex-
428 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Here, as in the enumeration of Tertullian, sins mortal and venial
are thrown in together, and we may well imagine that such a confu-
sion was not rare in early times, with the result that many guilty
of mortal sins failed through ignorance to submit them to the keys
of the Church. But it is incredible that in spite of the warnings of
the Gospel and of the formal declarations of St. Paul (to say nothing
of the voice of conscience), all sins not included in the three catego-
ries would have been looked upon as venial, or that the divine law
in regard to them could have been generally unknown or neglected
for any considerable time. Surely the faithful whose consciences
were burdened with what they considered grievous sins must have
appealed to the Church for forgiveness. That such was the practice
already in the time of Tertullian seems to follow from the fact that,
writing as a Montanist (De Pudicitia) he denies the power of for-
giveness in the Church only as regards the peccata majora, implying
thereby that it was customary to submit others also to her authority.
This, too, may be gathered from the freedom with which new"
sins were submitted to public penance in the fourth century. (V.
Morinus, 1. v., c. 31). The impression which naturally arises from
the facts is that all grievous sins were submitted to the bishops in
the first instance, and that their concern was to determine which
among them should be expiated by the established forms of public
atonement. This again seems to be the mind of St. Augustine in
his sermon 351, already referred to. A guilty conscience — "sins-
against the decalogue" — leads the sinner to abstain from com-
munion and to apply to the Church for the spiritual medicine by
which he may be healed. The priest decides whether or not he shall
join the ranks of those who do public penance. But surely if the
decision is in the negative, the penitent, though guilty of grievous
faults, will not be simply dismissed. Other and gentler remedies
will be applied to him — exercises corrective rather than penal. It
is to these, doubtless, that St. Pacian and others refer when they
speak of "opposite practices — better works" as the proper atone-
ment for the less grievous and the lighter sins. Such penances,,
not being determined by custom or law, were left to the judgment
not of the sinner himself, but of the bishop or priest to whom he had
entrusted his conscience. They were doubtless accompanied by the
asperatione pauperum, quid pro eoquodaut tarde aut difficile Christum in carcere visitavi-
mus, quod peregrines negligentes suscepimus, quod secundum promissionem nostram in
baptismo hospitibus pedes lavare negleximus, quod infirmos tardius visitavimus, quod
discordes ad concordiam non toto et integro animo revocavimus, quod Ecclesia jejunante
prandere voluimus, quod in ipsa Ecclesia stantes dum sanctffi lectiones legerentur, otiosis
fabulis occupati sumus, quod aut psallendo aut orando aliquotiea aliud quam opporteret
cogitavimus, quod in conviviis non semper quse sancta sed aliquoties quee sunt luxuriosa
locuti sumus.
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 429
ordinary prayers by which the other sinners were admitted to recon-
ciHation, for at no time do we find special forms for secret absolu-
tion. It is strange, we must confess, that so important a form of
•discipline should remain so long without special mention and emerge
distinctly to view only at the beginning of the fifth century; and
we can attempt to account for it only by supposing that the solemn
and striking discipline of public penance, with its strict rules and
settled practices, completely overshadowed the other, which was
sufficiently known to all and carried out entirely between the sinner
and the chosen physician of his soul.^
The second act of the penitential process — the penances enjoined
and practised — might now claim to be considered. But the subject,
though complex, offers little real difficulty. It is found sufficiently
explained in most of our modern Church histories, and there is little
that calls for comment in what Dr. Lea has to say of it. It suggests
indeed many important reflections and conveys more than one useful
lesson ; but our space is limited and we must pass on to the third
and crowning act, the reconciliation of the sinner through the keys of
.the Church.
IV.
That a certain amount of ambiguity and obscurity surrounds the
practice in early times cannot be denied ; that the true values of the
Church's forgiving power and action were but imperfectly under-
stood by many, and that it took a long course of ages to make it
clear to all is a fact which forces itself upon whoever goes over the
original testimonies. But only one who closes his eyes to them can
claim, as Dr. Lea does, that at any time the act of reconciliation ex-
tended by the Church to the penitent sinner meant only peace with
her and not forgiveness from God. This is not questioned as re-
gards the later ages ; but it is from the first that we find Tertullian
and the fathers assimilate the cleansing effects of the penitential
rite on the soul to those of baptism. What does Tertullian Montan-
ist reproach the Bishop of Rome with ? That he undertakes to for-
given even such sins as adultery. What was the claim of the Nova-
tians refuted by St. Ambrose? That the Church could forgive
lesser but not the more grievous sins, which would be absurd on the
5 And yet St. Augustine, addressing the catechumens (" De Symbolo ad Catechum." in fine)
formally declares that there are but three ways of obtaining forgiveness of sin — baptism,
prayer and public penance. " Nolite ilia committere pro quibus necesse est ut a Christi
corpore separemini. Quodabsit a vobis. Illi quos videtis agere poenitentiam scelera com
miserunt, aut adulteria aut aliqua facta immania. Inde agunt poenitentiam. Nam si levia
peccata eorumessent, ad hsec quotidiana oratio sufficeret. Ergo tribus tnodis diniittuntur
peccata in Ecclesia : in baptisma^te, tn oratione, in humiliiate fnajoris PcenitefiticF."
430 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
face of it if applied merely to reconciliation with the Church her-
self. Why was St. Cyprian so much concerned that sinners should
secure the benefit of reconciliation before they died? "Because,"
he tells us ("De Lapsis," 29), "it is only in the present that the re-
mission made by the priest is of avail before God." Why should.
Pope Celestine I. regard as "impious cruelty" the denial of absolu-
tion to the dying sinner if its only effect was to reconcile him with
a society to which he would soon cease to belong? Whence the
eagerness of those sinners of whom St. Augustine writes, who, at
the approach of the barbarians and the consequent peril of death,,
ardently sought to be reconciled, or at least to be admitted among
the penitents ? Why does he consider as heartless and unchristian,
the conduct of those priests who, instead of yielding to their entrea-
ties, themselves sought safety in flight? All this points to some-
thing of supreme importance, peace, not merely with a Christian,
community itself in disruption, but with the society of the blessed
and with God.®
Thus far there is no serious difficulty. Reconciliation granted
by the Church always implied peace with God, provided, of course,,
the sinner by his dispositions was not unworthy of it. But we find
other limitations in the exercise of this "power of the keys," as it is.
called, which are always a cause of surprise to those who come upon
them for the first time, and which have given rise to much diversity
of thought among modern writers.
Thus, I. It would seem that for a time in various parts of the
Church, and even in Rome, penance was positively denied to the
three categories of great sinners — murderers, adulterers and apos-
tates. The fact has been questioned as to Rome, yet various con-
current testimonies seem to substantiate it. It cannot be denied
that the Council of Elvira, in Spain (vers. 305) refused the benefit of
reconciliation, even at the hour of death, in a series of cases more or
less comprised in the three above mentioned classes. 2. Another
limitation was in regard to sinners who sought for reconciliation
only when in danger of death. To such St. Cyprian refused to show
indulgence, in which he was followed by the great Council of Aries
(314), where it was decreed that apostates who had not sought peni-
tence in health were to be debarred from it in sickness. 3. Perhaps
the most striking restriction of all and assuredly the most universal
was that which forbade sinners to be admitted to public penance
more than once. "Servis enim Dei/' says Hermas, "una poenitentia.'*
And Origen : "In graviorihus criminibus semel tantum pcenitentice con-
6 See on this point F. Casey's " Notes," already referred to.
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 431
ceditur locus." S. Ambrose and St. Pacian show that the same law
continued to prevail through the fourth century, and St. Augustine
reechoes it in the fifth when he tells us (Ep. 153) that even the low-
est place in the church was denied to a relapsing penitent.
If we ask what gave rise to so rigid a discipline, the answer comes
to us from the very writers who reveal its existence. To some the
strong sayings of Our Lord (Matt, xii., 31) about certain sins being
beyond forgiveness were a great source of perplexity, and the mys-
terious warning of St. John (I. John v., 16) and of S. Paul (Hebr. x.,
26) added to the terror of the threat. Moved by these passages,
Origen was led to believe that certain sins were beyond the
Church's power; he even seemed to hold that only good priests
could forgive the others. (De Oratione xxviii.) The Novatians
eagerly grasped at the thought, but St. Ambrose (De Poenit I., 10)
is careful to explain the passages of Scripture, while the constant
belief of Catholics set aside all limitations to the power of the
Church.
Why then was forgiveness denied for a time to the more grievous
sins? Because of the exalted opinion in which the Christian pro-
fession was held in those early times. Whoever, after having
breathed the air of the Gospel through childhood and youth, or
having been trained by the methods of the catechumenate to the
spirit and practices of the Christian life and solemnly pledged him-
self to it, yet departed from it to the extent implied by these grosser
crimes, was cast out as unworthy of the Christian name. Those, on
the other hand, who sought to take refuge in penance only in face of
death were supposed to be devoid of genuine sorrow. To admit
them, besides, at the last hour, and necessarily on easy terms, would
act, it was feared, as an inducement to defer their conversion to the
end. Finally those who, having been admitted once to public pen-
ance and reconciliation, yielded again to their evil passions, gave
rise to the suspicion that they had never been truly converted, or
that they were trifling with God's justice and abusing His mercy.
An additional reason for not readmitting them to reconciliation was
that once reckoned among the penitents, the name and some of the
burdens of the condition clung to them, like the character of bap-
tism or confirmation, for the rest of their lives.
But this extreme rigor, however well meant and advisable, per-
haps, when first enacted, proved ultimately unsuited to the require-
ments of the case and was gradually put aside. As early as the be-
ginning of the third century Tertullian reproaches the Bishop of
Rome with admitting adulterers to penance and reconciliation. Fifty
432 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
years later the same indulgence is extended to apostates truly repent-
ant, in Rome, in Africa, in Egypt. The Council of Nicaea (A. D.
325) reverses the stern decrees of Elvira and orders that the sick
shall also be admitted to penance and forgiveness, with the protec-
tive clause, however, that if they return to health they shall perform
the full measure of the atonement. The limitation of public pen-
ance to a single application was slower to yield. St. Augustine
speaks of it as still in vigor in his time ; yet already the Pope, St.
Siricius (A. D. 385), had decided that even relapsed penitents might
be admitted to the Holy Mysteries and to communion at the hour of
death. The barrier thus weakened was finally swept away in the
next century under the pressure of circumstances too long to de-
scribe here.
But it will be naturally asked what was the condition, in the eyes
of the Church, of those to whom she refused her ministrations?
What was supposed to become of those to whom penance was de-
nied at a certain time through life and even at the hour of death, or
of those penitents who after their reconciliation relapsed into one
of the greater sins ? Were they looked upon as irretrievably lost ?
By no means. Tertullian leaves them to God, from whom they
may win that forgiveness which the Church cannot (according to
him) or will not grant them. St. Cyprian, while declining to show
mercy to those apostates who sought forgiveness only in time of
sickness is not without hope that God may forgive them, and as a
consequence he continues to extend to them his paternal solicitude.*^
In like manner St. Augustine, though declaring that there is no
place in the Church for the relapsed, yet insists that they must not
despair of the divine mercy ; but that instead of giving themselves
up in despair to the enjoyments of the flesh, they should strive by
the fervor of their repentance to appease the wrath of God and win
back His favor. (Ep. 54 ad Macedon.)
V.
As to the manner in which the sinner was reconciled or pardoned
we know that for a long time it was believed by theologians that
absolution being a judicial sentence could be administered validly
only in the indicative or imperative form ; but in presence of the fact
that up to the thirteenth century all the known forms of absolution
are only prayers and still continue to be so in the Oriental churches,
' Quos quidem separates a nobis non dereliquimus, sed ipsos cohortati sumuset hortamur
agere poenitentiam si quomodo indulgentiam poteriut recipere ad eo qui potest preestare,
ne si relicti a nobis fuerint, pejores efficiautur.
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 433
it is now generally admitted that the deprecatory form was sufficient.
These prayers, begging forgiveness for the sinner, were pronounced
(sometimes the same, sometimes different) when the penance was
imposed, several times while it lasted, and finally in the solemn
reconciliation at its close. Hence a difference of opinion as to when
sacramental absolution was really granted. Lack of space forbids
us to discuss the question here, but we have no doubt that, as a rule,
forgiveness of sin was granted only in the formal reconciliation at
the end.
What is much more difficult to determine exactly is the sense
which the ancients attached to the action of the Church in reconcil-
ing the sinner. Their language in that regard is often obscure, con-
fused and sometimes contradictory ; nor can we fairly expect it to be
otherwise in so complex a subject. CathoHc theology slowly elabo-
rated has made all clear to us, but in the early ages the faithful and
their teachers were left in many things to themselves. They knew
that repentance had lost nothing of its power to secure forgiveness.
They further believed that to be effective (with or without the
action of the Church) it had to bear a certain proportion to the ex-
tent of the sinner's guilt, proportion which could only be guessed at,
yet by which the granting or denial of absolution was determined.
Fervor in the penitential exercises caused it to be hastened, luke-
warmness to be deferred. The clergy of Rome in their letter to St.
Cyprian speak of apostates who "by tears and groans show a truly
repentant spirit;" yet because the proximity of death forbids them
to go through the whole process of expiation, they are reconciled
with fear and trembling, "God Himself knowing what He will do
with such and what way He will examine the balance of His judg-
ment." Right through the early ages this is the prevailing tone.
To repentance, to sorrow and works of atonement is the justification
of the sinner almost entirely ascribed. The early fathers, as we have
seen, talk of repentance and nothing more. Tertullian ("De Poeni-
tentia") in describing it makes no mention of the action of the
Church. Origen seems chiefly to rely on the sinner's sorrow and
good works as a means of forgiveness. "Et tu," says St, Ambrose,
''si vis veniam mereri, dilue lacrymis culpam fuam." In his books on
Penance he indicates, it is true, the power of the Church, but at the
same time he seems to place the hope of forgiveness principally in
the sorrow and atonement of the sinner. And this is the prevail-
ing note of the whole fourth and fifth centuries. The prayers of
others and one's own, alms, austerities of various kinds, these are
the means that seem to be almost entirely relied on. Of this we
VOL. XXV.— 2.
434 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
have a striking example in the "Vitas Patrum; or, Lives of the
Fathers of the Desert." They abound in stories of sinners who
withdraw from the world to do penance, or of anchorites who hav-
ing momentarily fallen from grace return repentant to their solitary
life. Now what they all rely upon to obtain forgiveness is the aus-
tere discipline to which they voluntarily submit themselves. In his
"Ladder of Heaven" St. John Climacus describes a monastery in
which the penitents, imprisoned at their own wish, were ever invent-
ing new contrivances for tormenting themselves, and thought only
of adding to their sufferings. Their sighs and groans could be
heard from afar, and when strangers came near them their only
words would be : "Do you think God wih ever forgive us ?" Their
only hope seems to be in their atonements and the prayers they
begged for. There is no turning, so far as we can see, to the power
of the keys. The fact is, in all these stories of sinners seeking to
obtain forgiveness we find no mention of an appeal to bishop or
priest. The penitent, moved by the grace of God or by the advice
of some holy anchorite (not a priest), embraced the penitential life
of the desert, and pardon reaches him suddenly from above, or
slowly through the expiatory works ; but not, so far as the narrative
shows, through any priestly agency.
And yet, as far back as we can see distinctly into the past, the
sinner had always to turn to the Church, and neither in life nor in
death did he feel secure unless the Church had forgiven him. The
two doctrines, "forgiveness through repentance" and "forgiveness
through the power of the keys," were held simultaneously, but with-
out any attempt to determine the part of each or to harmonize their
action. That so obvious a question should have been so long
neglected is strange indeed; but not more so than in the case of
many other problems which had to wait for the active and penetrat-
ing minds of the schoolmen. We meet this one for the first time
exposed at length in the Decretum of Gratian (A. D. 1115),
causa xxxiii., 93 dist. i, under this form : "Utrum sola cordis contri-
tione et secreta satisfactione absque oris confessione quisquis possit Deo
satis faceref' and, strange to say, instead of a formal response in the
negative the great canonist gives authorities, Scriptural and Pa-
tristic, on both sides; and concludes thus : ''Ciii haruni sententiariim
ritius adhcerendum sit, lectoris judicio reservattir. Utraqvie enim
faiitores habet sapievHes et religiosos viros." In a word, he leaves it
an open question, an ^ an open question it remains for the next two
hundred years, dividii \' the keenest minds and the highest authori-
ties, not, indeed, as a p \ttical problem, for the obligation of confes-
Penitential Discipline in the Early Church. 435
sion was not questioned, but as to what was the share of absolution
in the remission of sin. The discussion is most interesting to follow
in the theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Petrus
Lombardus (A. D. 1130) adopts in his "Sentences" the opinion of
Cardinal PuUus : "A peccatis solvit sacerdos, non utique quod peccata
dimittat, sed quod dimissa (per contritionem) sacramento pandat;" and
adds: "Nee idea negamus sacerdotihus eoneessam fuisse potestatcni
dimittendi et retinendi peccata, idest, ostendendi homines esse ligatos vet
solntos. . . . Ligant quoque dum satisfactionem confidentihus im~
ponent; solvunt qmmi d'e ea aliquid dimittimt — et ad communionem
udmittunt." The great "Master," as he was called, drew after him
the bulk of theologians, among others Albert the Great. His opin-
ion, says Morinus (p. 505) variously expanded, prevailed in the
schools for nearly a hundred years. Only one kind of contrition
was thought of, and that, it was held, secured forgiveness before the
reception of absolution. It was only gradually, slowly and amid
much speculation that subsequently the opposite view took hold and
finally triumphed.
If so much obscurity gathered around questions of such import-
ance through a lengthened period of intelligent discussion, how
much more must have prevailed before close consecutive thought
had been given to the subject. A certain school of theologians in-
stinctively proceed on the principle that all was perfectly under-
stood and correctly practised in the Church from the beginning.
They fight hard against anything that they cannot justify, and what
is too well attested to be denied they strive to twist into conformity
with the fuller and more accurate conceptions of a later period.
But the facts are often too strong for them, and hence the ever
growing number of theologians who, with intentions equally pure,
but with more intellectual honesty, accommodate their theories to
the facts instead of twisting the facts in order to make them fit into
preconceived theories. Thus they realize that while certain funda-
mental doctrines, such as the Incarnation, the Redemption, the Real
Presence, stand out in their general lines as boldly and as distinctly
from the first as at any subsequent period, their developments, log-
ical and practical, were the work of ages ; that the full meaning,
measure and application of the Gospel institutions were understood
in many particulars long after they were established ; that, conse-
quently, instead of taking it for granted that all in the early Church
was just as we find it in our time, we have to study in detail each
doctrine, each institution, such as the episcopate, the Papal su-
premacy, the sacraments, and ascertain by direct examination how
436 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
far any given writer, or church, or age thought as we think or acted
according to the principles which guide us at the present day.
Studied thus Christian antiquity gives us all the constitutive ele-
ments of the sacrament of penance, contrition, confession, satisfac-
tion, absolution, but has no definite theory as to the share of each
in the reconciliation of the sinner. We may well suppose that there
were those in early times who, like the theologians of the twelfth
century, ascribed to the contrition of the sinner the forgiveness of
his sin, and who saw little more in absolution than reconciliation
with the Church. We can understand how, for disciplinary pur-
poses, those who held that view denied absolution to the relapsed,
and how the growth of the opposite opinion led to a contrary
practice.
We see how the problem of modern theologians — at what time
and in what form forgiveness was imparted to the sinner — did not
even occur to many, while such as assigned forgiveness to the power
of the keys did not necessarily ask themselves which of the prayers
said over the penitents produced the sacramental effect any more
than they inquired which of the many unctions applied to the sick
by a priest or by several priests, as in the Greek rite, acted sacra-
mentally upon them. They performed the complex ceremony, be-
lieved in its mysterious efficacy and left the rest to God and to the
curious inquiries of later generations. In nothing, perhaps, is the
ancient discipline so unlike ours as in the amount of sorrow and
expiation required of the repentant sinner. But this is because the
Church aimed at effecting a radical change and a renovation so
thorough in the sinner that his perseverance might be looked upon
as morally certain, whereas we, doubtless for good reasons, content
ourselves with a sorrow and a resolve to amend which, though weak
and often ineffective, are for the time being honest and sincere.
We now return to the "History of Auricular Confession," which
led us into the foregoing reflections. They correspond only to the
earlier portion of Dr. Lea's work, for he pursues the subject down
to the present day. All in it is new to him, and all interesting. To
us its later stages are better known, some quite familiar, and we
prefer to look at things as they were at the beginning. Yet the
sequel of Dr. Lea's book is suggestive and not undeserving a critical
discussion ; but such a thing in dealing with the present work is no
easy task. If what is objectionable were confined to a few positions
or statements it could be handled without any special difficulty.
Rittial in the Reign of Maximin. 437
But in the present case it extends all over the book. Almost at
every page there are facts misinterpreted, passages misunderstood,
proofs weak or sophistical, suggestions unfounded, so that nothing
short of a continuous abundant gloss would suffice to redress all
that is faulty. As we have said, there is no close discussion, no defi-
nite position on most points. The truth is, Dr. Lea is an admirable
compiler, but not a historian. He is sometimes overpowered by the
abundance of his materials, and handles them or drops them like
one who fails to see their value, or knows not how to dispose of them.
He evidently delights in demolishing, but shows no taste to build.
The constructive power is wanting. Hence, notwithstanding our
wish to welcome a work on a great theological subject upon which
so much labor has been spent, and, even though out of harmony on
some points with Catholic belief, to recommend it to our readers,
yet we find it difficult to do so. For any one unacquainted with the
subject, the book, though full of information, is absolutely mislead-
ing. For others better equipped, it is confusing and perplexing.
Yet at least for the latter it is truly suggestive. It calls attention
to a vast number of interesting facts and testimonies generally un-
known or unnoticed. It opens up many questions and leads to in-
vestigate them. It compels the student to go back to the sources
and get their meaning at first hand. It brings home to him, finally,
the value of the work of Catholic ages on the original data of faith
and practice, and supplies the proof that to yield solid theological
wealth, even so rich a mine as the early Christian Ages needs to be
worked by Catholic hands.
J. HOGAN.
St. John's Seminary, Brighton, Mass.
RITUAL IN THE REIGN OF MAXIMIN.
I AM about to describe and discuss a work which has excited
much attention among liturgical writers : "Testamentum
Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, nunc primum edidit, Latine reddi-
diet et illustravit Ignatius Ephraem II. Rahmani, Patriarcha Antio-
chenus Syrorum. Moguntiae, Sumptibus Francisci Kircheim, 1899."
The book purports to be an addition to the Gospels, a discourse of
our Saviour to His Apostles after His resurrection, containing first
a prediction of Antichrist ; secondly, a minute ritual supposed to be
438 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
there and then prescribed by Christ Himself. The work is an un-
mistakable forgery. The prediction is worthless, but the details
of ritual are of great value. Embodying as they do many known
fragments of ancient liturgy, they are evidently no mere inventions
of the writer. He could not have expected to impose a new system
of rites on the Church. He must have set down what he saw being
done before his eyes, possibly with some little amplification of his
own. Mgr. Rahmani, Catholic Patriarch of Antioch of the Syriac
Rite, discovered the work as one portion of a Syriac manuscript,
preserved at Mossul on the Tigris, dated A. D. 1654. He has pub-
lished the Syriac text with a Latin translation. It has never been
published before in its entirety. Fragments of it, however, appear
in a Paris manuscript of the eighth century, published by
Lagarde. The work is extant in another Syriac manu-
script in the library of the Propaganda at Rome, dated
A. D. 1578. A fourteenth century Arabic manuscript in the
same library, purporting to be a translation from a Coptic manu-
script of the tenth century, exhibits the same work. In the British
Museum are two manuscripts of an Ethiopian version of the same»
From the Mossul and the Roman manuscripts we learn that the
work was translated into Syriac from the Greek in the year 687
A. D. This makes Greek the original language, so far back as we
can trace the work. The title, in which the work is attributed to
"Clement the Roman, disciple of Peter," is simply part of the
forgery. The "Testamentum" covers much the same ground as
the "Apostolic Constitutions," edited in the Coptic with an Eng-
lish translation by Tattam in 1848, and the "Canons of Hippolytus,"
of which a Latin translation from the Arabic was published by Mgr.
de Haneberg in 1870. Mgr. Rahmani argues that the "Apostolic
Constitutions" are founded upon this "Testamentum" which he
publishes, being a second edition abridged and adapted to the dis-
cipline of a somewhat later age. The so-called "Canons of Hippo-
lytus" he shows to be a clumsy forgery, the work of some clumsy
compiler of a still later date. Yet a third work, called the "Eighth
Book of Apostolic Constitutions," he considers to be derived from
the "Apostolic Constitutions" above mentioned, otherwise called
the "Ecclesiastical Canons," that is to say, from the second edition
of the "Testamentum," put forward, he thinks, some time in the
third century. The "Testamentum" itself he assigns to the second
century ("Prolegomena," p. 48). Thus, if Mgr. Rahmani is right,
the "Testamentum D. N. Jesu Christi" appeared some time between
100 and 200 A. D. A second edition, the "Ecclesiastical Canons,"
Ritual in the Reign of Maximm. 439
and a third edition, the "Eighth Book of Apostolic Constitutions,"
appeared between 200 and 300 A. D. He incHnes to think that the
"Testamentum" first saw the Hght in Syria, to which country what
I have called the second and third editions of the 'Testamentum"
also belong. Certain indications seem to me to refer the work to
the third rather than to the second century. Still it is most valuable
as exhibiting apocryphal gospel, to be sure, but actual ritual, the
ritual under which the sacraments were conferred which nourished
the martyrs to victory.
The apocryphal prophecy of Antichrist and his times (supposed,
of course, to be close at hand) which the inventor places in the
mouth of our Lord after His resurrection betrays its apocryphal
origin by the ineptitudes into which, after a fair beginning, it
speedily descends. Antichrist is to have a head like a flame of fire,
his right eye bloodshot, his left eye blue, with two pupils ; his eye-
lashes white, his lower lip large, his right thigh shrunken, his feet
broad, his middle finger flattened out and oblong. Portents to
proceed his coming are the birth of children with white hair and the
faces of old men, who shall foretell the end of the world and then beg
immediately to be killed, dragons born of women, infant souls with-
out bodies, quadruped infants, and the like trash. Of this nothing
can be made. But another part of the prophecy affords some clue
to the age of the composer. Apocryphal prophecy represents con-
temporary history. We read: "There shall be princes lovers of
money, enemies of truth, slayers of their brethren, . . . kins-
men indeed of one another, but not in mutual concord, every one
longing to destroy his partner's life. Through their armies shall
be great distresses, flights and shedding of blood. But there shall
arise in the west a king of foreign stock, a prince of extreme guile,
godless, a murderer, a deceiver, covetous of gold, most crafty,
wicked, an enemy and persecutor of the faithful." The second cen-
tury had no such sad experiences, filled as great part of it was with
the peaceful reign of the Antonines. But the years of the third
century (212-235) exactly verify the pretended prophecy. Severus,
dying in 211, left his empire to his two sons, Geta and Caracalla.
In 212 Geta was murdered by Caracalla. This represents "princes,
slayers of their brethren." Caracalla himself and the three succeed-
ing emperors, Macrinus, Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus, all
met with violent deaths. Heliogabalus in particular merits all
the abuse which the prohetic author pours upon the princes of his
time. In 235 "a king of foreign stock," the Thracian peasant Max-
imin, intruded himself upon the throne of the Caesars — Maximin,
440 American Catholic Quarterly Rcvieiv.
the well-known "enemy and persecutor of the faithful," as the acts of
St. Catherine of Alexandria and other martyrs attest. There were
also to be "unrighteous pastors," who were to cause much trouble
in the Church. Syria and Asia Minor were to be the scene of signal
calamities. This may point to the Montanist and Cataphrygian
heretics, who, as the name of the latter shows, were conspicuous in
Asia Minor. "Unrighteous pastors" figure more in the history of
the third than of the second century. Hence I think that Mgr.
Rahmani has antedated the "Testamentum," and that it really be-
longs to the first half of the third century, not to the second.
From prophecy we pass to the main element, the only valuable
element of the "Testamentum," the liturgical directions which are
attributed to Christ Himself. First the sacred edifices are described
on a scale quite inconsistent with catacombs, presenting the Church
as living in the light of publicity, and by no means wanting for
money. Such publicity, less possible at Rome under the immediate
ken of the Emperor, was not denied to the Church in remoter parts
of the empire in the second and third centuries. The details given
remind us of a Cathedral, with palace. Cathedral close and canons'
houses ; or to recur to a fourth century precedent, to the erections of
St. Basil at Csesarea.^ I enumerate the various buildings accord-
ing to the names given. It would not be easy to draw an architec-
tural plan of the whole. The church has three entrances. To the
east is the altar and the Bishop's throne, raised three steps. The
altar is curtained off. To the right and left (south and north side)
of the altar are two porticoes, one for men and one for women.
There is a catechumen's chapel, also a diaconicoii where offerings
are made for the Holy Table. The diaconicon is a hall, surrounded
by a portico. Within or beyond this hall is a baptistry. Near the
diaconicon is the treasury. There is also a registry, where their
names are taken down who have made offerings for the altar, or
for whom offerings have been made, that they may be prayed for
in the holy sacrifice. There is a Bishop's house, a house of widows,
houses of priests and deacons and a guest house.
The Bishop is elected by the whole people. All the neighboring
Bishops meet and impose hands upon him, with a prayer, short and
somewhat vague, still used in the Syrian pontifical ; after which one
Bishop alone, deputed by the rest, imposes his hands, reciting the
consecration prayer, a long prayer still in use in the consecration of
Bishops of the Coptic and the Syrian rite. The prayer contains
these words, sufficiently significant of the powers of a Bishop:
1 See " Saint Basile," par Paul Allard (lyccoffre, Paris.)
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 441
■''Father, who knowest the hearts of all, grant to this thy servant,
whom thou hast chosen to the episcopate, that he may feed thy holy
flock, and exercise the functions of the high priesthood without re-
proach, ministering to thee night and day. May thy face appear
to him, and render him worthy of offering to thee diligently and
with all fear the oblations of thy holy Church. Impart to him that
he may have thy spirit, strong in power to loosen all bonds, as thou
didst grant it to thy apostles."
The first book of the "Testamentum" may be thus analysed:
The sacred buildings, the Bishop and the ritual concerning him,
especially the rite of the Eucharistic oblation, the presbyters and
their ritual, deacons and their ritual, canonical widows and their
ritual. The second book treats principally of catechumens, of bap-
tism and of the Office for Easter Eve.
The Bishop is to fast six days a week for the three weeks suc-
ceeding his consecration and three days every week for the rest of
his life. This latter fast the presbyters also are to observe. He is
to abstain perpetually from flesh meat, not, however, as though
such food were blameworthy in itself. "Wine he is never to taste,
except only the chalice of the oblation." On this curious subject
we shall have more to say. The like abstinence was incumbent also
on the presbyters. One would wish to know from other historical
evidence how far our author here was merely theorizing, and how
far he is setting down what he actually saw put in practice.
The holy sacrifice is to be offered only on Saturday or Sunday
and "on the fast day." From Tertullian (de jejun. ii., 14) we learn
that Wednesdays and Fridays every week were fast days ; this, how-
ever, our author does not say. The sacrifice is offered by the
Bishop, with the presbyters standing around him. When the
Bishop is indisposed one of the presbyters offers it in his stead.
This extends the power of offering sacrifice to the second order of
priesthood. Ordinarily, however, the presbyters do not exercise
this power. There is no clear trace of their celebrating along with
the Bishop. They impose their hands with him upon the bread to
be consecrated, but the words of consecration, so far as we learn
from the "Testamentum," are spoken by the Bishop alone. The
essential rite of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, at which only the bap-
tized were allowed to assist, is thus described :
The deacon makes this proclamation: "Lift your hearts to
heaven. If any one has hatred against his neighbor, let him be
reconciled. If any one is conscious of incredulity, let him confess.
If any one has a mind estranged from the commandments, let him
442 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
depart. If any has fallen into sin, let him not hide himself {i. e.,,
hide his sin) ; it is wicked to hide himself. If any one labors under
a sick mind, let him not approach. If any be polluted, if any
not firm, let him give place. If any one be estranged from
the precepts of Jesus, let him depart. If any one despises the
prophets, let him leave the company ; let him keep himself from the
anger of the Only-begotten. Let us not despise the cross ; let us
fly from the threats of our Lord. We have the Father of lights
seeing with the Son, and the angels visitors. Look to yourselves,
that you keep not hatred against your neighbors. Look that none
remain in anger ; God sees. Lift up your hearts to ofifer unto salva-
tion of life and holiness. By the wisdom of God let us receive the
grace that is given us."
"Then the Bishop confessing and giving thanks is to say in a
loud and solemn voice." What follows is the preface, with the re-
sponses preceding it :
'' 'Our Lord be with you.' Let the people answer : 'And with
thy spirit.' Let the Bishop say : 'Lift up your hearts.' Let the
people say : 'We have unto the Lord.' Let the Bishop say : 'Let
us confess [i. e,, give praise] to the Lord.' Let all the people say :
'It is meet and just.' Let the Bishop cry: 'Holy things by the
holy.' Let all the people cry together: 'In heaven and on earth
unceasingly.' "
The preface ensuing is quite unlike anything in our Missals. It
is joined on to the Canon without any Sanctus intervening. The
Canon is a continuous prayer to the Father, to the Son, and again
to the Father, continuing thus: "Through thine Only-begotten
Son, who was crucified for our sins, Thou, O Lord, hast sent into a
virgin's womb thy Word, the Son of thy mind and Son of thy exist-
ence, through whom thou didst make all things, whereas in him
thou wast well pleased; who, when he was conceived and made
flesh, appeared as thy Son, born of the Holy Ghost and of a Virgin ;
who, fulfilling thy will and making ready a holy people, stretched
out his hands to suffering that he might deliver them that have
hoped in Thee from suffering and the corruption of death ; who,
when he was given over to his voluntary passion to raise them that
were fallen, etc. — taking bread, gave to his disciples, saying : 'Take,
eat, this is my body that is broken for you unto remission of sins.
As often as you shall do this, you shall enact my resurrection.'
[Curious variant from I. Cor. xi., 26.] In like manner the chalice
of wine that he mixed, he gave unto a figure of the blood that was
shed for us."
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 443
The "Ecclesiastical Canons," taken to be another edition of the
"Testamentum," here read: "In Hke manner the chaHce of wine
that he mixed, saying : This is my blood that is shed for you.' "
Ancient scribes had odd ways, and we cannot tell whether the
writer of the parent manuscript of our MSS. of the "Testamentum"
curtailed the form of consecration of the chalice out of reverence,
or because it was so well known, as even now to many priests the
words of consecration printed in the missal or on the altar card are
practically useless there. What follows is called the anamnesis, or
recollection, still easily recognizable in our rite :
"Mindful, therefore, of thy death and resurrection, we ot¥er thee
bread and cup, giving thanks to thee, who alone art God forever and
our Saviour, because thou hast made us worthy to stand before
thee and fulfil the ministry of priesthood unto thee. Wherefore
we give thee thanks, we thy servants, O Lord." The last sentence
is repeated by the people. It will be noticed that the anamnesis is
addressed to the Son ; that he whose death and resurrection is com-
memorated is distinctly styled God, and that in what we may take to
be at any rate an ante-Nicene liturgy. The bearing of the pre-
consecration prayer against the heresy of Nestorius is also observ-
able.
The prayer continues : "Eternal Trinity [the term Trinity is as
old as the second century], Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Father, Lord
Holy Ghost." St. Ignatius of Antioch in his epistle to the Magnes-
ians puts the three Persons in the same order, "in the Son and in
the Father and in the Spirit," probably because through the Son
we have access to the Father. Also St. Paul (II. Cor. xiii., 13):
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and
the communication of the Holy Spirit." Corresponding to the
epiklesis (invocation), which in the Latin Church now stands in the
form, "Bid these gifts to be carried by the hands of thy holy angel
to thy altar on high," we find here : "Bring this drink and this
food of thy holiness, make them be to us not unto judgment, nor
unto disgrace or unto perdition, but unto the healing and strength
of our spirit." This primitive epiklesis, unlike that in use among
the Greeks, could never be taken for a consecration prayer. The
prayer goes on with a double memento for the living and for the dead.
The former is principally made up of these words : "Sustain unto
the end those who are in the enjoyment of graces of revelations,
confirm them who enjoy the grace of healing, strengthen them who
have the power of tongues, direct them who labor in the word of
doctrine." For the explanation of this passage we must turn to
444 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
St. Paul, I. Cor. xii., xiii., xiv., on which St. Chrysostom writes as
follows: 'This passage is very obscure, owing to our ignorance
and inexperience of things that happened when St. Paul wrote [and
continued to happen when the author of this Testamentum' wrote],
but do not happen now [A. D. 396]. In those days after baptism
one immediately spoke in strange tongues ; many also prophesied ;
some worked miracles. . . . They received the Holy Spirit in
the instant of their baptism ; but they could not see the Spirit, as He
is invisible, and therefore the miraculous grace gave them a sensi-
ble proof of his operation. Thus at once one there was speaking
the language of the Persians, another that of the Romans, another
that of the Indians, and so of the rest. This was a sensible proof
to those outside the faith that the Spirit was in the person of the
speaker. They also raised the dead, chased out devils and did other
wonders." St. Irenseus (martyred A. D. 202) testifies to perma-
nence of these miraculous gifts in the Church in his time (Iren. ii.,
32). How long before the time of St. John Chrysostom they came
to an end I am unable to say. They are frequently mentioned in
this ''Testamentum," and persons who enjoyed them were assigned a
place of honor in the Church, immediately after the clergy. This
fact argues the early date of the 'Testamentum," though it does not
necessarily place it in the second century.
The memento for the dead is brief: "Remember them who have
fallen asleep in the faith, and give us inheritance with thy saints."
Elsewhere, in the bidding-prayer recited by the deacon, we have:
"For the dead, who have passed away from the Church, let us en-
treat that the Lord may give them a place of rest." Elsewhere it
is directed that in a certain case the goods of the deceased be dis-
tributed to the poor "in aid of his soul."
There is no mention of the Lord's Prayer in this liturgy. The
bishop concludes : "Let the name of the Lord be blessed forever."
People, "Amen." Priest, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of
the Lord, blessed be the name of his glory." People, "Amen,
Amen."
Then follows the Communion. The Holy Eucharist is distrib-
uted in both kinds by the deacon, as in St. Justin's days (Apol. i.,
186). Mgr. Rahmani quotes Tertullian as saying: "Nor do we
receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist from the hands of others
than of the officiating (priests)." The custom seems to have been
for the deacon to take round the chalice only, as we gather from
the Acts of St. Lawrence. Hence Mgr. Rahmani argues that the
Testamentum is prior to Tertullian, not a very cogent inference, for
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 445
customs vary not according to time, but according to place, and a
custom may have lingered in Syria after it had been abolished in
Africa. The deacon placed the Holy Communion in the receiver's
hand, saying: "The body of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, unto
healing of body and soul." Before receiving, the communicant
said this prayer : "Holy, holy, holy, ineffable Trinity, grant me to
receive this body unto life, not unto condemnation. Grant me to
produce fruits pleasing to thee, that pleasing thee I may live in
thee, fulfilling thy precepts, and with confidence may invoke thee,
Father, while I implore upon me thy kingdom and thy will : hal-
lowed be thy name, O Lord, in me, because thou art strong and
glorious, and to thee be glory forever. Amen." The first part of
the Lord's Prayer may be detected in the conclusion of this prayer.
The rubric directs : "After all have received, let them pray, prais-
ing and giving thanks for the receiving." The bishop recites a
prayer, answering to the post communion, and the rite is done.
There is no mention of any blessing.
Though Mass was only said three or four times in the week, and
only on these occasions was there any gathering of the people in
the church, yet we have the direction: "Let the faithful man be
ever solicitous, before he takes (any other) food, to be partaker of
the Eucharist, that he may be rendered incapable of hurt." The
explanation is pretty clear that the people took the Blessed Sacra-
ment with them to their own homes. There is other evidence for this
in the Acts of the Martyrs. The practice may be alluded to in the
"Testamentum," bk. H., n. 13 : "Let him that is a friend or kinsman
of a master of profane things not permit that person to offer praise
with him, nor eat with him on any ground of kindred or propriety,
lest perchance he give to the wolf the things that are ineffable and
take to himself damnation." As the faithful were obliged to come
to the church to receive and, we suppose, to carry home the Blessed
Eucharist, if they were sick for any length of time it had to be
taken to them, to presbyters by a presbyter, to other men by a dea-
con, to women by a deaconess (ib. n. 20). There is ground to con-
jecture that while it was the custom to reserve the Blessed Eucharist
under both kinds, what the laity took to their homes and what was
taken to them when sick was the species of bread alone. The
grounds for this conjecture are these two rubrics: (i.) It is said of
the bishops (b. L, n. 22) : "Let him on no account taste wine, ex-
cept only the chalice of oblation. This let him use both when he
is sick and when he is well. For it is good that this be for priests
alone." But where the liturgy is performed in the church, the
44^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
direction is for all to receive of the chalice, the clergy first and then
the laity. (2.) Of the presbyter it is said (b. I., n. 31) : "Let him
fast, and if it do him good to take wine from the chalice, let it suf-
fice him to take as mtich as he judges to be good for him, lest he
take to his harm that drink which is for health." It may be said
that the reference is to what we call the "altar wine," or the wine
intended for use in the Holy Sacrifice before consecration. But
altar wine is not kept in the chalice ; and in those days, apparently,
the wine as well as the bread for the Eucharist was the offering of
the faithful expressly for that purpose, and could not lawfully be
used except for consecration. Hence we may conjecture three
things: (i) that the Holy Eucharist was reserved under both
kinds : (2) that the chalice, so reserved, was for the communion of
priests alone : (3) that when the laity communicated of the reserved
Eucharist, they received only under the species of bread. I say ad-
visedly "conjecture ;" for the evidence of the "Testamentum" is too
slight and vague to build any certainty upon in these points. Such
conjectures as have suggested themselves to me I leave, with much
diffidence as to their value, to the judgment of the erudite anti-
quarian.
The rite of ordaining a presbyter was simple, taking no more time
than it would now take to ordain an acolyte. The whole body of
priests bring up the candidate for priest's orders, and the bishop im-
poses his hand upon his head, the presbyters touching him and hold-
ing him the while, and the bishop says the ordination prayer. In it
occur the words, "give him the spirit of presbyterate (presbyferatus,
eldership) that groweth not old;" and also, "while he glorifies,
blesses, exalts, gives thanks and raises the doxology at all times,
day and night, to thy holy name." There is no mention of the
power of sacrifice, except so far as these words may be taken to
imply it. But there is evidence that the words were so taken ; for
we read elsewhere (b. I., n. 38) : "Let the ordination of the deacon
be done in this wise : the bishop alone imposes his hand upon him,
for he is not ordained to the priesthood (7ion enim ad sacerdotium
Qrdinatiir), but to the ministry of serving the bishop and the
Church." The conclusion is evident that, unlike the deacon, the
presbyter was ordained to the priesthood. This is further conveyed
by the rubric in the liturgy above referred to, that when the bishop
was indisposed, he was "not to offer, but a presbyter is to offer."
The presbyteratus therefore mentioned in the ordination formula
involves sacrificial powers. In other words, the presbyteratus is a'
participation in the sacerdotium.
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 447
In b. I., n. 39, of the "Testamentum" we read the following extra-
ordinary directions : "Whoever gives testimony and acknowledg-
ment in bonds, in prison and in torments for the name of God, for
this let not the hand be imposed on him for diaconate, nor again
for presbyterate ; for he has the honor of clergy, having been pro-
tected by God's hand through the confession (of faith). But if he
is ordained bishop, he is worthy also of the imposition of the hand.
If he is a confessor, but yet has not been called to judgment before
the powers, nor afflicted with bonds, but has only confessed the
faith, let him be accounted worthy of the imposition of the hand;
for he receives [is a fit subject for?] the prayer of clergy [the ordi-
nation formula?] Let not [the bishop], however, repeat all the
words and pray over him, but when the pastor goes on further,
he receives the effect [of ordination]."- This obscure utterance
perhaps expresses the private opinion of the author rather than the
ecclesiastical practice of his age. I do not believe that anywhere
confession of the faith was accepted as equivalent to ordination, or
an unordained confessor of the faith allowed to minister as a priest.
All that the passage means may be simply this, that any one who
has confessed the faith and borne torments for his confession de-
serves as much consideration as a deacon or a priest, and withou*
any ordination should sit high up among the clergy, a precedence
that might be readily granted to such a hero and champion of
Christ. The passage at any rate shows that at the time the Church
was still under persecution, a fact, however, which falls in with the
third century quite as well as with the second, and remained a fact
up to the time of Constantine, A. D. 312. The traces of persecu-
tion are imprinted in several parts of the "Testamentum." Thus in
the deacon's bidding-prayer : "For them who suffer persecution let
ns entreat that the Lord may give them patience and knowledge
and perfect their labor. . . . For them who have lapsed [from
the faith under torments] let us entreat that the Lord may not re-
member their ignorances and may withhold from them His threats."
The deacon is "diligently to take note who come into the church,
to discern whether they be lambs or rather wolves, . . . lest it
happen that a spy come in and the liberty of the Church be assailed."
The mention of the spy recalls the precautions necessary to be taken
by English Catholics three centuries ago. And again (b. II., n. 5) :
■"If any, being still a catechumen, is apprehended for My name
and condemned to torments, and runs hastily to receive baptism,
let not the pastor hesitate, but confer baptism upon him. But if he
2 Suscipit enitn cleri orationem. Non omnia tamen vocabula repetat oretque super
ipsum ; sed cum pastor ulterius progreditur ille effectum suscipit.
44^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
be put to a violent death before receiving baptism, let there be no
perplexity about him; for he is justified as having been baptized
in his own blood."
Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Holy Order and appar-
ently Extreme Unction (there is a blessing of the oleum infirmorum
by the bishop) are all in the "Testamentum." There is no clear evi-
dence of the practice of confession. All mention of public penance
is conspicuously absent, and that though we are told all about the
catechumens and the arrangement of various classes of people in
the Church. This omission Mgr. Rahmani takes to show that the
"Testamentum" is certainly prior to the middle of the third century,
and I think the argument a good one. I quote his words: "At
the time of the author of the 'Testament' the penitents do not yet
appear constituted a special class, nor is any proclamation made by
the deacon to dismiss them, nor is there any trace throughout the
entire book of any rite of reconciling them. Now, Gregory of
Neocsesarea (233-270) mentions in his canonical epistle an order
of penitents standing outside the door ; and in the Teaching of the
Apostles,' which is referred to at least the middle of the third cen-
tury, it is distinctly prescribed that the penitents be restored by im-
position of the hands of the bishop along with prayer." Another
indication of early date is the continued prohibition to taste of any-
thing strangled or offered to idols (b. H., n. 17; Cf. Acts xv., 20).
Also the fact that the fast of Lent is limited to the last two days.
Good Friday and Easter Eve. Lent is called "the forty days of
Easter." During those days the people are to frequent the church
continually, but there is no mention of their being fast-days (b. H.,
n. 8). On Good Friday and Easter Eve the fast was absolute, so
that no food or drink was taken at all till the reception of the Pas-
chal Communion after midnight (Cf., b. H., nn. 6, 20). Justin
(d. 165 A. D.) Irenaeus (d. 202), Tertullian (d. 240), mention this
two days' fast as the custom of their time.
The "discipline of the secret" appears in full force in the "Testa-
mentum." The Church hid her doctrines from the pagan world,
and revealed them only gradually to the catechumens. The doc-
trine of the resurrection of the body was not revealed till after bap-
tism. "Let no man hear a word of the resurrection before he has
received baptism ; for this is the new ordinance, having a new name,
which none knoweth but him that receiveth" (b. H., n. 10; Cf.
Apoc. n., 17). Before the Holy Sacrifice two instructions were
given, one to the catechumens, to whom were read lessons from the
prophets and the apostolic writings. Then the catechumens were
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 449
■dismissed, and the baptized alone heard what is called the Mysta-
gogia, 'That they may offer with fear when they have recognized of
what mystery they are made partakers," and again, ''that the faith-
ful may know to whom they are about to approach and who is their
God and Father," and again, "that they may know of what they
become partakers in the holy mysteries, and whose memory they
-celebrate by the Eucharist." The Mystagogia is an exposition, in
decidedly Oriental language, of the Incarnation and the Redemp-
tion— an exposition thoroughly Catholic and orthodox. It con-
tains these words: "He it is . . . who rose from the dead.
He is not Man only, but also at the same time He is God. . . .
His body, when it is broken, becomes our salvation, and His blood
our spirit, life and sanctification. . . . He, then, who has been
made Man is the Son of God, Lord. . . . This is the cross in
wh'ich we glory that we may be glorified, whereby the perfect faith-
ful who take it up sever themselves from all that is sensible or visi-
ble, as from a thing that does not really exist.^ O ye who are reck-
oned strong, hence draw ye your strength, make deaf your visible
ears, make blind your exterior eyes that you may know the will of
Christ and the whole mystery of your deliverance."
It is interesting to note that the hours of the Divine Office were
already fixed and office was regularly said at those hours, though
in a form differing from the present chiefly in this, that it was not so
exclusively composed of psalms and admitted more prayers of pri-
vate and uninspired authorship. The Bishop is directed to pray in
the church "at the first hour of the night, at midnight and at the
first streak of dawn ;" also "in the morning, at the third, sixth and
ninth hour, at the twelfth hour [sunset] and at lamp-lighting" (b.
I., n. 22). "The presbyter is to offer praise and thanksgiving in
the same way as the Bishop" (b. I., n. 31). "They that are chaste"
are to omit none of the above hours of prayer. The class of persons
so designated will be considered presently. For ordinary laymen
these directions are given: "The people are always to take care
to pray at early dawn, as soon as they have risen from bed and have
washed their hands. . . . Let all take care to pray at the third
hour [9 A, M.] with grief and distress, either in the church, or, if
they cannot go to church, at home : for that is the hour at which
the Only-begotten was crucified. [This confirms the reading
hora tertia in Mark xv., 25.] Likewise let there be prayer with
sorrow at the sixth hour. ... At the ninth hour also let prayer
be prolonged, ... for then life was laid open to the faithful,
3 This is not idealism, but a recognitiou of the truth that sensible things, compared with
divine things, are as nothing. ,
VOL. XXV.— 3.
450 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
and blood and water flowed from the side of our Lord. At even-
ing, as it is the beginning of the following day and presents an
image of the resurrection, there is cause for praise. At midnight
let them rise, praising and extolling God for the resurrection. At
dawn let them praise with psalmody, since after his resurrection he
(Christ) praised the Father, they (the apostles) singing psalms."
(b. II., n. 24.)
On days on which the Holy Sacrifice was offered, that is, on Sat-
urdays and Sundays, and on the fast day, which may have been
Wednesday, or Friday, or both (Cf. Tertullian, de jejun. II., 14), a
liturgical service was held called "the praise at dawn," four pages
of prayers recited by the Bishop and responded to by the people,
besides "four psalms and canticles," which were sung by "small
boys, two maidens [curious precedent of antiquity for a "mixed
choir"],* three deacons, three priests." When this was over the
lector read the lessons, "a presbyter or deacon is to read the
Gospel," then the Bishop or a presbyter delivered a sermon, the
catechumens were then dismissed, the homily called mystagogia
was read to the faithful, and the Holy Sacrifice was offered accord-
ing to the rite above described. The canticles sung were the canti-
cle of Moses (Exod. xv.), and probably Psalm Ixxi. (Deus judicium
tuum), with the canticle either of Isaias xii. or of Habacuc iii. Also
a short form of "daily praise" is given, to be said by the presbyters
in church, "each at the time to him prescribed." Also we read that
"at midnight the assembly of the priests apart and the more perfect
among the people are to offer praise: for at that hour our Lord
rising celebrated His Father with praise," — where note the phrase
"our Lord" put, as the whole "Testamentum" is, in the mouth of
Christ Himself.
In the above account we easily recognize the canonical hours —
matins at midnight, lauds at peep of dawn, prime at sunrise, then
tierce, sext, none, at their several hours, Vespers "at the twelfth
hour," 6 P. M., or sunset, and compline "at lamp-lighting time."
Most prominent and liturgically complete of all these canonical
hours is decidedly lauds. Whoever will look at the oldest hymns
in the Breviary, those of the Sunday and ferial offices, can have no
doubt that lauds originally stood apart from matins, and were
recited at peep of day : see the phrases prceco diei jam sonat, aurora
lucem provehit, ales diei nuntius, lux intrat, albescit polus, lux ecce
surgit aurea, ortus refulget lucifer, aurora jam spar git polum. On
the other hand, prim.e is said, jam lucis orto sidere, i. e., at sunrise.
•♦ Duo virgines, however, in the language of the " Testamentum" is ambiguous, and might
mean two of the men vowed to celibacy, of whom more presently.
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 451
The interposition of the Christmas midnight Mass between matins
and lauds tells the same story. At the time of the "Testamentum"
Vespers show no special development; this again is a mark of
antiquity.
The deacon is "the eye of the church." He is the man of busi-
ness; he is the district visitor, looking after the poor, receiving
guests, burying dead bodies (especially those cast up from the sea ;
there are several indications that the "Testamentum" was written
for a seaside place) ; "he is not to worry the bishop (episcopum non
disturbet), but tell him everything on Sundays only." People who
come late to service, he is to keep outside, lest the tumult made in
introducing them be a distraction to those who pray" (b. I., n. 36).
When at last the late comer is admitted, the deacon proclaims:
"Let us pray for the brother who has come late, that the Lord will
give him diligence." Thus, it is remarked, "diligence is increased,
and the bond of charity is strengthened, and the negligent or slothful
party is corrected." Can this be the origin of our petition in the
litany "for our absent brethren ?"
The "Testamentum" (b. L, nn. 40-43) well illustrates L Tim. v.
3-10. "Widows with precedence," as they were called, form a
special order, we might almost say of clergy. They are blessed by
the bishop with a special prayer at the entrance of the sanctuary.
They receive Holy Communion among the clergy, immediately
after the deacons, before the lectors and sub-deacons.^ At Mass
they stand within the veil of the sanctuary, behind the presbyters
who are on the bishop's left, as the deacons stand behind the pres-
byters on the bishop's right. They say office in the church, a few
together or privately. Prayers are set down for their use at matins
and lauds. They instruct catechumens, correct delinquents of their
own sex, assist at the baptism of women and anoint them with holy
oil. They are a distinct body from the deaconesses in the "Testa-
mentum," and superior to them. Can it be that the singular honor
paid to these widows in the early Church is a vestige of that paid
by the first Christians to the Blessed Mother of Jesus after the As-
cension of her Son ?
"Let her be constituted a widow," says the "Testamentum," "who
has long remained without a husband, and who having had many
offers of marriage has nevertheless for the sake of the faith preferred
to remain single. . . . Let her be proved, if she has brought
up her children in holiness, if she has not taught them worldly wis-
dom, if she has formed them in the love of the holy law and of the
Church, if she has loved and honored pilgrims, if she has been as-
* In the " Testamentum" the lector ranks above the sub-deacon.
452 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
siduous in prayer, ... if she be fit to bear the yoke . . .
loving simplicity, possessing nothing in this world, but constantly
taking up and bearing about with her the cross, which is the undo-
ing of all evil ; night and day persevering about the altar, doing her
work with cheerfulness and without display. . . . Let her look
up the deaconesses. ... If she has any property, let her give
it over to the poor and the faithful. If she has none, she is to re-
ceive aid from the Church. . . . Let her not trouble about her
children, but give them over to the Church, that living in the house
of God they may become fit for the ministry of priesthood."
In this state of professed widowhood we discern some anticipa-
tion of religious life. Such anticipation was not confined to the
aged nor to the female sex. We read (b. II., n. 8) : "If any man
(coming to baptism) wishes to vow chastity to God, let him be bap-
tized before the others by the bishop." We find a whole section
(b. I., n. 46) entitled, "Of celibates, men and women." It opens
thus: "A celibate, male or female, is not appointed by man, nor
ordained, but he himself of his own will separates himself, taking
the name of celibate. Nor is the hand imposed upon him unto
celibacy, since this state is the effect of his own will. These celi-
bates must be bound to mortify their bodies, without prejudice to
health ; they must attend steadily every day to fastings and prayers
with weeping and mourning, expecting their departure from the
flesh at any time, and daily taking themselves for persons about to
die." They were not ranked among the clergy, but had a certain
precedence in receiving Holy Communion, and were to be held in
honor by all.
On this subject, as also on the practice of almsgiving amounting
to a partial community of goods in the early Church, further light
is thrown by the following directions : "If any of the faithful, man
or woman, departs this life, leaving children, let their goods be given
to the Church, that the Church may be guardian of the children,
and out of their possessions the poor also may be aided, that so God
may grant the children grace, and rest to the parents who have left
them behind. Let not him who has no children possess more goods
(than he needs), but out of his possessions let him make ample dis-
tribution to the poor and to them in prison, reserving to himself
such portion as is congruous and sufficient. If any one has chil-
dren, and desires to retire to vow a single life, let him distribute all
his goods to the poor and retire to lead the life of an ascete and
dwell at the church, persevering in prayers and thanksgiving"
(b.II.,n. 15).
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 453
The only mention of penitents is in these two passages : "If any-
one persists in his fault or misconduct, let the deacon report him to
the bishop, and let him be put apart for seven days, and then called,
that he be not carried away (by temptation). If when he comes
he is found to be still obstinate in his sin, let him be cut off till he
is truly penitent and returns to himself and begs for readmission"
(b. L, n. 34). "Let the deacon catechise them that are doing pen-
ance and lead them to the presbyters or the bishop, that they may
be instructed and imbued with knowledge" (b. I., n. 37).
The following direction on matrimony leads up to the later recog-
nized impediment of disparitas ciiltus: "Let no obstacle be thrown
in the way of him who wishes to be joined in matrimony. . . .
But let him contract marriage with a faithful Christian woman of a
Christian family, who may keep her husband in the faith. The
bishop is to give direction and take care" (b. II., n. i).
Discretion is to be exercised in admitting candidates for baptism.
Slaves are not to be admitted without the assent of their master
being asked. If the master is a Christian, and refuses the slave a
character, he is not admitted. If the master is a pagan and can
show that the slave asks baptism out of hatred to his master, he is
not admitted : otherwise he is admitted. Evil livers, priests of idols,
makers and caretakers of idols, gladiators and all manner of pro-
fessionals engaged in the arena or race course, also soldiers and
magistrates, are shut out from baptism, unless they give up their
occupation. These exclusions point to a time when idolatrous wor-
ship was bound up with service in the army or on the bench, "A
schoolmaster in profane science," which seems to mean a teacher of
classical literature, is recommended to give up his charge, but may
continue in it if he has no other means of subsistence (b. II., n. 2).
Signs of demoniac possession are expected to occur in some cases
under the exorcisms that precede baptism. "Let them be exorcised
from the day that they are chosen (for baptism) ; they are to be bap-
tized at Easter time. As that time approaches, let the bishop take
them apart, one by one, and exorcise them, that he may be con-
vinced that they are one and all clean. For if it happens that any
one of them is not clean or is possessed by an impure spirit, the
witness of the impure spirit itself will convict him. Whoever is
found debarred by such an impediment is to retire apart and be
reprehended and rebuked for not having faithfully heard the word
of precept and admonition, seeing that the evil and alien spirit has
kept his abode in him" (b. IL, n. 6).
On Easter Eve the haptizandi kneel before the bishop, who
P^r :t •
454 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
stretches his hand over them and pronounces a long prayer of ex-
orcism, where we note these beautiful words : "Man by thy hands
was formed out of earth ; but since he has come to believe in thee
he is earth no more." The rubric adds : "If while the bishop is
pronouncing the exorcism any one becomes agitated and suddenly
gets up and weeps, or cries out, or foams at the mouth, or gnashes
his teeth, or assumes an impudent stare, or too much lifts himself
up, or, carried away by sudden impulse, makes ofi, let any such be
hidden away by the deacons, that there be no brawling while the
bishop speaks. Let such a person be exorcised by the priests until
he is cleansed, and then let him be baptized" (b. II., n. 7).
The practice of infant baptism at this early epoch is gathered from
the following rubric: "All children who can make answer for
themselves at baptism are to answer, repeating the words after the
priest ; but if they cannot answer, let their parents answer for them,
or some friend of theirs."
Two kinds of oil are used at baptism, having been blessed by the
bishop. The one is called "the oil of exorcism," answering to our
"oil of catechumens ;" the other is the "oil of thanksgiving." The
person to be baptized turns to the west (the region of darkness) and
says: "I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy worship, thy pomps,
thy desires, all thy works." The bishop then anoints him with the
"oil of exorcism," saying: "I anoint thee with this oil for thy
deliverance from every wicked and impure spirit and thy deliver-
ance from all evil." Then the neophyte turns to the east (the land
of light) and says : "I submit myself to thee. Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, before whom all nature trembles and is afraid ; grant that I
may fulfil all the judgments of thy good pleasure without stain."
Then the bishop hands him over to the presbyter who is to baptize
him. Accompanied by a deacon, the neophyte steps into the waters,
which must be "clean and running" (b. II., n. 8), apparently of a
brook running through the baptistry [we remember how the Cister-
cian monasteries of old were always by a stream]. The presbyter
puts his hand on the neophyte, now standing in the water, and asks
him: "Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty?" The
neophyte replies, and the priest immerses his head for the first time.
No formula of baptismal words is given, whence, however, it does
not follow that none was used ; the words may have been omitted
as too obvious ; compare the previous omission of the words of con-
secration of the chalice. On the other hand, from there being no
mention of the blessing of the baptismal water, we have some
ground to conjecture that the blessing of the font, so prominent in
Ritual in the Reign of Maximin. 455
our Holy Saturday service, is a later development. The priest asks
again: "Dost thou believe also in Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
who came from the Father, who from the beginning is with the
Father, who was born of the Virgin Mary through the Holy Ghost,
who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, rose again the third
day, coming back to life from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits
at the right hand of the Father, and is to come to judge the living
and the dead?" The neophyte answers : 'T believe," and the pres-
byter immerses his head for the second time. Then he asks:
"Dost thou believe also in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic
Church?" The reply "I believe" is followed by the third immer-
sion. As soon as the newly baptized comes out of the water the
presbyter anoints him with the "oil of thanksgiving," saying: "I
anoint thee with oil in the name of Jesus Christ." This corre-
sponds to the unction with chrism in our baptism. The above in-
terrogations manifestly contain the Apostles' Creed, still said by us
on the way to the baptismal font. Why the article on the resurrec-
tion of the body is omitted has already been made clear. Due
decency in the baptism of women was secured by the attendance of
the canonical widows above described.
As soon as the baptisms are over the newly baptized are gathered
together in the church and the bishop administers the sacrament
of confirmation with a rite strikingly like that still in use in the
Latin Church. The bishop stretches out his hand over them and
says a prayer called the "invocation of the Holy Ghost." Then he
pours oil (doubtless the "oil of thanksgiving") and lays his hand on
the head of each, saying : "With this unction I anoint thee in God
Almighty, in Christ Jesus and in the Holy Ghost, that thou mayest
be a laborer having perfect faith, and a vessel pleasing to Him."
And signing him [with the cross] on the forehead he gives him
peace, saying : "The God of the humble be with thee," the person
signed replying, "And with thy spirit."
Then the newly baptized and confirmed pray with the whole as-
sembly of the faithful. The Holy Sacrifice is offered and all receive
Communion. "The bread is offered," Christ is made to say, "in
sign of My body, and the chalice is mingled with wine and water
to signify blood and the water of baptism, that the inner man, who
is spiritual, may deserve to receive similar gifts to those which the
body receives," an exact description of what our catechism calls a
sacrament, "an outward sign of inward grace." We may observe
that the species of bread after consecration is a "sign" of Christ's
body, not, however, an empty sign, when the body is really there.
456 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
If any conjecture of mine as to the date of the ''Testamentum'^
be worth recording, after careful consideration of its contents I
should still refer it to the first half of the third century. I have al-
ready shown some cause for fixing it within the reign of Maximin,
A. D. 235-238, the age of St. Catherine of Alexandria, a little before
the persecutions of Decius and Valerian and the martyrdom of St.
Lawrence. The spirit of prayer and simple devotedness of God's
service which it breathes, and which can only be appreciated by con-
tinuous perusal, tells of an age when Christianity meant martyrdom
close at hand. The "Testamentum" may have gathered additions
from the hands of subsequent transcribers, putting in the ritual
practices of their own days ; but such simplicity still marks it, and so
many well-known practices of later times are conspicuously absent,
that I think Mgr. Rahmani right in taking the "Testamentum" to
represent, if not second century, at least early third century ritual,
later additions being more apparent in such revisions of the "Testa-
mentum" as the "Ecclesiastical Canons" and the "Apostolic Con-
stitutions."
One thing the "Testamentum certainly is not, it is not Pro-
testant ; and one characteristic it strongly displays, it is redolent of
sacerdotalism.
Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
lyondon.
RISE OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS— DE LA SALLE.
^ ^ ^ N order to understand thoroughly," says Ravelet,^ "the mis-
I sion of St. de la Salle, it is necessary to know what the edu-
cation of the people was at the period when he founded his
Institute. A brief sketch of its history will not, therefore, be out of
place here. This will enable us to see what the Church had done
before his time, what yet remained to be done, and thus we shall
understand, at a glance, th-e facilities and the obstacles which the
ancient institutions brought to the new foundations."
The origin of the first Christian schools can be traced back to the
cradle of Christianity. St. Paul, writing to his disciple, Timothy,,
says : "Attend to thyself and to doctrine ; be earnest in them.^ And
the things, which thou hast heard from me, before many witnesses,
the same commend to faithful men, who shall be -fit to teach others
also."^ There is no mistaking these words. The great Apostle of
1 "Vie du St. J.-B. de la Salle," c. ii., p. 13. 2 i. Tim. c. iv., 16. « II. Tim. c. ii., 2.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 457*
the Gentiles was convinced of the need of a zealous and learned
band of teachers which would aid him in the work of evangeliza-
tion.
"In carrying the bright flame of Christian truth into the dense
darkness of paganism, the Church exercised a right and accom-
plished a duty. This right and duty were founded upon the words
of the Divine Master : Go and teach all nations, baptising them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded yon.^'^
Christian instruction was, in the beginning, traditional. The
neophytes received oral instructions. These were given in the Cate-
combs of Rome. The traveler who visits the Catecombs of St.
Agnes will find there two rooms, having for their only ornament a
chair for the catechist and benches for the catechumens. To-day
that light sheds its lustre throughout the universe, and is not, as of
old, confined within the narrow chambers of a catecomb. The poor,
the ignorant and the little are called to enjoy its benefits ; no man is
excluded.
St. John the Evangelist opens a Christian school at Ephesus and
forms excellent disciples. St. Polycarp, one of his disciples, founds
a school at Smyrna. St. Mark establishes the school of Alexandria.
The school became famous for the truly great Christian scholars
and philosophers it produced.
Schools were also founded at Cesarea, Antioch, Constantinople,
Nicomedia and other places. 'The constant practice of the Syrian
nation is never to have a church or monastery without having a
school attached, nor a school without a monastery or church."'^
In the shades of the first churches erected in the West, we beheld
nestled sacred asylums destined by the Bishops for the two-fold
object of fostering science and virtue in the future generations.
Hence we find that the first Bishops who converted and civilized
France established schools in their episcopal palaces and parishes.
"The church and schools were inseparable for the people."^ For
Catholicism was the most efficient promoter of the popular develop-
ment of the human intellect.'^ And "wherever a church was built
we might be almost certain of finding also there a school."®
St. Hilarius, Bishop of Aries, a contemporary of Pope Leo L,
lived with his clergy and clerics, forming with them a kind of sem-
inary.^ It was in this school that St. Cesarius, one of his successors,
* Cardinal de Bonechose, Le Semaine Reltgieuse, 27 Juili, 1872, Rouen, s Assemani, Bibl
orient., t. IV., c. 1. « David, Gregory VII., p. 216. '' Auguste Comte, Cours de Philosophic
Positive, t. v., p. 258. 8 Ed. Schmit, L' Instruction Primaire k la Campagne, p. 6. ^ Vie de
St. Hilaire ; CEuvres de Saint I,€on, t. II., p. 121.
458 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
gave his celebrated grammar lessons. Thus we have St. Remigius
at Rheims, St. Germanus at Paris and St. Hilary at Poitiers, devot-
ing themselves to teaching.^*^
Th-e monastic schools also did good work in the cause of the edu-
cation of youth. In the sixth century lay persons were admitted to
these schools.^^ Hence it is that we find the monastery divided into
two schools : the cloistral, for children who afterward embraced the
religious life, and the canonical, for the education of children who
'embraced neither the ecclesiastical nor the religious state. For
ecclesiastics these schools became real seminaries.^^
The powerful influence and energetic action exercised by the great
Charlemagne over all the schools of his vast empire are too well
known to be commented upon in this brief sketch. Unfortunately
for France, his successors did not display that enlightened zeal and
keen appreciation for knowledge and virtue which rendered his
reign so remarkable in the annals of the history of true progress and
science.
While admitting that the schools were sadly neglected, we must
beware of falling into the other extreme of presuming that, during
this period, they were entirely deserted. "When speaking of the
dark ages, it is very essential to distinguish carefully the epochs, and
not apply to every century comprised in this long period the un-
favorable and severe criticism which is applicable only to some."^^
We may add that the same careful distinction holds good in relation
to the provinces. Some of them, less distracted by civil dissensions
than others, happily preserved the academic traditions of the first
apostles of Gaul. Again, they were favored in a twofold manner,
i. e., by reason of the number of schools and the great merit of their
professors. While in other provinces many people openly declared
themselves more or less averse to the impetus given to the schools
by the Bishops, the King and the Parliament of Paris."
From the eleventh to the fourteenth century there were three
principal causes which contributed to the resuming of the inter-
rupted work of Charlemagne: i. The Councils; 2. The extraordi-
nary renown of certain schools ; and 3. The wonderful multiplication
of religious communities. To be admitted to these communities
it was necessary to have acquired a certain degree of knowledge.
In the fourteenth century the fearful ravages which punished or
tried men in those remote days like the plague of 1348 necessarily
closed a number of schools. Indeed, "few teachers could be found
10 Th6ry, Histoire de I'Education en France, ii Th^ry, ibid. ^- Auguste Teiner, t. I., p.
143. " R. de Beaurepaire, t. I., pp. 13, 51. 1* A. Babeau, 1,'ficole de Village pendant la R6vo.
lution, p. 4.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 459
who would then be willing to teach the elements of grammar at
home or in the village school."^°
"The ravages of war, the terrible scourges of plague and famine
that devastated whole peoples were as disastrous to the progress of
education as they were to that of life and civilization. The school
being sustained by local enterprise, varied with the fluctuations of
local energy."^^
Th'ere were, however, at this period, two men, Gerard Groot and
Gerson, who labored with a vim and an energy in behalf of element-
ary schools. They tried to give the children attending such schools
good, religious and zealous teachers.
Gerard (1340- 1384), born at Deventer, Holland, made his studies
in Paris. He was considered competent at eighteen to profess phil-
osophy and theology at Cologne. Here he acquired fame because
of his knowledge and eloquence and gained for himself the title of
Groot or great. After he was ordained priest he was instrumental
in converting many souls by his eloquence. Many flocked around
him and became his disciples. Thus did he found the Clerks and
the Brethren of the Common Life. He employed them according
to their special aptitudes, either in copying manuscripts or in manual
labor, or in teaching elementary schools, established for poor chil-
dren. Gerard intended to adopt the Rules of the Canons Regular of
St. Augustine, but death intervened. Floret, a true disciple, com-
pleted the religious work of his master.
Gerard Groot occupied his brethren chiefly in copying. He col-
lected for this purpose the most correct and authentic manuscripts
of the Bible and of the Fathers. These transcriptions were greatly
admired and much sought after both for the beauty of their char-
acters and correctness of text. The convents multiplied, especially
in Flanders. Their manuscripts were highly appreciated at Rome
and at the University of Louvain. But while thus engaged, the
elementary schools under their control were by degrees abandoned.^^
Gerson (1363-1429), the celebrated chancellor of the University
of Paris, retired to the Convent of St. Paul, Lyons, and there de-
voted a portion of his time to the instruction of poor children. To
teach the elements of knowledge to poor children was looked upon
as degrading and unbecoming a man of learning and position.
15 Guibert de Nogent, Coll. des M^m. sur I'Histoire de France, par Guizot, t. IX., p. 356.
^^ Brother Azarias, Essays Educational, p, 193. " Thomas k Kempis was a member of the
Brethren of the Common I,ife. He was regarded as one of the best skilled caligraphists
of his time. His copy of the Bible, which took J5fteen years to transcribe, is a real mas-
terpiece. Another beautiful manuscript was the great work, the " Imitation of Christ."
After the Bible, this little volume is the most extensively read work ever penned by man.
It is a monument of Christian philosophy and piety. It is translated into every living lau-
460 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Gerson was indifferent to the praises of men. He was equally
regardless of their contempt. To teach the first principles of Chris-
tian doctrine was his greatest desire. He was particularly careful
to have his pupils attend Mass. He understood the value of a.
thorough Christian training. The children who appeared especially
bright were also initiated in the elements of Latin. In his great
humility and sense of unworthiness he taught the children to say :.
"O my God, my Creator, have mercy on Thy poor servant, Joha
Gerson."
In his treatise "De parvulis trahendis ad Christum" we read these
apt words : "Let the teacher remember his youth ; let him preserve
his pupils from evil by true devotedness. Let him be little with
them ; but let him always maintain his superiority by reason of his
experience and knowledge."
Thus we find that at this epoch throughout France primary in-
struction was by no means neglected. Schools were to be found
almost everywhere, for Gerson advises Bishops to inquire "if every
parish has a school, and how the children are taught, and to open a
school, if there be not one already."^^ Delisle tells us that "many
documents superabundantly establish how rural schools were multi-
plied in the thirteenth century and in Normandy the following cen-
turies."^®
Again, "the organization of episcopal and monastic schools of the
Middle Ages did not come to us from abroad already systematized.
The faith of teachers, pupils and schedule of studies depended abso-
lutely upon the will and judgment of the rector and Bishop. No
universal rules existed or were in force to govern and regulate the
course. Instruction varied in each diocese and even in the same
school. "2^ This undoubtedly resulted in much loss of time and in
wranglmg among professors.
Hence we may introduce the pertinent criticism of Hugh of St.
Victor's : "When grammar is their subject, they discuss the nature
of syllogisms ; when treating of dialectics, they will occupy them-
selves with the inflection of words."^^ But on the other hand
Hugh's master hand "has sketched for us a beautiful picture of
student life in this monastery (St. Victor's). It is too valuable to
I'eave unquoted :^^
"Great is the multitude and various are the ages that I behold —
boys, youths, young men and old men. Various also are the studies.
18 Tractatus de visitatione prselatorum et curatorum, t. II., ed. 1560, Antwerp, i^ ^tude
sur la Condition des Classes Agricoles en Normandy, p. 176. 20 m. de Resbecq, Histoire de
I'Enseignement Primaire avant 1879, etc., p. 73. 21 Quoted by Brother Azarias, Essays Edu-
cational, p. 34. ~ Ibid.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 461
•Some exercise their uncultured tongues in pronouncing our letters
.and in producing sounds that are new. Others learn by listening
at first to the inflections of words, their composition and derivation ;
afterwards they repeat them to one another, and by repetition en-
grave them on their memory. Others work upon tablets covered
with wax. Others trace upon membranes with a skilled hand
diverse figures in diverse colors. Others, with a more ardent zeal,
seem occupied with the most serious studies. They dispute among
themselves, and each endeavors by a thousand plots and artifices
to ensnare the other. I see some who are making computation.
Others with instruments clearly trace the course and position of
stars and the movements of the heavens. Others treat of the nature
of plants, the constitution of man and the quality and virtue of all
things."
In all the ancient little schools taught by ecclesiastics, religious
and clerics Latin was found on the schedule of studies. If it
was not taught it was because the teacher did not know it ; but the
■defect was soon made good by substituting a more learned teacher.
Moreover, the reading of Latin was taught by all teachers. We
may say that frequently the children were not taught to read in any
other language. "Those who did not enter the religious life re-
turned to the world when they were competent to read and interpret
the Psalter and the Gospels. This was, indeed, little enough ; but
the requirements of civil life did not demand much knowledge."-^
This course is unquestionably very limited. But we have other
authorities who include "logic, the principles of versification, liturgic
chant, the Old and the New Testament, theology, sometimes canon
law, and later on Aristotle."^* With such a curriculum the youth
of the cloistral school had decidedly a fair education.
Some writers claim for Martin Luther the honor of having intro-
duced primary schools. This is evidently an error, resulting not
only from the confounding of terms, but also from ignorance of the
facts. Luther "had not even a conception of primary teaching.''^^
"It is true," says Ravelet,^^ "that Luther addressed a letter, in 1524,
to all the Councillors of the German States urging them to found
Christian schools, and fourteen years later, in 1538, he published
'Directions to Inspectors,' an essay on the general system of popular
education. But these documents appeared several centuries later
than the urgent decrees of the Council of Lateran. What Luther
tried to do in Germany the provincial councils of France had suc-
23 L. Maitre, Les E;coles ^piscopales et Monastiques, p. 254. 24 Brother Azarias, Essays
Educational, p. 24. 25 paul Rousselot, PMagog:ie k I'usage de rEnseigneraent Primaire, p.
35. 2C Vie du St. J.-B. de la vSalle, p. 33.
462 American Catholic Quarterly Review .
ceeded in doing some years before in our provinces, and with more
wisdom and precision." When we compare facts we learn that
Luther speaks only after the councils. This is also true of the Gym-
nasium. An imperfect copy of the Catholic universities and the
Jesuit colleges. The most celebrated Protestant pedagogue, Pesta-
lozzi, lived a century after Saint de la Salle had matured and per-
fected his scheme of education, and which completely revolutionized
the whole system of popular education.
Since the Reformation the State has obtained the control of secu-
lar education. Prior to this the Church held that exclusive privi-
lege. The State never interfered. It aided and encouraged by
erecting schools and universities and then endowed them. But the
education of th-e masses was the duty and privilege of the Church.
She was jealous of her right and duty. Consequently when Luther
wants to establish schools all over Germany he writes to the German
nobles : "It devolves upon you to take a hand in this work ; for if
we entrust the care of it to the parents, we shall perish a hundred
times before the thing is done. I pray you, therefore, not to reject
my advice, but to take to heart and to take in hand the salvation,
happiness and the prosperity of Germany."^^
'The direct and immediate effect of the Reformation," continues
Ravelet, *'was above all the ruin of a great number of schools. It
swept over France like a pestilence, and everywhere gave rise to
fearful strife. The school could not continue where the Church had
been thrown down and burnt to the ground."
Besides, Luther insisted upon having Latin taught in the little
schools. Consequently we cannot agree with those ardent writers
who claim for him the distinguished honor of establishing the pri-
mary schools. Truly history does not sustain them. The Catholic
clergy had already forestalled Luther in his efforts at popular educa-
tion. Hence the monastic schools also supported a number of
clerics who were destined for the profession of teaching.^*
"The schoolmaster in the Middle Ages," says Brother Azarias,^^
"we may infer, was, up to the fifteenth century, generally a young
ecclesiastic or cleric who dwelled with the pastor, helped him to
sing the divine offices, aided him in many ways and generally acted
as sacristan."
M. Mireur informs us that a teacher was frequently selected by
the City Council upon the advice of fathers of families, without hav-
ing any other guarantee of his character.^** If several candidates
27 Quoted by Ravelet, p. 34, 28 r. de Beaurepaire, t. I., p. 28. 29 Essays Educational, p.
181. Cf. also Ravelet, pp. 26, 27 and 28. 3o Documents sur 1,'Enseignement Primaire en Pro-
vence, p. 2.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 463
presented themselves, the most competent was appointed. His
ability was determined by a public 'examination. This was, how-
ever, only legally requisite when there was question of confiding to
him a large school.^^
Professional education in the hands of such schoolmasters was
v/orthless. The material condition of the school fluctuated with the
locality. Only some schoolmasters established themselves perma-
nently in a commune or in a parish. They were men of virtue, and
hence were worthy of the honors they received. But there were
others to be found, and in great numbers, who were like rolling
stones and hired themselves out to municipalities for a limited time.
There was, however, despite this deplorable inconsistency, one
point upon which all schoolmasters were a unit, and that was to
give their modest teaching a positive Christian character. In gen-
eral their behavior was in accord with their teaching. St. Fulbert
preferred to see the professor's chair vacant than behold it occupied
by one unworthy of that honor. 'T do not wish," he writes to Ifilde-
gaire of Poitiers, "to send you a co-laborer for your school if he be
not of mature judgment and of great moral purity." Stephen de
Tournay expressed himself, in 1197, in similar terms : "The teacher
should be of tried virtue and learned, and if he need an assistant he
should be characterized by the same qualities."^^
The object sought in all the schools was essentially religious.
Hence the reason why the founders usually annexed them to the
parish church. "Charlemagne was assiduously attentive to two ob-
jects: I. The formation of good and learned priests. 2. The dis-
semination of the Christian faith among his subjects."^^ Through-
out the Middle Ages the schools preserved their religious character.
Hence we may justly apply th-e words of Joubert to the teachers of
that period : "What we regret in the ancient education is its moral
character."^*
The low ebb of morality that prevailed in the sixteenth century
had decidedly a baneful influence upon the little schools. And, if
we add thereto the rehgious dissensions, we need not wonder at the
widespread evil of ignorance and crime. But the Church was on
the alert. She detected the evil, suggested the remedy, furnished
the means of applying it effectively and insisted upon the strict ob-
servance of her decrees.
"The Council of Trent was the signal for a new development in
public instruction. It commenced by reforming religious teach-
j^g "35 'pj^g Council did not stop with formulating and promulgat-
31 M. Boniface, Suite d' Arrets notables du Parlementde Provence, t. I., p. 354. 32 j^. Maitre,
p. 187. 33 Ibid, p. 4, 31 Pensees, t. II., p. 258, Edition, 1862. 35 Ravelet, p. 36.
464 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ing explicit decrees concerning the education of ecclesiastics. It
took the further step by prescribing that "in every church there be
appointed an ecclesiastic to teach grammar gratuitously to clerical
students and poor scholars." And why ? 'That they may be com-
oeUnt to study theology if God should call them to the ministry of
the Church." It also legislates for the payment of those teachers
and regulates how they should be treated.^^
Consequently "nearly all the provincial councils and diocesan
synods of the sixteenth century, before and after the Council of
Trent, deal with the school question and decree that there be a school
in every parish. In places too poor to maintain one an ecclesiastic or
competent cleric is to be entrusted with the instruction of chil-
dren."3^
Therefore, "to understand all that the Church has done for pop-
ular instruction, to see how she has laid the first foundation of the
present legislation, it is necessary to peruse attentively the synodal
decrees of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. "^^
We already noted that the first reform instituted by the Council
of Trent was connected with the clergy and their education.^^ God
raised up for that purpose several zealous and enlightened apostles,
who took an active part in this reformation by establishing semi-
naries. It was in these nurseries of faith and piety that ecclesiastics
were ren-ewed in the spirit of sacrifice, prayer and study. They
were likewise inspired with a zeal and love for their priestly duties.
Hence we need not wonder to find ecclesiastics occupied solely
with the instruction of the children of the poor. Then, again, we
see a work springing up in Italy, France and Austria forcibly re-
minding us of the ancient catechists of Ephesus, Alexandria and
Jerusalem and opposing, under the familiar form of the sublime and
divine teachings of the Gospel, the absurd doctrines of paganism.
At Milan, Italy, St. Charles Borromeo and Mark Sadis establish
the association of the Priests of Christian Doctrine, whose principal
end and aim are to teach religion to the children and laboring
classes. St. Ignatius Loyola inaugurated his generalship of the
Society of Jesus by teaching the Christian doctrine several hours
after his election in a church of Rome. Hence the disciples of the
inspired St. Ignatius look upon the teaching of religion to children as
one of their principal obligations.
"The spirit of teaching catechism, which diffused itself over the
entire Church,"*^ had a beneficial effect upon France by stirring up
38 IV. Session, c. I., June 17, 1546. 37 Ravelet, p. 37. ^s ibid, p. 39 et passim. S9 Gallia
Christiania, t. VIII., p. 1041. ^ Vie de C^sar de Bus, quoted in the Life of M. J.-B. de la
Salle, 1733, p. ISO.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 465
pious and heroic souls to devote themselves to the instruction of the
people. For pastors had sadly neglected this important duty of
their sacred ministry/^ It devolved, therefore, upon schoolmasters
to accomplish it. But many of them looked upon the teaching of
Christian doctrine with a species of contempt. Indeed, there was
a time when no man of any pretensions to learning would deign to
break the bread of life to the little ones. The fear of derision and
human respect proved the stumbling blocks. The schoolmaster
preferred his own honor to the honor and glory of God. He no
longer rejoiced in being considered worthy to suffer contempt for
Christ's sake.
But Cesar de Bus (1544-1607) and the Priests of the Christian
Doctrine acted as a powerful lever against the ' prevailing spirit of
religious indifference. The impetus imparted by these zealous and
devoted men at Cavaillon made itself felt. It leaped the narrow
limits of the diocese and like a consuming flame throughout Comtat-
Venaissin, Provence, and Languedoc,*^ and by degrees extended to
other provinces.*^ The chief feature of Cesar de Bus' method was
the teaching of Christian doctrine by discussion."**
And yet thes-e men of God, when contemplating the end proposed,
were soon convinced of their insufficiency. The field was large;
the laborers few. Again, the missions they gave were limited by
time and locality. They could assemble the children but once or
twice a week, and the instructions fell naturally upon unprepared
soil. Hence the instruction was soon forgotten, because it was not
comprehended.
When we come to examine the admirable work accomplished by
a Vincent de Paul (1576-1660), a Berulle (1575-1629), a Bourdoise
(1590-1655), an OHer (1608-1657) and a Eudes (1601-1680), we must
candidly acknowledge that much was still left undone toward the
regeneration of society. The Bishops, however, availed themselves
of reforms instituted by great men. They applied to them for clergy
who w^ere deeply penetrated with a sense of their duties. They also
sought for ecclesiastics or clerics to take charge of their little
schools. For these modest institutions had been either destroyed
or discredited owing to the ravages of civil strifes or to the lack of
proper vigilance and control or to poverty and want of teachers.
In the little schools Christian doctrine was not universally taught ;
« The Rev. F. Bridget!, C. SS. R., Life and Times of B. Cardinal Fisher. Read the sad
picture presented in England under Henry VIII. Bishops and priests were indifferent to
the duties of their sacred calling. The people were ignorant of the essentials of religion.
The same was true for Italy. Cf. Vaughan's Life and Times of Thomas of Aquin. Cf. also
Janssen's History of the German People. ^ Annales de L'Institut, t. I., Introduction, p.
xviii. « Ravelet, p. 85, « Ibid, p. 86.
VOL. XXV.— 4.
466 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
but the children were generally educated in a Christian manner.
The poor children, however, were often either neglected or ill-
treated by teachers who did not possess the requisite qualities of
their profession. The complaints tendered by men of rank and posi-
tion were truly lamentable. M. de Lantages lamented that no per-
son could be found in the rural districts of Velay to instruct and edu-
cate the children.*'^ In 1669 Charles Demia found that the great
number of the teachers of Lyons "were ignorant not only of the
methods of good reading and writing, but also of the principles of
religion. Several of them were heretics and impious men. Nay,
more, he met even some who were professed libertines. Hence
the youth confided to their care were in evident danger of being
lost."*«
Paris was no better off in this respect than Lyons. The pre-
centor, Claude Joly, was accused of having tolerated "junkshop
men, keepers of low restaurants, tavern-keepers, masons, wig-
makers, fiddlers, puppet-show men, etc.," as schoolmasters in
Paris.*^ These complaints, however, did not aflfect all the little
schools. The only schools that suffered were the schools destined
for the poor children. "It is true," says Charles Demia, "that
the children of the better class receive moral instructions
at home and from the schoolmasters, paid by the parents, or
else in the colleges from the regents who are remunerated by the
city. But the poor have no means whatsoever to educate their chil-
dren. And the consequence is that they remain ignorant of their
duties. This is obvious. The parents have to struggle for exist-
ence, and h-ence neglect to teach their children how to live well.
Moreover, having been wretchedly educated themselves, they cannot
give what they do not possess. Hence we observe with deep sorrow
that the education of the poor children is entirely neglected."*^
The most effective remedy against this crying evil was already
applied. It was to educate the clergy, i. e., to oblige them to pursue
their professional education, to regulate and govern their behavior
in the classroom and to indicate and define their relations with the
parents. However, the precentor and pastors had adopted no uni-
form course regulating the extent of their academic jurisdiction.
Hence resulted incessant quarrels and vexatious lawsuits.'*^ The
precentor claimed the exclusive right to give teachers letters of rec-
ommendation, to deliver and revoke their certificates of teaching.
He also insisted upon the privilege to appoint teachers to charity
« vie, p. 93. <6 Viede M. D^mia, p. 81. Cf. Ravelet, pp. 73, 4 and 5. « pactotum attrib-
uted to Pourchat. *8 vie de M. D6mia, p. 487. ^o vie du St. J.-B. de la Salle, par Fr^re Lu-
card ; Introduction, pp. liii. et liv.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 467
schools, and even to the schools confided to religious communities
and laymen.^<^ But the pastors vigorously protested against this
imdue assumption of authority and strenuously defended the excep-
tion made in favor of their charity schools by the Bishops. This
ruling of the Bishops was sustained by Parliament.^^ From this
we observe the little schools which were dependent upon the pre-
centor, the charity schools which were erected and controlled by
the pastors only and the schools of the writing masters in which
writing only was taught. Each kind of school was jealous of its
rights and privileges. Now should the writing masters attempt to
teach reading, or the charity schools admit pupils of the wealthier
class, then the directors of the little schools, with the precentor,
would have much to do about nothing.
Prior to the seventeenth century the government never interfered
with the elementary schools. If it should happen to interpose the
purpose was not to obtain control, but rather to ensure the teacher's
salary, to erect new schools or to sanction the efforts of the clergy
in this important affair. Such was the tenor of the royal decree of
1598, of the letter of Louis XIII. to the Bishop of Poitiers (1640)
and of the declarations of Louis XIV. in 1685 and 1698.^^2 The
supervision of the moral government and instructions of teachers
was left to the Bishops, who generally appointed an ecclesiastic emi-
nently qualified for the office.
"The supervision," says Ravelet,^^ "was very strict. It extended
to the teachers and the books. The teachers were warned not to
teach the children of 'books of fables, of romance, or silly or im-
proper stories,' and above all to avoid such as contained corrupt doc-
trine and teaching tainted by heresy. . . . But, indeed, we
know the use and the possession of bad books were forbidden to
everybody, even to private individuals. The children were supplied,
•as to-day, with primers containing letters, separate and in syllables,
the usual prayers and the commandments of God. The cross shon-e
on the first page.^* . . ." The districts, fathers of families and
private individuals continued to enjoy the privilege of founding
schools and appointing teachers. But once accepted and appointed,
the teachers had to be guaranteed payment, and their only personal
duty consisted in the formality of obtaining the ecclesiastical author-
ization to teach.^^
"The Church did not forget that in order to induce children to
50 Claude Jolly, Traits Historique des E;coles fipiscopales, Preface. See also the interest
ing account by Ravelet, pp. 28 et passim. ^^ Arret duParlement ; M6m. du Clerg6, t. I., p. 999.
«2Cf. Ravelet, pp. 49, 50 and 51. ^ Vie du St. J.-B. de la Salle, p. 54 et passim, e-* Brother
Azarias, Essays Educational, pp. 185-194. &» Ravelet, p. 52.
468 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
frequent the schools, it was necessary to let the expense of schooling
fall as lightly as possible on the families of the poor.
"Free instruction has consequently always been one of the prin-
cipal pre-occupations of the Church, not that illusory freedom which
consists in making everybody, rich and poor, pay for the -education
of the children, whatever be the fortune of the parents ; but really
free education, that which rests upon the charitabl'e foundations, and
not on concealed taxes. Therefore does the Church encourage to
the utmost the endowment of schools."^®
If the Church encouraged the material aid to the schools, she was
specially solicitous about the religious foundation. Hence when it
was question of establishing a congregation or pious association^
having for object the instruction of youth, the Church, in her gen-
erosity, showered upon the founder and his congregation many and
great blessings and allowed them rare spiritual privileges.
With the thorough reformation of the clergy effected, it was,
therefore, not surprising to see ecclesiastics of rare merit and ability
devoted to the interests of the little schools, i. e., to the education of
the poor. Many attempts were made to found seminaries for teach-
ers who would be well trained and disciplined and fully imbued with
the spirit of their calling. Moreover, "the Council of Trent reno-
vated the spirit of Christendom, and faith, purified and regulated by
discipline, produced a superabundance of vocations." Nothing can
exceed th'e fecundity of those congregations in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, especially those devoted to teaching. Among
the first, therefore, who took the initiative in this sublime mission
was Blessed Peter Fourier (i 565-1640),
Having completed a brilliant course of classical studies at Pont-a-
Mousson, Peter Fourier opened, in 1585, an -elementary school at
Mirecourt. We can appreciate his pedagogical aptitude from the
declaration of one of his pupils. "If at my death," he says, "I find,
as I hope, grace before God, I shall attribute that happiness to the
fact that I was educated in my youth by the Blessed Peter Fourier."
After his ordination he entered the Congregation of the Canons
Regular. He was afterward one of its reformers. He was made
pastor of Mattaincourt, a much neglected parish. It was long left
in disorder. "This worthy pastor was firmly convinced that neither
*6 Ravelet, p. 52. To-day we hear much about free education. This is unjustly claimed as
one of the lasting benefits of the Reformation. The various Councils of the Church have
positive legislation on this interesting subject. Let the candid reader study their decrees
and he will be convinced that to the Church alone is due this precious boon of a free edu-
cation. Her charity schools were free schools. The teacher was prohibited from exacting
payment of the pupils. He was liable to dismissal for violating this rule. The councils
are proofs positive and definitive. Cf. Ravelet, p. 57 et passim. This question merits
careful study on the part of every student of history.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 469
the reformation of his modest parish, nor even that of the Church
and society, could be soHd and lasting unless it were effected through
the Christian education of the tenderest youth, to which he devoted
himself from the moment of his arrival at Mattaincourt. This work
constituted the principal object of his zeal. But what grieved him
most was to see children excluded from the school because of their
poverty and, again, because he met only mercenaries who were gen-
erally either incompetent or indifferent to disseminate the spirit of
religion and Christian piety among their pupils."^^
Hence, to overcome this obstacle, he formed the project of build-
ing two free schools, the one for boys and the other for girls. His
aim was to facilitate the instruction of the poorest children. Alone
he could not accomplish his object. He associated with himself,
therefore, three or four men whom he carefully trained to be teach-
•ers. But the four young men soon abandoned him. "The work
was reserved for another no less worthy."^^ And, "God reserved
the success of this work for another holy priest who would prove
more than a mere imitator."^^
St. Joseph Calasanctius (i 556-1648) conceived a grander and more
practical plan than that devised by the zealous priest of Mattain-
court. He accordingly went to Rome, in 1592, at the beginning of
the Pontificate of Clement VIH., and remained there till his death.
He was the founder of the Regular Clerks of the Scuole Pie, or Pious
Schools. They are, on that account, called Piarists. "The object
of this congregation is to teach children reading, writing, ciphering,
book-keeping and business transactions, the humanities, classics,
mathematics, philosophy and theology. They extended to Spain,
Austria and Poland."^^ In one of his letters, dated June 16, 1646,
this holy founder declared that despite his ninety years the teaching
of Greek to little children was a cheerful task.®^
The Pious Schools were established at Rome in November, 1597.
The Pope authorized Joseph Calasanctius to open colleges, direct
seminaries and establish universities. The new congregation dif-
fered from the Society of Jesus only in this, that its members were
connected with elementary grammar schools and were devoted ex-
clusively to teaching.^^ "They did not spread, however, as much
as was hoped, and, above all, they did not continue specially re'
stricted to primary education. Their schools developed into col-
leges whose curriculum to-day extends from the 'elements of reading
and writing to the higher branches of instruction."^^
*" Rohrbacher, Histoire universelle de I'EIglise, t. XIII., p. 137. 58 Brother Azarias, Essays
Educational, p. 213. 59 Rohrbacher, t. XIII., p. 137. <» Ibid, p. 74. « Vie de Saint Joseph.
Calasanz, p. 405. 62 Everardo Micheli, Storia della P^dagogia Italiana, p. 152. 83 a.. Rav
elet, Vie du Saint J.-B. de la Salle, p. 85.
470 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
There were other similar essays, attempted at Lyons and Paris •
the one at Lyons by the Rev. Charles Demia, and the one at Paris
by the Rev. Nicholas Barre.
Charles Demia (1636-1689) was born at Bourg.^^ After he was
ordained he went to Lyons. Here he was welcomed by Abbe
Heurtevent, a Sulpician, who had establish-ed, in 1659, the Seminary
of St. Irenseus. The contemporaneous writers were not flattering in
their accounts of the spiritual and social condition of the Diocese
of Lyons.*'' Th-e celebrated orator, Massillon, in the funeral oration
delivered over Villeroi de Neuville, exclaimed: "Alas! all the
splendor of the city of Sion is obscured ! . . . The faithful one
who, during his life remain-ed in profound forgetfulness of our holy
mysteries and the law of God, dies peacefully ;" for he was deceived
through the ignorance of those who should have enlightened him.
To oppose this depravity, therefore, the Archbishop, Camille de
Villeroi, had founded or favored several important works ; but "the
little schools had not yet obtained his cooperation, being unmindful
of the fact that society would be regenerated through the school."
Charles Demia was not slow in perceiving that the children of
the laboring class lived in great depravity and ignorance. To apply
a remedy to this crying evil he formed catechism classes and thus
improved the behavior of the children.
On December 30, 1671, the Provost of the Merchants received
many complaints, and was requested to listen, in behalf of humanity,
to the earnest pleadings of the z'ealous priest and to give the neces-
sary aid. Being at last touched at the sight of so much misery and
vice, the Provost and City Council forthwith voted an annual sum
of two hundred francs to found a school where the children should
be taught reading, writing and the Christian doctrine. The fol-
lowing year three other schools were open-ed in the parishes of St.
Nizier, St. Michael and St. Paul. In 1672 there were schools where
children were received gratis.
But to complete his noble work and to make it lasting, it was es-
sential for Charles Demia to associate with himself co-laborers who
would assist him in carrying out his plans. He was fortunate to
find among the clergy some very distinguished men who were will-
ing to devote themselves to the regeneration of society. He was
not, however, so successful with laymen. He saw, nevertheless,
the absolute necessity to have complete authority over the teachers.
Accordingly, he obtained from Louis XIV. a decree, June 7, 1674,
" Cf. ly. Niepce, Histoire des fitablissement d'lnstruction dans le Department du Rh6ne.
« Ibid.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 471
ordaining all teachers subject to the regulations formulated by the
Archbishop. Furthermore, it ordered every school closed within
six months, if the teacher failed to legalize his position. Charles
Demia looked upon thte formation of teachers as a personal duty
and responsibility. He established, therefore, a seminary at his
own expense for the training of teachers. He gave them rules and
advice. The seminary was successively known as the Community
of Teachers, Little Seminary of Teachers, and, lastly, as St. Charles
Seminary.
The rules of this seminary were based upon those of St. Irenaeus.
To the superior were associated two professors — one for dogmatic
and the other for moral theology. There were also twelve teachers,
each having an assistant ; they were all ecclesiastics. They left the
seminary at an appointed time to teach school in the various quar-
ters of the city. In establishing his seminary, Charles Demia had
in view several objects: i. To form competent teachers and good
preceptors ; 2, to prepare virtuous clergy for country parishes ; 3, to
enable worthy young men who had a vocation to the ecclesiastical
state to complete their studies gratis.
Independent of the seminary, Charles Demia organized also a
school-board, composed of a director and twenty-two rectors. This
organization was approved by the Archbishop February 6, 1679.
Among the special functions of the school-board was the direction
and government of the schools and the administration of St. Charles
Seminary.
The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Charles owes its existence
to the zeal of Charles Demia, and its object was the education of
girls and the care of the sick. This community is still flourishing.
The seminary became, however, a common seminary like any other.
The work of the Brethren of St. Charles did not survive their
founder.
"The Rev. Charles Demia," says Ravelet, "had the intuition of the
mutual system of education; at least he appealed to the good will of
the older pupils, and established among them dignitaries who aided
the teacher."««
Let us now see what was accomplished at Paris. Here we meet
tlie enlightened founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the
Child Jesus, the Rev. Nicholas Barre (i6o5?-i683). This flourish-
ing congregation had two distinct branches — that of Rouen and of
Paris. The former received the name of Sisters of Providence, and
the latter the name of Sisters of St. Maur. Madame de Maintenon
M Ravelet, p. 86.
472 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
at St. Cyr, Paris ; Charles Demia at Lyons, and the Abbe Roland
(1642-1678) at Rheims adopted the rules and regulations of Nicholas
Barre and requested him to send them several Sisters to aid in the
organization of a work analogous to his own.
But the tentative of the man of God in favor of teachers was
ephemeral. He assembled in 1678 the teachers of Paris, gave them
a regulation and endeavored to form them into a community. *'The
young men, however, thought more of themselves than their fioly
vocation. They looked upon it in the light of a useful calling, and
so lost the grace to remain faithful to it. At the end of a few
months they dispersed and their schools were closed."*^
He was among the first to recognize St. de la Salle as the instru-
ment destined by Providence to fill up, at last, in part, the immense
gap left in the elementary instruction of the poor for lack of good
teachers. He went even so far as to urge De la Salle to reside in
Paris, where his disciples could divide the labors of the schools of St.
Sulpice with the Sisters of St. Maur. A like counsel would not have
been given to the founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools,
if the project of an association of the teachers of Paris had proved a
success.^^
But among the precursors of De la Salle, the ecclesiastic who evi-
denced the greatest zeal in the cause of Christian Schools was the
Rev. Adrian Bourdoise (1590- 1655). He was unquestionably one
of the most devoted promoters of the little schools and charity
schools. Experience taught him that perhaps the most effective
element for the recruitment of the clergy was to be found in the
wise and intelligent management of these schools.
"The little schools," he loved to repeat, "are the seminary of semi-
naries. But to render them useful to the family and religion, teach-
ers should be formed who would labor like apostles and not like
hirelings, looking upon the office of teacher as a miserable trade
taken up to get their bread. . . . The best teachers, the great-
est, the most esteemed, would not be too good for the avocation.
Because the parish schools are poor and taught by poor men, peo-
ple imagine they are of no account. And yet it is the only means of
destroying vice and instilling virtue. I defy all mankind to find a
better means. The school is the novitiate of Christianity."^^
8^ Rarelet, p. 90. ^ M. Hermant attributes the founding of the Child Jesus to Nicholas
Barr€. This is an error. The religious habit he gives to them belongs to the Brothers of the
Christian Schools. The disciples of De la Salle sometimes received this name, because the
institute, as is proved by the Bull of Approbation of Benedict XIII., was placed under the
special patronage of the Child Jesus. Simon de Domcourt, in his Histoire de I'Eglise de
Saint-Sulpice, 1774, mentions the Brothers of the Christian Schools, called of the Child Jesus.
*9 Vie de M. Bourdoise, MS., p. 9S5, 1203. Bibliotheque Marazine. Adi'ian Bourdoise de-
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 473
Adrian Bourdoise opened a free school at Liancourt which at-
tracted considerable attention. While success crowned his efforts
in the school, he was completely baffled in the attempt to establish
a seminary for teachers. His ambition was to emulate the famous
Seminary of St. Nicholas du Chardonet for the education of clerics.
However, in view of the happy results which he obtained conjointly
with Vincent de Paul and John Olier for the formation and improve-
ment of the clergy, Adrian Bourdoise believed firmly that Provi-
dence would not long delay in giving to the little schools an apostle
who would elevate them and give them a strongly defined Christian
character.
Fully imbued with this thought, Adrian Bourdoise formed, in
1649, ^^ association of prayer among his friends to implore heaven
to hasten the advent of the much desired Apostle of Youth. "I
believe that if St. Paul and St. Denis," he said, "were to come back
to France now, they would undertake the important work of form-
ing teachers in preference to any other work." Adrian Bourdoise
possessed the happy facility of imparting his own enthusiasm to
others. The association had already seventy members on its rolls.
He placed it under the protection of St. Joseph.
"As the clergy are very negligent," writes Adrian Bourdoise, "in
the instruction of children, God, who protects His Church, intends
perhaps to remedy this defect by some extraordinary means and to
raise up teachers who will conscientiously acquit themselves of our
derelict duty. It is doubtless for this end that God gives to so many
persons the spirit of prayer."^*^
There were already at this period many congregations of religious
schoolmistresses. But as is evident from the writings of Adrian
Bourdoise and contemporaneous records, no similar institutions,
having for special object the formation of schoolmasters, either for
the charity schools or the little schools, had been successfully estab-
lished and operated. We have seen that all attempts to establish
them proved complete failures. The antiquated individual method
of teaching was scrupulously adhered to in the elementary schools.
The reading of Latin was the foundation of the course. The pre-
centor insisted upon the study of the Latin grammar, logic and
rhetoric ; while "in many localities," writes Mgr. Armand, Bishop of
Angers, "the schools were hardly of any avail toward the
-salvation of the children, for the schoolmasters and school-
manded three things from his teachers and clerics, namely — vocation, knowledge and love.
" The last," he said, " depends upon the disposition of our heart. It is the rarest quality to
be found." He took for his device the two initial letters S. F., signifying scire and/acere.
0 Vie, MS., p. 896.
474 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
mistresses were content with the mere teaching of the reading of
Latin."'^
There was, however, a more serious abuse. The Church is the
teacher of morals as well as of doctrine. We all know the frailty of
human nature. Hence any one having -experience will applaud the
wisdom of the various councils and synods of the sixteenth, seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, we may also examine the
prudent restrictions explicitly expressed in the councils prior, during
and after the Middle Ages concerning the necessity of separate
schools for boys and girls. And despite the strict laws and formal
prohibitions, there still existed some mixed schools. "Although
every one acknowledges," says Mgr. Hardouin da Perefixe, Arch-
bishop of Paris, "the utility and even the necessity of these formal
prohibitions, we are daily apprised of their infringement in several
localities, and which would have resulted in a manner decidedly
prejudicial to the education of the children if we had not intervened
anew by our authority."^^ Consequently, the Archbishop revived
the ordinances of his predecessors touching this point and prohib-
ited any infringement thereupon by schoolmasters and schoolmis-
tresses under pain of excommunication ipso facto.
Toward the close of the seventeenth century this abuse had not
yet been entirely corrected. The country schools at this period
were generally known as mercenary schools. This was due to the
fact that pecuniary interests necessitated "ordinarily the receiving
of children of both sexes ; it was rare, therefore, to meet with hire-
lings who dreaded this combination."'^ The King and Parliament
of Paris -enacted, however, upon this important subject-matter some
explicit statutes and prohibitions.'^*
But the little schools, destined for the education of poor chil-
dren, were deserted and held in contempt. There was a deep feel-
ing on all sides of some existing evil. The schools continued to be
deserted for lack of teachers who could take away the odium at-
tached to them. Parents had no confidence in such schools. There-
fore the great necessity of providing teachers above reproach and
thus restore their good name and confidence. The success of the
schools would then be assured and would eventually do away with
mixed schools. The teaching sisterhoods increased and their
schools multiplied. The girls had, therefore, no longer any need to
" Ordonnance Synodale de 1668. Statuts Synodaux du Diocdse d' Angers, p. 768, 1680^
Also cf. I'Abb^ Alain, ^Instruction Primaire en France avant la Revolution, etc., p. 109.
" The Abb4 Alain has made a specialty," says Brother Azarias, " of the history of educa-
tion prior to the Revolution of 1789 in France." Essays Educational, p. 171. " Ordonnance
du 10 Mai, i666; Cf. R. de Beaurepaire, t. I., p. 72 ; A. de Charmasse, p. 140. " Vie de M.
J.-B. de la Salle, p. 50, 1731. ^4 M^m. nouveaux du Clerg^,t. I., p. 1056 et passim.
Rise of the Christian Schools — De la Salle. 475
frequent schools intended for boys. Hence by degrees the mixed
schools even in the more densely populated parts of the city were
of the past. This was an excellent remedy and it worked admir-
ably.
There were, moreover, many children of every condition of life to
whom the study of the classics would be practically useless. No one
had as yet conceived the scheme of establishing a special course,
having the vernacular as the basis of study, and arranged with a
view to the new intellectual wants born of the invention of printing
and the progress of industry and commerce. The demarcation be-
tween elementary and secondary teaching was nowhere definitively
settled. Consequently a change of teachers not unfrequently im-
plied a like change in the schedule of studies.
In studying the peculiarities of 'educational programmes of the
period, we are not a little surprised at the lack of special schools
where the pupil could take eclectic studies consonant with his future
career. Hence even the children of some noble families were con-
demned to take the most elementary course, because they declined to
follow the classical or because the father refused them the privilege
to prevent them from embracing the -ecclesiastical state or from tak-
ing up the profession of the law. In such cases the profession of
arms was considered more honorable to the interest of the family.
To-day we find special courses in every college or university curricu-
lum. This educational reform was successfully introduced by St. de
la Salic.
Men who had given any serious thought to the important question
of the education of children concluded that seminaries for the train-
ing of teachers like those which had been established for the educa-
tion of the clergy was the only possible solution to be reached. It
was, therefore, essentially necessary to found a teaching congrega-
tion of select and worthy men, having for object : i. The recruitment
and education of men to fit them to take charge of large schools ;
2, the establishing of seminaries for its teachers and the training of
secular teachers. Is it not thus that congregations proceed to act
when entrusted with the administration of ecclesiastical seminaries ?
They naturally form members for their own society and diocesan
clergy for parochial duty. Under such conditions it would be easy
to establish pertinent relations between the lay teachers and their
forming masters so as to maintain in their schools unity of organiza-
tion, method and aim. The teaching of the Christian doctrine
would then constitute the groundwork of their schedule of studies,
and thus all would labor for the welfare of society "through the
47^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Christian and secular instruction of youth, the principal end and
aim of their institute."'^^
From the beginning of the eighteenth century the government,
the hierarchy and clergy, the public officials and the parents were
unanimous in attesting that the work of St. de la Salle realized all
and more that the most enlightened and far-seeing men had con-
templated. Nor were those interested in the instruction of the
masses disappointed, for De la Salle corresponded to all the hopes
and aspirations they had founded upon the eminent merit of this
great apostle of youth. The foundation of the Institute of the
Brothers of th'e Christian Schools is dated from 1679.'^^ But few
years sufficed these patrons and promoters of education to warrant
them in considering De la Salle the instrument of Providence
granted in answer to the many and fervent prayers that daily
ascended to the throne of mercy and love. De la Salle, too was the
one destined to provide for their free schools such teachers as they in
their piety and patriotism could have reasonably desired.
It is, therefore, "in the midst of this general movement in favor
of popular education that De la Salle founded the Institute of the
Brothers of the Christian Schools at the opportune moment of which
the Church possesses the secret. The new institute set out with this
thought that teaching is less a career or instrument of fortune than that
it is the most elevated expression of the spirit of sacrifice and devoted-
ness; and the Church has proved that by proposing the founder of
this admirable congregation to the public veneration, she honors
those who give their heart as the equal of those who shed their
blood.""
But "never did the time,*' says Lemontey, "appear more unfavor-
able to the founding of a new religious institute." And yet, after
enumerating the principal facts which demonstrate the corruption
of morals and the consequent weakening of faith, he adds: "It
was in the very midst of the symptoms of public indifference to re-
ligion that the Congregation of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools is established. Struck with the neglect in which the chil-
dren of the poor were left, with all the -evil consequent thereupon,
M. de la Salle conceived the bold idea of presenting these young
savages to society by opening free schools where they would receive
the first rudiments of secular and religious instruction. . . . He
endeavored to accomplish the greatest possible good at the least
possible expense. And we doubt very much whether his plagiarists
T5 Regies du Gouvernement de Fr&res des ficoles Chr^tiennes, p. 12, 1714. ''^ Annales de
I'Institut des Frdres, t. I., Introduction. "^ A. de Charmasse, 1' Instruction Primaire dans
I'Ancien Diocese d'Autun, p. 41.
A Summer in Sicily. . 477
and imitators in many States of the American confederation have
attained to a better solution of this difficult problem than did this
pious priest.""^
"The reign of truth is never peaceful. Heresy in a thousand
forms is perpetually attacking her and trying to usurp her place.
Just then, under the name of Jansenism, it was troubling the Church
and was to go disturbing her for a whole century. At the same
time Gallicanism, of older date and equally dangerous influence,
continued its ravages, ensnaring Louis XIV., through his pride,
and fascinating even the genius of Bossuet. Th-e very year in which
De la Salle was born, 165 1, Dupuy published the new edition of his
Treuves des Libertes de L'Eglise Gallicane.'
"Such was the period in the midst of which De la Salle was bom
into the world. He was also to be the inventor of a system of teach-
ing. He was to receive doctrine in trust. He was to preserve it
intact, to assimilate it by prayer and meditation and to distribute it
around, and to find innumerable disciples who would go on dis-
tributing it after him. In this universal education, dispensed with
such prodigality, there was, nevertheless, one class, the humblest
and most numerous, that was neglected and left without masters.
These were the little boys of the lower classes. It was to them that
De la Salle was sent."^^
C. M. Graham.
Tennessee.
A SUMMER IN SICILY.
MOST travelers testify to the potency of drinking the Aqua
Virgo at the Trevi fountain in Rome to produce an irre-
sistible yearning to return to the Eternal City, and the
breathing of the air of Sicily seems to be possessed of the same
mysterious power upon him who has once imbibed its fragrance;
few can ever leave that fair island without finding themselves influ-
enced by a warm desire to revisit its shores, drawn by a strangely
powerful affection for a land whose recollections come back to the
mind like some pleasant dream of the night.
To those who seek to make their travels a store of fruitful pro-
vender whereon the mind may feed in the afterglow of life, there
^8 Histoire de la Regence et de la Minorite de Louis XV., t. II., p. 287. "^ Armand Ravelet,
Vie du J.-B. de la Salle, pp. 96 et 97.
478 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
are few places which provide so rich a feast for the memory. All
true travel must be accompanied by a greater or less degree of
bodily discomfort, but in the retrospect only the mental impres-
sions endure, and our thought then will transport our unjostled
bodies over the scenes of the past without fatigue or worry. Sicily
does not demand any unusual share of this fatigue such as is com-
monly supposed to be necessary for a visit there, since the railway
now makes all places that are of supreme interest easily accessible.
At Palermo there exists every luxury of life and inducement to
make it a winter and spring residence, and at other places there are
to be found hotels which are at least sufficient for the traveler's
needs. The brigand, that valued assistant to the newspaper corre-
spondent, seems to have retreated before the advance of the parallel
lines of peaceful steel, and is more likely to be met with in the
neighborhood of Naples than here. Moreover, as far as we could
learn in a recent visit, it is not the passing visitor that is the object
of attention to the Sicilian highwayman, for there exists no band
of these men, and the traveler has come and gone before any trusty
number can be collected or any concerted action determined upon ;
but it is their own local people, such as the factor going from place
to place collecting the rents, that is the real desire of their -eyes.
In the combination of its varied history, its relics of ancient art
and beauty of nature and climate Sicily affords a charm so great
that Egypt occurs to the mind as its sole competitor, and even that
fails in respect to the physical aspects. Yet Sicily is not uniformly
beautiful; those who only know its fascinating and lovely eastern
coast must not think that they will find it repeated. The moun-
tains that girdle the greater part of the island from below the west-
ern Eryx circle round along the northern coast and turn again
down the eastern to JEtna. and give the land its picturesque aspect
of configuration, for they leave but a small extent of level ground
unbroken by spurs from the main ridge in the centre, and no spot is
out of sight of these sheltering highlands. The honeycombed
limestone and lava that prevail in their composition are the very
materials to render a country not simply fruitful, but luxuriant, and
to furnish it with varied outline and romantic spots, while from
almost every point of view ^tna itself is visible and is a source of
awe and wonder as well as of grandeur in the landscape. Above
all the gorgeous sun irradiates mountain and valley, making them
to "laugh and sing" in the language of the eastern Psalmist, flood-
ing the panorama with every tint of azure and golden light from
morn till eve, and defying all attempts to find a nomenclature of
A Summer in Sicily. 479
color that will convey any idea of its varying splendor. The air
is fragrant with the odors from citron and jessamine, fiery globes
of pomegranate light up the thickets, orchards of orange and lemon
with leaves of glossy green, gray oliveyards, vineyards of graceful
native vine and purpling grape, to which the town of Marsala has
given its name, the sombre carot, the soaring aloe, hedges of yucca
and prickly pear, flowers and shrubs creeping down to the very
shores or hanging in festoons and masses from the broken cliffs;
in short, -everything that can charm the eye and enparadise the
senses is to be found lavished by Mother Nature about this bright
island. The configuration of the steep and rugged coastline is
equally lovely. The Bay of Palermo, with its guardian mountains
like fortresses to protect its entrance, and the Bay of Catania,
shadowed by lordly ^Etna seated on his snowy throne, these are
familiar from repute ; but the whole coast is fretted by broad fore-
lands of warmly glowing hills whose rocky barriers broken into
outlying crags form deep recesses which echo to the whish of the
sunny sea; masses of black lava rock, set amid a creamy surf,
diversify the line of shore, while a rich flora occupies every nook
and cranny and responds with glowing color to the opaline iri-
descence of the waters. But it is not only the senses of sight and
smell that are captivated, for every spot teems with historic memo-
ries, appealing to our historic sense and intellectual capacity, deep-
ening the enjoyment, so that one goes back again and again to the
lavish bounty of the physical and mental delights of the island, as
Cardinal Newman once said, like "as one smells again and again at
a sweet flower."
No one who has read the great literatures of Greece or of Rome
can coast the shores of Sicily or tread its strands without being
thrilled with the evidences that remain of peoples that have "gath-
ered" here and then "gone by together." Its Cyclops and giants
of earlier fable were perhaps but the more prosaic workers in iron
and stone, just as the Lotophagi of Lsestrygones were the farmers
and herdsmen of its prehistoric times; but they are scarcely less
shadowy to us than the Sican Sicel of Elymian, whom modern
historians identify with the island's earliest inhabitants. Each of
these latter has at least left some recognizable evidence of his pres-
ence. It is true that of the Celtic Sican, Latin Sicel and possibly
Trojan Elymian not a fragment of writing or coinage is known to
us, yet of the Sican tongue we can shrewdly guess from the place-
names that exist. Of Sicel there is known a short but efficient
vocabulary ; but of Elymian only a grammatical case-ending ! The
480 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
subterranean cities and built towns of the Sican and Sicel have not
yet received the patient study they require and deserve, but still
they are to be seen. Fancy would wish to accept the presence of
Troy's fugitives at least at the foot of Eryx, where Virgil tells of
the death of Anchises and of the funeral games then celebrated.
Here the island of the boat race lies in the offing. There the god-
dess mother of ^neas still seems to look benignantly on the chil-
dren that play around the site of her temple and the pyre of her
earthly lover, for they are still remarkable in the island for their
beauty, and here alone in Western Christendom the women go
veiled in compassion for man's frailty at the sight of their loveliness.
But out of the sea-mist sweeping over the ocean of time and en-
veloping these 'earlier races we may descry other mysterious vis-
itors to the island coming from the foot of Libanus and popularly
called Phoenicians or in Holy Writ Canaanites. At first we can
but vaguely trace the presence of these shadowy voyagers as they
land here and there ; but gradually they emerge into the light of
history under the name of Carthage. Their own name, viz., that
by which they called themselves, remains unknown to us. Sidon-
ians, Tyrians we call these subjects of King Hiram ; but those are
only place-names. Who were they? will be a constantly recurring
thought at many a spot. Those who have traveled up the Nil-e's
flood will try and connect them with that wondrous picture on the
walls of Dayr-el-Bahari in the plain of Thebes and think, of them
as coming from the "Holy Land of Phunt" — now said to be .
Somali-land — and find another confirmation of the general ac-
curacy of Herodotus (vii., 89), who says they came from the Ery-
thraean Sea. The Hebrew knew them as the Canaanites, i. e., the
Lowlanders, from their choosing the seashores and low plains in
preference to the hills. The Greek named them Phoenicians from
the encircling palm groves about their great cities of Tyre, Sidon
and Arvad, which the inhabitants adopted as their emblem.
The Roman corrupted this into Phceni and had to struggle for life
with their more vigorous daughter Carthage in the Punic wars.
But still their own name is a mystery to us. We may trace the
sites of their factories, marts, temples and camps around these
coasts and see their battlefields close by. Here they came to
win the fair pearl of the great sea, at first as gentle wooers,
spreading at her feet the luxury and wealth of the East and en-
deavoring to gain the favor of her glance by the richness of their
purples, the delicacy of their tissues and the beauty of the embroide-
ries for which Homer celebrates the daughters of Sidon. Their
A Summer in Sicily. 481
descendants became less courteous and patient suitors, and adopt-
ing more violent methods tried by force to obtain her and to wrest
her for themselves. Think for a moment as you stand gazing over
some scene where once they have been that here came men of
probably the same speech as Joshua and of David, the sweet
singer of Israel, for although the ^Egyptian was a "strange lan-
guage" to the Israelite of the tongue of Chaldea, "one thou
knowest not," we never find that said of the speech of Canaan.
The Carthaginian names of Hannibal and Asdrubal that will be on
your lips seem to confirm this, for we need only change the end-
ing that tells of their patron deity Baal to that of the mystic Jah to
see in those titles the familiar Hananiah and Azariah. These
lovers of the low, sea-bordered lands came here from the foot of
Libanus as they did to the old Irish and Cornish coasts, bringing
with them those gods that had for worshipers the errant Solomon
as well as the great Hannibal. Here they reared their temples to
Baal and lighting their fires to Moloch made their children to pass
through its purifying flames, a custom still recalled in the innocent
mirth of the Beltein or Baal fires of midsummer in Ireland and
many other places. Side by side with Baal arose the temple of the
cruel Ashtoreth, with the scenes of lewdness that marked out "the
abomination of the Sidonians," and here they gave the "fruit of
their body for the sin of their soul." On some hilltop we find the
Greeks, with their merry, graceful, "flashing-throned, immortal
Aphrodite," born of the sparkling foam, supplanting the Phoenician
Astarte with her passionate, insatiable hunger, and this again suc-
ceeded by the coarser Venus of the Romans, and in these succes-
sive dedications we may see the varying ideals of succeeding races
in their conception of perfect womanhood before Christianity
taught of her who was "Sweet Mother, Sweet Maid."
But if the Tyrian merchant were an unwelcomed petitioner for
the love of the fair Sicilia, this cannot be said of the ancient Greek,
for he surely won her heart. Subsequently rival nations, rival
creeds, rival races, with rival systems of life, contested for a share
in that love, for Roman, Vandal, Goth, Arab, Norman, French,
Spanish were all aspirants and evinced their admiration of her
beauty, and Arab and Norman were certainly regarded by her in
no unkindly fashion, but the Greek alone possessed h-er. He made
this his new world in the height of his civilization and culture, and
his influence remains not only in the habits of the people, but in
those evidences of his art which are among the most precious relics
of Greek sculpture in Europe at this day. The Eastern coast lit-
VOL. XXV.— 5.
482 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
erally teams with Greek memories, and it is this part of the island
which is said by those who know both countries to be the portion
that most reproduces the varied coast of old Hellas. This is the
typical Sicily of Theocritus and the poets, with its mountains and
islands, mysteries of ravine and cliff, its grottoes wherein dwell the
Nereids, Cyclops-haunted caverns, inland woods and vineyards.
Taormina, "la splendidissima," with the New Naxos at its foot, the
home of the first settlers, and Syracuse, "la fidele," their last home,
and one of the most magnificent cities in the old world, both lie
along this coast. Towering above everything and dominating this
entire side of the island rises mighty ^tna, within whose cauldron
of fire is enclosed Enceladus or Typhoeus, rebels against the King
of heaven. Along its fertile slopes the goatherd still plays his pipes
and his goats "run after the cytizus" (Theoc. x.). Silvery threads
of rippling waters make music with the song of the cicada and the
sweet melody of the pine woods ; in the peasant's home the love
charm and song of Simsetha (Idyll ii.) may be heard, while on
some purple hillside, fragrant of thyme and wild flowers, basks in
the sun the old fisherman QEpis as he watches for the approach of
the shoals of the tunny fish. So complete was the Hellenisation of
the island that between the times of Thucydides and Cicero the
native tongues had become extinct and Greek leavened the whole ;
nor did Latin, Arabic or French ever supplant it, but it continued
through all subsequent changes until it gave way to Italian in
mediaeval days.
With the exception of Athens, nowhere, even in Greece itself,
are such fine remains of that country's art to be seen as are found
at Girgenti, Segesta, Selinunte and Syracuse. Some of the most
magnificent temples that the Grecian architect ever produced still
exist here, and a dominant desire in the mind of every intelligent
visitor to the island is to see those that stand erect. To estimate
the grandeur that marked two that are now lying like swaths of
corn laid prostrate before the scythe of some giant reaper, a com-
parison may be made if the reader be acquainted with the lovely
temple of Neptune at Psestum, the ancient Poseidonia (about B. C.
550), which measures 190 feet long by 84 feet broad ; or the match-
less Parthenon at Athens (finished B. C. 438), which is 229 feet by
loi feet. These figures are entirely dwarfed by the measurements
of one at Girgenti (the ancient ^ragas and Latin Agrigentum),
which was not only the largest in that city, but the largest that was
ever attempted, unless it be that of Diana of Ephesus, for it was
363 feet long, including its steps, by 182 feet in width. Again, of
A Summer in Sicily. 483
still greater length and little less area was the shrine they were con-
structing to Apollo at Selinus, which was 371 feet long and about
177 feet in breadth; but this was left unfinished, and one of those
incidents which seem to bridge all intervening time may be seen
there (such as occurs in the quarries of Baalbec in Syria or Assouan
in Egypt), where the drums of tbe pillars remain awaiting the re-
turn of the ghostly workmen who were suddenly driven from their
toil by the incursion of the Carthaginians in B. C. 409. Such dar-
ing magnificence shows the height of wealth and culture to which
the Sicilian Greek had attained and may well excite our admira-
tion and wonder.
But although the larger number of the existing remains of Greek
art lie overthrown, yet there are three temples standing erect, while
others are embodied in churches. These three are fairly perfect
for work of such antiquity. Uncared for as they have been through
centuries and only regarded with the eye of the spoiler or the
adapter, they have survived the shock of earthquakes, the mordent
tooth of the scirocco and, worse still, the lust of the utilitarian.
Most of us want to see for ourselves what a Greek temple really
looked like, and thus form our own conception apart from pictures
and engravings, and here is our opportunity. It is a lack of school
teaching that we have never set before our eyes as we read the
m.odel of a temple, theatre, bath-house, forum or dwelling place
of Greek or Roman life. Pictures do not convey the reality, and
the result is that we usually expect to see things in a very different
•condition. Nor are we wont to be familiar with the various parts
and their uses, and this, added to the first sense of disappointment
at their state of decay, often renders a visit to their remains unsat-
isfactory. It would be a good thing if no one were allowed to
take the higher classical forms in our schools or become teachers
at our universities in classical subjects unless he had traveled in
the countries where Greek and Roman works are to be seen. A
few months' study of these to a man already well read in their history
is a duplication of all he knows, and brings a life and reality into his
teachings that saves time and brightens the labor of the pupil.
All the temples in Sicily are in the style called Doric, from being
perfected in the Doric cities of Greece, those first art schools of
Europe. It was not confined to that tribe, but was common to all
the tribes of Greece in Europe, just as Ionic was common to all th-e
Asiatic Greeks. Like the Norman style in England, it is
marked by its simplicity, solidity and impressiveness, and was gov-
-erned by strict rule, simple proportion and pure harmony. The
484 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
temples are placed upon a stylobate or platform of three or four
steps, and from it rise the columns without other base, with taper-
ing, fluted sides. These shafts usually have twenty flutes and a
height corresponding to five times their diameter. The form these
edifices most frequently take in Sicily is described architecturally
as hexastyle peripteral, that is, they have six columns in front and
back and a varying number down the sides. The interior was
built up by solid walls into an oblong quadrangle called the cella,
divided into naos and pronaos, answering to sanctuary and choir in
a Norman church. They all stand orientated after the custom of
Greek fanes. The impression of firmness and solidity is very
powerfully conveyed in this Doric order of architecture by making
the entablature, as all the portion above the pillars is termed, in-
tentionally heavier than was needful, and also by placing the col-
umns near together and rapidly tapering. The frieze was orna-
mented with groups of sculpture, the rough surface of the stone of
pillars, etc., was made smooth with a thin layer of fine plaster or
stucco, and color would be used everywhere. Within the now
desolate cella would stand some costly statue of the deity there
honored, in bronze or marble, the work of some skilled artist, em-
blems of the god and statuettes of heroes or gods connected with
him would be placed around, rich hangings covered the walls on
festal days and sacred herbs strewed the ground. Every spot
within the cella would be full of decoration and color, valuable
votive offerings would adorn the walls, here the arms and bucklers
of a conquered foe, there the prow of a ship in thanksgiving for
escape from the waves, tripods of incense, altars and furniture for
priestly use, vessels of gold and silver, all these we must bring back
to our mind's eye as we tread these courts and repeople these shrines.
But the study of these temples would take up a greater por-
tion of our space than we now propose to give it, and we return
to a review of the eastern coast of Sicily as that most sought by the
traveler in search of natural beauty and because physically and
historically it is the most interesting. It is hard to compare lovely
scenery and probably unfair to do so, but most persons will register
in their memories the journey from Messina to Syracuse as perhaps
the most singularly attractive and beautiful of any in Europe.
Every form of graceful outline and every shade of magic coloring
may be seen along that coast. The stupendous masses of moun-
tains that overshadow it are broken into varying outline, never
lumpish and heavy, but with peak and crest radiant in sunlight,
while rift and fissure are deep in shadow. Their valleys, coming
A Summer in Sicily. 4^5
down to the sea, have their sides clothed in luxuriant vegetation,
pleasant streams wander down them from bracken covered
woodlands, orchards of orange, lemon, pomegranate, fig and
vine occupy every available spot, and where possible tilth and lea
succeed dene and dingle. The oaks and pines of Theocritus are
now rare, yet they still exist on the slopes of ^tna, but as a rule
the mountains of Sicily are as bare as those of Hellas. The olive
and the vine brought to the island by the Greek are gradually
creeping up their sides by extended cultivation ; the orange of the
Saracen visitors is being more widely planted each year, but the
palm that they also introduced is seldom seen, and more rarely
still their cotton and sugar. The Spaniard during his possession
gave the fair island the aloe and prickly pear, which he brought to
it from his new world colonies, and they are continually met with.
Since the time of Proserpine Sicily has been the home of flowers,
and her mother Demeter rendered it the granary of Italy, and
to-day it looks as fair and blessed with their gifts as when the
virgin goddess gathered her violets in Enna's perfumed woods or
when in union with Artemis and Athene she wove a floral robe for
almighty Zeus upon his throne of ^tna.
The towns along this coast — Messina, Taormina, Catania and
Syracuse — are each worthy of a visit. The last mentioned de-
mands more than a casual one, for it was the most important city
of the Greeks in the island and the most magnificent of its time in
Europe. The remains of its ancient glory deserve a lengthened
examination, and a stay of some weeks will reward the student of
history. Its story and the enumeration of its ruins are too exten-
sive a subject to deal with here, but it may be interesting to bring
the reader up to its walls. Starting, therefore, from Messina we
shall find that it, too, has much to say for itself, but very little to
show. Its history is a long one, but political and natural convul-
sions have so disturbed the town that we should have to pick out a
stone here and a pillar there to illustrate its long life. It is not at
the extreme corner of the island, but some eight miles down, where
the wash of the Tyrrhenian Sea, being met by the currents from
the south, has hollowed out a bend in the land that resembles a
reaping hook, suggesting to its early Sikel inhabitants their name
for that instrument, Zancle. Refugees from Samos and the
Peloponnesus, chiefly Messenians, changed this name on their ar-
rival in the fifth century B. C. for that which we know, and from
their advent its authentic history commences and interweaves itself
with Grecian, Roman, Carthaginian, Saracen and Norman. Mas-
486 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
sina is throned against a background of castled rocks and pine-
crested hills that wander into the distance, gradually rising in
height and grandeur. There is not the spaciousness and scope
about it that Palermo, its rival in commerce, presents, and the
mountains press upon one from all sides save that of the sea.
Modern commercial activity is not an attractive element in the
beauty of a place, and the visitor after seeing the Cathedral will
probably seek attractions beyond the limits of the town and revel
in the lovely scenery that is afforded from its highlands. We may
aspire to the extensive ranges of view afforded from the Rocca
Guelfonia, again to find wild, conical, pine-topped mountains around
us. In the private grounds of its villa are the remains of Mata-
grifone, the. stronghold of the Norman Roger as previously it was
of the Mamertine mercenaries of the Syracusan Agathocles; or
upon the hill between Fort Gonzaga and the town we may stand
upon the very camp of Hiero II. Indeed, from numerous points
we may luxuriate in wondrous landscapes where the colors of the
sea and the wild billowy range of the Calabrian Mountains across
the water are thrillingly exquisite. The most readily attainable
point of vantage, however, will be the terrace before the church and
convent of San Gregorio, a spot well worth more difficulties than
the tiers of steps and the intricacy of the narrow streets that we
thread to take us there. Beneath lie the roofs of the town, beyond
stretch the blue straits, with the Faro Point eight miles away north,
the ancient Pelorus and the site of the famous Charybdis whirlpool.
Two miles separate this from the granite crag of Scylla, standing
off from th'e Italian mainland, behind which, spread out before our
eyes, rise the Calabrian heights with the Piani d'Aspromonte.
Straggling down the mountain sides or seated on the sea are pretty
white villages or towns, the whole picture presenting a scene of
great natural beauty and peaceful homely life. Turning southward
we see Reggio, to which St. Paul came on his way from Syracuse,
and up this strait we may recall how the "Castor and Pollux" bore
the Apostle on his voyage to Rome. We may spend hours gazing
over the fair prospect, varying with every change of light and most
fascinating, whether we com'e when it is bathed in the amethystine
hues of evening or when touched by the magic beams of the rising
sun. At the back of Messina the hillsides are covered with vine-
yards producing the famous Mamertine wine. Olive orchards and
orange groves abound, cactus, myrtle and arbutus cover the hill-
tops, and among the valleys many an old Norman convent still
nestles with cypress and pine rising from within its walls. We
A Summer in Sicily. 487
shall not look down upon the town without recalling that it was
here the Lion-hearted Richard spent the winter en route to the Holy
Land in 1189, he and Philip Augustus of France fretting at each
other's presence, and that within the walls of its recently completed
Cathedral the former married Berengaria of Navarre, who came
hither chaperoned by the wicked Queen Eleanor, his mother. Nor
should we forget that it is at Messina that the whole of Shakes-
peare's scenes in "Much Ado About Nothing" are placed, and if
we could locate the house and garden of Leonato, with its "thick
pleached alley in mine orchard," probably of orange trees from
Seville (on which the pun "civil as an orange" was based) we might
easily picture the story immortalized by the English writer. Every
one visiting Messina will want to see Charybdis, and drive to the
Faro Point with that purpose. There is a severe eddy just outside
the present harbor of the town, which some would have to be the
circular current of which the ancients were so fearful, and which from
its motion is called the Garafano or carnation, but it does not satisfy
the proverbial saying, "Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charyh-
din." That off the Faro Point is certainly opposite to the rock, but
its violence is now less marked than the one at the harbor mouth;
still only lately a French pilgrim ship for the Holy Land was caught
in it and sent ashore on the reefs, and scientific mariners have testi-
fied to its dangers, one recording that he had seen "several men of
war and even a seventy-four-gun ship whirled round on its surface."
The currents in this part are always severe and they are intensified
by wind and volcanic disturbance, for since this coast is at the line
of contact of the primary and secondary geological formations, it
is upon the line of cleavage where the force of ^tna and Vesuvius
are most felt; steam navigation, however, has become so perfect in
our day that it renders most of these old perils harmless. Scylla
remains the dangerous rock into which Circe changed the fair maid
who had dared to be more charming to Glaucus than herself. The
virgin's head and breasts, with the wolf's body and the dolphin's
tail, are not apparent now to our prosaic eyes as they were in the
childhood of the world, but the baying of the voracious and ravenous
mastiffs within the caverns around her may still be heard as the hol-
lows echo with the resounding waves. There is a remarkable natu-
ral phenomenon to be seen in these straits that few, however, are
privileged to witness, for it occurs but seldorrij, and only at high tide
at sunrise in hot and calm weather. It is known as the Fata Mor-
gana, and is a kind of mirage wherein the Sicilian mariner sees pic-
tured the erect or inverted towns, castles, palaces and ships of the
488 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
neighboring coasts. A very similar thing occurs at rare intervals
on the coasts of Antrim and Donegal in Ireland, especially near the
entrance to Lough Foyle.
But we must hasten on, for Messina is, as it were, but the gate
of Paradise, and only the beginning of a coast drive southwards
that exceeds all others with which we already are acquainted. If
we go by the train we shall have to burrow fourteen times into the
mountains during the succeeding thirty miles before we arrive at
Toarmina, our next point of vantage. The scenery increases in
romantic beauty as we advance ; on one side we have rocky islets set
amid opalesque waters, deepening into sapphire blue and bounded
in the distance across the straits by the Calabrian Mountains; on
the other, picturesque crags and castle-topped heights succeed
one another in riotous profusion, and one wishes to stop at a dozen
spots to let their extreme loveliness sink into the memory. In the
railway it is difficult to know on which side to turn, both land and
sea present such ravishing aspects. Inland broad watercourses
down which the winter torrents rush are now, in May, dry and
stony, and are being traversed by oxen-carts. They lead up into
deep ravines in the mountains, with sides broken and rugged, but
green with citrons and pomegranates whose fragrance fills the air.
The Norman-looking castles of the RufYo family, princes of Scaletta,
and of the Alcontres, lords of Nizza, stand forth upon their rocky
peaks ; from many an overhanging crag hang masses of jessamine,
in every rock and cranny spring blue and white lupins, marigolds
and sea-pinks, while the constant variety of color of both sea and
land brings an element into one's northern nature little realized in
its intensity before. At the upper end of one of the many small
bays that fret this coast rises the rocky throne of Taormina, and at
its southern projection, now known as Cape Schiso, is the site of
ancient Naxos, the scene of the first colony of Greeks in Sicily.
Naxos is but the Doric for Nesos, an island, for to this outlying
headland the strangers brought the name of their own Peloponnesian
home. What Ebbsfleet was to England, that Naxos was to Sicily,
as Freeman remarks, for from it, as from the Kentish strand, began
the making of two peoples, giving to both islands their truest life
and main history. The learned professor has lovingly traced out
some of the remains of the ancient settlement, but for 2,300 years
it has lain desolate ; lemon plantations cover its site, and there is
not much more to be seen than at Ebbsfleet itself. Imagination
has to restore the scene, and fancy has to picture Theocles in B. C.
735 with his followers coming across this sunlit sea towards the
A Summer in Sicily. 489
point that stretches forth as if to welcome the strangers from the
East. In the Hght feluccas still used in the Mediterranean, in the
egg-shaped caps and the loose surtout, with hood, of the sailors and
fishing-folk, we may see much the same appearance probably as
that presented by the early pioneers from Chalcis in Euboea as they
plied their oars towards Sicily. Here they set up the altar of Apollo
Archagetes, and although there came in later times colonists to
many another spot from different and often antagonistic cities, yet
all recognized in this first planted shrine the centre of their national
unity. Upon the destruction of the low standing Naxos by Diony-
sius of Syracuse in B. C. 403, a new town was begun on the northern
side of the bay, upon the breaking cliff of Toarmina. High above
this again, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea, was placed its acropolis,
now marked by a ruined castle ; ridge after ridge mounts first 700
feet higher to the hill of Mola, with an even still loftier background
of stupendous and precipitous mountains that soar nearly 3,000 feet
in air. Amid so much height and depth it might be thought that
Taormina seemed a pigmy, yet it stands so clear that it affords from
many points some of the grandest views in the world, and to those
who have traveled much its prospect remains among scenes ineradi-
cable in the memory. You may walk around the upper circle of its
ruined theatre, truly the seats of the gods in a double sense ; beneath
you at one point in sheer descent of 400 feet is the immense expanse
of the murmuring Ionian Sea ; your eye looks down like that of an
eagle in its flight along a coast stretching away by many a pretty
headland and curving back as far north as Reggio and the shadowy
mountains of Southern Italy, while Messina is just hidden by a pro-
jection of the coast line; through the broken arches of the scena
you may watch the sparkle of the amethystine sea, and above the
royal entrance in the centre ^tna rises, with its ice fields gleaming
in the sunlight and piercing a turquoise sky with its silver peak ;
this alone is restless amid such a scene of enchanting peace and re-
poseful beauty that no words can convey its ravishment or paint-
ing tell its charm. Along the coast southward you may let your
eyes wander to the dome that covers the body of the fair child St.
Agatha at Catania, the clear air rendering it nearer than it is in
reality, and further on you gaze over a coast where cities once
stood bright with Greek life, until Syracuse in the distance arrests
the interest from striving to travel further. We had the good for-
tune to be at Taormina when all visitors were gone ; no worrying
guardians, beggars or touts dogged our steps and the quiet life of
the town was undisturbed. The beauty of the spot was penetrating
490 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
in its intensity, and one could not but think that the effect of Hving
in such scenes must have influenced the thought of such a highly-
strung, simple people as were the ancient Greeks. Life here might
be like that in Eden, for earth seemed full of heaven and sin alone-
a discord in its harmony. Newman felt this in his visit in 1833, and
wrote to his sister: "I never knew that nature could be so beauti-
ful, and to see that view was the nearest approach to seeing Eden.
O happy I ! It was worth coming all the way, to endure sadness,
loneliness, weariness to see it. I felt for the first time in my life
that I should be a better and more religious man if I lived there.
This superb view, the most wonderful I can ever see, is but one of at
least half a dozen, all beautiful, close at hand." It was in the Bay
of Catania during a rough, unpleasant night journey that he wrote
the lines that bear the title "Tauromenium" in the Lyra Apostolica,
which are wanting in *'ease and spirit," as he says, from the circum-
stances under which they were composed :
" Say, hast thou tracked the traveler's round
Nor visions met thee there,
Thou could'st but marvel to have found
This benighted world so fair ?
And feel an awe within thee rise
THat sinful man should see
Glories far worthier seraph's eyes
Than to be shared by thee ?
Store them in heart ! Thou shalt not faint
'Mid coming pains and fears.
As the third heaven once nerved a saint
For fourteen trial years."
Toarmina is a place at which to stay for a long time if the traveler
be desirous of restful beauty and comfort : it is an ideal spot for any
one having reading or writing to do, or for convalescence from ill-
ness or worry. Its Grasco-Roman theatre is the most interesting-
in the island, the Romanesque and Gothic remains in its silent
street are attractive, walks up to the hill of Mola and climbs to
Monte Venere are fascinating, and whether from the windows and
balconies of the hotels or from every open space without, we can sat-
urate our aesthetic senses in sweetly scented air, brilliant sunshine,
varied color and dreamy landscapes. Both here and on our way
South ^tna becomes an all-absorbing source of study ; solemn and
alone it towers above the great masses of mountain that surround
it, "the pillar of heaven, the nurse of sharp eternal snow," as Pindar
said. To those who have come from Naples with minds full of
Vesuvius, it is like a giant to a dwarf. Vesuvius is little more than
the height of one of these attendant mountains that stand at the foot
of this monarch's throne. Mount Venerella itself is 2,900 feet, while
A Summer in Sicily. 491
yEtna is nearly 11,000 feet, and is not only the loftiest volcano in
Europe, but the loftiest mountain in Sicily and Italy. It is true that
Vesuvius in comparison is but a modern volcano, its first recorded
eruption being in A. D. 79, when Herculaneum, Pompeii and
Stabiae, etc., were destroyed, whereas the first authenticated out-
break of ^tna was in the days of Pythagoras in the sixth century
B. C. Homer mentions it, but without reference to its fiery nature,
and therefore it is possible it was then quiescent. Virgil, whose
description of the Calabrian coast is singularly accurate, makes the
Trojans see ^tna after leaving the Gulf of Tarentum, which indi-
cates that its height then was much the same as now. ^schylus and
Pindar were both at the court of Hiero of Syracuse a few years
after an eruption and were powerfully impressed by it; the "rivers
of fire devouring with their fierce jaws the smooth fields of fertile
Sicily" as sung by the former is still a true description of its lava
streams. Dominating the island without dispute, this terrible lord
inspires awe from the helplessness of man to combat its forces of
destruction and from the mystery that envelops its action ; and it is
still a potent factor in forming the peasant's mind of to-day as in
earlier times. It is not locally known by the name of yEtna, but by
that which we find in Dante of Mongibello. Its cone, high in air
and glittering in the sun, looks like a diamond set in sapphire, and
this is no poetic exaggeration of its aspect ; the breath of the palpi-
tating giants in its bosom, constantly being emitted in puffs of
steam, warn the beholder of the peril that lies beneath its beauty ; its
awful presence both attracts and frightens, while its sublimity is
made more fascinating by its incomprehensibility. From that snowy
crest the goatherd on its sides has seen to flow the fiery torrent that
burnt up the rich fertility upon the mountain's bosom, and with earth
trembling beneath him and air resounding with the sharp crackle
of appalling thunder the terrified peasant has appealed more confi-
dently to the God of nature than to any earthly means of protection ;
as flame follows flame in leaping sheets of terror, and the shower
of red-hot stones and lava fall about him, it is the prayers of the
pure child St. Agatha that he asks to stay the devouring flood from
his homestead and to be his covert in the storm. With such an
abiding source of dread and yet of attractiveness it is no wonder
that the people give ready ears to tales of marvel and romance, and
it must always have been so. The Greek had the singularly wise
habit of combining the gods and heroes of other religious systems
with those in his own Pantheon, and he very probably applied this
principle to the local traditions he found existing in Sicily. The
492 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
cycle of legends identifying the Cyclops and Polyphemus with
^tna is not unlikely to be a continuation of the old nature worship of
the Sikel modified under Greek influence. Polyphemus and his one
eye may be the embodiment of the volcano and its one outlet, his
roars its rumbling earthquakes, his heavy footfalls the tremblings of
the mountain and the crushing storm of hurled rocks and thunder-
bolts the work of his heavy hand. Or else it was regarded as the
throne of almighty Zeus, and then it is Enceladus or Typhoeus whom
the god has placed beneath his seat, and when these rebel giants
turn from side to side the earth quakes, while their breath and cries
are the smoke and noise. We shall find the same principle possibly
true at many other spots, for the Dorian kept alive the awe of natu-
ral phenomena and the magic of rivers by this personification;
made the little stream of Acis and the seaside pools tell of the
Nereid Galatea and the love of the shepherd boy, just as the waters
of Anapus and the fount of Arethusa at Syracuse repeat a similar
tale. This allegorizing of the joy of waters and the making of each
rivulet and fountain, the source of graceful legend has a peculiar
charm to the mind and introduced a poetry into life for whose loss
we should all be the poorer. Modern music and song have given
fresh life to the legend of Acis and Galatea, and along this eastern
coast we shall find the names often recalled. Aci reale, Aci Trezza,
Aci Castello and five or more other villages retain the name; the
"sacred water" of Ovid's "herbifer Acis," formed of the blood of the
fond youth slain by the cannibal giant of Odyssey, is identified with
many an yEtna-born stream. Making its way out of a volcanic
katabothron, it might well seem to fiow from beneath a rock hurled
by the hand of the parent of many an ogre in fairy tale ; the Acqua
grande or Fiume freddo rushes terrified to the sea as if from its
power, while beneath the base of Aci reale, triumphant above the
seven streams of lava that surround it, the fleeting stream hurries
to sport with Galatea on the shore. She, too, has become a weeping
fountain, and "with ever murmuring sighs and tears and watery
spray" bewails her murdered swain. At Aci Castello we see of? the
pretty coast more embodied legend, for there rise seven huge masses
of basalt and limestone, the Scogli dei Cyclopi or Faraglioni, being
the rocks heaved by the blinded Polyphemus at Ulysses as he put
to sea; the first fiat rock near the beach, Isola d'Aci, contains a
Grotta dei Cyclopi, but not the cheerful cave of Homer's descrip-
tion or where wearied Trojans took refuge. It is not Homer or Vir-
gil, however, that is the companion to the student in the island, nor
is it even Thucydides, Polybius or Cicero that we require just here.
A Summer in Sicily. 493
but rather Theocritus, the native born, who has left us such a mag-
nificent monument of SiciHan genius in the sphere of idyl and pas-
toral poetry. With delicate grace he faithfully describes the land-
scape and life of this eastern shore, and the freshness and modern-
ness of his "little pictures" must be felt by all who read him amid
these scenes. Who can see a shepherd on these mountain sides
tending his goats, idly watching them as he plays his pastoral pipe
or talks with some sun-burnt maid without putting into his mouth
the words of the first Idyll : ''Thyrsis of ^tna am I and this is the
voice of Thyrsis. Where, ah! where, were ye when the voice of
Daphne was languishing ? ye nymphs, where were ye ? By Peneus'
beautiful dells or by the dells of Pindus? For surely ye dwelt not
by the great stream of the river Anapus, nor on the watch-tower
of ^tna, nor by the sacred waters of Acis." How redolent, too,
of scenes here, although it be drawn of Southern Italy, are the
fourth and fifth Idylls; the cattle straying among the young olive
shoots, the driving of them higher up the mountain's broken side
for grazing, and the goat running after the cytizus in the tenth.
The song of the obdurate Amaryllis telling of the pinewoods on the
slopes of ^tna, the old fisherman CEpis looking seaward for the
tunny shoals from some vantage spot on its sides, the love charm of
Simaetha, are all graphically true to-day of life on this sunny shore.
Often in the hot and dusty city life of Alexandria, whither he went,
must the poet have longed for the "chill water that deep-wooded
^tna sends down from the white snow's midst," and been wistful
of the rocks of Polyphemus and Acis flowing to a summer sea. He
sings, too, of the love affairs of Aratus, to whom St. Paul refers as a
witness to man's instinctive consent to the doctrine of the universal
fatherhood of God, an author perhaps recalled to the Apostle's mind
when he visited Syracuse three centuries later. It is in these pas-
toral songs that Theocritus shows his heart more than in the epics
he penned to please Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the rural people and
life of his Sicilian land are the fragrance of his canticles. Nor can
we here forget another native poet, Bion, the "Dorian Orpheus" as
Moschus terms him, who bids him, even in Tartarus, "Sing to the
maiden (Persephone) some strains of Sicily, sing some sweet pas-
toral lay. She, too, is Sicilian and on the shores of ^tna she was
wont to play and she knew the Dorian strain."
The peace, beauty and sunny radiance of this coast and neigh-
borhood seem to naturally prompt to lyric verse and pastoral idyll ;
it would seem no surprise to see the Nereids dancing upon its
shores or to meet Pan wandering in its uplands. The thick woods
494 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of oak and pine are now few, but the banks of thyme and aromatic
herbage remain. The sides of the mountain are overhung with
masses of scarlet geranium, Palma Christi and yellow appled sola-
nums. The joy of living is vividly felt and the heart finds its
outlet in song and the body its harmony in a rhythm of motion.
The city of this ^tna district is Catania, now the second in popula-
tion in the island, and whose pride lies in its views of the mighty
lord to whom, however, it owes the obliteration of all that would
have rendered it of value to the classical student. Nor in our
opinion does it present the best view of the mountain, for we think
that obtained from the ancient Sicelian town of Centuripa, on the
southwestern side of ^tna, to be the finer ; and this, too, is also one
of the most remarkably situated towns, being placed 2,300 feet
above the valley of the ancient stream Simeto, upon an abruptly
rising hill, which the learned tell us stood untold ages before there
was any ^tna to overtop it ! Still the view from Catania is superb,
and the traveler will be sure to make a short stay there. Although
only five years younger than the earliest settlement of Greeks at
Naxos, the remains of its antiquity are buried deep beneath the
floods of lava that have swept over it. Here lived the eccentric
law-giver, Charondas, who made in those early days a statute which
iL would be well to see enforced in all Southern countries to-day.
No one was allowed to carry weapons or knives in the city, and
only without its walls were they permitted for defense against the
brigands of even those times, as Diodorus tells us. Charondas
offered an example of rigid obedience to the rule he had made by
the sacrifice of his own life, for on some occasion, when return-
ing from the country and being attacked by a tumultuous assembly
as he entered the city, the mob espied his weapons upon him and
cried out: "See, this maker of laws is a breaker of them." Cha-
rondas did not deign to defend himself, but replied : "No, by Jove ;
I die to maintain them," and then stabbed himself before them.
We shall seek for the tomb of the Sicilian Homer, Stesichorus,
the blind singer of Trojan and classic legends, the perfecter of the
chorus of the Greek drama, the lyric poet celebrated by Aristeides
and Cicero, and of whose twenty-six books not three consecutive
lines remain to us. He was buried near one of the ancient gates
of the city, and maybe now beneath the Piazza Stesicoro. You
have to descend eight flights of stairs excavated out of the lava to
see the theatre where he ruled, and from whose stage Alcibiades in
B. C. 415 harangued the fathers of the city when endeavoring to
win their alliance with Athens against Syracuse. Upon its once
marble-lined seats sat Licias and Lamachus as the honied tongue of
A Summer in Sicily. 495
their orator was soothing Catanian suspicions. While the city
fathers become lulled by the charm of his words, the Athenian fleet
in the bay is not idle, but is demolishing a little gate, "which un-
dertaking being completed," says Thucydides, "Alcibiades ends his
oration and the Athenian fleet finds at Catania a proper anchor-
age for ships and men in the war against Syracuse." But one can-
not enjoy a theatre by the light of a candle ! nor find inspiration in
a cellar to reflect upon the momentous results that followed the
scenes it has witnessed. We might, too, recall the boy-harper Kal-
liches and many other historic names in connection with Catania,
>€ven down to the musician Bellini of our own time, for the city has
been adorned with many celebrities and is still the literary and sci-
entific centre of the island. We cannot pass by "la chiarissima,"
.however, without a reverential visit to the tomb of the sweet child
St. Agatha, whose tender purity did not stay the torturing hand of
the Roman praetor Quintianus, and amid her cries of "Take me, oh
Lord, for I am thine," her Maker received again the pure soul He
had given. The Norman Roger I. built part of the Cathedral that
now covers her shrine, and it is grateful to find here a tribute from
the English King most beloved by children, the Lion-hearted Rich-
ard, who on his way to the Holy Land placed upon her statue the
■golden crown that it still wears.
The beautiful bay of Catania is more attractive than the city;
across its sun-steeped waters, clear as chrysoprase, you see the
headland that hides the great city of Syracuse, which draws one to
it as the magnet does iron. Upon its now peaceful stretch of water
that seems only to invite repose, Sicilian-Greek and Athenian, Ro-
dman and Carthaginian have had many a noble engagement — perhaps
none more thrilling and picturesque than that in B. C. 396, when
the fleet of Magon the Carthaginian here fought that of Leptius, in
the battle of the Cyclopean Isles, ^tna was in full eruption ; over-
head hung its clouds of smoke ; the shower of its ashes fell among
the deadly combatants ; the lava from its sides blocked with its fiery
stream the advance of the Punic land forces! What a scene of
human and natural agony for a painter's brush to portray !
After Catania the railroad runs inland, as if rejoicing to get free
■from the pressure of the mountains toward the sea, and we are
borne across the ancient Laestrygonian fields, still, as of old, pro-
ductive of the means of both food and clothing for the inhabitants,
for both cotton and wheat grow here luxuriantly. The old stream
of the Simsethus, now weary and shrunken to a rivulet, but formerly
•one of Sicily's most important rivers, marks the boundary of the
496 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
men of Catania and those of Leontini ; and then after leaving on our
right the malarious Herculean Lake, the largest sheet of water in
the island, we come to the town of Leontini, the troublesome
neighbor of Syracuse and on-e of the earliest Greek colonies. It
was colonized from Naxos at the same time as Catania, and its
history is singularly typical of the restless, volcanic temperament of
these early communities — first an oligarchy, then a democracy,
next a tyranny, said to have been the first ever established in the
island ; then came submissions to Syracuse, followed by rebellions
against it. Indeed, to it may be attributed all the trouble caused
by the Athenian invasion ; as to Selinus in the West may be laid
that brought by the Carthaginian, for in it was born Gorgias, who
-exercised so strange an influence over the Athenian mind and who
induced that people to interfere with the affairs of Sicily. He was
the tutor of Alcibiades, whom we have tried to recall in the theatre
of Catania, and from this Leontinian-born orator and sophist we
derive in unbroken lineage the political and forensic eloquence of
to-day. He may be styled the Father of Rhetoric, and his style
comes down to us through Isocrates, one of his most ardent imi-
tators, upon whom was modeled the Latin form of oration that
gives the strength and delicacy to modern metrical prose.
From Leontini the train again seeks the sea, following the valley
of the ancient Terias, and from the lofty cliffs above Augusta we
looked across the Bay of Megara to "Syracuse la fidele." Once
along this curving beach clustering towns were seen, which now
have practically disappeared, while inland is the source of the
famous honey of Hybla, a term embodied in proverb. The name
is vaguely given to the district more than to one spot, yet Melilli
stands as the "Uorida quant multas Hybla tuetur apes'' (Ovid Trist.,
v. 6, 38, etc.) The purple hillsides, covered with thyme and wild
flowers, are still beloved by the bees and their produce still de-
serves the poet's song, yet the fruitful fields, the historic legend of
the land and its sunlit mountains is a memory "Far sweeter to me
than the honey of Hybla" (Eel. vii., 37.) Into the Bay of Megara
stretches the low-lying peninsula of Magnisi, th-e more familiar
Thapsus, and here we come within the circuit of that wonderful
city whose story has thrilled the reader of Thucydides. Now we
take his graphic history in one hand as our guide-book; ground-
ing the curved waters of Trogilus we pass beneath the Dionysian
town wall of the Acradina and find ourselves at the island home of
Ortygia, with many a delightful day's search before us.
Alfred E. P. Raymund Dowling.
London, England.
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 497
AN ESSAY IN PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.
JUST forty years ago Gtistav Theodore Fechner published in
German a book with the title "Psychophysik." Fechner de-
fined psychophysics as the science whose object was to furnish
''an exact theory of the relation between spirit and body and in a
general way between the physical and the psychical worlds." The
book was mainly occupied with the revival and development of some
ideas advanced by Ernst Weber, a fellow-countryman of Fechner's,
who, nearly a quarter of a century before, had made a series of
observations on comparative sensations and the stimuli necessary
to produce them, and from these experiments had deduced a law.
This law, called by Fechner Weber's law, has been stated by Pro-
fessor Wundt, of Leipzig, as follows : "The increase of the stimulus
necessary to produce an increase of the sensation bears a constant
ratio to the total stimulus." If to a weight of one pound held in
the hand an addition of an ounce be made, the difference will be per-
ceived; but if to a weight of ten pounds an ounce be added, the
addition will fail of perception. Not a certain unchanging addition
is perceived, but an amount ever larger as the original weight is
greater must be added before perception is possible. The same law
holds true for other senses besides the sense of touch and the mus-
cular sense involved in the experiment just quoted.
Fechner's observations seemed to verify Weber's law. We now
know that this so-called law is only approximately correct. So
many conditions modify our sensations that the exceptions to the
law are quite as numerous. as the examples of its fulfilment. Fech-
ner attempted to give a mathematical expression to the law, but
his psychophysic formula, as he called it, met with criticism from
the beginning, and now has scarcely any defenders. His book was,
however, destined to become a classic because of the methods of
investigation as to stimuli and sensation that it outlined. Fechner
was a typically patient German investigator, and is said himself to
bave made and tabulated no less than 24,576 separate judgments
in testing Weber's law for weights by the so-called "method of true
and false cases." The methods thus employed have laid the founda-
tion for modern experimental psychology.
Fechner's book is famous for another reason, however. In it
for the first time occurs the term "physiological psychology," the
VOL. XXV.— 6.
49^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
science of mind as far as it can be studied in the physical basis of
the intellectual acts. Ten years later Wundt, of Leipzig, published
a book, with the title physiological psychology, which treats of the
relation of brain function to psychic activities. Shortly after
he opened his laboratory of physiological psychology at the Univer-
sity of Leipzig. Since then the science has continued to attract
more and more attention from year to year. Its cultivation has
been taken up by all the great universities, and its study has to a
large extent displaced metaphysical psychology.
Experimental psychology, which owes its present popularity to
the stimulus of Fechner's book, is still inchoate and not out of its
developmental period. The significance of the results obtained by
observation and experiment is not yet agreed upon even by the
experimental psychologists themselves. The investigations so far
carried out are rather suggestive than conclusive, and do not form
a coordinate body of scientific truth. Physiological psychology^
however, inasmuch as it studies the physical basis of mental opera-
tions, has accumulated a certain number of interesting facts that
may be discussed. As will be evident during the course of this arti-
cle, it is as yet in an extremely unsettled stage, but the importance
of the material it has at command makes even the glimmerings of
great truths that are to be seen here and there amid the obscurities
of the science a source of general interest.
As with all new sciences, exaggerated claims have been made for
physiological psychology and its applications to mental problems.
It would seem as though the experience gained when geology and
chemistry and biology were in their developmental period might
have enabled modern thinkers to discount these exaggerated
claims and make them realize that the promissory notes of a nascent
science are never to be taken at their full face value. Psychology
generally, under the stimulus of the newer methods that have been
introduced into the science, has shown a tendency to exaggerate
its importance. Professor Munsterberg, in his essay on "Psychol-
ogy and Education," says: "The good appetite of psychology has
som-etimes become voracity in our days, and she has begun to de-
vour all mental sciences, history and social life, ethics and logic, and,
finally, alas ! metaphysics ; but that is not a development ; it is a dis-
ease and a misfortune." Certain unfounded pretensions of physio-
logical psychology can only be considered in the same way as a
misfortune. To quote Miinsterberg again, (physiological) "psy-
chology would learn too late that an empirical science can be really
free and powerful only if if recognize and respect its limits, about
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 499
which philosophy alone decides." Meantime the attitude of physio-
logical psychology, in its pretense to explain mental operations by
physical factors alone, has made it an object of suspicion to many
minds, to whom the truths of the new science would be welcome if
they came in their simplicity.
Not all of the suspicion that attaches to physiological psychology
is due to progressive physiological psychologists. The science is
of such fundamental interest that there have been many dabblers
in it who can scarcely be considered authoritative representatives
of its principles. Scientists whose reputations have been made in
other lines of investigation have sometimes been tempted into the
expression of opinions with regard to physiological psychology
that the psychologists themselves would have been the first to im-
pugn.
A very striking example of this occurs in a recent book that has
attracted a great deal of popular attention, Alfred Russell Wallace's
"The Wonderful Century; Its Successes and Failures." Mr. Wal-
lace's position in the scientific world as one of the great original
evolutionists, assures for him a respectful hearing on any scientific
subject. His last book would seem especially to deserve our rever-
ential consideration, since it is, as it were, a great man's testament to
his generation, his last word on the great scientific questions of the
end of the century. It contains many striking passages of sterling
appreciation of the scientific advances of the century and some very
judicious pricking of its scientific shams, but it holds besides a most
valuable lesson. That is that no man can hope to keep pace with
modern science in its advance along all lines, and that even a really
great scientist, when expressing opinions on subjects beyond his
own special field of study, may fall into most egregious blunders.
Mr. Wallace's contribution to physiological psychology comes as
a comment on phrenology. "In the coming century," he says,
"phrenology will assuredly attain general acceptance. It will prove
itself to be the true science of the mind. Its practical uses in edu-
cation, in self-discipline, in the reformatory treatment of criminals
and in the remedial treatment of the insane will give it one of the
highest places in the hierarchy of the sciences. Its persistent neglect
during these last fifty years will be referred to as an example of the
almost incredible narrowness and prejudice that prevailed among
men of science, at the very time when they were making such splen-
did advances in other fields of thought and discovery."^
1 Mr. Wallace's opinion of vaccination in the same book is expressed with like force and
directness. Because of the light it throws on his opinion of phrenology it seems to deserve
500 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Needless to say, Mr. Wallace stands absolutely alone among seri-
ous men of science in holding such an opinion with regard to phren-
ology. His position would be especially condemned, if they deemed
it worth their notice, by those who have devoted any serious atten-
tion to the study of physiological psychology. The opinion is
mainly interesting, as I have said, because it illustrates the utter
nonsense that may be talked by a really great man of science when
he wanders even but a little from his special subject. Claims al-
most as absurd as Mr. Wallace's for phrenology have been seriously
made for certain advances in physiological psychology, but fortu-
nately the day of such shortsighted enthusiasm is gone by.
THE BRAIN AS THE ORGAN OF MIND.
Mr. Wallace's end of the century prophecy of the revival of phren-
ology is interesting from another point of view. It was the discus-
sion over phrenology that, at the beginning of the present century,
first called attention to the fact that the brain was the special organ
of the mind, and as such deserved more attention from those inter-
ested in mental operations than had been given to it previously.
We are apt to consider phrenology now as the catchpenny of the
charlatan, and to forget that Dr. Francois Gall, its inventor, was a
reputable physician, an intelligent and sensible individual, who seems
to have been thoroughly sincere in his claims for the new science.
He had long been a careful student of mental states and of men, and
this system was taken with eminent seriousness by most of the
savants of his day. The subject was brought before the French
Academy of Sciences in a lengthy paper by Gall himself. Phren-
ology was rightly condemned, yet it has continued to influence the
popular mind ever since.
Spurzheim introduced phrenology into England and America,
and the system gained many advocates all over the world. The
discussion it provoked and the popular interest it aroused had an
influence absolutely unforeseen by either its upholders or opponents.
As Dr. Henry Smith Williams said in a recent article in "Harper's
Magazine:" "It popularized the conception that the brain is the
organ of mind." This idea has remained dominant in the popular
quotation ; " It (vaccination) will undoubtedly rank as the greatest and most pernicious
failure of the century. It will be one of the inexplicable wonders for future generations
that the delusion as to vaccination should have prevailed among men of science when pro-
gress in medicine was at its acme at the close of a wonderful century of scientific discov-
ery." Comment on this opinion is unnecessary. The reputable medical profession of the
world is practically a unit in considering vaccination the greatest blessing medicine has
conferred upon mankind.
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 501
fancy ever since. It has been responsible for a good deal of the in-
itiative that has led to the successful investigation of the relations
of brain and mind later in the century. The story of the progress
of the discovery as far as regards these relations constitutes the his-
tory of the modern science of physiological psychology, i. e., the
organized system of knowledge which studies mental operations in
as far as they depend on the nature and function of the brain.
The first important observation in this subject was one of funda-
mental character made by Desmoulins. He pointed out that the
brains of old people were of less average weight than those of mature
adults. This is the result of the senile change that affects all the
tissues of the body and causes them to be less succulent than at
maturity. Desmoulins implied that this organic brain change was
the cause of the characteristic slowness of mental operations in the
elderly and the reason for their lack of initiative. His observations
were embodied in a paper which was read before the French Acad-
emy. The Academy was, of course, composed of men well on in
years. It is not to be supposed that they listened with equanimity
to the young enthusiast who would lessen the reverence for age,
and at the same time rob it of its dignity, by making its proverbial
conservatism and slow deliberateness not a very commendable vir-
tue, but only a necessary result of atrophic changes in brain tissues
due to the progress of senility. Aristotle, we believe, said that man
was in his physical prime at the age of thirty-five, and in his mental
prime at forty-nine. A mediaeval commentator on the passage says
that recent graduates from the universities always considered this
last figure entirely too old, while the old professors thought that
Aristotle had put the acme of mental capacity in comparative juve-
nility. However that may be, the members of the French Academy
waxed wroth at the impertinence of the young Desmoulins, and
rather peremptorily refused to hear any further communications
from him on this subject.
Desmoulins' observations were the first to connect definitely
changes in the brain with modifications of the mentality. Since
then we have learned how much the condition of the brain, its nutri-
tion, the variations of pressure and of blood supply and the like
have to do with changes in the mental activity. On the other hand,
the conclusions drawn from Desmoulins' observations and from
those of others who followed him have proved a source of not a
little misunderstanding. Too much value has been attached to
the notion that a definite connection existed between the general
condition of the brain and the vigor and accuracy of the mental
502 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
activities. The conclusion has especially gained wide acceptance
that there was a certain ratio between the size of the brain and the
quality of the mental faculties. This is, of course, very far from
the truth. The animals that are cleverest are by no means always
the ones with the largest comparative brain weights. Among men,
while brain weight often seems to bear a direct proportion to intel-
lectual capacity, there are so many exceptions to the rule that it can
scarcely be called a rule at all. It is not even true that man pos-
sesses the greatest brain weight, proportionate to his bodily weight,
of all the animals. He is surpassed in this respect by some of the
song birds and by the smaller apes. As a rule brain weight in-
creases in proportion to body weight. This is true also among the
animals; the elephant and the whale have the absolutely heaviest
brains. In man the brain bears a much more direct and unfailing
ratio to the size of the body than it does to the degree of intelligence
of the individual. It is true that idiots have very light brains and
that great scientists and thinkers have commonly the largest brains.
All that can be said in general is that among the intelligent classes
the brain weight is relatively higher than among the uncultured.
The heaviest brain on record, however, is that of Rustan, an un-
cultivated Scandinavian peasant of rather meagre intelligence. The
next heaviest is that of a moderately intelligent man of the better
class, while the third is that of Tourgenieff, the Russian novelist, a
great thinker, it is true, but still scarcely the man who would be
picked out to head the list of supreme inteUigences. On the other
hand, the brains of some very intellectual men have been compara-
tively light. A well-known example is that of Gambetta, the great
French politician, whose brain weighed only i,ioo grammes, though
the average man's brain weight is about 1,300 grammes, and brains
that weigh 1,000 grammes are found only among idiots. As some
compensation for its lightness it was noted that the brain of Gam-
betta, who owed his political influence to his power as an orator, was
especially well developed in that part of the brain which is known
to be intimately connected with the faculty of speech.
BRAIN LOCALIZATION.
The most important contributions to physiological psychology
have come from observations which demonstrate that special parts
of the brain rule over particular functions. Gall's system of phren-
ology had set men thinking along this line in the early part of the
century, but it was not until more than half the century was past
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 503
that any definite scientific progress was made. Flourens working
at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in the early '40's made a notable
discovery. He undertook a series of experiments to prove scien-
tifically that phrenology, the controversy over which had broken
out again, was without foundation in nature. He was led into a
series of discoveries which have deserved for him the name of
father of brain physiology. His most interesting observation was
that there was in the medulla oblongata, the bulb as it is sometimes
called in English, a very sharply defined area, the slightest touch
of which causes death. The medulla oblongata is the upper ex-
tended portion of the spinal cord, where cord and brain are united.
This small point, the slightest injury to which caused death, Flou-
rens called the nceud vital — the vital knot. It was thought for a.
time that all vital activity was concentrated here, and it was called
the life centre. We know now that this important area contains
the origin of the nerves leading to the heart. It is the interference
with the function of these nerves and the consequent stoppage of
the heart and not any fancied touching of the ultimate point of
union of soul and body that causes the fatal termination.
The discovery of other such localized centres of special activity
in the nerve tissue of brain and cord followed before long. In the
'50's Claude Bernard demonstrated that there was a point on the
floor of the fourth ventricle which, when injured, caused the appear-
ance of sugar in the urine of animals. This we now know to be
the site of origin of certain nerves that regulate the circulation of
the liver. Flourens' work seemed to show, however, that there was
no localization of intellectual functions, or at least of the higher func-
tions of animals. Whatever activities were exercised by the cere-
brum seemed to be accomplished by the whole of the organ, and
not by distinct portions of it. The contradiction of this conclusion
came from the observations of Paul Broca, a French surgeon.
In 1861 Broca presented to the Academy of Medicine of Paris
his account of a case in which the main symptom of the brain lesion
was an inability to speak because the patient had been deprived of
his memory for words or of his power to coordinate the motions
necessary to produce them. This particular condition, aphasia, as
it is called, that is, loss of the power to speak, had been noticed be-
fore as a solitary symptom in a certain number of cases, in which
it was more than suspected that its cause was some lesion of the
brain. After being twenty years under observation Broca's patient
died, and at autopsy proved to have an obliteration of the posterior
portion of the third frontal lobe on the left side. Broca considered
'!>
504 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
that this pointed to a localization of the memory for words and of
the coordinate motions necessary to produce them in this part of
the brain. It may seem rash in the distinguished surgeon to have
drawn a conclusion so important and so seemingly contradictory not
only of experience, but also of the generally accepted views as to
brain function, from a single case. As a matter of fact, however,
there were other cases in medical literature in which it had been
suspected and one or two in which it was explicitly stated that a
lesion of the frontal lobes might cause aphasia.
No discovery is ever quite so unanticipated as it is sometimes
thought to be by succeeding generations. Nearly always it is the
culmination of a series of observations each approaching nearer and
nearer to the truth. The master mind is needed, however, to get
at the essential point on which a new order of thought rests. Broca's
announcement aroused a great deal of interest. Within five years
the claim he made for a centre for speech in the left third frontal
convolution was substantiated by observers in various parts of the
world. An injury to this region always caused at least temporary
loss of speech. In certain cases the corresponding area of the brain
on the other side seemed to be capable of taking up the work of
the injured part. After some delay, necessary for the education of
the new centre, the faculty of speech was once more acquired.
A very curious fact came out during the investigation of the sub-
ject. It was found that while right-handed individuals had their
speech centre on the left side of the brain, left-handed people have
theirs in the right half. The first bit of knowledge of cerebral local-
ization gained in very early times had been drawn from the fact that
a hemorrhage or injury to one side of the brain always caused a
paralysis of the opposite side of the body. The right side of the
body is, as a rule, more used and consequently is better developed
than the left side. It was not surprising, then, to find that it was in
the hemisphere of the brain controlling this side of the body that the
centre for the intricate and important faculty of speech was localized.
The confirmation of this hypothesis furnished by the fact that in
left-handed men a lesion which caused loss of speech was practically
always on the right side was a most welcome contribution to the
subject that seemed to substantiate the whole theory of localization
very completely. The first cases of aphasia with a right-sided brain
lesion that were reported seemed to militate against the conclusion
of a uniformly one-sided speech centre, but the concomitant left-
handedness of these cases served to make the new doctrine of local-
ization more triumphant than ever.
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 505
There began now a series of interesting experiments that demon-
strated the existence in the cortex of the brain of certain more or
less sharply defined areas, each one of which seemed to rule over
the motions of a particular part of the body. In the early '70's
Fritsch and Hitzig applied electrical currents to various parts of the
brain cortex, and found that the stimulation thus produced was re-
sponded to by movements of certain parts of the opposite side of the
body. The conclusion they drew from their observations was that
there existed certain brain centres ruling over the motion of various
members and parts of the body. Their conclusion was received with
almost universal skepticism at first. The subject was taken up for in-
vestigation in many places, but only with the efifect of completely
substantiating Fritsch and Hitzig's results. Francois Franck in
France, Munck and Goltz in Germany and Horsley, Ferrier and
Schaefifer in England repeated the experiments of stimulating the
brain cortex of animals with various modifications of technique, but
with surprisingly uniform results.
Little likely as it seemed to be at first and unacceptable as the doc-
trine was to all who thought of the brain cortex as of higher moment
than merely to act as motor centres for the production of simple
muscular contraction, the conclusion seemed inevitable. The cor-
tical area of the brain was mapped out after most minute and re-
peated observations. The anterior part of the cerebrum, the frontal
lobes of the brain lying just behind the forehead, gave absolutely
no response to electrical stimulation, and were called the silent con-
volutions. Immediately behind these convolutions occurs the most
prominent fissure of the cerebral cortex. Beginning at a point
somewhat behind the middle point of the cerebrum, it runs from
the great fissure that divides the cerebrum into two almost equal
hemispheres downward and slightly forward, ending anteriorly to
the middle of the cerebrum. It thus divides the lateral surface of
the hemisphere into two approximately equal parts. Two large and
important convolutions lie along this fissure, which used to be called
the Rolandic fissure, after Rolando, its discoverer, but which is
now generally known as the central fissure. The convolution that
lies anteriorly to the central fissure is known as the precentral gyrus,
or convolution, the one lying posteriorly being known as the post
central gyrus.
Fritsch and Hitzig's experiments showed that in these two cen-
tral gyri were situated the cortical centres that preside over move-
ments in various parts of the body, that is to say that there were here
definite and rather sharply defined areas of gray matter, the stimula-
$o6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tion of which caused convulsive movement and the removal of which
led to paralysis of various parts of the body. The nervous substance
that presided over the movements of facial muscles lies just behind
the speech centre in the third frontal convolution in the lower part of
the precentral and post central gyri. Above this facial cortical area
lies the centre for the arm, and still higher at the vertex of the hem-
ispheres the leg centre.
For a good many years this crude, simple doctrine of motor cen-
tres occupying the major part of the brain cortex was the accepted
teaching of the schools of neurology and anatomy. That it was
absolutely true seemed to be demonstrated by the fact that the diag-
nosis of the presence of a lesion of the cerebral cortex could be made
from the observation of the muscles that were affected. These local-
izing symptoms as they were called became a most important factor
in diagnosis for cerebral surgery. When an injury happened to the
head, for instance, though there were no external signs on the skull,
the location of the injury to the brain could be often picked out with
almost absolute certainty and the surgeon directed where to look
for the lesion. Brain tumors were located very exactly by the same
method. It was the custom to operate more for epilepsy some years
ago than it is now. Experience has shown, unfortunately, that the
beneficial effect of such operations is only temporary. The surgeon
was always directed in these cases, when operation was decided
upon, by the muscles that were especially affected during the epi-
leptic convulsion. The aura of an epileptic attack, that is, the pre-
liminary musculat twitching or peculiar sensation that precedes the
attack, usually occurs in the muscle or sense organ, whose cortical
cerebral nerve supply is most affected by the lesion that causes the
epilepsy. Despite these confirmations by actual dissection and
demonstration in the living subject of the doctrine of motor cor-
tical nerve centres, the teaching proved to be very incomplete in the
light of later observations.
When portions of the brain cortex were affected it was soon noted,
though only in isolated cases at first, that besides motor functions
sensation was also disturbed. Gradually more and more careful
observations seemed to show that these so-called motor centres were
also sensory centres. The impression is now gaining ground that
these cortical centres are something far more than merely sensory
or motor spheres of function, or even a combination of these. They
represent the higher order of nerve centres that rule over all the
lower centres. They are the storehouse of the physical effects of
the interaction of sensory and motor nerve stimuli which makes the
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 507
accomplishment of an action easier after its repeated performance.
They represent the series of cell changes, chemical and physical,
which makes for the facility acquired from habit.
Careful observation in a great many cases has shown that the
effect of precisely similar lesions is 'by no means always the same
in different individuals. A lesion of Broca's convolution, the third
frontal, does not always produce simple motor aphasia to the same
extent. Charcot pointed out that the memory for words differs in
different individuals. Some recall words by their sound, to some
the mental picture of a word is always the written or printed image
of it, while there are those who remember them by the group of
motions made for their articulation, and still others by the move-
ments required to write them. These four classes of persons, whom
Charcot has called the auditory, visual, articulo motor and grapho
motor types, acquire their facility of speech in different ways, and
the disturbance of speech is consequently manifested in varying
causes. Broca's centre presides especially over articulation, and a
lesion here would affect most the articulo motor type of person.
Just behind and above Broca's centre in the cerebrum is the centre for
the arm, still further back the auditory and visual centres, all of them
being more or less closely connected with each other. All of these
centres together constitute the speech area, and lesions that affect
this part of the brain cortex or the fibres leading from it will affect
the faculty of speech in various ways. The extent of the disturb-
ance will depend on the character of the individual's memory for
words and the image that is called up by his mind before he repro-
duces them.
In a word, there are, besides the absence of the simplicity of mech-
anism at first thought to preside over speech, some positive factors
in the reproduction of words that take this important faculty out
of the realm of the merely mechanical entirely. There is, besides
the cellular factors that preside over the various elements that make
speech possible, a definite relation between the cells and the various
parts of the brain in which they lie which modifies and regulates
the speech faculty, making it not a mechanical action, the same in
every individual, but a something special for each person. Fancied
simplicity of mechanism has given way to the realization of its great
complexity. The obvious suggestion obtrudes itself even from con-
sideration of the physical facts alone that there is a mysterious force
behind the mechanism that coordinates its various parts and, while
preserving the individuality, yet gives a series of results in the com-
munication of ideas to others that seem to be exactly the same as
5o8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
those exhibited by every other human being, yet are eminently per-
sonal.
As to the localization of the higher intellectual faculties, at one
time considered to be definitely settled, recent observations serve
to show that these are something entirely apart from cortical areas
or cerebral centres. The frontal lobes of the brain, the silent con-
volutions, for the added reason that injury to them as a rule
sets up no symptoms that can lead to the location of the lesion, were
claimed by eminent authorities to be the seat of the intellectual facul-
ties. The idea received such wide diffusion that it is still referred to
in popular discussions of mental physiology as if it were an acquired
fact. It is one of those bits of popular science that are apt to be so
misleading. There was never anything more than the merest con-
jecture to support the theory of such a localization. One of the
best known of the rising generation of physiological psychologists
in Germany, Professor Ziehen, of Jena, has recently summed up the
present position in the matter. "The hypotheses," he says, "which
ascribe a relationship of the frontal lobes to higher psychic processes,
to a hypothetical apperception (Wundt) or to 'character' cannot any
longer be accepted. We now know that grave lesions of the frontal
lobes may take place without interference with these attributes,
while on the other hand anomalies of apperception and character
have been observed in all kinds of lesions d! the cortex, no matter
what their location."
PATHOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.
Pathology, the science of disease, proved so helpful for the devel-
opment of physiology, the science of function, in other parts of the
body, that it was hoped it would prove of service with regard to
higher brain functions. This hope was strengthened by the fact
that the study of nervous diseases aided greatly in the elucidation
of difficult problems with regard to the function of nervous tissue.
Disease by eliminating certain of the factors that enter into function
simplifies the question of its why? and how? and frequently calls
attention to quite unexpected elements that enter into it. In gen-
eral, however, pathology has proved disappointing in what it has
been able to give to psychology. The well-known ordinary types
of mental disease, mania and melancholia, present no characteristic
lesions of the brain. It might be thought that the serious disturb-
ance of intellectual function they involve would surely be associated
with marked changes in the cerebral substance. No uniform patho-
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 509
logical conditions have, however, been found post mortem in these
•cases. In some brains a thickening of the membranes is found. In
certain of the chronic insanities the skull bones are thickened, and
bony plates are found in the dura or outer membrane of the brain.
Cystic formations in the middle layer of the membranes have fre-
quently been noticed. Certain sclerotic changes, that is, processes
of hardening, are often reported, as also coloid degeneration of nerve
fibres.
All of these changes have been reported, however, in cases in
which absolutely no anomalies of intellectual activity had been noted
during life. On the other hand, cases of intense intellectual dis-
turbance, chronic as well as acute and persistent up to the moment
of death, have been noted in many cases without any unusual ap-
pearance of the brain or membranes being found at the autopsy to
account for them. Like the delirium of fever, these mental diseases
are supposed to be due to functional changes in the brain tissues,
that is, to nutritive and metabolic disturbances of brain cells, but not
to substantial enduring changes in them that can be recognized by
any means we have at our command at present. The same thing is
true for the delusional states paranoia, hysteria, etc., and even in
most cases for epilepsy. Usually these disorders occur in families,
and in varying degrees or in their equivalents they may be traced
in generation after generation, yet no sign can be found in the braii
of any fause for them.
It is different for the dementias. While extremest mental aber-
ration may run its course without the slightest alteration in brain
tissues being demonstrable by any known method, failure of mental
power is practically always accompanied by gross lesions of the cere-
l)ral cortex that are comparatively easy to find. Sclerotic changes
are very common in these conditions, that is, there is an over de-
velopment of connective tissue, with disappearance of true nervous
tissue. There is always a lessening of the blood supply, due to the
fact that the connective tissue around the blood-vessels increases
in amount and so causes a diminution of their lumen and conse-
quently of their blood capacity. The nerve cells of the cerebral
cortex are, as might be expected, very much affected by this lower-
ing of their nutritive supply. Some of them disappear completely ;
some remain only as detritus in the midst of the connective tissue ;
a few retain the character of cells, but are so much altered in struc-
ture that it is easy to understand that their function must be seriously
interfered with. This is, of course, the pathological picture pre-
sented by advanced dementia. Milder types with less marked alter-
510 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ations are often seen. In fact, senile change in the brain is one ol
these milder types, and the gradual diminution of intellectual acumen
that accompanies it is well known.
There are certain pathological conditions in the brain that cause
marked disturbances of intellection. The presence of a tumor, for
instance, when it does not cause such intense constitutional symp-
toms as absolutely inhibit all normal expression of feeling, may
cause a marked change of disposition. It may make of an easy-
going, quiet-tempered man a querulous, difficult individual, with
whom it is extremely hard to get along. All this, of course, before
the appearance of any sure physical sign of its presence. It has been
noted that a tumor pressing upon the frontal lobes of the cerebrum
may cause a tendency to the constant repetition of little witticisms.
This symptom, called by the Germans Witzelsucht, "the little joke
disease," has been noted so frequently that it is now looked upon
with considerable confidence as a good diagnostic sign of the local-
ization of a tumor when other characteristic symptoms of a tumor's
presence are to be found. It will make most of us a little more
charitable towards the far-fetchers of little jokes to realize that it
may not be their fault, but their misfortune, and that their annoying
peculiarity is really due to a local excess of pressure on their frontal
regions.
Certain diseases by affecting special parts of the nervous system
have given us some very interesting side lights on the manner in
which we acquire our ideas. For instance, since cold is nothing in
itself but only a negation of heat, it might be thought that we de-
rived our notions as to relative heat or cold through the same set of
nerves, and that it was a question merely of quantity not quality of
stimulus that enabled us to distinguish between heat and cold. There
is a disease of the spinal cord, however, syringomyelia, in which
sometimes while the sensation for heat is lost that for cold remains.
Patients may burn their fingers unawares and yet be very sensitive
to cold in the same parts. This has led to careful investigation of
the subject of heat and cold perception. By actual experiment it
was found that there exist in the skin definite areas for heat and
cold perception. These are quite distinct from each other, though
their boundaries frequently overlap and probably represent the dis-
tribution of special terminal nerve endings.
One of the most interesting features of pathological psychology
has been the question of heredity. That there is no heredity of
acquired characteristics of any kind in immediately succeeding gen-
erations is now pretty generally conceded. There undoubtedly ex-
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 511
ist in certain families, however, easily recognized tendencies to
mental troubles, and these recur in generation after generation. It
has been hoped to connect thes.e with some definite anomalies of
brain tissue. There are those who, like Lombroso, think that they
are able to point out even certain easily perceived arrangements of
cerebral convolutions that are usually associated with mental aber-
ration, degeneracy and moral disequilibration. The whole subject is
as yet extremely dubious, however. There are certainly changes
in the brain tissue that have an influence on the moral sense. The
sclerotic changes that mark the beginning of general paralysis of
the insane undoubtedly are the cause of the exaggerated feeling of
self-importance, the neglect of the distinction between meum and
tuum and the sexual divagations that characterize the initial stage
of the disease. The failure of moral principles in the idiot is due to
the absence of brain development. The soul cannot work through
an imperfect physical organ. Neurologists have come to the con-
clusion that certain definite changes in the brain substance are asso-
ciated with alterations of the disposition of the mentality. To the
student of brain pathology it would seem as though the individuality
of men was due to their brain structure, the spiritual source of energy
behind matter being equal in all cases. This doctrine of the equality
of souls is, I understand, the explicit teaching of St. Thomas.
It is easy to understand, then, how a theory of heredity in mental
qualities may be evolved. The child inherits very often the features
of either parent to a marked extent. It is easy to trace parental
resemblances in the eyes or nose or mouth, in the shape of the jaw
and forehead and ear. The stature and build of a parent and child
are often closely similar. It would not be surprising if a corres-
ponding similarity of brain tissue should exist between the child and
its progenitors. If the conformation of the nose and mouth and ear
are similar, why not also that of the convolutions of the brain ? If
the cerebral lobes that are more intimately connected with some
special sense, as hearing or sight, are larger than normal in father or
mother, or have a special form that modifies their function, why not
also in the child? The external organs bear a resemblance, why
not the internal organs? We know that certain changes in the
brain tissue may influence the moral sense, the disposition and the
mentality. It is probable, then, that variations in the size and form
and arrangement of the brain tissue that is given to each individual
at conception and by development may have much to do with his
character and mental capacity and activity. The inheritance of qual-
ities seemingly beyond the range of matter is thus explained because
512 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of the physical basis on which rest spiritual manifestations in the
present order of things.
This predicates an inborn weakness or strength of character in
certain cases, and so may seem to trench on the freedom of the will.
Nothing is surer, however, than that all men are not born equal as
regards their will power. This is generally acknowledged, and the
expressions "weak-willed," "strong-willed" have become ineradicable
parts of the language. Differences in the moral sense that are inde-
pendent of the individual and that are due to his "make up" are also
acknowledged. Some people are naturally good, some prone to
evil ; some are religious by nature, some not. These qualities do not
destroy the free will of the individual, but they make the accom-
plishment of certain acts easier or harder, according to circum-
stances. They add to or take away from the merits of a certain
course of life according to the individual. Our practical application
of the principle that certain irregularities of life may be dependent on
the inherited physical basis of character is the doctrine now uni-
versally accepted by medical men, that the children of neurotic,
paranoiac and insane parents should be most carefully guarded from
all nervous and emotional excitement and from over work. Their
physical condition must also be faithfully cared for and always kept
as far as possible at the very acme of well being. Failure of bodily
health will almost surely involve mental deterioration.
Pathology's contributions to physiological psychology constitute
some of the most suggestive materials that the new science has ob-
tained for its future structure. From the very nature of the condi-
tions under which this material is secured, however, its ultimate use-
fulness is as yet a matter of doubt. The general influence of dis-
eased conditions of the brain on intellectual processes has long been
known. The detailed knowledge of recent years is full of promise
that the relations of mind and body in their highest functions will
be better appreciated by further extension of that knowledge. The
mystery of the ultimate processes within the cell is as yet hidden all
over the body. It can scarcely be hoped that brain cells will yield
any of their secrets to investigators before the physiology of simpler
cells has been made much clearer than it is at present.
PSYCHOLOGY AND MINUTE BRAIN ANATOMY.
The investigation of brain tissues very early in the study of brain
anatomy led to the conclusion that the cells were important elements
in the brain substance. For many years, however, it was thought
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 513
that the network of fibres that makes up the white interior substance
of the brain constituted the organ of mind. The association theory
by which consciousness was supposed to be the result of the inti-
mate connection of different parts of the brain with each other was
for a long time very popular. This theory supposed that all the
brain cells of a particular portion of the brain were connected with
the cells of every other portion. The meshwork of fibrils in the
white substance of the brain was supposed to represent the intercel-
lular connecting links. Whether there was direct connection be-
tween any two fibres in their course within the brain was a mystery,
though such connections were supposed to exist. The structure of
the brain was too intricate for the cruder methods of the early days
even of advancing histology to resolve it into its elements with any
success.
Much was accomplished by staining methods. Much more ground
in the minute anatomy of the brain was gained after the introduction
of the microtome, which enabled the investigator to obtain for obser-
vation extremely thin sections of tissues and so to use higher powers
of the microscope for their study. Besides, he was enabled to follow
in serial sections, that is, in successive cuts from the tissue, the vari-
ous special appearances that were detected in this way to find out
with more assurance their significance in the scheme of brain tissue.
As a matter of fact for minute anatomy the microtome has bean
almost of more importance than the microscope. Brain tissue was
so lacking in consistency, however, that various hardening agents
had to be used to enable it to be cut in sufficiently thin sections with
the microtome. The eflfect of these substances was to obscure nor-
mal conditions, and for a long time minute brain anatomy was prac-
tically at a standstill because of the difficulties involved.
The important advances in methods of examination that were to
lead to a complete change of view with regard to the fibres and cells
of the brain and strike a death-blow at the association theory came
not from the Germans, who had done so much work in histology,
iDut curiously enough from two Latin countries. The most import-
ant discovery of the century in minute brain anatomy was the work
of a Spaniard, Ramon y Cajal. Despite the presumable unlikelihood
of such a thing, the distinguished discoverer has succeeded in gather-
ing around him a school of progressive young Spaniards, among
whom his brother is the best known, who are very ably seconding
his efforts, and who, under the guidance of their master, are doing
work that is attracting the attention of the whole medical and psy-
chological world
TOL. XXV.— 7.
514 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
About fifteen years ago Dr. Camillo Golgi, an Italian microscopist
well known for his researches on malaria, invented a new method
of staining brain tissue. The principal agent in the new method
was nitrate of silver. With this substance Golgi succeeded in so
staining nerve cells and the branches running from them that he was
able to follow them with assurance to their terminations. He suc-
ceeded in demonstrating that all the so-called protoplasmic processes
of the nerve terminated in a tuft of branches. The tree-like appear-
ance of these branched processes gave rise to the name dendrites.
These branches of the cells are not continuous with the branches
from other cells. They have no direct connection with any but a
single cell. The axis cylinder of the nerve cell was a much larger
branch than any of the others. It was along this that nervous im-
pulses were supposed to flow. Golgi did not succeed in tracing this
branch to its termination, so that he left the question open whether
this branch did not form a direct path of communication between
different cells. Golgi's work made nerve fibres of much less im-
portance than they had been. Certain ideas in pathology had ex-
aggerated the value of the nerve fibre at the expense of the nerve
cell. It had been noted that nerve fibres degenerated when the
cell to which they were attached was seriously injured. The cell
was said to exert a trophic influence on the nerve fibre that is some-
how to transmit to it the vital stimuli which kept it alive. Now, it
was realized that the fibre was only a part of the cell, a prolongation
of it for a special function, and, of course, died with the rest of the
cell.
The work on the minute anatomy of the brain which was destined
to influence psychology most was yet to come from the young Span-
ish histologist, who modified Golgi's methods for his investigations.
Ramon y Cajal succeeded in demonstrating that not even the axis
cylinder of the nerve cell is in direct connection with any other nerve
cell. The axis cylinder, like the other cell branches, ends in abso-
ultely free extremities. All of its collateral branches terminate the
same way. Each nerve cell is a separate entity. The nervous sub-
stance of the brain, then, instead of being a complicated meshwork
of cells and nerve fibres connected together, is composed of a mass
of cells with their prolongations, but all of them absolutely separate
and distinct from every other cell. Communication there neces-
sarily must be between the different cells, but it is by contact only,,
and not by continuity. Though the idea thus advanced was new and
revolutionary, it was very soon generally accepted by histologists.
Each single nerve cell came to be called a neuron — a nerve entity —
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 515
and the theory of the neurons has now become a dogma in minute
brain anatomy.
Certain very interesting theoretic considerations have been drawn
from the existence of neurons. It was extremely difficult, in fact
practically impossible, to understand under the old association
theory of an intimate persistent connection between all parts of the
brain how that organ could be made to apply itself to one line of
thought, to the exclusion of every other. A complicated mechanism
controlling the blood supply of the brain, only permitting an abso-
lutely free circulation in the parts to be used and allowing but a
limited supply to the rest of the brain, was the best explanation that
could be given. Needless to say, this was very unsatisfactory.
In the light of the neuron theory the explanation becomes easy.
The central nervous system becomes like the central office of a tele-
phone company, the place where connections between the various
terminal parts of a system are made. When nerve cells by means
of the terminals of their axis cylinders are in contact, the nervous
impulses in one flows over into the other. The end nerve fibrils
have a function like that of the antennae of ants. When they touch,
the message is conveyed from one to the other. When there is no
contact, no nervous impulses pass. Sleep is, as it were, the break-
ing of all the contacts except those necessary to carry on life — the
closing of the exchange, in a word, though the batteries are left in
circuit. When the cells contract and retract from weariness, first
slowness of function results and then finally cessation of function.
When by a sudden severe blow cells suffer from shock, they con-
tract, and unconsciousness results. When the blow is very severe,
not only the cells that are used for mental activity may be aflfected,
but even the neurons more especially concerned with vital functions.
If these are caused to retract, death ensues. Death from concussion
or shock, where the most careful investigation reveals no direct in-
jury to the nervous system, is a well known and not very rare event.
Fright or sudden great emotion may kill in this way.
The essential disconnection of nerve cells serves to hint at least
how in the present order of things trains of thought are isolated from
each other. The brain is always used as an organ, but only those
parts are "connected up," as the electricians say, which are wanted
for the transmission of the ideas that occupy the mind at a given
moment. Every one is familiar with the feeling that the mind is
sometimes groping, as it were, for a word or an idea. It is on "the
tip of th-e tongue," the mind seems just on the point of grasping it,
yet it fails to come when wanted. Later it bobs up serenely of itself.
5i6 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
The nerve filaments failed to make the proper connections for the
reproduction of the word or idea for the moment, but later, im-
pressed by the unsuccessful effort made, they take, as it were, the
first free opportunity they have to make spontaneously the connec-
tions so persistently but vainly sought for before.
All this, of course, is theory. No one has even seen a neuron
move in the higher animals, though they have been seen to contract
in some of the very low animals. The theory has, however, a good
anatomical basis, and it undoubtedly constitutes the most interesting
contribution to physiological psychology that brain histology has
made.
The neuron theory is interesting from another standpoint. Under
the older theories that made nerve fibres in the brain of great im-
portance and endeavored to explain consciousness and certain rela-
tional mental activities on the ground of association, that is, the
interaction of cells and the power of nervous reflexes to awaken ner-
vous energy and excite brain function, the necessity for the vital ac-
tivity behind the mechanism was apt to be more or less lost sight of.
With the neuron theory, unless one were to predicate of each brain
cell an individual consciousness and purpose that would make of
each of them a distinct intellectual being, we are brought face to face
with the necessity for a guiding force, a spiritiis rector, behind the
cells, which energises and coordinates them.
We are brought, then, in the light of the most recent advances in
physiological psychology to a position not unlike that which biolo-
gists have been forced to take up of late years. In biology, mechan-
ical, chemical and physical theories of function held their sway for
a good many years. They have all given way, however, to the
realization that the cell is the important element in physiological
function, and that behind the cell there is a force whose energies are
not according to ordinary physical and chemical laws, but represent
something entirely distinct from matter. Long ago Huxley said:
"The cells are no more the producers of the vital phenomena than
the shells scattered on the seashore are the instruments by which
the gravitation force of the moon acts upon the ocean. Like these,
they only mark where the vital tide has been and how it has acted."
"There is more in life than the processes it controls," Gowers, the
distinguished English nervous specialist, said. Nowhere in the
body is the ancillary character of the cells more manifest than in the
brain.
It has, too, been growing more evident of late that perhaps too
much importance has been attached to the brain as the exclusive
An Essay in Physiological Psychology. 517
seat of the processes by which sensations are differentiated and in-
tellection accomplished. Even in the brain itself it has been pointed
out that the part in which the most complicated mechanism of cells
and fibres exists is the cerebellum, not the cerebrum, though it is
clear that the cerebellum is associated with functions of lesser dig-
nity than those which are accomplished in the cerebrum. M-emory
more than any other faculty associated with intellection has seemed
to have a definite location in the brain tissues. The obliteration of
part of the cerebral function often takes with it a part of the stored
up knowledge of the individual. It has been noted more than once
that a hemorrhage into the brain would cause the complete disap-
pearance of the power to use a language learned late in life, while
leaving absolutely intact another acquired years before. With regard
to memory, however, it may be pointed out that every cell in the
body seems to possess something of the faculty. The practical value
of training depends on this fact. In the modern studies of disease
and immunity there are a number of interesting observations that
point to th'e conclusion that certain impressions made even on ordi-
nary body cells are never eradicated.
The neurons of the brain, that is, the cells within the skull and
their branches, are very little differentiated one from another. Those
that preside over hearing are not recognizably distinct from those
that rule over sight or smell. It is doubtful if even certain distinc-
tions that were supposed to obtain among cells devoted to functions
even farther apart from each other than are the special senses have
any existence in the living cells. Very recently Nissl's staining
methods have given some most suggestive pictures of the interior
of nerve cells and have aroused the hope that our pathology of men-
tal diseases was to have its development in the observation of
changes within the brain cells. So far the hope has not been ful-
filled, and not the slightest hint has been obtained of any difference
of internal arrangement within the cell to correspond to any differ-
ence of function that it may subtend. The nerve endings for tha
special senses, the rods and cones in the eye, the touch corpuscles
in the skin, the olfactory fibres in the nose, the muscle plates in the
skeletal muscles, are all highly specialized. It is at the periphery of
the nervous system, very probably, not at the centre, that the modifi-
cations of sensation are accomplished which cause the translation
of sensory stimuli into various terms when they reach the conscious-
ness.
Physiological psychology is as yet groping in the dark with re-
gard to the physical basis that subtends sensation and intellection.
5i8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
There was much more confident assertion of knowledge ten years
ago than there is now. The reaHzation of the utter incompleteness
of certain notions that were generally accepted in the first enthusi-
astic reception of observations that seemed to be of wider signifi-
cance than they eventually proved to be has had a chastening influ-
ence. Exaggerated claims for physiological psychology and the
hopes the new science holds out of elucidating the problems of psy-
chology are growing -ever rarer and rarer. Professor Hugo Miins-
terberg, of Harvard, said in a recent essay^ on physiology and
psychology : "The hope that physiological psychology will give us
a fuller acquaintance with the psychological facts as such is, there-
fore, an illusion."
While we may look, then, for great practical benefits from physi-
ological psychology because of its relations to mental diseases, there
is no ground for the fear that the science may prove materialistic in
its development. Certainly all its tendencies at present are towards
a recognition of the mystery that lies behind cell energy in the
accomplishment of intellectual acts, while its present position em-
phasizes the truth that mental processes, though dependent on mat-
ter, are evidently beyond the sphere of the material and belong to
a totally different order of things.
James J. Walsh.
New York.
A CENTURY OF IRISH IMMIGRATION.
DURING the present century four and a half million people of
Irish birth emigrated to the United States, and at the close
of the century there are more than five million Americans of
Irish parentage — a number greater than the whole white population
of the United States at the beginning of the century.
The close of the century, too, finds more people of Irish parentage
in the United States than in Ireland. Ireland has sent more colo-
nists to North America during the nineteenth century than all
Europe sent in three hundred years. As compared in numbers, all
the previous great migrations of history dwindle into insignificance
when placed side by side with the Irish migration. The successive
migrations which overturned the Roman Empire did not aggregate
within a million of nineteenth century Irish immigration.
2 " Psychology and Life." 1899. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
A Century of Irish Immigration. 519
Less than a million people followed Alaric and Attila ; the Vandal
migration which overspread Spain and Northern Africa is never
estimated at more than a million. The great tribal movement of
the Tartars under Genghis Kahn numbered but 800,000. The
Huguenot migration from France, in the eighteenth century, did
not exceed a quarter of a million ; yet, singular to say, the historians
have paid more attention to it than they have to the great Celtic
trans-Atlantic migration of the nineteenth century.
From 1840 to i860 two million Irish immigrants settled in the
United States; from i860 to 1880, one million; and another million
from 1880 to the present time. The tide of immigration, which was
accelerated by the famine of 1847 to "a million a decade," has
averaged a little over half a million a decade since i860.
Had Irish migration been directed to the virgin forests of the
Northwest, it might have founded here a dozen great Irish-American
States of the Union. Economic conditions and divers other causes
decreed that it should end its journey among the New England and
Middle States. Here, at the close of the century, reside three-fifths
of the Irish immigrants and their descendants. Something over a
fourth of this immigration found its way to the twelve agricultural
States called the North Central States : Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska
and North and South Dakota.
This circumstance of territorial distribution has decidedly influ-
enced the occupation and social condition of the Irish immigrants.
The people of the North Atlantic States are more of an urban
than an agricultural people, but one-fifth of their number living on
farms. On the other hand, nearly half of the people of the twelve
North Central States (the "West" of other days) are farmers.
But as the Irish immigrants are most largely settled in the non-
agricultural States, it happens that they are to-day less of an agricul-
tural people than any other considerable element of our population,
but fifteen per cent, of their whole number residing on the farms of
the country.
In the twelve North Central States above mentioned nearly a
third of the Irish-born people are engaged in agriculture, a per-
centage not greatly below that of their neighbors of other racial
extractions. In Iowa, for instance, according to the census of
1890, there were over fifty thousand people of Irish maternity pur-
suing gainful occupations, twenty-five thousand of whom were en-
gaged in agriculture. In the Dakotas, of fourteen thousand per-
sons of Irish maternity pursuing gainful occupations, nearly 8,000
were farmers. In Wisconsin, of fifty thousand persons of Irish
520 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
maternity pursuing gainful occupations, twenty-two thousand were
engaged in farming ; these statistics going to show that occupation
is largely determined by the matter of a people's territorial distri-
bution.
Among the many important effects of Irish immigration on
American history was its decisive influence in destroying the sec-
tional equilibrium between the North and the South, which, since
the foundation of the Government, had been the recurring issue in
American politics. Irish immigration swelled the numerical pre-
ponderance of the North and set in motion Western migration of
Northern people, thus building up the great Northwestern States,
which gave the non-slave-holding Commonwealths a majority in
Congress. ''We should have excluded the Irish when we shut out
the Negro," said a Southern politician before the war; and the
Know-Nothing programme won in the South particularly because
of this view.
SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE IRISH-BORN POPULATION.
Since the United States census of 1870 more attention has been
paid to gathering statistics regarding our foreign-born population
than in previous enumerations. We are enabled from the census
reports of 1870, 1880 and 1890 to obtain some interesting facts with
regard to the social condition of the Irish-born citizens of the United
States.
Although the great tide of Irish immigration ended about the year
1863, the Irish-born population of the United States has remained
almost the same from i860 to 1890. The United States census
shows that in 1870 there were 1,856,000 Irish-born people in the
United States, in 1880 there were 1,855,000 Irish-born people in the
United States and in 1890 there were 1,871,000 Irish-born people in
the United States.
In 1880 residents of the United States of Irish parentage num-
bered 4,530,000 and in 1890 4,913,000. No statistics of this nature
were gathered by the census of 1870.
Occupation is an index of social condition. As to the Irish-born
residents of the United States, the census reports yield these signifi-
cant facts :
Census 1870. Census 1880. Census 1890.
Irish-born farmers 88,000 107,000 100,000
Irish-born laborers 229,000 225,000 203,000
Of the whole population of this country pursuing gainful occupa-
tions 24 per cent, are farmers; of the German-born population
A Century of Irish Immigration. 521
nearly 20 per cent, are farmers ; of the Irish-born population nearly
10 per cent, are farmers.
The figures above given indicate that if our Irish-born population
is still chary toward its better destiny on the farms of the country,
it is, nevertheless, also emerging from the status of a laboring popu-
lation.
The total number of Irish-born persons pursuing gainful occupa-
tions was in 1880, 979,000, and in 1890, 1,065,000. In 1880 23 per
cent, of the Irish population were laborers. In 1890 the percentage
of Irish-born laborers is 19 per cent.
While the number of unskilled Irish-born laborers shows some
decrease, there is some gain in Irish-born skilled labor, as the follow-
ing figures respecting the chief trades will indicate :
1880, 1890.
Irish-born blacksmiths 13,000 13,490
Irish-born carpenters 14,000 16,126
Irish-born masons 13,000 14,540
Irish-born machinists 6,000 8,200
Fifteen per cent, of the people of the United States are engaged
in trade and transportation, or what is ordinarily called mercantile
pursuits. Only 9 per cent, of the Irish-born population are thus
engaged, according to the census of 1890. They have, however,
made a slight gain in this respect as compared with the census of
1880.
In the professions Irish-born people are also making progress :
1880, 1890.
Irish-born clergymen in the United States 2,516 2,817
Irish-born lawyers in the United States 1,008 1,248
Irish-born teachers in the United States 3,9i6 3,937
Irish-born physicians in the United States 1,028 1,065
Irish-born journalists in the United States 324 462
Here are some facts for the votary of temperance, indicating that
not only the Irish, but also the Germans are leaving the liquor
business :
1880. 1890.
Irish-born saloon-keepers 8,500 7,500
German-born saloon-keepers 21,000 19,200
A prejudice which regards the policemen as too numerously of
Irish birth may be corrected by these figures :
1890,
Total policemen 74,629
Irish-born policemen 12,500
German-born policemen 5,800
522 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The census of 1890 shows that there are 1,216,000 female domestic
servants in the United States, of whom 154,553 are Irish-born and
133,500 of German and Scandinavian birth. Two-thirds of our
female domestic servants are of native birth.
THE SECOND GENERATION.
Our studies in the last census reports (of 1890) give us very hope-
ful indications respecting the social condition of the second genera-
tion of the Irish race in America. Taking occupation as an index
of social condition, we note that in the United States (according to
the census of 1890) there were engaged in gainful occupations a total
of 1,065,000 persons of Irish birth and 1,122,000 persons of native
birth, but of Irish maternity. Now the question as to whether the
second generation of the Irish race is improving in social condition
compared to its parent stock will be answered by noting how these
two armies of workers are distributed in the occupations.
It appears that while there are 203,000 laborers in the United
States of Irish birth, there are less than 90,000 laborers of native
birth and Irish maternity. In other words, while one out of five of
the Irish-born people in the United States belong to the ranks of
unskilled labor, but one out of twelve of the second generation is
thus classed. There are 154,000 Irish-born female servants in the
United States, or one out of seven of the working Irish-born popula-
tion here; but there are only 68,315 domestic servants among the
second generation, or one out of 16 of that generation.
The second generation is not taking to the farms, however. While
there are 100,000 Irish-born farmers in the United States, but
77,000 native persons of Irish maternity are so classed. The ob-
vious drift of the second generation of all classes is away from the
farms.
In "trade and transportation," which includes all mercantile pur-
suits, 162,000 Irish-born persons are engaged, and 245,000 persons
of native birth, but Irish maternity. This indicates the drift of the
Irish race in America from the ranks of unskilled labor to the
higher avocations of trade and commerce.
In the department of skilled labor progress is also apparent :
Native born
Irish of Irish
Born. Maternity.
Carpenters 16,100 17.500
Shoemakers 14.500 23,000
Machinists 8,200 15.000
Blacksmiths 13.500 11,300
Dressmakers 12,230 43.500
Plumbers 4.224 13.300
A Century of Irish Immigration. 523
It is in the professions, however, that we note the strongest evi-
dence of the social amehoration of the Irish-American :
Native born
Irish of Irish
Born. Maternity.
Clergymen 2,817 2,342
Lawyers 1,243 3,390
Physicians , 1,063 2,125
Journalists 462 1,000
Teachers 3,937 24,900
Engineers 1,114 2,085
Theatrical 700 2,375
Government officials 750 5,448
Artists and authors 350 986
The second generation is not filling the ranks of the priesthood
as readily as the parent stock ; but their great increase in all the pro-
fessions, and especially in the desks of authority in the schools, is
noteworthy.
For purposes of comparison these figures will be of interest :
PERCENTAGE OF CLASSES OF POPULATION ENGAGED IN CERTAIN
OCCUPATIONS.
Of Native
bom with
Of the whole Of the Irish
Population. Irish born. Mothers.
Lawyers 39 .11 .29
Teachers 1.50 .37 2.29
Officials 35 .34 .52
Policemen 34 1. 15 .68
The following statistics will also be of interest :
Native bom
Irish of Irish
Born. Maternity.
Saloon-keepers 7,575 5,600
PoHcemen 12,500 7,600
Thus, there are more lawyers, doctors and authors among the
second generation of Irish- Americans than there are saloon-keepers,
and more teachers than policemen.
IRISH AND GERMAN IMMIGRATION COMPARED.
Ireland and Germany, having furnished the two main streams of
immigration to the United States, comparisons will naturally be of
interest. The climax of Irish immigration was reached in the de-
cade 1850-60; the climax of German immigration in the decade
524 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
1880-90. In the latter decade German immigration outnumbered
Irish immigration by over 800,000, and solidly established the Ger-
mans in the first rank as the most considerable "foreign" element
in our population.
The statistics of Irish and German immigration by decades are
here given :
From Great Britain
" Not specified"'
From Ireland. From Germany. (Mostly Irish >
1820-31 50754 6,751 7,942
1831-40 207,381 152,454 65,347
1841-50 780,719 434,626 229,979
1851-60 914,119 951,657 132,199
1861-70 456,593 822,007 349,656
1871-80 444,588 757,698 7,90^
1881-90 655,482 1,452,970
1891-99 (June 30) 366,767 529,666
3,876,444 5,107,829 793,031
The total Irish immigration to the United States from 1820-99
is set down in books of statistics at 3,876,444. But Carroll D.
Wright in "The Statesman's Year Book" (1899) says: "Many
persons immigrated from Ireland are brought under Great Britain,
not specified, or the British provinces." From Great Britain, "not
specified," the total immigration (1820-98) was 793,000, and from
the British provinces, 1,048,000. It is a very moderate estimate to
figure half a million Irish among these, especially as most of those
classed as "Great Britain, not specified," immigrated soon after the
Irish famine of 1847.
The census returns for the last forty years with reference to the
Irish and German elements in the population are of interest :
1850. i860. iS-o.
Irish-born 961,719 1,611,304 1,855,827
German-born 583,774 1,276,075 1,690,563
1880. 1890.
Irish-born i,854,57i 1,871,509
German-born 1,966,742 2,784,849
Irish parentage 4,529,523 4,913,238
German parentage 4,883,842 6,871,524
In 1850 the Irish were two-fifths of all the foreign-born ; in 1890
they were one-fifth. In 1850 the Germans were one-fourth of the
foreign-born population; they are now three-tenths. No compila-
tions of foreign parentage by separate countries were made until
the census of 1880.
A Century of Irish Immigration. 525
In 1870 there were 165,000 more Irish-born people in the United
States than people of German birth; but in 1880 the German-born
population exceeded the Irish-born population by 112,000. This
gain of 377,000 was principally due to the fact that German immigra-
tion during the decade 1870-80 exceeded Irish im.migration by
313,000. Again, in 1890 the German-born population shows a
further gain over the Irish-born population of some 800,000,
due to the fact that German immigration during the decade ending
1890 exceeded Irish immigration by 787,000.
The American-born children of the Irish immigrants numbered
in 1890 somewhat over three millions, and the American-born chil-
dren of German immigrants somewhat over four million. The fact
that Irish immigration is older than German immigration may
justify us in estimating that the Irish element (counting the third
and fourth generations) is not, however, much behind, numerically,
the German element.
German immigration, coming later than Irish immigration, peo-
pled the West, so that to-day one-fifth of the German-Americans
are farmers. In the North Central States there are 816,000 Ger-
man-born persons pursuing gainful occupations to 238,000 Irish-
born persons (census of 1890).
It is apparently a mistake, however, to assume that the Irish are
by any large disproportion a city element in this country. To reside
in the cities is more or less the fate of all immigrations. Taking
the census returns of 1890 for the thirty large cities of the United
States, we find the German-born population exceeds the Irish-born
population in twenty-three cities, including New York, Chicago,
Brooklyn and St. Louis.
Of the Irish-born population in 1890 56 per cent, was found in the
124 principal American cities ; 48 per cent, of the German-born pop-
ulation was also found in these cities. Of the whole number of
Russians, Poles and Italians 57, 58 and 59 per cent., respectively,
were found in the principal cities — these three foreign elements
1)eing more inclined even than the Irish to crowd in the cities.
The number of persons of Irish maternity pursuing gainful occu-
pations is only a few thousand larger than the number of persons
of German maternity pursuing gainful occupations. How the
second generation of these great elements is distributed in occupa-
tion will be of interest :
Natives of Native* of
German Irish
Maternity. Maternity
Farmers 148,000 77,000
Servants (female) 73,37i 68,315
526 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Natives of Natives of
German Irish
Maternity. Maternity.
Saloon-keepers 6,978 5,5^5,
Clergymen 1,974 2,350
Lawyers 2,177 3.390
Teachers 10,052 24,900^
Officials 2,827 5.448
Policemen : 3J93 7>62i
Laborers 63,400 90,400
Trade and transportation 221,000 245,000
The Irish element is far behind the German element in agricul-
ture, but far ahead in the professions and slightly ahead in the pur-
suits classed as mercantile.
SOME VITAL STATISTICS.
According to the statistics gathered by the United States census
of 1890, the death rate in the United States is about 18 to i,ooa
inhabitants (Part IL, Miscellaneous Statistics, p. 3). The rural dis-
tricts are healthier, of course, than the cities, the actual death rate
in the country being estimated at probably 15.5 per 1,000; in the
cities, 23.5
The birth rate in the cities, according to the census of 1890 (Part
II., Vital Statistics), is 27 per 1,000 of the population. So it happens
that the modern city grows naturally in population. This was not
the case with cities in former centuries. Their death rate
exceeded their birth rate; they would have shrunk in population
except for the reinforcements they received from the rural dis-
tricts.
The birth rate in New York city is 28^ per 1,000 inhabitants ; in
Chicago, 31 ; in Milwaukee, 33^^ ; in St. Paul, 31^ — ^th-ese being
cities where the foreign-born population is largest (38 to 42 per cent,
of the whole). In Baltimore the birth rate is 25^^ ; in Indianapolis,
20^ ; in Washington, 21 — these being cities where the foreign-bornr
population is smallest.
During the census year 1890 9,569 children were born in the city
of New York of native parentage and 26,845 of foreign-born par-
entage. In other words, 2y per cent, of the births were of native
parents and 73 per cent, of foreign parents. The foreign popula-
tion of New York in 1890 was 42 per cent, of the total population.
The birth rate to foreign-born parents was 42 >^ per 1,000 of foreign-
born persons. The birth rate to native parents was 11 per 1,000 of
native-born persons.
A Century of Irish Immigration. 527
The excess of births among the foreign-born population is to be
attributed to the fact that they are more largely an adult population
and probably more fecund. In Boston, where the foreign-born
population was 35 per cent, of the total population, the births of
native maternity number 2,408, and of foreign 6,098 (8 to 1,000 of
the native-born population; 39 to 1,000 of the foreign-born popula-
tion). Here we observe that the foreign-born population, number-
ing a little more than one-third of the whole population, had more
than twice as many births as the native population. In Cincinnati
the births of native maternity were 3,420 ; of foreign maternity, 3,083.
The foreign-born population of Cincinnati in 1890 was 24 per cent,
of the entire population.
The death rate in our cities averages 22.78 per 1,000 whites. (In
London the death rate is 20.3 per cent. ; in Paris, 243/2 ; in Dublin,
26'y2.) The element of Irish maternity, which is largely a city ele-
ment in this country, averages a death rate of 26.74. Those of Ger-
man maternity average a death rate of 19.87. In New York city
the death rate among those of Irish maternity is 32.2. Among those
of German maternity it is 22. As indicating that this large death
rate is chiefly due to the crowding of people in the tenement quar-
ters, we may note the contrast presented in such cities as Milwaukee,
Detroit and Cincinnati. In Detroit the death rate among those of
Irish maternity is 18 per 1,000; in Milwaukee, 17.45 per 1,000; in
Cincinnati, 15.77 P^^ 1,000. The death rate of those of German
maternity in the two latter cities is slightly greater than the death
rate among those of Irish maternity.
These conclusions, applicable to the Irish element, are derivable
from the foregoing statistics :
I. Had the Irish immigration been settled on the farms of the
country rather than in the cities, its numerical strength in the sev-
eral census enumerations would be greater.
II. It has been distanced numerically by the German element (i)
because German immigration was larger ; (2) because the conditions
for natural increase are better among the Germans — they being
more largely settled on the farms.
III. Compared with the native population, in the Eastern States
especially, the Irish element (in common with other immigrant ele-
ments), is increasing and will increase relatively much more rapidly.
In many New England cities, and in three of the New England
States, the Irish element will ultimately constitute an actual majority
of the population. This would also be the case with New York and
Chicago, except for the larger German element which keeps pace
with or passes the Irish element in natural increase.
5^8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
BOOKS RELATING TO THE AMERICAN IRISH.
About the year 1850, when fully a million Irish-born people were
settled in the United States, the Irish-American community became
sufficiently self-conscious to wish a survey of its status and its
prospects. In that year Thomas D'Arcy McGee, then editor of the
Boston Pilot, and a man of fine literary accomplishments and patriotic
sympathies, published a book entitled "A History of the Irish Set-
tlers in North America." Its chapters called attention to the large
Irish emigration here during the eighteenth century and the part the
Irish race bore in the American Revolution.
McGee also discussed the position and requirements in 1850 of the
Irish in America. Out of a population of twenty-four millions, he
estimated the Irish-American element at four millions. The census
of 1850, however, shows an Irish-born population of a little over
900,000. McGee was plainly of opinion that the future of the Irish
lay in newer States. "The torrent of emigration from Ireland," he
said, "must in a few years abate its force. Whatever we can do for
ourselves as a people must be done before the close of this century ;
or the epitaph of our race will be written in the West with the single
sentence Too Late."
It was in furtherance of this view that McGee cooperated in call-
ing an Irish-American convention at Buffalo to promote Western
emigration. Bishop Hughes, of New York, opposed the plan. Even
without the Bishop's opposition conditions were adverse.
At the time of the great influx from Ireland (1850-8) there was an
abnormal development of American industries in the East. The
Irish immigrant was attracted and held in the bondage of these in-
dustries. The natural stream Westward to Government lands was
stayed, and the future of Irish-America thereby markedly modified.
Instead of an agricultural and farming people, the Irish immigrants
became hewers of wood and drawers of water to Eastern capitalists
in Eastern mines and mills.
In the year following the close of the Civil War, John Francis
Maguire visited the United States, and, as a result of what was evi-
dently a very careful survey of the field, gave to the public his book
entitled "The Irish in America." Mr. Maguire was proprietor of
the Cork Examiner, a leading Nationalist daily of Ireland. He had
been for many years a member of Parliament, representing, as an
advocate of tenant right, an Irish and Catholic constituency. His
study of the Irish in America is by all odds the best record extant of
nin-eteenth century Irish emigration. It is apparent that his point of
view emphasizes the moral and religious side of the subject — the his-
A Century of Irish Immigration. 529
tory of Irish emigration seeming, in the pages of his work, to be a
record of the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States. In
common with McGee and all subsequent writers who have dwelt
upon the condition of the Irish in America, he notes their great
numbers in the cities and the small percentage on the farms. And
he concurs in the view that the race should be given such incentive
and such direction as would promote its colonization in the agricul-
tural districts of the West.
A work especially written with a view of promoting Irish coloniza-
tion is Bishop Spalding's "Religious Mission of the Irish People,"
published about the year 1880. It expresses the plain consciousness
of the race that the opportunities it had in the early tides of its im-
migration to found great Irish Commonwealths in the Northwest
has been lost, and that the cities have been the cemetery of the race's
energy. There is a chapter on the Irish-Catholic Colonization So-
ciety, an enterprise in which the Bishop was interested about the
year 1880, together with Bishops Ireland and O'Connor and Mr. W.
J. Onahan, and which, like its companion movement, the Irish-
American Colonization Company, managed by John Sweetman, so
slightly aflFected the great problem and so little recovered the lost
opportunity. Bishop Spalding's thesis is that the Irish Catholics
are the most important element of the Church in this country, but
that their environment is a hindrance to their working out, in the
fullest measure, their religious mission.
"The Irish Race, Past and Present," by Rev. August J. Thebaud,
S. J., is a sympathetic and eulogistic study of the religious and moral
strong points of the Irish as displayed in their history. It contains
a few chapters bearing on the American Irish, written altogether
with reference to the religious mission that Father Thebaud marks
out for the race.
Following the great recrudescence in 1880 of Irish- American
patriotism (which had suffered abatement in the dying out of Fenian-
ism, only to revive with the agitation of the land question), Philip
H. Bagenal, an Oxford man, published a book entitled "The Ameri-
can Irish." Mr. Bagenal, who writes from a Tory standpoint, but
with some claim to the judicial quality, comes to the study of the
question too much with reference to the movement of the day, to-wit,
the Irish land question and the influence of the Irish-American ele-
ment on American and British politics. While this must limit, to
some extent, the value of his investigations, his work is interesting
as exhibiting the awakening of the British conscience to the here-
after that its misrule of Ireland has prepared for it in this country.
Mr. Bagenal is also impressed with the way the Irish race congest
VOL. XXV.— 8.
530 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
American cities and their avoidance of what their best interests dic-
tate— settlement on the farms. His study of Irish parties in Amer-
ica and the political and moral status of the Celtic race in this coun-
try is instructive reading, despite his tendency to arrive at alarming
or despondent conclusions.
No survey of American history or politics since 1840 would be
complete without some reference to Irish immigration and the influ-
ence of "The Irish Vote ;" and we have a wide and varied mass of
estimates on this subject, from the few but judicial references to the
American Irish in Bryce's "American Commonwealths" to the uni-
formly disparaging and hostile views of Van Hoist in his "Constitu-
tional History of the United States" (a work said to have been sub-
sidized by the Prussian Government).
Of course, we may read much bearing on the Irish- American com-
munity in the periodical literature of the last half century. A glance
at Poole's Index will convince one of this. O. A. Brownson, a New
Englander, who became a convert to the Catholic Church about the
year 1845, published a Quarterly Review, and for nearly twenty
years, dating '46 to '65, its pages contain frequent articles referring
to the social and political status of Irish-Americans.
In the North American Review for January, 1841, we meet one of
the first magazine articles which notes the growing problem of Irish
immigration. Called forth by the Nativistic movement, it dwells
largely on the question of naturalization. This and similar transient
issues of the kind furnish the main points from which Irish immigra-
tion is discussed up to the period of the Civil War in numerous
pamphlets and review articles. As for more recent magazine arti-
cles on the American Irish it is sufficient to mention Froude's two
papers in the North American Review of December, 1879, and Janu-
ary, 1880; Bocock's "Irish Conquest of Our Cities," in the Forum
(vol. xvii., p. 186) ; Merwin's discussion of "The Irish in American
Life," in the Atlantic (vol. Ixxvii., p. 28), and two notable articles in
the English magazines — the Westminster Quarterly Review (vol.
cxxxiii., p. 290) and the Fortnightly Review (vol ix., p. 220), the
latter article by John Morley.
H. J. Desmond.
Milwaukee.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 531
SIR THOMAS MORE AND THE PERSECUTION OF
HERETICS.
AN HISTORICAL INQUIRY.
IT is a trite saying, the paternity of which might in all prob-
ability be traced to Machiavelli, that "a skilful advocate will
never tell a lie, when suppressing the truth will answer his
purpose; and if a lie must be told, he will rather, if he can, lie by
insinuation than by direct assertion.'* It was no doubt this axiom,
or one strongly analogous to it, that prompted Dean Swift to give
us his deliciously quaint dissertation on "lies," categorically classify-
ing them as "additory, detractory and translatory," and which un-
lovely congeries his inimitable wit illumines in a manner at once
droll, satiric and instructive. The latent energy and full development
of this axiom, which in some of its diversified and variable forms is
found in the proverbial philosophy of almost every civilized nation,
probably finds no wider field or extensive application than in eccle-
siastico-historical writing. Here it usually becomes obtrusively
conspicuous and clamorously assertive, bringing its concentrated
energies in full action when it deals with the Church of God. As
long as these assaults on the Church find themselves voiced in the
melodramatic vaporings and falsetto shrieks of a King, Thompson,
Fulton or Hittel — with a sophomoric display of erudition and a
kindergarten capacity of credulity that intuitively relegate their
labors from the domain of critical analysis to that of psychiatric
diagnosis, leaving only a vague and confused impression on what
Carlyle misanthropically designates as the "inarticulate multitude"
— the ''multitude" which Sir Thomas Browne, with an acrimony
not wholly destitute of truth, calls "the great enemy of reason, virtue
and religion" — they will usually be found abortive, reactionary
and always in the end — self-defeating. When, however, they
present themselves under the sponsorship of accredited, even
thought-moulding literary media, the vehicle itself giving a
prestige which the author could not otherwise command, then
critical interest for the moment becomes aroused, and the vin-
dication of truth becomes a solemn obligation, a sacred duty.
These reflections suggest themselves in reading a recent arti-
cle in one of our most conservative American reviews,^ where
a tabulated and chronological catalogue of hoary, obsolete
1 " The Rebellion Against the Royal Supremacy," North American /?gvten/,Noremhcr, 1899.
532 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
and exploded charges are made against the Church, while osten-
sibly unraveling the tangled skein of Ritualism. The article is
noteworthy for several characteristics usually inseverable from con-
ventional Protestant polemics. There is an absence of all studied
rudeness and offensive arrogance, of ludicrous conceits and coarse
invective — but all the same there is found a naive ingenuousness
and insidious dogmatism, which
. . . under fair pretence of friendly ends,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind them into the easy-hearted man,
And hug them into snares.
In honest polemics it is always more chivalrous to face an oppo-
nent with lowered visor in open field, than introduce the enemy into
the citadel by the strategic wooden horse. To attempt a refutation
of charges that sound scholarship has long since remanded to pro-
fessional purveyors of anti-Catholic pabulum, the commercial
value of whose merchandise is daily depreciating and becoming
more unmarketable, would be about as heroic as Sir John Falstafif
hacking the corpse of the dead Percy.
Among the charges which press the axiom above alluded to, to its
full extent, we find a calumny affecting the name of one of the most
eminent statesmen and intrepid patriots of English history : a man
whose profound learning was the admiration of ^world-wide scholar-
ship; whose moral splendor was the eulogy and envy of European
courts; whose preeminent sanctity, before ecclesiastical beatifica-
tion took the initiative, by public acclaim, blazoned the halo of saint-
hood on his brow; one whose inhuman execution sent a thrill of
horror and consternation over the civilized world ; one whose mar-
tyrdom was a fitting crown to a life consecrated to duty and justice,
humanity and God. We refer to Sir Thomas More.
"Sir Thomas More," says the writer of the article in question, the
Earl of Portsmouth, and it may parenthetically be stated, with
apodictic lordliness, citing no authority, "Sir Thomas More, whose
noble death has obliterated, if it has not largely condoned, the recol-
lection of his acts, was especially active in this direction [suppres-
sion of heretics] . . . Men and women were taken and tried
in Sir Thomas More's house at Chelsea and burned for their prin-
ciples. . . . James Bainham, a gentleman of the Temple . . .
[was] brought before More, who had him whipped in his presence
and then taken to the Tower and racked before his eyes."-
Was Sir Thomas More a religious persecutor? Were men and
women tried in his house and burned for their principles? Was
James Bainham racked before his eyes in the Tower?
2 North American Review, ut. sup., 724-725.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 533
It is a strange and rather bewildering fact that in the light of
modern historical research : the buried treasures of unpublished and
unedited documents sifted and analyzed by such unimpeachable
writers as Brewer, Gardiner, Freeman, Gasquet : the cumulative evi-
dence of these researches exposing a conspiracy of falsehood for-
midable enough to shake one's confidence in the integrity of the
whole body of historical writing: this evidence at the same time
reversing the original verdict of history, and the ripened judgment
and clearer vision of mankind acclaiming that reversal a providential
triumph of truth and justice, the scathing indictment, attainting Sir
Thomas More a bloodthirsty persecutor should again make its
appearance. It has been said, with no little truth, that the posthu-
mous vicissitudes of great men are not only of absorbing interest,
but permanently fix their status in history ; again, as if contradict-
ing this very maxim — that the resuscitation of a character which
the Muse of History, after trial, has sentenced to death was a task,
humanly speaking, impossible. In the case of Sir Thomas More
we have an instance of an historic figure, buried like another Pom-
peii or Herculaneum under a veritable volcanic scoria of falsehood
and slander, after centuries of shame and obloquy — rising Lazarus-
like from its grave at the commanding voice of posthumous history.
It was the modern historian whose largeness of vision would not
be distorted by political bias, obscured by sectarian rancor, daunted
by human fear, who toiled and delved until h-e exhumed the great
Chancellor in his superb proportions. Instead of discovering a
deformed pigmy, he found a colossal giant. A summons issued,
not like that of Henry VIII. to the enshrined bones of Mora's illus-
trious predecessor in name, oflice, martyrdom and sainthood,
Thomas a'Becket, to undergo the mockery of a ghoulish post-
mortem trial, but in this instance to announce his honorable ac-
quittal of all the odious charges brought against him, fixed his
place on the bead-roll of England's worthies. The Muse of His-
tory, discovering the imposture which made her the vehicle of the
evidence of a perjured judiciary, suborned witnesses and slanderous
malignants, was perhaps somewhat tardy, but all the same unswerv-
ing in her sacred mission, and with fearless deliberation expunged
the record of her momentary weakness and unconscious deception
by penning with consistent emphasis and irreversible finality the
decree that the superstitious devotee was, after all, a fervid Chris-
tian of the sanest piety, the bloody persecutor a public functionary
of the most humane impulses, the beheaded felon one of the loftiest
types of moral grandeur in the annals of our race. From that mo-
534 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ment, like Socrates, with whom More had more points of resem-
blance than the mere identity of martyrdom^ his life, virtues and
fate became the glorious inheritance of mankind.
It must be owned that among More's contemporaries there were
isolated and feeble appreciations, not to allude to the Catholic tradi-
tion that revered him as "England's honor, Faith's zealous cham-
pion and Christ's constant martyr," which clearly indicated that,
left to its better instincts, mankind unerringly detects true merit.
But it did not tend to one's peace of mind, protection of property
or security of life during the reigns of "Henry the murderer of his
wives, . . . Somerset the murderer of his brother . . . and
Elizabeth the murderer of her guest/'^to be effusive or demonstrative
in admiration of persons or policies that did not receive the gov-
ernment's sanction or the royal favor. Roger Ascham, the teacher
of Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, tells us that the Chancellor was
"a man whose virtues go to raise England above all nations,"* but
with a prudence born of danger, confined his admiration to the
reign of Queen Mary. We know that Cochlaeus voiced the senti-
ment of the "new learning" when he eulogizes his hero as "a man
whom all praised, loved, admired for his culture, his man-
ners, his affability, courtesy, eloquence, prudence and inno-
cence, who, moreover, as Lord High Chancellor, as the friend
of the King, served the commonwealth with distinction from
his youth, who as royal ambassador acquitted himself bril-
liantly of all his duties, and on the threshold of old age,
in his gray hairs, stood an object of universal veneration,"^
but his eulogy did not find utterance in ear-shot of London
Tower. The cry of sorrow and execration, " Inter fecistis, inter fecistis
homineni omnium Anglorum optimum,^' uttered with bated breath and
choked voice, hardly reached the royal ears, with the epithalamic
ballads, ditties, balls, mummeries, jouets anent his recent nup-
tials, drowning aught else. Erasmus, the devoted friend and ad-
mirer of his companion in letters, had committed himself to warm
and eloquent tributes, so much so that he, who disowned the in-
trepidity which canonized martyrs, found a happier and more
assured asylum far from the land that endeared itself to him by
ties of happy recollections and affectionate friendships.
Thomas More was born in 1480, four years before Luther; he
was martyred in 1535, when the Reformation proudly rode the top-
most crest of its dark, swollen waters, formless and inconstant as the
^Macaulay's Essays, Vol. I., p. 199. ••"... quo viro uno universa Anglia exteris
gentibus nobilior est habita." Letter 156 Works of Roger Ascham, Vol. I., Part II., p. ii8-
I<ondon, 1865. 5 stapleton. Vita Thomae Mori, c. xxxi. 1869.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 535
waves that surged about it. Upon the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, he
was selected as Lord Chancellor, assuming office in 1529, being then
in his forty-ninth year. He was presumably the first layman, and
admittedly the greatest lay or clerical incumbent who 'ever occupied
the office. The comparative estimates sometimes instituted between
More and Bacon, his only formidable rival, will hardly detract from
the glory of the former, but in a crucial scrutiny dim the lustre
of the latter. Both were men of eminent genius. With
the tread and confidence of master minds both made successful,
brilliant incursions into the fields of history, philosophy, theology
and jurisprudence. If we balance them in their judicial characters,
which falls in our present purview, we discover that Bacon may
exhibit a more perfect mastery of technical detail, a greater knowl-
edge of precedent, a more thorough grasp of the abstract principles
of English law, a more masterful familiarity with
. . . the lawless science of our laws,
The codeless myriad of precedent,
The wilderness of single instances ;
but these qualifications, rare as they are, were more than outweighed
by More's innate juridical poise of mind, intuitive perception of the
most complex legal difficulties and an illuminant clearness of deci-
sion which, if it did not always carry conviction, invariably com-
manded respect, even in the face of the most vehement dissent.
When it comes to moral attributes the comparison becomes a glar-
ing contrast. Not a remote insinuation of scandal ever affected the
stainless integrity of More, not a mote of suspicion ever flitted over
his untarnished ermine, while obsequious servility, unpardonable in-
gratitude, criminal malversation in office, left blotches on "the great-
est, wisest and meanest of mankind" that three centuries of per-
sistent and aggressive apologetics have not explained away, much
less effaced.
If his appointment was received with popular approbation in Eng-
land, where his conspicuous ability, blameless life and earnest piety
was the theme of national praise, it was hailed by a perfect chorus
of classic latinity and exuberant enthusiasm in Continental Europe,
where his epigrammatic wit, profound scholarship and zealous ad-
vocacy of classical learning earned him the respect and applause
of all cultivated minds. As Chancellor his irreproachable conduct
and legal supremacy was only equaled by his methodical applica-
tion and indefatigable capacity for arduous work. The legacy of
accumulated work left by his predecessor was disposed of with as-
tonishing rapidity, so that one day the docket being found empty.
53^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
a condition probably without precedent, some humorous punster
celebrated the event in the clever epigram :
When More some years had Chancellor been,
No more suits did remain ;
The like shall never more be seen
Till more there be again.
In entering upon his office as Lord Chancellor he "had to swear,"
to quote Seebohm, "by his oath of office, among other things, to
carry out the laws against heresy. He became by virtue of this
office the public prosecutor of heretics."^
The law against heresy as we find it in the English Statute Book^
made it a capital felony. The origin and cause of this drastic legisla-
tion lies deeper than the superficial student of history supposes. It
was enacted in 1401 against the Lollards and Wickliffites, who "had
been," as Froude, with manifest reluctance and to the surprise of
those who know his historical methods, owns, "political revolutionists
as well as religious reformers, the revolt against the spiritual author-
ity had encouraged and countenanced a revolt against the secular,
and we cannot be surprised, therefore, that the institutions should
have united to repress a danger which was formidable to both."® It
is always well to bear in mind, especially in view of the fact that has
been sedulously kept out of sight, that "when we speak of the Lol-
lards as martyrs," to put it pithily in the words of Dean Hook, "we
ought to regard them as a kind of political martyrs rather than reli-
gious ; they made religion their plea in order to swell the numbers
of the discontented, but their actions all tended to a revolution in
the State as well as Church." Like the Reformation in the six-
teenth century and the French Revolution in the eighteenth, which
historical criticism pronounces cause and effect, for both had a
common genesis, the Lollards "directed their first attacks upon the
Church because the Church was a most vulnerable part of the con-
stitution. But the civilians," and this almost gives the analogy the
force of an identity, "the citizen people were quite as much alarmed
at their proceedings as the ecclesiastical. Both Church and State
regarded the principles of the Lollards as subversive of all order in
things temporal as in things spiritual."® This view is further con-
firmed by another fact usually overlooked, and one which Canon
Stubbs brings clearly to light — that an 'exhaustive research of the
history of England during the Middle Ages can produce but three
instances, up to the legislation against Lollardism, where heresy
was punished.^®
6 " The Era of the Protestant Revolution," pp. i8o-i8i. ^ 2. H. iv.,c. 15. 8 " History of Eng-
land," Vol. II., p. 33. 9 "Uves of the Archbishops of Canterbury," Vol. III., p. 72.
10 Stubbs ; " Constitutional History of England," Vol. III., p. 353.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 537
It was the identification of false doctrine with civil disorder, the
association of heresy with rebellion, that made them an alarming
menace to the populace, a political treason to the State, an
object of condemnation to the Church. By a simple and par-
donably specious process of reasoning, one that seemed im-
perious to the lawgiver, reassuring to the patriot and endorsed by
conservative sentiment in Catholic and Protestant countries, and one
that still finds a strong constituency, orthodoxy was legally defined,
to quote an eminent Protestant theologian, Hagenbach, as *'an obli-
gation which man owed to the State; heresy, on the contrary, was
considered a political crime."^^ ''It was argued, to quote another
Protestant authority and press the analogy closer, ''that if treason
and disrespect to earthly powers incurred the severest penalties,
much more ought there to be inflicted on the guilty parties who,
by their maintenance of false doctrine, had both imperiled souls and
done despite to the majesty of heaven. . . , All sects agreed
in the duty of exterminating heretics and unbelievers by the sword."^^
"To the sixteenth century," is the observation of one who speaks
with commanding authority. Professor Gairdner, "heresy was a
very serious evil ... it was not mere wrong opinion, it was
arrogance tending to a breach of the peace. Coercion of some kind
seemed to be fairly called for. ... A heretic," he continues,
with striking clearness, "it should be remembered, is not only one
who holds wrong opinions, we all do that more or less in the course
of our life ; he is one who arrogantly asserts in the face of authority
that he is right when he is not competent, either in learning or in
judgment, to discuss the matter. Thought was as free in the Mid-
dle Ages as it is in the present day," a demonstrable fact which is
daily receiving wider recognition with thinking men ; "but," he goes
on, "if afresh thinker saw any new light upon old questions he was
expected to dispute the point in the schools with competent theo-
logians, and not pour a flood of sophistries into the minds of admir-
ing congregations, while claiming absolute irresponsibility for the
position he took up."^^ In short, to reject the State religion was
like refusing the State currency and, borrowing an illustration from
St. Thomas Aquir^as, establishing a mint of one's own.
Religious persecution, call it a folly, a madness or a crime, was
indigenous to every soil, Christian or Pagan, Catholic or Protestant,
with the one cogent, palliative plea in favor of Catholicity, that its
endeavor was to preserve the integrity of Christian Unity. The
effort made to father the ill-favored offspring, with all its brood of
" "History of Doctrines," Vol. I,, p, 244. "chamber's "Book of Days," Vol. II., p, 504
^3 J. Gairdner in "Academy," 1891, pp. 491-492.
53S American Catholic Quarterly Review.
exaggerated monstrosities, on the Catholic Church has long since
been abandoned to the recondite investigation of freshmen prize
essayists, or the innocuous deliberations of the annual rustic Sab-
bath school convention. "Persecution among the early Protest-
ants," writes Lecky, "was a distinct and definite doctrine, digested
into elaborate treatises, indissolubly connected with a large portion
of the received theology, developed by the most enlighten'ed and
farseeing theologians and enforced against the most inoffensive as
against the most formidable sects. It was the doctrine of the palmi-
est days of Protestantism. It was taught by those who are justly
esteemed its greatest leaders."^* "Persecution," in the opinion of
Hallam, "is the deadly original sin of the Reformed churches, that
which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in proportion
as his reading becomes more extensive."^'^ The multiplication of
sects and the dogmatism of private interpretation only aggravated
matters, substituting for the one corporate authority, which was
decried as the source of persecution, an infuriated host of rant-
ing and canting sects, who in the same breath that they
cursed the intolerance of Rome, inflicted the most pitiless
punishment on each other. "Individuals," says Froude, "did
not hesitate to ascribe to themselves the infallibility which they
denied to the Church. Everybody was intolerant on principle, and
was ready to cut the throat of an opponent whom his arguments
failed to convince."^^ Probably the most truculent language on
this subject we find, not in the imperial edicts of Trajan, Diocletian
or Caracalla, but in the religiously preserved writings of the Saxon
Reformer of Wittenberg. "If we punish thieves by the rope," fairly
shouts Luther, "murderers by the sword, heretics by fire, why do we
not attack with -every weapon . . . the whole sink of Romish
Sodoma . . . and wash our hands in its blood ?"^^ The glosses
usually adopted to explain away this savage ferocity have been
abandoned by writers familiar with Luther and his language. The
eminent Tiibingen Professor of Theology Weizsacker very judi-
ciously contends that "it must not be overlooked that Luther in
these fierce expressions, in the Epit. Resp. Silv. Prier., and in his
treatise against the Bull of Antichrist, represents his procedure
against the hierarchy as a punishment for heresy, therefore a justi-
fiable interference !"^* A subject of uncommon interest to the psy-
chologist would be the attempted solution, how far the mind that
" "History of Rationalism," Vol. II., p. 61. 1* " Constitutional History of England," Vol
I., p. 154. N. Y., 1886. 16 "Short Studies on Great Subjects," Vol. I., p. 173. " Walchj
" I^uther's Werke," Vol. 20, p. 223 ; 2203-2207 et seq. i« " Gottingen Gelehrten Anzeigen," p.
845- 1881.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 539
gave utterance to such a doctrine would have allowed the will under
advantageous conditions to put it in execution ! Calvin, the Moses
of the Reformed churches, the reign and dominion of the Genevan
predestined saints firmly established, himself in the height of his
unchallenged power, enforced his doctrines with an inflexible Mo-
hammedan rigor. For the most trivial moral derelictions the most
summary penalties were dealt out. "Between 1542 and 1546," says
an authority of unimpeachable character in this specific case, "no
fewer than fifty-eight persons were sentenced to death and seventy-
six to -exile. On the 6th of March, 1545, the gaoler reported to the
Council that the prisons were full and could hold no more. . . ,
'Human life,' says Professor Kampschulte, 'appeared to have lost
its value in New Geneva.' "^® Surely no Spanish Inquisitor, painted
in all the revolting hues of traditional bloodthirstiness, could ap-
proximate the Mephistophelian ingenuity of the same spiritual auto-
crat, when in vindicating his conduct in the Servetus murder^^ he
not only maintains that "heretics should be put to death without
mercy," but intimates a doctrine by the closest inductive reason-
ing— one that stands unprecedented and unparalleled in the history
of civilized or even uncivilized nations — that even "those who
doubted this [inflicting the death penalty on heresy] should die
for their doubts.''^^
Nor can we claim an amelioration, much less immunity from this
spirit of persecution, in studying the growth of our Republic. Dur-
ing the entire colonial period "we were essentially a nation of Pro-
testants . . . and took similar [European] methods in main-
taining and perpetuating our Protestantism, excluding those who
dissented from it from sharing in the government and frankly adopt-
ing the policy which had prevailed in England from the time of
Queen Elizabeth. "^^ We must hang our heads in shame and sor-
row when we study the Pilgrim Fathers' theocracy, when "the cruelty
of their laws against freedom of conscience," says Judge Black,
"and the unfailing rigor with which they were executed made Mas-
sachusetts odious throughout the world."^^
Another salient point, a contributing if not essential factor in
studying the question, is the extreme severity of the law and con-
temptuous valuation placed on the sanctity of human life during the
period of history under consideration. The law encompassed the
cattle and game of the nobleman with the most rigid legislation,
19 Edinburgh Review, January, 1870, p. 75. 20 Fidelis expositio errorum M. Serveti et bre-
■vis eorundem refuiatio ubi docetur jure gladii coercendos esse haereticos. 21 ib,, p. 78*
M Stillfi : " Religious Tests in Pennsylvania," p. 10. 23 « Assays and Speeches of James
Black," p. 193.
540 Avierican Catholic Quarterly Review.
pitilessly enforced ; it exposed human life to the most bloody penal-
ties for the most petty transgressions. It is an axiom that no law-
was ever enacted without the object of its enforcement. Had all
the laws of the English Statute Book, with capital punishment at-
tached, been enforced according to their letter and intent, the popu-
lation would have been decimated, the nation deluged in rivers of
blood. According to Hollinshedd, 72,000 persons perished during
the thirty-eight years' reign of Henry VHI. (1509- 1547), mostly for
being "rogues and beggars," in other words, their only crime was
poverty. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth (i 558-1603), ex-
tending over forty-five years, 16,000 were executed.'* The golden
days of Christian love and fraternal helpfulness,
When good and bad were all unquestioned fed,
When monks still practiced their dear Lord's command
And rained their charity throughout the land,
were fast becoming nothing more than lingeringly sad memories
of what was once "merrie old England." The suppression of
the monasteries, sealing the beneficent channels of applied char-
ity, threw the needy, homeless and helpless on the munificence
of the government's bounty. To cope with the unexpected prob-
lem it in turn had recourse to a novel and effective altruism hitherto
unknown in Christendom — one of the first and permanent fruits of
the Reformation — ^by expunging poverty from the Christ-like vir-
tues and placing it on the penal code, and by one blow extirpating
poverty and its unfortunate victims. Even as late as the reign of
George I. (1714-1727) the bloody code was still more amplified by
enacting laws, inflicting the death penalty on all who were armed
or disguised in any forest, park, highway, open heath, common or
town; unlawful hunting, killing or stealing deer, robbing warrens,
stealing or taking any fish out of any river, injuring Westminster
Bridge or any other bridge.^^ The heresy act stood unrepealed in
full force until 1677.
Such were the times, conditions and customs, contemporary mo-
tives, intentions and judgments under which More entered upon
his official duties. Good sense and generous impulse would at once
endeavor to wipe out the stigma cast on his name by establishing the
valid claim that his violence in dealing with heretics was more an
error attributable to his time than to his heart. But even this ad-
mission unduly and unjustly magnifies the role he played in sup-
pressing heresy. The office involved upon him and his friends a
nice and somewhat vexatious point of ethics, a perplexing tangle
of casuistry. His theory of freedom of conscience was clearly for-
" Edinburgh Review, Vol. xix., p. 391. 26 g George I., c. 22 ; 12 George II., c. 29.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 541
mulated in a work in the hands of every cultivated Englishman,
read and quoted throughout the continent. His friendship with men
like Erasmus and Colet no doubt only emphasized and intensified
it. How could he then administer the office of an inquisitor of
heretical pravity? But to bring the analogy to a closer range of
vision. How can the judge, painfully cognizant of the disastrous
evils of intemperance, grant a license to sell liquor? How can the
judge whose conscience revolts against capital punishment inflict
the death penalty? How can the judge whose soul shrinks from
the sickening iniquity of the divorce procedure dissolve the bands
of matrimony? Must individual predilection subordinate itself to
official duty ; harassing scruples yield to oath-bound obligations ;
subjective interpretation of the law surrender to the manifest intent
of the law giver? "How was it possible for More the Statesman,"
asks a writer in the Quarterly Review, "to advocate toleration of
sectaries, who sought violently to subvert the existing religion with
which the civil order was so strictly united ? Or for More the Mag-
istrate to ignore the provisions of the laws he had sworn to admin-
ister for the maintenance of that religion?" He strengthens his
position still further by quoting Jeremy Taylor's clinching argument
that "the commonwealth is made a church; the law of the nation
made a part of the religion ; Christ is made King and the temporal
power is His substitute. But if we say, like the people in the Gos-
pel, 'Nolumus hunc regnare/ then God has armed the temporal power
with a sword to cut us ofif."^^
More was an avowed advocate and fearless champion of freedom
of conscience perilously in advance of his time, his path-breaking
innovations, promulgating "advanced opinions," according to Hume,
"which even at present would be deemed somewhat too free."^^ In
his "Utopia," a work prototyped in Plato's "Republic," and which
was not a mere philosophical romance, but contained a perfect
storehouse of legislative wisdom and political maxims, he published
to the world his real views, as Erasmus tells us, "to show how com-
monwealths might be better managed," and above all, that "he had
England, which he knows thoroughly, principally in view." The
mere publication of this work was an act of daring hardihood. "Only
a thinker who placed conviction above even life," says a writer
whose admirable study of More is unfortunately somewhat dis-
torted, "would have dared put forth a work so bold and so well cal-
culated to open the eyes of the people to the shallow pretense as
well as criminality of the rich and powerful."-^ And in it we find
"^^^ttar/Vrly/ieview, October, 1896. pp. 361-362. ^ "History of England," Vol. HI., p. 122
Philadelphia, 1796. 23 Arena, vol. 15, p. 118.
542 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
such a vehement advocacy of Hberty of conscience that it lends,
more than an allusive importance to the letter of Erasmus,^® in which
he strongly intimates that it was neither More nor the Bishops who^
encouraged the proceedings against heresy, but Henry VIII. him-
self. Erasmus, in the confidence of the King, an intimate in the
household of More a great deal of the time, was in a position to
speak with knowledge and authority. What other meaning can we
take from this letter, where he tells us that "he has it on good au--
thority that the King is somewhat more severe to heresy than the-
bishops and the priests ?^* Jortin does not convey the full import:
of More's ideas when he tells us that "he makes it one of their [Uto-
pian] maxims that 'no man ought to be punished for his reHgion;'
the utmost severity practiced among them being banishment, and.
that not for disparaging their religion, but for inflaming the people
to sedition ; a law being made among them that 'every man might be
of what religion he pleased.' "^^ More displays a deeper politicar
sagacity, a wider human experience, a more observant legislative -
farsightedness. "Therefore all this matter [religion]," are his own-
words, which we modernize, "he [Utopus] left undiscussed and gave
to every man free liberty and choice to believe what he would.""
When a fanatic inveighed against the Christian religion and began
"to wax so hot in his matter that he did not only prefer our religion
before all others, but also did utterly despise and condemn all others, .
calling them profane and the followers of them wicked and devilish
and the children of eternal damnation," then, after fruitless efforts
to bring him to his senses and ineffectual remonstrances to silence
him, he was condemned to exile "not as a despiser of religion, but'
as a seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people. .
To do away with all dissension King Utopus issued a decree "that
it should be lawful for -every man to favor and follow what religion
he would, and that he might do the best he could to bring others ■
to his opinion, so that he did it peaceably, gently, quietly and so-
berly, without hasty or contentious rebuking and inveighing against
others. If he could not by fair and gentle speech induce them into .
his opinion, yet he should use no kind of violence and refrain from -
displeasant and seditious words. . . . And this he surely thought
a very unmete and foolish thing and a point of arrogant presump-
tion to compel all others by violence and threatenings to agree to
the same that thou believest to be true. Therefore all this matter •
he left undiscussed and gave to every man liberty and choice to be-
^ Epist. 426. 3"". . , aliquanto minus aequum esse novts dogmatibus quant epistoposr;
aut sacerdotes." « Jortin : " The Life of Erasmus," Vol. I., p. 172.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics, 543
lieve what he would."^^ "By my soul," is the solemn reiteration of
the same sentiment ... "I would all the world were all agreed
to take all violence and compulsion away upon all sides, Christian
and heathen, and that no man were constrained to believe but as he
could by grace, wisdom and good works induced ; and that he that
would go to God, go in God's name, and he that will go with the
Devil, the Devil go with him." Continuing about heretics, he states
what Maitland, Lee, etc., have proved beyond the shadow of a doubt,
that "while they forbore violence, there was little violence done
them," and that "never were they, by any temporal punishment of
their bodies, anything sharply handled, till they began to be violent
themselves."^^ This in clear, unambiguous and forceful terms ex-
plains More's attitude on heresy and the punishment of heretics.
More was too much of the statesman, too deeply conversant with
human nature, not to realize, to borrow an illustration, that spir-
itual machinery at best turns out an indifferent article, that penal
laws may teach conformity, but never conviction. The "outward
sign" may be demonstratively exhibited, but the "inward grace" will
be found lamentably absent.
But, continues the indictment of the Earl of Portsmouth, "men
and women were taken and tried in Sir Thomas More's house at
Chelsea and burned for their principles." James Bainham . . .
[was] brought before More, who had him whipped in his pres«
ence . . . racked before his eyes!"
A rather exhaustive study of the subject, involving no little amount
of laborious reading and painstaking research, traces the More myth
to two sources — John Foxe, its parent, and James Anthony Froude,
its last defender. Foxe and his Puritan confederates are the pol-
luters of history whom Maitland, in words of burning indignation,
pillories for stating "with great deliberation and solemnity . . .
what they knew to be false; and that the manner in which such
falsehoods were avowed by those who told them and recorded by
their friends and admirers is sufficient evidence that such a practice
was not considered discreditable," men whom he arraigns with veri-
fied evidence "for reckless imputations of all the worst motives
and the most odious vices."^* The same Foxe Brewer charges with
downright dishonesty and wilful tampering with documents.^'^
The same Foxe Dr. Arnold, when professor at University College,
Oxford, denounced "as a rampant bigot, and, like all of his class,
82 " The Seconde Booke of Utopia," pp. 146-147. Cambridge, 1883. ^ A dialogue of
Sir More, touching the pestilent sect of IvUther and Tindal, C. IV., p. ^6. I<ondon, 1530^
'* " Essays on Subjects Connected with the Reformation in England," pp. 2. 48. I^ondon
1849. » " IrCtters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic," etc., Vol. I., p. 60.
544 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
utterly unscrupulous in assertion; the falsehoods, misrepresenta-
tions and exaggerations to which he gave circulation are endless/'*"
The same Foxe and Wyatt, who are the Puritan myth-mongers
whom Froude, in blind slavishness, follows if they buttress his the-
ories, but on whose veracity he casts doubt and suspicion if they mili-
tate against them. It is hard to tell whether his language is apolo-
getic or censorious when he tells us that these English Reformation
oracles "were surrounded with the heat and flame of a controversy, in
which public and private questions were wrapped inseparably to-
gether; and the more closely we scrutinize their narratives, the
graver occasion there appears for doing so !" As for Foxe's mod-
ern protagonist, if we follow the sliding scale of the deplorable de-
cadence and moral debasement of contemporaneous historical writ-
ing and reach the zero mark of peerless dishonesty we arrive at the
name of Froude,^^ whose historical fictions are taken with no more
seriousness by critical students than the quips of a mediaeval court
jester. Incidentally it may be of archaic interest that Luther^*
espouses the Puritan cause ; but the Reformer was in that period of
life when "as a controversialist" — we are quoting Canon Mozley —
"he was literally and wholly without decorum, conscience, taste or
fear,"^® and therefore he can be charitably dismissed.
Lord Campbell, whose conduct of the Newman-Achilli trial gave
an exhibition of anti-Catholic bias that shocked England, Protest-
ant as it was, replies to the charge. "That More was present at
the examination of heretics before the Council and concerned in
subjecting them to confinement cannot be denied, for such was
the law, which he willingly obeyed ; but we ought rather to wonder
at his moderation in an age when the leaders of each set thought
they were bound in duty to heaven to persecute the votaries of the
other.'"'"
The case of James Bainham is worked up with unctuous rhetoric
and imaginative fervor by Foxe,'" and in the deft hands of Froude*^
becomes a cHmacteric episode, full of dainty thrusts, telling side
38 Quotedin Catholic IVor Id, Vol, XV., p 567. ^ "It was a calamity to himself" is the
language Augustus Jessop uses in summing up Froude's historical knight errantry ; " it was
a great misfortune to English historic literature, when Mr. Froude, nearly forty years ago,
became possessed by that historic delusion which he has never been able to shake off, of
which he is now the unhappy victim, and which, like all fanatics, he is passionately desir-
ous to impose upon all who will listen to his pleading. More than thirty years of argument
and criticism and evidence the most inesistible and convincing to all cultured intellects ex-
cept his own, of new light coming from the right hand and the left, of documentary proof
accumulated from the archives of almost every country in Europe, and pointing all to the
same conclusions, have been wasted upon him." . . . English Historical Review, April,
1892, p. 360. 38 " Sammtliche Werke," Vol. I.XI., p. 365 ; I^XII., p. 347- ^ " Essays Historical
and Theological," p. 378. ^ " The Lives of the Lord Chancellors, etc., of England," Vol. I.,
p. 448. « " Book of Martyrs," Vol. IV., p. 702 et seq. *2 " History of England," Vol. II., 89-90.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 545
plays, cunning suppressions and artful distortions, until the tout-
ensemble reveals More to us as a heart-chilling, soul-paralyzing ogre.
Fortunately More himself has shed some light on this charge. "Let
us" — we again quote Lord Campbell — "let us hear what is said oa
this subject by More himself, allowed on all hands ... to have
been the most sincere, candid and truthful of men:" "Divers of
them have said," is the sobbing pathos of the man whose cheerful
wit did not desert him under the glistening blade of the head-
man's axe, "that of such as were in my house when I was
Chancellor I used to examine them with torments, causing
them to be bound to a tree in my garden and then piteously
beaten. Except their sure keeping, I never else did cause any
such thing to be done unto any of the heretics in all my life,
except only twain ; one was a child and a servant of mine in mine
own house, whom his father, ere he came to me, had nursed up in
such matters and set him to attend upon George Jay. This Jay did
teach the child his ungracious heresy against the blessed sacrament
of the altar, which heresy this child in my house began to teach
another child. And upon that I caused a servant of mine to strip
him like a child before mine household for amendment of himself
and ensample of others. Another was one who, after he had fallen
into these frantic heresies, soon fell into plain open frenzy, albeit
he had been in Bedlam, and afterwards, by beating and correction,
gathered his remembrance. Being therefore set at liberty, his old
frenzies fell again into his head. Being informed of this relapse, I
caused him taken by the constable and bounden to a tree in the
street before the whole town, and there striped him until he waxed
weary. Verily, God be thanked, I hear no harm of him now. And
of all who ever came into my hand for heresy, so help me, God, else
had never any of them any stripe or stroke given them so much as
a fillup in the forehead."*^ "More, if any man," says the writer in
the Quarterly, "may be believed on his bare word,"** and this should
summarily dispose of this charge.
But it may be demurred that More himself admitted, even glo-
ried, in his severity to heretics, for did he not write his own epitaph,
in which he tells us — furibus, homicidis, hcereticisque molestus — that
he was troublesome to thieves, murderers and heretics ?
"But this," in the words of Professor Gairdner, who will give
our reply, "is really not very difficult to answer. Suppose that in-
stead of a Lord Chancellor of England," he continues, with incisive
** "Apologry." C. 36, " English 'Works," p. 902, ac. Campbell ut. sup., pp. 447-448. ** Quar
terly Review, October, 1896, p. 362.
VOL. XXV.— 9.
546 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
log^c, "it were the case of a respectable gamekeeper who was com-
pelled for one reason or other to give up his employment ? Sup-
pose that such a one were to say to a friend, 'You may write upon
my tombstone that I served my master faithfully for many years to
his entire satisfaction, and that all honest men about me held me in
good esteem; but that I was very troublesome to thieves, mur-
derers and, above all, to poachers ?' Here you have precisely the
same ascending scale that you find in the epitaph More wrote for
himself ; but it would not imply that even a gamekeeper considered
that poaching, especially poaching from mere thoughtlessness or
ignorance of the law, was quite as bad a thing as robbery or murder.
It would only mean that the gamekeeper's duties brought him into
direct collision with poachers, but that occasionally he had to deal
with some of the most desperate characters, as indeed poaching, a
wrong thing in itself, was very apt to lead on to worse things. So
also Sir Thomas More" — we cannot refrain giving the quotation in
its entirety — "as Chancellor had but little to do with the ordinary
administration of the criminal law, but we know that he sat a Com-
missioner for the suppression of heresy and heretical books. And
I presume that as a leading member of the Privy Council he must
have heretics sometimes brought before him in the Star Chamber.
In fact, Erasmus extols his clemency in that, having the power of
putting men to death for heresy, he strove only to cure their mental
condition and prevent the spread of the evil. For it was difficult
to deny that, judged by its fruits, heresy was a very real evil in
those days. ... In England it was publishing scurrilous pam-
phlets full of the most shameful falsehoods and irreverence. It was
no more a theological evil than Mormonism. More hated it with
all his soul, and did his utmost to suppress it by means strictly
humane as well as legal."*'*
Would not the epitaph More wrote for his father be a most
apposite and truthful one of himself, when he describes him
"Homo civilis, innocens, mitts misericors, cequus, et integer, ^^
which his great grandson feelingly paraphrases "a man courteous
and affable, innocent and harmless, meek and gentle, merciful and
pitiful, just and uncorrupted ?"*®
That Gairdner stands not alone in his belief of More's complete
innocence, but that he reflects the consentient opinion of modern
English historians, men who have skimmed the froth and scum
from history's stream and sounded and analyzed its undercurrents,
is convincingly evident from the judicial pronouncement of a man
*-/4<:acf^w^, 1891, p. 491. ^ " The Life of Sir Thomas More, Cresacre More," p. 9. London, 1838.
Sir Thomas More and the Persecution of Heretics. 547
who, in his endeavor to trace these calumnies to their source, "has
searched every contemporary document that could be found," says
one of the most authoritative of English reviews, "and who is be-
yond the suspicion of misrepresenting facts. "^'^ This man, Paul
Friedmann, examining the charges brought against More, says:
"These accusations against More have been repeated by some later
writers, but there is not a tittle of evidence that he was guilty of the
cruelties imputed to him. Such charges conflict with all that we
know of his character and his modes of thought, and to his con-
temporaries they were absolutely incredible. Henry gained noth-
ing by the attempt to tarnish the fame of one whose virtues were
so widely known and so cordially appreciated."*^
Thus we see that under the most searching criticism and piercing
scrutiny, Protestant writers alone having been laid under contribu-
tion. Sir Thomas More's innocence of the charge of persecuting
heretics becomes an historical fact proved to actual demonstration.
The calumnies which for centuries tried to blacken and blast his
reputation will be tearlessly, even joyously, consigned to their final
resting place beside the other bleached, dessicated bones in the
charnel house of John Foxe's consecrated falsehoods, beyond the
possibility of a transient galvanization, beyond the hope of an
ephemeral resurrection.
As for More, the resistless sweep of historical truth, the avenging
hand of retributive justice, the almighty power of a justifying Provi-
dence, will not only elevate him to a niche where he shall be hailed
as "the glory of his age," a reluctant tribute that even Burnet pays
him, enshrine his memory as one of the greatest geniuses and bene-
factors of his country, but lift him to the apex of the world's Immor-
tals, where few loom over him, and viewing his social, political, judi-
cial and spiritual virtues, still fewer dare stand beside him. For
in what Englishman do we find such a prodigal combination of the
most soaring human attributes as in More? "To say that Sir
Thomas More was the brightest character of the age in which
he lived, an age which exhibited the ferocity of uncivilized man
without his simplicity, and the degeneracy of modern times without
their refinement, were praise beneath his merit; to challenge the
long and splendid series of English biography to produce his equal
at any period might be deemed presumptuous ; but if the wise and
honest statesman, the acute and incorrupt magistrate, the loyal but
independent subject, constitute an excellent public man ; if the good
« Edinburgh Revie^v, January, 1886, p. 61. « " Anne Boleyn : A Chapter of English His-
tory," Vol. II., p. 88, lyondon, 1884.
548 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
father, the good husband and the good master, the firm friend, the
moral though witty companion, the upright neighbor, the pious
Christian and the patient martyr, form a perfect private character —
ecce homoJ'^^
H. G. Ganss.
Carlisle, Pa.
"THE SACRIFICES OF MASSES."
THE REFORMERS AND THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE.
.. ^T is often urged, and sometimes felt and granted, that there
I are in the Articles propositions or terms inconsistent with
the Catholic faith ; or, at least, when persons do not go so
far as to feel the objection as of force, they are perplexed how best
to reply to it, or how most simply to explain the passages on which
it is made to rest."
With these words the Rev. J. H. Newman opened the famous
Tract 90, which was intended both to allay the scruples about sub-
scription to the Thirty-nine Articles then beginning to be felt by his
followers, and at the same time to test how far the authorities of the
Church of England were prepared to go in allowing the promulga-
tion of the new teaching. The Tractarian leaders, like their pre-
decessors and models — the Caroline divines — were diligent students
of the ancient fathers. And like those divines, too, they had come
to see that the Reformers had erred grievously in their successful
attempt to root out from the English Church the very notion of an
objective sacrifice, leaving nothing in its place but the offering of
ourselves, our lauds and thanksgivings. The writings of the fathers
had taught them to regard some external sacrifice as of the very
essence of religion, of an adoring recognition by the creature of
His Creator. They were ready to echo the plaint of the Catholic
Dr. Scot, speaking against the reintroduction in Elizabeth's reign
of the Prayer Book and the consequent abolition of the offering of
Christ, "taken away by this booke, as the authors thereof do will-
ingly acknowledge ; cryinge owte of the offering of Christe oftener
than once, notwithstanding that all the holie fathers do teach it,
manifestly affirmynge Christe to be offered daylye after an unbloody
manner. But if these men did understand and consider what dothe
ensue and followe of this their affirmation, I thinke they wolde leave
their rashness and return to the truthe again. For if it be trewe
« " Portraits of niustrious Personages of Great Britain." Kdmund I<odge, Vol. I., p. 41.
8 vols. I^ondon, 1849-1850.
"The Sacrifices of Masses." 549
that they say that there is no externale sacrifyce in the Newe Testa-
ment, then dothe it follow that there is no priesthood under the
same, whose office is, saythe St. Paul, 'to offer up gyfts and sacri-
fices for synne.' And if there be no priesthood, then is there no
religion under the New Testament. And if we have no religion,
then we be 'sine Deo in hoc mundo ;' that is, we be without God in
this worlde. For one of these dothe necessarily depend and foUowe
uppon an other."^
With such belief in their minds the Tractarians set themselves to
the task of overcoming the obstacles presented by the wording of
their Church's formularies. They took for granted that the Church
of England was an integral part of the Church Catholic. Any for-
mulary, therefore, accepted by her must be capable of interpretation
in a Catholic sense. "Had it [a Catholic sense] not been provided
for, possibly the Articles never would have been accepted by our
Church at all."^ Nor were they concerned to prove that this Cath-
olic sense was intended by the actual framers of the Articles. They
were quite ready to admit the utter Protestantism of the chief Re-
formers, whose only object in leaving the Articles ambiguous was
*'to comprehend those who did not go so far in Protestantism as
themselves."^ "The framers have gained their side of the compact
in effecting the reception of the Articles, let Catholics have theirs,
too, in retaining their own Catholic interpretation of them. . . .
The Protestant confession was drawn up with the purpose of in-
cluding Catholics ; and Catholics now will not be excluded. . . .
We could not then have found fault with their words ; they cannot
now repudiate our meaning."^
We have quoted thus at length from Tract 90 to try and make evi-
dent the bona fides with which the Oxford men set about their diffi-
cult task. The first feeling of a Catholic, when he hears of an
attempt to make the Thirty-first Article harmonize with the Sacri-
fice of the Mass, is one of disgust and irritation at the seemingly
manifest insincerity of the interpreter. Is it not beyond dispute,
he exclaims, that the Reformers abhorred the very name of sacri-
fice, loathed and trampled upon the Mass and stereotyped their
hatred of it in those blasphemous words : "The sacrifices of Masses,
in which it was commonly said that the priests did offer Christ
for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were
blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits ?"'
All that may be true, replied the Tractarians, yet "it is a duty
which we owe both to the Catholic Church and our own to take our
reformed confessions in the most Catholic sense they will admit;
Cardwell: Hist, of Conf., p. iii.ed. Oxf., 1841. a Tract 90. s ibi^. 4 ibid. 6 Art. xxxi.
550 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
we have no duties towards their framers. . . . The interpreta-
tion [Anglo-Catholics] take was intended to be admissible ; though
not that which their authors took themselves."^
According to this view the Reformers, whilst in their hearts re-
jecting any external sacrifice whatever, so framed their article that
it might be understood as rejecting only that which all England, and
all genuine Catholics, too, would fain see rejected. *'0n the whole,
then, it is conceived that the Article before us neither speaks against
the Mass in itself, nor against its being an offering, though com-
memorative, for the quick and the dead for the remission of sins;
especially since the decree of Trent says that 'the fruits of the Bloody
Oblation are through this most abundantly obtained; so far is the
latter from detracting in any way from the former ; but against its
being viewed, on the one hand, as independent of or distinct from
the sacrifice on the cross, which is blasphemy, and, on the other, its
being directed to the emolument of those to whom it pertains to
celebrate it, which is imposture in addition."^ "It was the 'sac-
rifices of Masses' [that was spoken against], certain observ-
ances, for the most part private and solitary, which the writers
of the Articles knew to have been in force in time past,^ and saw
before their eyes, and which involved certain opinions and a certain
teaching."®
This interpretation met with instant and vehement opposition from
the authorities of the Anglican Church. But as it was felt to be
vitally necessary for the Anglo-Catholic position, it was stoutly de-
fended, e. g., by Dr. Pusey and Dr. W. G. Ward. And it has been
maintained by the High-Church party ever since, though with con-
siderable variation in important details from its presentment in Tract
90. It will not be without profit to note these at the outset. New-
man was ready to admit that the framers of the Articles were them-
selves opposed to any external sacrifice, but so worded Article 31
that it might be interpreted as condemning only abuses in practice
and errors in teaching offensive to all good Catholics. The abuses
were connected with the chantry system and stipend Masses, and
were of long standing, having "crept into the Church these many
hundred years." The erroneous doctrine was that the Mass was
an offering independent of the cross.
W. G. Ward^*^ seems to agree with his leader as to the inner mind
8 Tract go. ^ Ibid. 8<< what dens of thieves the churches of England have been made by
the blasphemous buying and selling the most precious body and blood of Christ in the Mass,
as the world was made to believe, at dirges, at months' minds, at trentalls, in abbeys and
chantries, besides other horrible abuses which we now see and understand ... all such
fulsomeness and filthiness, as through blindldevotion and ignorance hath crept into the
Church, these many hundred years '^ — Homily on repairing churches (quoted in Tract 90.)
» Ibid. 10 " A Few More Words in Support of No. 90," Oxford, 1841.
"The Sacrifices of Masses." 551
and spirit of the framers ; yet he attributes their repugnance to a sac-
rifice to ignorance, not to a deliberate heretical intent such as appar-
ently animated Luther. "On the subject of the Mass, the quotations
brought forward from Cranmer and Ridley in the Edinburgh
Review make it to my mind a good deal more probable that they
really mistook the doctrines held by the Church on the subject."^^
Then, after a quotation from Cranmer which we shall here have
occasion to use presently, Mr. Ward adds : "So writes the 'Father
of the English Reformation:' whatever other feelings may rise in
the mind of the religious reader on perusing the passage, this is
plain that he altogether misunderstood the sacred doctrine he op-
posed, and was even in his own despite, in this instance at least, pre-
served from any direct 'fighting against God.' "^^
The words of Bishop Forbes, of Brechin, indicate a similar view
on his part with regard to the Reformers. After quoting largely
from St. Catherine of Genoa's treatise on Purgatory, he says : "Had
this been even an aspect of Purgatory, presented to the minds of the
framers of our Articles as a possible authoritative exposition of the
doctrine, who would say that 'the Romish doctrine of Purgatory*
would ever have been censured in it?"^^ And of Article 31 in par-
ticular he writes : "It is probable that the English Reformers were
not conversant with the Eastern Liturgies, otherwise we cannot
conceive how they could have preferred the Second to the First
Book of Edward, or have rested content with the emendations at
the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth."^*
On the other hand, there were apparently some who felt that to
attribute to the Reformers an intention of doing away with every
kind of external sacrifice would endanger the Anglican position. Ac-
cordingly we find Dr. Pusey holding^^ that the writers of the Article
had the "private special Masses" mainly in view and only included
the "public Mass" so far as it agreed with them in the doctrine that
it was Christ Himself who was ofYere.d and that such offering
specially benefited the individual chosen by the priest. That this
particular kind of oblation was the only one intended to be con-
demned Dr. Pusey considers evident from the fact that Bishop Rid-
ley "states his objection to the Romish doctrine of the sacrifice to
be founded on the error of Transubstantiation : Transubstantiation
is the very foundation whereon all their erroneous doctrine doth
stand ;' and 'This kind of oblation standeth upon Transubstantiation
his cousin-german, and they do both grow upon the same ground.'
" "A Few More Words in Support of No. 90." Oxford, 1841, page 62. 12 ibj^. la XXXIX
Art., ed. 1868, p. 350. " Ibid, p. 602. " "a fetter to the Rev. R. W. Jelf, D. D." Oxf., 1841, pp.
62-65.
552 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
And the celebrated dictum of Bishop Andrewes, which has passed
almost into a proverbial statement of the principles of our Church,
is but a following out of this of Bishop Ridley, 'Do ye take away
from the Mass your Transubstantiation, and we shall not long have
any question about the sacrifice.' Bishop Jewel also in like words
states this to be the only point at issue. 'St. Cyprian . . .
saith not as you say, we offer up the Son of God substantially and
really unto the Father. Take away only this blasphemy wherewith
you have deceived the world, and then talk of mingling the cup and
of the sacrifice whilst ye list.' "^®
Dr. Pusey is evidently in favor of rejecting Transubstantiation,
whereas Newman, Ward and Forbes, whilst not openly professing
their belief in it, try to give to the Anglican declaration in Article 28
a sense which would not exclude the Catholic doctrine. Since those
early days the more prudent example of Dr. Pusey has been gen-
erally followed, viz., of maintaining the "orthodoxy" of the chief
Reformers. Thus e. g., Messrs Denny and Lacey, in "De Hierarchia
Anglicana," do their utmost to show that the doctrine of the Real
Presence was held by them and that they by no means intended in
Article 28 to reject the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation as the
mode of that Presence. In the latest work on this question,^^ the
Rev. B. J. Kidd adopts in the main Dr. Pusey's position both as to
the "orthodoxy" of the Reformers and also as to the "ratio" of that
"orthodoxy," viz., the rejection of Transubstantiation. We think
that examination of the Reformers' writings and acts puts beyond
doubt the accuracy of Newman's judgment that they, in their hearts,
were opposed to any external sacrifice. With respect to Dr. Ward's
contention that they rejected the Catholic doctrine because they
misunderstood it, we think that this is true in the sense that they
had a clear knowledge of the doctrine itself, but could not perceive
how it could be reconciled with the fundamental fact that Christ's
death upon the cross is the all-sufficient price of man's redemption.
We will give some quotations in proof of these two points, i. That
they were fully acquainted with the true Catholic doctrine. In a "Con-
futation of Four Romish Doctrines" — a work attributed to Bradford
and his fellow-exiles during Mary's reign — we read: "How con-
cerning the sacrifice they teach that, 'though our Saviour Himself
did indeed make a full and perfect sacrifice, propitiatory and satisfac-
tory for the sins of all the whole world, never more so ; that is to say,
bloodily, to be offered again, yet in His supper He offered the same
sacrifice unto His Father, but unbloodily ; that is to say, in will and
" "A letter to the Rev. R. W. Jelf, D. D.," Oxf., 1841. pp. 64, 65. " " The I^ater Mediseval
Doctrine of the Kucharistic Sacrifice." Church Historical Society, 1898.
''The Sacrifices of Masses" 553
desire, which is accounted often for the deed, as this was. Which un-
bloody sacrifice He commanded His Church to offer in remem-
brance of His bloody sacrifice, as the principle mean whereby His
bloody sacrifice is applied both to the quick and the dead ; as bap-
tism is the mean by the which regeneration is applied by the priest
to the infant or child that is baptized."^*
It is equally evident that Cranmer himself had before his eyes the
true Catholic doctrine free from all alleged errors and excesses. He
.thus quotes the argument of Bishop Gardiner :
"This is agreed and by the Scriptures plainly taught that the obla-
tion and sacrifice of our Saviour Christ was and is a perfect work,
'once consummate in perfection without necessity of reiteration, as
it was never taught to be reiterate, but a mere blasphemy to pre-
suppose it. It is also in the Catholic teaching, grounded upon the
Scripture, agreed, that the same sacrifice once consummate was or-
dained by Christ's institution in His most holy supper to be in the
Church often remembered and shewed forth in such sort of shewing,
as to the faithful is seen present the most precious body and blood
of our Saviour Christ under the forms of bread and wine ; which
body and blood the faithful Church of Christian people grant and
confess, according to Christ's words, to have been betrayed and shed
for the sins of the world, and so in the same supper represented and
delivered unto them, to eat and feed of it according to Christ's com-
mandment, as of a most precious and acceptable sacrifice, acknowl-
edging the same precious body and blood to be the sacrifice propi-
tiatory for all the sins of the world, whereunto they only resort and
■only accompt that this very perfect oblation and sacrifice of Chris-
tian people, through which all other sacrifices necessary on our part
be accepted and pleasant in the sight of God."^^
To this Cranmer replies :
"For answer to all that you have here brought ... the reader
need not to do more but to look over my book again, and he shall
see you fully answered beforehand.''^^
In that "book" he had written :
"It is a wondrous thing to see what shifts and cantels the popish
antichrists devise to color and cloke their wicked errors . . . For
the papists, to excuse themselves, do say that they make no new sac-
rifice, nor none other sacrifice than Christ made (for they be not so
blind but they see that then they should add another sacrifice to
Christ's sacrifice, and so make His sacrifice imperfect ;) but they say
that they make the selfsame sacrifice for sin that Christ Himself
made.
» Writings of Bradford-T.etters, Treatises, etc. Parker Society, p. 270. !» Cranmer On
the I^ord's Supper. Parker Society, p. 344. 20 jbid.
554 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
"And here they run headlong into the foulest and most heinous
error that ever was imagined. For if they make every day the same
oblation and sacrifice for sin that Christ Himself made, and the ob-
lation that He made was His death and the effusion of His most pre-
cious blood upon the cross for our redemption and price of our sins,
then followeth it of necessity that they every day slay Christ and
shed His blood, and so be they worse than the wicked Jews and
Pharisees, which slew Him and shed His blood but once."^^
Cranmer knew, too, that the Catholics taught that no new re-
demption was wrought by this sacrifice of the altar, but that, as
Bradford had written, it was a mean, like baptism, whereby the
bloody sacrifice could be applied to quick and de.ad. For in his
defense of the Catholic doctrine of the sacrament the fourth error
with which he charges the papists is that "they say that they offer
Christ daily for the remission of our sins and distribute and apply the
merits of the Death of Christ by their Masses."^^
It is beyond dispute, then, that the Reformers were acquainted
with the true Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and that
they deliberately rejected it even in its pure, authoritative form as
Newman thought. 2. And undoubtedly they did this because, as
Ward surmised, they misunderstood it; they were unable to see that
it in no way derogated from the all-sufficiency of the cross, nor in-
troduced a new redemption. Their theological incapacity led them
into the paths of heresy. In this they are more excusable than the
heresiarch Luther. We have his own confession that for years he
deliberately set himself to overthrow the Mass, and this against the
clear light of his reason. At first he had to confess that the Scrip-
ture was too strong for him. It was only when he had excogitated
his theory of consubstantiation that he saw his way to undermining
the doctrine of the sacrifice. Then he began to instruct his Eng-
lish friends,^^ who, more logical than he, ended in Calvinistic tenets
on this matter of the Real Presence and sacrifice.
It may seem strange that men who, at least before they became
utterly Solifidian, recognized the necessity of the sacraments as means
to apply to us the merits of the Passion should find insuperable dif-
ficulty in accepting the sacrifice of the altar even under this same
ratio of a means. But we must remember that there is a great dif-
ference between the sacraments and the sacrifice. According to the
Catholic doctrine Christ was truly present — whole Christ — in the
latter and He was present in virtue of the priest's act : present, too,
in a victim condition. Thus there was in the Mass a true sacrifice,
" Cranmer, On the L,ord's Supper. Parker Society, p. 348. 22 ibid, appendix, p. 25.
^' " • • • the Germayne wryters, the cheffe schoolemasters and instructors of our coun-
treymen in all these novelties." Abbot Fecknam :Cardwell's Conf., p. loi.
"The Sacrifices of Masses." 555
a real offering of Christ to His Father. If this were so, then, as
Bishop Harold Browne remarks,^'^ "no other sacrifice could be com-
pared with it. It must far exceed in glory and in value everything
besides." If it be really in the priest's power to offer to the Father
the beloved Son, then necessarily the Father must be "well pleased
by such offering : it becomes, in fact, a propitiatory sacrifice. Here
lay their difficulty. They could understand the sacrifices of the
old law, for these had only an imputed propitiatory virtue : the vic-
tims were but brute beasts or fruits of the earth having in themselves
no power to placate the wrath of God ; therefore they in no way im-
pugned the sufficiency of Calvary. But this sacrifice, if Christ were
really there mystically immolated, must have a propitiatory, placa-
tory virtue of its own, and so would become either the rival of or a
supplement to the sacrifice of the cross. We shall have to
deal with this difficulty again. Here a few words must suf-
fice. Catholics have no difficulty in recognizing that every act of
Christ when He was upon earth, that is, in statu viatoris, was infi-
nitely meritorious in itself, and, had God so chosen, would have suf-
ficed for the redemption of the world, e. g.. His incarnation, circum-
cision, crowning with thorns or scourging. The choice, by divine
decree, of the Passion and Death as the sole ultimate cause of re-
demption, its formal price, did not deprive those other acts of the
God-Man of their individual merit, neither did their being meritori-
ous in se derogate from the supreme excellence and sufficiency of
the Passion. This would hold good of the oblation with Mass, too,
even if it were a meritorious act in se and could be considered inde-
pendently of the Passion. But it is, as a matter of fact, neither meri-
torious in se nor independent ; for it is the act of Christ as compre-
hensor, not victor, and the perpetual representation of that past act —
His death upon the cross. It has infinite, infallible efficacy to pro-
pitiate God just because it is that death mystically perpetuated, un-
ceasingly pleaded.
Luther had thought to get rid of the sacrifice by his doctrine of
consubstantiation, and he did so, at least in any ordinary sense of
"sacrifice." For an act that is merely unitive, and in no way "de-
structive," does not fulfil the conditions required by the notion of
sacrifice. Thus we do not call the unitive act of the Incarnation a
"sacrifice." But in 1552, when the Articles were first put forth, the
English Reformers had outrun their Lutheran comrades and deter-
mined to make once for all an utter end of the sacrifice by denying
to the priest any power of causing Christ to be present, whether by
consubstantiation or Transubstantiation or any other way. The
2< Exp, of the Articles. Third ed., p. 741.
556 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
believing communicant alone had power to draw Christ down, and
that only at the moment of manducation. In their judgment to
claim the power of "offering Christ" was a blasphemy, to claim a
sacrificial priesthood was a lie. Thus Cranmer :
"All such priests as pretend to be Christ's successors in making
a sacrifice of Him, they be His most heinous and horrible adversa-
ries. For never no person made a sacrifice of Christ, but He Him-
, self only. And thereforth St. Paul saith that Christ's priesthood
cannot pass from Him to another."^^ And Ridley :
" 'By His own person He hath purged our sins.' These words,
'by His own person,' have an emphasis and vehemence which driveth
away all sacrificing priests from such office as sacrificing, seeing that
which He hath done by Himself He hath not left to be perfected by
others."^"
There remains one other point to be considered before we leave
the Tractarians for their successors of to-day. Newman based his
claim to taking the Articles in a Catholic sense on the supposition
that some of the Reformers were not so far gone in Protestantism as
their leaders, and would have interpreted the Articles as he himself
wished to interpret them. Whatever force this plea may have with
regard to such doctrines as Protestants themselves were divided
upon, we do not think it can be urged as applying to this Article
31. We know that Gardiner and those who thought with him
strained every point to prove the First Book of Edward VI.
"patient" of a Catholic interpretation. But the only result of their
efforts was their own deposition from office and the issue of the thor-
oughly Protestant Second Book. By the time the Articles came
forth there were none of Catholic dispositions left in any important
office. Neither they nor the clergy in convocation were given any
opportunity of expressing their views upon the Articles, for they
were issued by the King's authority alone. Moreover, as the Re-
formers' instinct truly told them, the doctrine of Transubstantiation
was the very root and foundation of the sacrifice ; and this doctrine
was held in abhorrence by all save the Catholics. And this state of
mind continued, perhaps we may say deepened, as time went on, so
that when the Articles were reissued in 1562 and again in 1 571, the au-
thorities in Church and State were as far as ever from approximating
to any notion of a true sacrifice in the Eucharist. We have already
seen what Jewel and Andrewes had to say upon this matter. The
highest point ever reached by Anglican divines before our own days
was probably that of John Johnson in his work on "The Unbloody
Sacrifice" — and that asserts no more than a sacrifice of the bread
and wine.
*6 On the Lord's Supper, p. 348. Parker Society. as Works, p. 107.
''The Sacrifices of Masses." 557
We have mentioned the recorded attempts of Gardiner and a few
others to read CathoHc doctrine into the First Book of Edward VI.
When similar evidence is adduced of like attempts to claim an am-
biguity for this Article, whether in Edward's reign or Elizabeth's,
then we might consider that the contention of Tract 90 had some-
thing in its favor. As things are, we cannot but believe that the Ar-
ticle was accepted in the full sense of its framers, especially seeing
that, at its reissue in 1571, it enjoyed the running commentary of
penal laws, dungeons, tortures and death, which left no room for
doubt as to the sense in which it was then promulgated by the con-
vocation of the Established Church.
II.
THE CHURCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY ON ARTICLE XXXI.
Tract 90 and its defenders, Ward and Pusey, made little or no at-
tempt to prove the existence of the alleged erroneous doctrine of the
sixteenth century by quotations from Catholic writers of that period.
Dr. Pusey, indeed, takes the doctrine of so late a writer as Lessius
as being the one which Anglicans protest against. But modern
Anglicans of the extreme school accept such doctrine as the true
one. Accordingly their efforts have been directed to finding an er-
roneous teaching in the writers of the sixteenth century itself or the
period immediately preceding it. This was done by Messrs. Denny
and Lacey in their "De Hierarchia Anglicana" in 1895. Perhaps
because of this work being in Latin, and so not accessible to the many,
and perhaps, too, because of the tacit acceptance therein of Transub-
stantiation, the Church Historical Society have thought fit to issue
a little work^" on this question more adapted to the capacities and
views of the Anglican majority. The author, the Rev. B. J. Kidd,
has not only utilized the material gathered for the previously men-
tioned work, but has added much new matter culled from various
sources. We may conclude, therefore, that we have here the utmost
that can be brought forward in support of the theory that, in the six-
teenth century, there existed a practical system and its supporting
doctrine so outrageous and so widespread as to justify steps which
led to the severance of England from Catholic unity. The argun ent
of Mr. Kidd's book is as follows : Attention is first drawn to the use
of the plurals, Masses and priests, in Article 31. In two versions
there is an addition of a third plural, viz., sacrifices, so that the arti-
cle ran : "The sacrifices of Masses in which it was commonly said
that the priests did oflfer Christ," etc. This use of plurals where sin-
gulars might have sufficed leads our author to enquire whether there
» " The Later Mediaeval Doctrine of the Kucharistic Sacrifice."
558 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
was any system and doctrine current in the sixteenth century to the
indication of which the plurals were meant to point. Such a system
he finds in the numerous chantries, etc., which tended to multiply
Masses beyond measure and so to increase the number of priests.
Behind this practical system, and affording it a theological support,
he detects a widespread theory that each Mass was a new sacrifice of
Christ distinct from, perhaps independent of, the sacrifice of the
cross ; also that this new sacrifice had a definite, quantitative value of
its own, which could be applied in a "mechanical way," at the mere
will of the priest, to the remission of so much sin or punishment in-
curred by the individual for whom it was to be offered.
This theory, he considers, has in it elements utterly foreign to the
primitive idea of the Eucharistic sacrifice which was enshrined in
the definition given by St. Isidore of Seville (A. D. 595-636). "It
was simply this : Sacrificium dictum quasi sacrum factum, quia prece
mystica consecratur in memoriam pro nobis Dominicse passionis.
Such a view can scarcely be called sacerdotal."-^
This definition, we are told, prevailed until the days of St. Thomas
Aquinas (A. D. 1224-74), who added to it a novel theory about the
necessity of some physical change taking place in the thing offered
if it was to be properly termed a sacrifice. Thus was laid the foun-
dation of later doctrines on the victim-condition of Christ in the
Mass. Nor was this the only innovation made by St. Thomas. In
certain statements, "scarcely more than obiter dicta," he prepared
the way for his successors, the later scholastics, to assign to the
priest undue prominence in the offering of the sacrifice and to exalt
the act of consecration at the expense of the people's communion.
Furthermore, there was a passage in the Fourth Book of the Sen-
tences (dist. xii. qu. 2 a 2 ad 4) out of which was evolved by later
writers a theory that the sacrifice could operate in a way that can
best be described as "mechanical" or "of the nature of a magical
charm."
The fully developed form of these errors had taken possession of
the popular mind and even of theologians in the sixteenth century.
It was against this pernicious doctrine and superstitious system that
the denunciations of Article 31 were leveled, not against the true
"primitive and Catholic" doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass.
The widespread hold of these errors is abundantly proved, says
our author, by the testimony of English and foreign Reformers, as
also by the admissions of "Romanensian" theologians of eminence —
e. g., Melchior Canus, Cajetan, Vasquez and Suarez.
Finally, there may be traced a continuous "growth of the theory
that sacrifice involves destruction," from the days of the Council of
28 P. 43.
''The Sacrifices of Masses" 559
Trent to our own times, though the writers on this subject are not
agreed amongst themselves, but fall into two classes, viz., "the max-
imizers, who agree in holding that in some sense Christ is destroyed
or suffers change in each Mass," and "the minimizers, who either
ignore the need for such change altogether or explain it as virtually
affecting merely the material elements." These are the chief points
in Mr. Kidd's argument.
Considered in itself, this new attempt, like all its predecessors, to
turn the flank of that uncompromising Article 31 is a matter of
purely domestic concern for Anglicans. It may therefore be asked
why Catholics should trouble themselves at all about it. One chief
reason is that Anglicans, in their efforts to prove their own commu-
nion orthodox, find it necessary to represent the Catholic Church
as negligent or dilatory in guarding the purity of the faith.. For
this reason, if for no other, we think we have a right to "interfere"
in this particular phase of the internecine strife of the Established
Church.
For clearness' sake we will resume in a few brief heads the charge
which we conceive Mr. Kidd now brings against our forefathers.
According to his view, therefore, the current popular system and
much of the current theology of the sixteenth century taught :
1. That there was in the Mass an immolation (an "induced victim-
condition") of Christ, distinct from (some said independent of) His
immolation on the cross.
2. That this immolation constituted a true sacrifice, not merely
impetratory, but propitiatory also.
3. That it had a certain quantitative value which
4. Could be set over against so much sin (culpa) or so much pun-
ishment (poena).
■5. That it could be applied to individual cases at the will of the
offerer.
6. That it operated in a merely mechanical way, like a magical
charm.
Such were the features which it is supposed the Reformers con-
demned and rejected in Article 31 as forming a pernicious accretion
upon the idea of the sacrifice prevalent before the days of St. Thomas
Aquinas.
III.
SUMMARY OF INDICTMENT AND EXPLANATION OF TERMS.
We shall now set down as briefly those points of the above indict-
ment which we allow to have existed in the current theology of the
sixteenth century, and maintain to have been the Church's teaching
560 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
from the beginning. At the same time we shall indicate those points,
which are neither primitive nor Catholic, and show that they are
falsely imputed to our forefathers. We allow, then,
1. That in the Mass there is an immolation of Christ distinct from
His immolation upon the cross. We deny that it was ever currently
held to be independent of the latter.
2. That this sacrifice is truly propitiatory as well as impetratory.
3. That considered absolutely (absolute), as being the offering of
Christ to His Father, its value is infinite; but its efficiency, as deter-
mined to this or that individual case, is finite and therefore quantita-
tive.
4. That this sacrifice avails for obtaining the remission of sin
(culpa) and of the temporal poena due for sin.
5. That the special fruit of this sacrifice is determined to individual
cases by the priest's intention, and that it is infallibly received by
those individuals provided they have the requisite "disposition."
6. That this sacrifice, by reason of its intrinsic excellence, pro-
duces its effects ex opere operato: immediately, with regard to the re-
mission of po^na; mediately, with regard to the remission of culpa.
A few words of explanation before we begin the proof of our posi-
tion. When we say that a sacrifice is not only impetratory, but pro-
'pitiatory as well, we mean that it not only asks and obtains of God^
remission of sin, etc., as a favor, but demands it as a right, as a matter
of justice, and at the same time appeases His just anger. It de-
pends solely upon the will of God what sacrifice shall have this
power. In the present order of Providence it is the self-offering of
His Divine Son.
We may institute a parallel between the virtue of the Passion and.
its application to individual souls and the virtue of the Mass and its
application. Considered absolutely — i. e., in itself, as the opus oper-
atum — the Passion is of infinite virtue ; it would sufiice for the remis-
sion of each and every sin and of all the punishment, eternal and
temporal, due for sin. As a matter of fact, its eificiency will never be
extended- to the sins of the rebel angels nor to those sins for which
the wicked will be condemned to hell. Its efficiency will extend to
the remission of the whole eternal poena of the saved, but they them-
selves will have expiated, in their own persons, much of the temporal
poena they have incurred. Thus, viewing redemption as a whole, we
see that the Passion is infinite in suificiency and in undetermined"
eificiency, but in determined, i. e., actually applied, eificiency it is lim-
ited.
^ So again, if we consider the virtue of the Passion as it Ts applied to*
individual souls, we see that it is infinite in suificiency, but limited inr.
''The Sacrifices of Masses.'' S^^
determined efficiency, since it produces not an infinite but a finite effect
in each soul. We shall find that this also holds of the sacrifice of
the Mass ; but we must first consider its relation to the Passion. The
ordinary means appointed by God for communicating to us the vir-
tue of the Passion are the sacraments and the Euchanstic sacrifice.
Each sacrament produces its own special effect in the soul ; that is, it
determines in this or that way, as a secondary cause, the infinite vir-
tue of the primary cause, the Passion. The sacrifice of the Mass re-
sembles both the Passion and the sacraments. Like the latter, it is
one of the means or secondary causes by which the virtue of the Pas-
sion is applied to individuals. And in one respect its excellence as
a means exceeds that of any sacrament : for these have narrower
limits of application determined by the specific character of each,
(whereas the sacrifice of the Mass avails for countless needs as well
of body as of soul. It is of well-nigh universal applicability. None
but the already damned are beyond the reach of its aid. This surpass-
ing excellence as a means is due to its most intimate connection
with the Passion. Ic is the mystical renewal of Christ's death ; it is
the true, though unbloody, immolation of the same Victim by the
same Priest as were found on Calvary ; it is the oblation of Christ by
Himself, and as such is infinitely pleasing to God. The Passion is
the ultimate cause of God's being propitiated as regards mankind at
large, and of His being willing to shower blessings upon them ; the
Mass is, like the sacraments, the proximate cause of His being propi-
tiated hie et nunc towards this or that individual, and of His actually
conferring this or that grace, of remitting this or that sin or punish-
ment.
Now, considered absolutely — i. e.y in itself, as the opus operatum —
this offering of Christ is of infinite virtue for propitiating God and
demanding the application, in all their fullness, of the merits of the
Passion. 'But when this infinitely meritorious opus operatum is ap-
plied by the priest's intention to an individual (as by administration
he applies a sacrament), the actual effect produced is finite in its ex.
tent, whether that effect be some grace conferred or some poena re-
mitted. Therefore we say that the value of the Mass, as applied to
some individual case, is finite, of a certain limited amount (though
only God knows its extent), or, if you will, it is quantitative in
value.
From one point of view every Mass is a "good work" performed
by the Church, since the priest is her minister. Consequently every
Mass brings God's blessing upon the whole Church and every one
of her members. This fruit of the Mass is called by theologians the
fructus generalis. As all members of the Church partake of it, so in
VOL. XXV.— 10.
562 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
a special manner do those who are actually present at its offering —
the assistants at the altar and the congregation.
But the Mass is also the personal "good work" of the priest who
offers it ; and, like all other "good works," it brings a special bless-
ing upon the doer. This is called the fructus specialissimus of the
Mass.
Again, God has made us in some sense our "brother's keeper,"
his helper. As we learn from the story of Sodom and Gomorrha,
God is willing to accept the "good works" of just men as a counter-
balance of the evil deeds of others. In the Christian Church this
communion of saints, this participation in the good works of one
another acquires a much stronger foundation in the fact of the unity
of all the baptized in Christ (I. Cor. xii., 25-27). And even as God
accepts our prayers for one another, so also He accepts the offering,
on behalf of individuals, of our "good works." The most acceptable
to Him of all possible "good works" is the offering of that sacrifice
which is, at one and the same time, the actual oblation of the mysti-
cally slain Christ and the memorial of that supreme "work" — His
death upon the cross. This, too, then, can be offered on behalf of
some given individual, or for some particular purpose.
There remains one other word to be explained — that bugbear of
Protestants, ex opere operato. Perhaps a great deal of the mystery
supposed to enshroud this term and its antithesis — ex opere operantis
— may be due to slight variations in their signification necessitated
by regarding an action from diverse points of view. An example
or two will be the best way to explain them.
Suppose I give a sum of money to a man. My act may be good
or bad, according to the motive from which it proceeds. I may do
it from mere natural pity, and that is good ; or from true Christian
charity, and that is incomparably better ; or to effect some evil pur-
pose, and this would be a sin. The mere giving the money, i. e.,
the mere opus operatvmt, is in itself a thing "indifferent," neither good
nor bad, worthy of neither praise nor blame. Ex opere operato, then,
the act has no value. It is only as it proceeds from me that it ac-
quires "virtue :" its "value," whether for merit or demerit, depends
ex opere operantis, upon my doing it with good or bad intent.
Another example. A heathen King has issued an edict for the
putting to death of every child who shall have received baptism. A
man, wishing to injure his neighbor, takes the latter's child and
baptizes it with the intention of afterwards procuring its death.
Provided that he used right matter and form, and intended to do
what the Christians did, that child certainly received the inestimable
boon of sanctifying grace, of divine sonship. Yet the act, or "opus,"
considered as the miscreant's, was fiendish ; ex opere operantis it was a
*'The SacriHces of Masses" 563
heinous sin; but the opus operatum, the baptism considered abso-
lutely in itself, was an "opus" having "virtue," which "virtue," by
God's appointment, was inseparable from it and capable of effecting
spiritual regeneration in any infant or "disposed" adult notwith-
standing the wickedness of the minister. In other words, th^ effect
was produced ex opere operato, by virtue of the "opus" itself, and not
ex opere operantis, by virtue of the doer.
Using this same example of baptism, we have now to notice a
slight change in the application of the two terms ex opere operato
and operantis. Catholics, and a large number of non-Catholics, be-
lieve that baptism really and infallibly effects the spiritual regenera-
tion of infants. Yet the infant does not actively contribute anything
to the production of this effect; it may be asleep or unconscious at
the moment of baptism. Whatever is effected in its soul is due to
the sacrament, the "opus operatum:" i. e., the sacrament operates
ex opere operato. Thus we see that this term is used in contradistinc-
tion to ex opere operantis not only when the latter signifies the doer,
but also when it signifies the recipient of an "opus."
Moreover, an "opus" is said to produce its effect ex opere operato
not only when, as in the case of the infant, the recipient actively con-
tributes nothing, but also when he contributes something which yet
is not sufficient of itself to produce the effect. Thus an act of perfect
contrition suffices, without the sacrament of penance, for the remis-
sion of mortal sin in one who, at the moment, cannot have recourse
to a priest, or is under no immediate obligation to do so; An act
of attrition, on the other hand, does not suffice by itself for the re-
mission of mortal sin, but it does constitute a sufficient "disposition"
for receiving absolution in the sacrament of penance, which absolu-
tion, in remitting the sin, is said to act ex opere operato by its own
"virtue." The penitent, by his attrition, removed the impediment
to the working of grace, he turned his will from sin, he "disposed"
his soul for the grace which the sacrament conferred.
From this it will be evident that when we say a sacrament, or
whatever else, works ex opere operato, it by no means follows that
there is no need for some "disposition" on the part of the recipient.
The nature of the "disposition" varies for the various sacraments,
and for the various mental developments of the recipients — e. g., in-
fants, idiots, sane adults. Unless there be a moral certainty of the
presence of such "disposition," it would be both useless and sacri-
legious to administer a sacrament. Hence the unfairness of the
charge against Catholics, made in the Apology for the Confession of
Augsburg, that they hold "quod per ceremoniam justificemur, sine
bono motu cordis, hoc est, sine fide ;" and repeated in the English
"Thirteen Articles" of 1538, "Neque . . . verum est, quod qui-
564 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
dam dicunt, sacramenta conferre gratiam ex opere operato sine bono
motu utentis.'* There is a sense and there are cases in which Cath-
olics, and non-Catholics, too, maintain this ; there are others in which
they reject it. Faith is not required of an infant for baptism, nor
a "bonus motus" of the minister, beyond the bare intention to ad-
minister the sacrament validly. For absolution, a "disposition" or
"bonus motus," at least to the extent of true attrition, is absolutely
requisite on the penitent's part. In the sense in which the Reformers,
English and German, made this charge, it was absolutely untrue;
and Mr. Kidd is mistaken in supposing that the Council of Trent
"quietly omitted to say anything in support of 'sine bono motu
utentis,' and dropped all allusion to it." On the contrary, in so far
as it was untrue, they said : "Quamobrem falso quidem calumniantur
catholicos Scriptores, quasi tradiderint, sacramentum Poenitentiae
absque bono motu suscipientium gratiam conferre, quod nusquam
Ecclesia Dei docuit nee sensit." Sess. xiv., c. 4.
Having now cleared our terms from all ambiguity, we could
in other papers, if time permitted, and occasions presented
themselves, deal with the chief points raised by our author.
Our first task would be to show that St. Thomas and his suc-
cessors, whether mediaeval or modern scholastics, in claiming for
the Eucharistic sacrifice a true immolation, a true propitiation for
sin and poena, and applicability by the intention of the priest, were in
perfect accord with the primitive fathers. Then we should examine
the four Catholic witnesses adduced by Mr. Kidd to prove the wide-
spread acceptance of a gross and pernicious theory of the sacrifice.
The passage ascribed to St. Thomas and the case of Catharinus
could be dealt with in a separate article. It would not be necessary
to deal explicitly with the question of the sacrifice of the Mass being
distinct from that of the cross ; for an immolation which differs in
time, place and mode from another must ipso facto be distinct from
that other.
J. F. Besant, S. J.
Sti Asaph, Wales.
The ''Council of Ten" System in Irish National Education. 565
THE "COUNCIL OF TEN" SYSTEM IN IRISH NATIONAL
EDUCATION.
SOME remarkable admissions recently made by persons in au-
thority have thrown a ray of white light on the system known
by the rather misleading title of National Education in Ireland.
For more than half a century that hapless country has been the the-
atre of experiments on the spiritual and intellectual framework of its
people at the hands of doctrinaires and theorists utterly out of sym-
pathy for the most part with their genius, their religious convictions
and their higher aspirations in all fields of thought and human
activity. Impressed with a full sense of the importance of educa-
tion as an agency for moulding the destinies of large masses of
mankind, their maladroit influence and ability were for a long period
persistently devoted to the hopeless task — as it proved — of weaning
the youth of the country from those ideals in religion and political
development which had for centuries been the Irish tradition.
Clearly perceiving that the tendency of modern civilization rendered
the introduction of a universal system of education for the people
a thing inevitable, the framers of the original scheme determined
to lay its foundations on such a principle as would be certain, in
their limited view, to divert the minds of the rising generation, and
the succeeding ones, into such channels as would be favorable to
the eventual Anglicization of the country by detaching it from
those influences which had hitherto frustrated all attempts to plant
the religion of England among the Celtic population, and at the
same time, by the banishment of Irish history from the schools,
draw a veil of oblivion over a past so full of incitements to bitter
memories and noble emulation as the story of a strangled nation-
ality which the truthful chronicler must certainly unfold. One of
the chief architects of the National system was the celebrated Arch-
bishop Whateley; and his confession, posthumously published, laid
bare the motive which actuated him. It was to wean the Irish
youth from the religion of their fathers. This artless avowal can
hardly be said to have been instrumental in any considerable de-
gree in the defeat of the astutely-conceived idea. The quick wit
of the people themselves enabled them to detect it at a very early
stage of the experiment. The religion of the Irish is still cherished
steadfastly by what remains of its Celtic population, while the
wealthy and powerful Protestant Establishment of which he was the
566 . American Catholic Quarterly Review.
gifted representative has, thanks to the energy of the Irish popula-
tion, been laid in the tomb of all the Capulets.
Hardly more successful has been the dogged persistency in the
vicious course of ignoring the national history of the country. That
plan was steadily persisted in down to a couple of years ago. Not
a syllable that would shed light upon the glorious past of Ireland
before the English conquest, or on the causes of its melancholy
decline under foreign rule, was ever permitted for more than half
a century to get into a book issued under the sanction of the so-
called "National Commissioners." At length the force of public
opinion broke down in some measure the defenses of the ostrich-
headed system. A handbook of Irish history, prepared somewhat
on the Bowdlerized Shakespeare plan by the skilful hand of Dr.
Joyce, was at last placed upon the list of works supplied by the
National Board.
Concurrently with this obscurantist policy in regard to the his-
tory of their own land, there was developed a cunning design to
glorify the country and the people who had imposed the yoke on
the neck of Ireland. Poems in praise of both, pitched in the key
of "A happy English child," were artfully introduced, together with
occasional soul-stirring historical references in prose composition.
At the same time a sort of negative proselytism, by means of Scrip-
ture quotations and religious maxims, was sought to be carried
out in the early text-books, prepared under the able guidance of
Archbishop Whateley and his sympathetic collaborators on the
National Board. The Catholic representation on that board in the
beginning was almost nil. Hence the "National" system was
fiercely denounced by such stanch defenders of faith and nationality
as the great Archbishop McHale. Several of his brother prelates
were equally outspoken on the subject, and forbade their flocks,
under penalty, to patronize the new schools. Seeing the probable
failure of the whole grand scheme through persistence in this jan-
issary policy, the Commissioners modified their methods so far as
to give an equal representation of Catholics and Protestants on
the Board, but this was not done until after the system had been
a considerable time in operation.
This cursory outline of the beginnings of the National system
is necessary, especially in the United States, because of the adop-
tion of a similar policy of hiding away the truth on the part of
those intrusted with the task of enlightening the American public
on the progress of public education in other countries. Not one
who -ever read the Reports of our Bureau of Education could ever
glean from them a knowledge of the real state of the case from the
The ''Council of Ten" System in Irish National Education. 567
carefully prepared and elaborate statements published by that d'C-
partment of our Government. It would, however, be unjust to
impugn the bona fides of the Commissioner for this defect. Of
course the official ac the head of the department could not of his own
knowledge do any better than he did. He had to take the reports
presented by persons whom he believed sufficiently impartial and
competent to prepare reliable papers on the subject in the many
fields of inquiry which his annual reviews embrace.
Educational problems in no place can be regarded as in a state
of rest, not to say finality. They may be considered rather as a
series of experimental advances, in which the views of one set of
thinkers prevail for a time and then give place to others arguing
from a different base of generalization. "Experimentum fit in cor-
pore vili" seems to have been the motto whose spirit commended
itself to the early devisers of the present Irish system. In Ireland
the Catholic people had for a century and a half been in the position
of a criminal on the rack. The aim of their "Sworn Tormentors"
did not merely seem, but really was, to discover how much the
Catholic Celt could endure in the way of moral degradation and
physical suffering before his reason gave way or his spirit was
broken to the point of submission to the torturer's will. It was
the same determination which forbade him, in the penal days, to
acquire knowledge of letters that in the more liberal age laid down
the law as to what he should learn and what he should not. This
is where the iron of foreign domination enters the soul of th-e van-
quished. It is the very essence of slavery that out. of the taxes
wrung by force from a conquered people, what is administered to
them for their mental sustenance is not that for which their souls
hunger and thirst, but that which their despot thinks likely to fur-
ther his own concealed designs. The Act of Parliament which in
183 1 began what it called the National Education system for Ire-
land was in spirit and intent as much a penal law as any passed in
the reign of Elizabeth or William of Orange. So, too, was the law
of Sir Robert Peel which called into existence the trinity of Queen's
Colleges known as the Godless. It is not because Ireland is a
little place remote from these shores that its struggles with the
English Kulturkampf have no interest for us; far from it. They
are a microcosm of the vastly larger developments here, and the
results of the struggle, by the laws of mental sympathy and vibra-
tion, must in time be felt upon our own intellectual littoral. The
most crucial stage of the struggle appears to 'be at hand now, and
the final triumph of the principle for which the indomitable Irish
Catholics have contended, even when the last rays of hope seemed
568 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
to have departed from Ireland's horizon, seems to be nigh. There
is on foot a movement to reconstruct the whole National system —
a movement so far-reaching and momentous as to justify the Arch-
bishop of Dublin — always a very cautious prelate — in styling it a
revolution.
Not from the outside, it should be noted, has this startling effect
been produced. There has been no agitation of late years in Ire-
land, save for some alterations in matters of administration and the
relations of teachers to school managers. It is the system itself
which confesses its helplessness to keep pace with the impulse of
the age. Progress it finds impossible along lines laid down for
conditions which have become obsolete. The rails are there, but
the sleepers are rotten and the permanent way awry and sagged.
One very striking point in the criticism of the Irish National sys-
tem which we find embodied in the United States Educational Re-
port, 1890-91 (the most important one in the brief series), is the
shrewdness with which the anonymous writer detected the flaws in
the system, considered from a practical working standpoint. Look-
ing at what is now transpiring, as we shall shortly describe, the
remarks appear to be almost prophetic :
"In the theoretical elaboration of the system . . . appar-
ently no detail has been overlooked. Judged from the American
standpoint, the system would seem to be entirely wanting in the
force and spirit of spontaneous action. Nothing else gives a sys-
tem so strong a hold upon the sympathies of a people nor such
powerful effect upon their development. Systems wanting in this
element have the character rather of expedients than of deep-rooted
institutions, and to this general rule the Irish system is no excep-
tion. Its results as a practical expedient may be judged from
several particulars.
*'The average daily attendance maintained in the schools is low,
being, as already noted, but ten per cent, of the total population,
forty-seven per cent, of the total enrollment and fifty-nine per cent.
of the average annual enrollment. This is 'explained in part by the
sparse population of many districts, the poverty of the people and
the absolute demand for the help of the children in agricultural
regions. The failure of the system to modify class distinctions
is due in some measure to the fact that it has little attraction for
the rural gentry of Ireland."
There was insight in this judgment, as will be seen, but all was
not visible to the keen critic who passed it. There were hidden
springs qi disorganization, and these are now being laid bare by
the force of public events. Not long ago Mr. Charles Redington,
The ''Council of Ten'' System in Irish National Education. 569
the able and accomplished successor of Sir Patrick Keenan, died,
and the post of Resident Commissioner was bestowed upon the
present occupant, Dr. Starkie. The functions of Resident Com-
missioner constitute him the executive head of the system. He
carries out the general policy of the honorary Commissioners, but
his advisory power is also a great factor in the determination of the
problem. In this case it would seem that the transformation about
to be effected has been decided upon entirely through the Resident
Commissioner's action, and if this be so the importance of having
one man with a head and a heart at the helm, instead of twenty-one
(the number of the present Board), must irresistibly suggest itself.
Dr. Starkie recently delivered a speech on the state of the educa-
tional machinery — a thing almost unprecedented in his office — and
pronounced the doom, because of the failure, of the present worn-
out methods. He did not indicate the nature of the substitute
which had been devised, but its character is sufficiently perceptible
from the comment of the Archbishop of Dublin. **It is not a re-
form," said His Grace, "but a revolution."
All this has arisen over the recently issued Report of a "Royal
Commission of Manual Instruction." This body, since its appoint-
ment, had gone into its work of inquiry so thoroughly, with the
help of the Resident Commissioner, that there was no possibility
of hiding the unworkable articulation of the old ramshackle pile.
The stage coach of the Georges' days is no more fit to draw a mod-
ern passenger train than the antique construction thrust on the
Irish people for the work of directing present-day school ideals.
The point most emphasized by Dr. Starkie was the impossibility
of local initiative under the existing system. Its chilling influence
leaves no choice of action to either managers or teachers. This
rigidity both in rules of school management and educational sylla-
bus is condemned by the Archbishop, by Dr. Starkie and by the
Manual Instruction Commission by the description of "cast iron."
It leaves no room for what the American commentator deems re-
quisite— "the force and spirit of spontaneous action." The Arch-
bishop is hopeful that this deadening influence is near its -end. The
Royal Commission will insist upon the necessity of altering it in
toto. "The system administered by our Board," the Archbishop
declares, "must be either a system of centralization or one affording
abundant scope for intelligent local initiative." Now, the Report
of the Manual Commission, he insists, has made the continuance of
the centralized system impossible. There is, to all appearances,
then, no alternative for the Government but to give up the control
of the schools, a function which it had never the slightest moral
right to assume, and retire into the position of mere distributor of
Syo American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the public funds in this respect. Blatant bigots and ignoramuses
prate and write about the overweening ambition and despotic spirit
of the Church where the control of the minds and the consciences
of the people is concerned. Did they ever cast a thought on, did
they ever know, of this prolonged endeavor of an impersonal suc-
cession of alien officials in London to compel the intellectual part
of a people into the channels it would not run in and to weaken
their faith in the ancient religion for which their fathers suffered
martyrdom ?
It is difficult to imagine the sources of such crass reasoning as im-
pels statesmen and governments to cling to the notion that they can
fight against moral forces with cast iron rules and mere physical
weapons. It had long been seen in England that the central plan
was unworkable in regard to the general education of the people,
and accordingly the local control principle found full embodiment
in the creation of the School Board system more than twenty years
ago. How it could be imagined that the plan which had failed in
England and Scotland, where the people are in harmony with the
governmental power and the religion of the country, could be suc-
cessfully maintained in Ireland, where the conditions are entirely
reversed, it is hopeless to conjecture. Despotisms seem to be sub-
ject to the law of compensations. As a makeweight to the advan-
tages they enjoy, as the fruits of arbitrary rule, they appear to in-
herit by nature a double dose of stupidity.
Another feature of the National system in Ireland, ushered in
with a great flourish and a loud "Eureka" a quarter of a century
back as something both novel and practical, was the rule of paying
by "results." By making results' fees portion of the teacher's sal-
ary it was thought to stimulate the energies of both teacher and
pupils by an infallible recipe. The results system, however, was
emphatically condemned by the Royal Commission. Under "that
wretched system," as it was styled by the Archbishop, the inspectors
became only inspectors in name. Examination afforded no real
test of the capacity of either pupils or teachers. To make the in-
come of the teacher depend upon the greater or less degree of parrot
power of the children or the temporary state of their nerves at ex-
amination times seems like a piece of capricious cruelty.
But the real "dead hand" at the apex of the "National" system
was the grasp of the English Treasury on its purse-strings. This
Treasury is a thing constructed on the principle of a cash register.
Its mental equipment is marked by the same absence of soul or
conscience as one of those clever mechanical contrivances. No
public expenditures can be made in Great Britain or Ireland save
The ''Council of Ten" System in Irish National Education. 571
^through the hands of this Treasury in London. Every docket
which signifies money must be vised and certified by this universal
paymaster before it can be honored anywhere. But the Treasury
is more than a supervisor of expenditures. It is also a controller
and an investigator for whose "why" there must be always forth-
coming a satisfactory "because" before payment is furnished. No
change in the system of results' fees could be made without obtain-
ing the consent of the Treasury — unless, indeed, the teachers were
prepared to give up the million dollars a year which is the Govern-
ment's contribution to the results' system. On this point the Arch-
bishop's statements are more than emphatic — they are decidedly
original and picturesque. "It is a discouraging thing," says Dr.
Walsh, "and it necessarily has a very deterrent effect to feel before-
hand that one can do nothing unless he can succeed in first instruct-
ing and then converting to his views a number of people whose
very identity is unknown to him, who live, in fact, during official
hours, cloaked and masked, behind a sort of screen in London, like
the judges we read of in the tribunals of the old Venetian republic.
It requires no small stock of persevering determination to take such
a thing in hand at all. This deterrent effect of the system is its
worst feature, and Lord Salisbury spoke words of weighty truth in
what he said in the House of Lords a few weeks ago: 'The exer-
cise of its powers,' he said — that is, of the powers of the Treasury —
in governing every department of the Government is not for the
public benefit. I think much delay and many doubtful resolutions
have been the result of the peculiar position which, through many
generations, the Treasury has occupied. I do not assume that it
is only in large measures the difficulty was produced. But salutary
reforms are built up by a long series of useful changes. Individ-
ually they are small, but in the aggregate they are large ; and here
I think the control of the Treasury has done harm. I think it has
had the effect of discouraging, of impeding and of taking away the
freedom and diminishing the initiative of the respective depart-
ments. I think it is an evil. Much of the immobility of the de-
partments is, I think, due to the existence of that control."
A striking parallel, truly, that of the secret Venetian tribunals
and the procedure of the English Treasury. The terrible "Council
of Ten," the secret executioners, the Bridge of Sighs and the awful
dungeons below the water and under the piombi all at once rise up
in dread phantasmagoria before the mind's eye. The closest moral
similarity exists between those agencies and methods of mediaeval
despotism and those -employed in London to repress the right of
the Irish people to free education after their own ideals.
572 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Step by step, ever since the foundation of the system was laid ia
the minds of Stanley, who began it in 1831, and Peel, who com-
pleted it in 1840, the Government have had to recede from the
original design. By sheer tenacity the people were enabled to
secure such modifications as by slow evolution transformed the
system from a Godless unelastic three R's arrangement to one of
denominational education in practice. The local manager in the
Catholic district is the parish priest; in some Ulster parishes, the
Episcopal or Presbyterian minister. These respectively arrange the
amount and the time of religious instruction in the various schools.
A "conscience clause" protects the rights of those parents who,,
though obliged by local circumstances to send their children to-
schools where the religion of the majority dictates the form of the
spiritual -exercises, elect to have them go without any or depend
upon home training in whatever form they prefer.
What share the great teaching body, the Irish Christian Brothers,
have had in compelling this alteration of purpose is an equation
with too many unknown quantities for any one to essay. But with
the certain action of the pole upon the magnetic needle, their policy
caused the ship of state to swerve in her course. Their fine schools,
established early in the century, were equipped with the best appa-
ratus, handled by the ablest scholars. The teachers were all picked
men, full of that sympathetic power which is essential to the success-
ful pedagogue. In their great halls the courses were carried out
with clock-work regularity, and the most perfect order and decorum
were maintained apparently without an effort on the part of those
in charge. The exercises of religion took place at stated hours, be-
fore its quickening symbols exhibited on the walls. The morn-
ing's work was opened with prayer ; the half hour for play was pre-
ceded by the devotion of the midday Angelus; and the afternoon
dispersal did not take place until after thanks for the day's work
done. The personal and affectionate interest taken by many of
these whole-souled teachers in their pupils contributed another
powerful guarantee for success beyond the staff of the National
schools, who, lacking in the religious incentive which spurred the
Christian Brothers, lacked the moral qualities which were its outer
denotements. Had the Brotherhood not been compelled to charge
a small weekly fee and to demand more for their text-books than
those supplied by the Government to the National schools' pupils,
they must have been far more successful still in diminishing the
attendance at the new establishments. But this was unavoidable.
Ireland was at the time steeped in appalling poverty, and the re-
sources of the Brothers were jejune indeed. But as it was, they
The ''Council of Ten'* System in Irish National Education. 573
educated many thousands of boys every year, for they had" exceed-
ingly spacious schools in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and other large
centres. The Government soon perceived the formidable character
of this obstacle to the grand scheme of de-Catholicizing and dena-
tionalizing. Besides teaching the fundamental principles of reli-
gion, the Brothers actually taught Irish history ! — a most pestiferous
derangement of England's programme.
' A course of action was resolved on which leaves no doubt of
the mind of the Government at this particular phase of Ireland's
trials. The Christian Brothers were offered State aid for educa-
tional purposes, but on what condition ? In effect that they would
become accomplices of the Government in its secularizing scheme
by stripping their schools of their religious emblems. If they would
only eliminate the Cross and the Madonna and the images of th'e
saints, they might have a proportionate share of the public fund.
But an indignant refusal was the response to this temptation. The
Brothers steadfastly persisted in their attitude whenever at various
turns of the discussion on educational policy renewed opportunities
of falling into line were politely offered them. This discreditable
attitude was maintained toward the sturdy Brotherhood down to
the passage of the last Bill for the improvement of the National sys-
tem, supplementary to Sir John Gorst's much more liberally-con-
ceived measure for England and Wales. Even a Minister so favor-
ably disposed as Mr. John Morley could not be moved from a
stubborn adherence to so unjust and paltry a position. Fair and
equitable on all other great questions of Irish policy, he was
immovable as a rock on this one point. A firm believer in the
cold tenets of Mill and Herbert Spencer on the relations of the
State toward public education, he could never be persuaded, while
conceding that the special circumstances of Ireland demanded spe-
cial methods of legislative treatment, to concede that any departure
in this, the most important respect of all to her, was compatible
with true statesmanship. To the firm stand taken by the Irish
Nationalist members of Parliament the ultimate surrender of the
Government on the point was due. Mr. Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr.
Healy, Mr. W. O'Brien and other prominent men of the party
brought forward arguments in their favor whose force it was im-
possible to withstand. As Mr. O'Brien said: "The Christian
Brothers had practically the education of the whole Irish urban
population in their hands, for their schools were situated in all th-e
chief centres of population. The most influential men in every city
and large town in Ireland had been their pupils. Their system was
regarded in Ireland as the really national system. It was adapted
574 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
to the genius of the people, it was deeply grounded in their respect
and affection." (London Times, March 23, 1892.) But it was not
Mr. Morley or the Liberals who reluctantly displayed the white
flag. The surrender came from the Unionists and the Tories. It
did not come even from these until it had been demonstrated re-
peatedly, by the results of the Intermediate examinations, that the-
teaching system of the Christian Brothers was capable of achieving
in secular fields of learning a perfection unsurpassed by institutions
which had long enjoyed all the advantages of State favor and un-
limited material resources.
Side by side with this absorbing chapter of heroic struggle for
principle in the field of primary education should be placed the
review of the cognate one for university rights for the Catholic-
people. But this subject would demand exclusive consideration.
Yet it is impossible to repress the feeling of wonder at the weakness
of a powerful Ministry which, while confessing the justice of the
Catholic demand through the mouth of its responsible spokesman,
shrank from the duty of conceding it in act because of the bigoted'
opposition of a miserable handful of Orange and Presbyterian anti-
Irishmen and the clamor of a section of English Nonconformists;
and secularistic Radicals. So humiliating an exhibition of moral
weakness is not to be found in all the history of political vacilla-
tion.
Many eminent statesmen resort to the ingenious idea in vogue
in the old French Court for the benefit of offending Dauphins — a-
vicarious penitent whose back should bear the punishment to which
the genuine delinquent had been sentenced by stern governess or
preceptor. Mr. Balfour, who must feel in a bad plight over his
ignominious surrender on the Catholic University question, appears
to have fallen back upon this clever notion. He has a faithful hench-
man in the head of the Irish Local Government Board, Mr. T. W.
Russell. This official, although a Scot by birth and a Presbyterian
by religion, is yet a Liberal Unionist as to politics. As a Liberal'
Unionist he was pledged, when seeking his seat for South Tyron-e^
to the removal of every Irish grievance, to satisfy every reasonable
demand of Ireland short of the restoration of an Irish Parliament.
Mr. Russell is a conscientious kind of man, in his own way. He
has felt bound to support the demand for a Catholic University
on the merits of the case; but he sits for a constituency in which
the Orange and Presbyterian elements are in a slight majority.
The time for a new general election is drawing nigh, and Mr. Rus-
sell's time of embarrassment with it. He has been offered seats in-
other parts of the United Kingdom, he declares, but he prefers to-
The "Council of Ten'' System in Irish National Education. 575
repres-ent South Tyrone, if South Tyrone only prefer him. The
fact that a seat in any place outside Ireland would not qualify Mr.
Russell for the retention of the comfortable post he now holds as
head of the Irish Local Government Board he does not deem it
the part of good taste to allude to, because, probably, he deems
the wit of his constituents equal to the delicate problem he thus
negatively puts before them. It is this University question, he
shrewdly judges, which is the centre of the coming battle — the key
of the position. "Nobody," he declares, in a public letter to his
constituents — "nobody at the present moment can very well say
what the position of the University question really is. Judging by
appearances, Mr. Balfour's proposals or views have not met with
the full approval of the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church.
If I am right in this supposition we should be fighting in Tyrone
upon an issue that may not become practicable during the next
Parliam-ent."
This is not a very ingenuous statement of the premises. Mr.
Balfour made no definite proposals on the subject. He merely put
forward a series of tentative questions, with the purpose of eliciting
a statement of the lengths to which the Irish hierarchy were pre-
pared to go on the subject of lay influence on the controlling board
of the contemplated University. The Bishops' reply was clear
enough. They were satisfied to have an adequate representation of
lay scholarship : they could give no more definite answer to a query
very vague and fishy in its terms. Therefore Mr. Russell's plea —
which may be regarded as Mr, Balfour's apology, in view of the
official and political relations between the two politicians — is en-
tirely creditable to the former's skill in dialectical subterfuge. What-^
ever public correction or castigation it may draw forth, Mr. Bal-
four, by his silence, escapes the whipping; and thus the wisdom of
the French Court method will be triumphantly vindicated. At the
same time Mr. Russell saves his own reputation for perfect bona
■fides and sportsmanlike magnanimity. "Elect me again," he says
to the South Tyrone voters, "and if the Catholic University qu-es-
tion reach the stage of proposed legislation, I will then resign and
submit myself to the judgment of my constituents on this particular
question." This incident furnishes a clue to the singular gyratory
action of the Government from time to time on questions of gravest
importance to Ireland. Men are put into office who go there to
learn the business called statesmanship, and to acquire the states-
man's conscience. They may have the most profound conviction,
in their private capacity, of the justice of certain popular demands,,
but when they find, by exposition, that their principles are not:
576 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
acceptable, in some regards, to their constituents, they wilHngly
submit them to alteration. Every step taken by the English
Government with regard to public education in Ireland has borne
the impress of this spirit. Between the necessity and justice of the
case, on the one hand, and the weight of popular prejudice in Eng-
land on the other, the conscience of the statesman — whenever he
happened to have any — ^was as between the upper and nether mill-
stones. It is not, under the circumstances, going too far to say
that the principle of action disclosed in Mr. Russell's letter appears
to be that on which Mr. Balfour has proceeded ever since the dis-
cussion over the Catholic University question was reopened; and
Mr. Russell is only proving his devotion to his exalted model by
tendering him the delicate flattery of imitation.
The fact is that the policy underlying the withholding of a Cath-
olic University despite the reiterated insistent demands for one is
the very same policy that has always been acted on in Ireland since
the time that statesmen began to see that it was the duty of the
State to educate the people. It is not what the people claimed and
hungered for that was to be given them, but what their English
masters deemed good for them. Dr. Starkie, breaking away en-
tirely from the traditions of his predecessors, stated the case bluntly,
without 'either disguise or palliation, in the memorable speech at
Glasnevin which has given the discussion a new and irresistible im-
pulse. The ^'National" system was alien in spirit and unsuitable to
the genius of the Irish people, he declared. It was an attempt to
graft foreign ideals upon a race entirely out of sympathy with the
people who offered it and sought perforce to fasten it permanently
upon unwilling recipients. And now it is discovered that, even
taking it as a system designed to nullify and refrigerate the reli-
gious and national ideals of the Celt, it is unworkable, reactionary
and useless even from this point of view. *T was but a very short
time attending the meetings of the National Board," remarks the
Archbishop of Dublin, "ere I found how hopeless it was to eflfect
any reform, because of the fact that the smallest change was im-
possible without the consent of some unknown Treasury clerk in
London." These are not exactly His Grace's words, but they ex-
actly reflect his complaint. "It is not a reform which is coming,
but a revolution." This will be news indeed to that large class
of easy-going people who have year by year been imbibing their
knowledge of the educational status of the Irish people through
those carefully-compiled and apparently authoritative literary pro-
ductions called Parliamentary blue books. The language of thes'i
compilations never would lead the reader to suspect that there was
The ''Council of Ten" System in Irish National Education. 577
the smallest hitch or friction in the motion of the huge piece of
mechanism held together with an ingenious mesh-work of red-tape.
Take, for instance, the statement of the case furnished to our own
Commissioner by the unknown expert who drew up the special
Report already referred to — i. e., for 1896-97. It is the soul of
blandness and respectable impartiality, as these passages will show:
"The principles controlling the policy of the British Government
with respect to popular education already referred to, i. e., the sense
of public responsibility in this matter and immemorial regard for
local prerogative and private rights, have been displayed in a strik-
ing manner in the system of National education maintained in Ire-
land since 1831. The growth of the system has been phenomenal;
the schools which in 1834-35 numbered 1,106, with an enrollment
of 145,521, or 1.8 per cent, of the population, having increased to
8,298 in 1890, with an average enrollment of 828,520 pupils, 17.6
per cent, of the population. The ratio of average daily attendance
to the population at the later date was 10 per cent., or more than five
times the ratio of enrollment to population in 1835. The annual
•expenditure which in 1883 was estimated at ^47,224 ($229,509), and
which it was supposed would ultimately reach a fixed sum of £200,-
000 (about $1,000,000), was actually in 1890 £973,062 ($4,729,082).
The administration of the system is confided to a National Board
of Commissioners appointed by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
The managers of schools, who are generally clergymen, come into
immediate relation with this Board. There are no elected school
boards, as in England and Scotland, nor do civil authorities appear
in the matter at all.
"Several details pertaining to the internal conduct of schools,
which in Great Britain are left to local managers, are in Ireland en-
trusted to the Board of Commissioners (i. e., the representatives of
the Government). This policy grew out of the religious question,
which presented the greatest obstacle to the development of a Na-
tional system of education in Ireland. At the time of the organiza-
tion of the system it was necessary to allay the jealousies which had
been excited by previous attempts to force Protestant schools upon
a population overwhelmingly Catholic. To this end a formal de-
claration was made on the part of the Government that its purpose
was "to superintend a system of education from which should be
banished even the suspicion of proselytism, and which, admitting
children of all religious persuasions, should not interfere with the
peculiar tenets of any.
"The sincerity of the Government with respect to this purpose
was evidenced in the constitution of the Board, which comprised
VOL. XXV.— 11.
578 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
eminent representatives of both Catholic and Protestant churches,
and in placing under their control all matters affecting the subject
of religious instruction. They were directed to separate literary and
moral from religious instruction and to remit the latter subject to
th-e clergy. All efforts to compel or to persuade the attendance of
any child upon these exercises against the wishes of parents and
guardians were strictly forbidden.
"The authority of the local managers is extensive and in most
districts is reposed in one man, the priest, Presbyterian minister or
other clergyman, as the case may be. He appoints and dismisses
the teachers, arranges the daily time-table of the school and deter-
min-es the character of the religious instruction. A report of Jan-
uary 31, 1 89 1, shows that 48 per cent, of school managers at that
date were Roman Catholic clergymen; 30.5 per cent, clergymen
of the Episcopal Church; 18. i per cent. Presbyterian ministers;
2.2 per cent. Methodist ministers."
The ordinary reader of this smooth sketch of the beginnings of
the system never could glean the idea that there had been a fierce
fight for the principle of Catholic representation on the National
Board, or an insidious attempt at that proselytism so smoothly dis-
avowed by the Government — nor of the determined stand of the
Bishops and clergy which compelled the change in the ways of the
"National" Board. Thus it is that history is written. It is part of
the general method resorted to for the suppression of the part
played by Catholicism in public education all over the world. Not
one official Report that we have ever seen has taken the slightest
notice of the wonderful work of the Christian Brothers in Ireland.
Their name is never mentioned. Of what value, we may ask, is
any return purporting to give the proportions between literacy and
illiteracy in Ireland which omits the bearing which the figures of
the Christian Brothers' school population must have on the ques-
tion ? In the particular report now under notice occurs the follow-
ing statement:
"The recent census (1891) reveals a favorable view of the results
of education in the country. The census commissioners observe
that 'the progress achieved in both primary and superior instruc-
tion may be considered the most gratifying fact elicited by the cen-
sus. In 1881 the percentage of wholly illiterate persons was 25.2,
whereas in 1891 it reached no more than 18.4 per cent. Of the
whole population above 5 years of age, 70.6 per cent, could read
and write at the latter date, as compared with 59.3 per cent, in 1881.
The addition to the number of schools and of pupils has been rela-
tively small.' "
The ''Council of Ten'' System in Irish National Education. 579
There is nothing in this passage to show that any returns but
those of the National Board were consulted or sought for in the
calculation of the school attendance ; nor in these further particulars :
'The classification of pupils by religious denomination is import-
ant as showing the progress of the system in overcoming sectarian
opposition. Every teacher is accordingly -expected to enter upon
his register the church relation of each child. Of the schools whose
returns were summarized, 3,866 were mixed schools, i. e., attended
by both Protestant and Roman Catholic pupils, and 4,394 were
separate schools, i. e., attended by Roman Catholic or by Protestant
pupils exclusively.
Mixed Schools. Pupils.
Under Roman Catholic teachers exclusively 327,966
Under Protestant teachers exclusively 127,159
Under Roman Catholic and Protestant teachers conjointly. 12,855
Total 467,980
"Of the pupils in separate or unmixed schools, 468,222 were
Roman Catholic and under teachers of that sect, and 100,733 Pro-
testant under Protestant teachers. The percentage of schools ex-
hibiting a mixed attendance declines steadily from year to year,
having fallen from 55.1 in 1 881 to 46.7 in 1890."
Returns of such a character as the above are useful only in giving
an approximate idea of the literary status of the population. The
very large number of pupils in the Christian Brothers' establish-
ments must, had they been tabulated, affect the relative proportions
of Catholic and Protestant scholars, as well as alter the conclusion
as to the comparative triumph of the "National" over the denomin-
ational system. In Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Waterford,
Galway and other places the Brothers' schools accommodate thou-
sands of boys. In Cork they have three large schools in different
parts of the city under their care, and some of the buildings have
six different school-rooms for the purposes of grading and classi-
fication, and each of these rooms or halls may accommodate from
three to five hundred pupils. The same is true of the schools in
Dublin and other places.
A statement recently furnished by Brother M. M. Hill to the
Catholic World shows that about thirty thousand children attend
the schools of the community. About three thousand of that num-
ber are receiving intermediate education, the remainder primary.
Mr. Hill's statement is exceedingly interesting, not only as a dis-
closure of the work the Brothers are doing, but as an exposure of the
animus of the Government and the so-called National system. "The
580 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
programme of studies in our schools comprises Greek, Latin,
French, Celtic, German, Italian, Mathematics in all its branches.
Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Type-writing and Shorthand, be-
sides other studies which children in some localities require. All
our schools are connected with South Kensington, so that drawing
is universally taught. The Brothers receive no aid from Govern-
ment for Primary Schools, and in my opinion one of the principal
reasons is that our schools are the only National Schools in the
country. The English Government does not favor a national edu-
cation, as it is not favorable to having Irish history taught as it
should be taught ; nor does it favor denominational education, which
is the system of the Irish Christian Brothers. The English Gov-
ernment has tendered no remuneration to Irish Christian Brothers.
Some English statesmen essayed doing so, but failed. As to our
status as teachers, as compared with the teachers of the Govern-
ment, and also as to the success of our pupils at Civil Service, I
may give a quotation from Lord Justice Fitzgibbon in 1894. (He
is not a Roman Catholic, but he is a man of broad views and recog-
nizes merit.) He said in the King's Inns at a debating society about
two years since: 'The result was that after a certain number of
years so large a proportion of Christian Brothers' unendowed
schools were carrying off prizes that it was said the system was not
high enough. The standard was raised for the purpose of ex-
cluding schools that had not a high standard of teaching. The
schools that were squeezed out were those that thought they would
remain in, and a larger proportion of Christian Brothers' schools
than -ever were successful when the standard was raised !' On an-
other occasion His Lordship stated, before the Protestant Church
Society, that if they (the Protestants) wanted to hold their own in
Civil Service, they should organize their schools on the lines of
the Christian Brothers, whose boys. His Lordship said, were taking
a large percentage of places in the Civil Service."
That work of this kind has been done a half century and more
without the help of a penny from the State is a truly surprising fact.
But much more surprising still is it to know that official Reports and
blue-books have been published all this time, year after year, with-
out making the smallest reference to that fact, or hinting that any
such agency was at work for the -education of the Irish people in
their own way and according to their own religious and national
tendencies.
It should never be forgotten that the Christian Brothers could
have had generous State help, long ago, were they only willing to
conform to the State's idea of the function of education. All that
The "Council of Ten'' System in Irish National Education. 581
was needed was merely to remove the crucifix and the reUgious
pictures from the walls and omit the prayers which three times a day
intermit the work of secular teaching for both teacher and pupil.
This offer was made to them more than once — under the regime
of Mr. W. T. Forster, and again under that of Mr. John Morley.
But the answer of the Christian Brothers was always an unfaltering
"no surrender." On no account would they offer up incense to the
gods of the modern paganism. They steadily held aloft the highest
standard in education — highest in the moral sphere, highest in the
secular.
It is little wonder that the Archbishop of Dublin found in the
methods of mediaeval Venetian judges a parallel for English methods
in the field of Irish education.
One more anomaly remains to be noted in this connection, in
order to a full understanding of the anti-National idea under-
lying the whole plan of the State system of education in Ireland.
This is the dogged attempt made to extirpate the National language.
When the system was first set in motion seventy years ago there
must have been several millions of people whose only medium of
thought was the Irish language. The children of such could not
receive any instruction save through the vernacular. Yet no pro-
vision whatever was made for their instruction. It was this Irish-
speaking population which furnished the chief holocausts to the
Famine tribute in 1847, Y^t there remained, and still remains, de-
spite the emigration drainage, a large section of the Irish-speaking
peasantry — mostly on the western seaboard and in the mountain
districts of the North. About thirty years ago a society was started
in Dublin with the object of averting the extinction of the vener-
able and euphonious tongue of the Gael in Ireland, and its most
difficult task in all the years since then has been to induce the
"National Board" to aid in this most commendable undertaking.
The driblet concessions which the Board made from time to time
have always been of a niggardly and hampering character. So
obstructive have been its tactics that a strongly-worded memorial,
gotten up by Dr. O'Donnell, Bishop of Raphoe, and some hundreds
of priests of the Irish-speaking districts, was recently presented. It
is nothing short of a grave indictment. For instance, the memo-
rialists say:
"We are convinced that primary education in our respective dis-
tricts has hitherto been rendered gravely defective, and that the
best results of education have been thrown away by the neglect to
utilize Irish systematically as a part of the pupils' knowledge and
as the natural medium of their instruction. The children of these
582 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
districts come from Irish-speaking homes, where all the familiar
converse of life, still more, all the higher and more spiritual ideas
are habitually expressed by their parents and elders in Irish. The
first foundations and the most important part of the mental devel-
opment of the children are thus naturally made in the Irish lan-
guage. To ignore the utility of Irish in teaching these children
from the outset is, in our opinion, a primary blunder for many
reasons. It deliberately puts on one side all that the children may
have learned not alone of the vocabulary of common life, but of
the finer shades of thought and feeling which are eminently char-
acteristic of the Irish language. Experience has shown that the
native traditional taste for poetry and other forms of literature and
for music is taken away from the people along with their native
language. It often happens under the present system that after a
number of years at school young people practically lapse into illit-
eracy and forget how to read and write simple English. Even of
those who may seem to have profited more, a large number have
little better than a mechanical proficiency, and from the standpoint
of material advancement are hardly to be distinguished from the
class of illiterates."
It is difficult to comprehend the obstructive policy of the National
Board in this particular matter. Perhaps there was not policy, but
only dislike of the language and a desire to avoid responsibilities
for which the Board was not equipped. If, on the other hand,
there was a policy, and that the idea was to help Anglicize the people
gradually by this additional means, it was a singularly foolish one,
for the keeping any peopl-e in ignorance only adds to the piled-up
grievances which often eventuate in destructive outbursts. The
Protestant missionaries were more astute. The Kildare-place As-
sociation had trained Irish teachers early in the field, and thou-
sands of Bibles in Irish were distributed by the proselytizing soci-
eties in the Irish-speaking districts in periods of distress, besides
tons of controversial literature also in the vernacular. Although
the investment did not prove profitable, the design showed tactical
genius. But the crass hostility of the National Board produced
no result but a more profound dislike year after year of the alien
system.
The upheaval which is now convulsing the whole system is th-e
natural result of dogged persistence in a vicious course. For
seventy years this coercive Board has been trying to educate the
Irish people out of Irish ideals and Irish love of the ancient faith.
That the means employed to further this dark design should in
detail resemble those of the Council of Ten was only in keeping
The "Council of Ten" System in Irish National Education. 583
with the principles of high art, as understood in the old text-books.
But a new century is bringing new and perhaps truer ideals. The
question is, is the Briton too old to learn?
John J. O'Shea.
[Since the foregoing pages were written the first official step
toward a partial reconstruction of the lines on which the National
system had been laid has been taken, and the fact is publicly notified.
From the date of the notification, it is announced, the principle of
payment of results' fees ceases, and in its stead will be substituted
grants from the Treasury arranged according to classification. This
is only one reform, and in a matter of financial detail more important
to the teachers themselves than to the mass of scholars, but it is in
the right direction. It will remove the tendency toward the ''forc-
ing" method of which the results' fees could not help being produc-
tive, and it will give the diffident pupils who may be just as clever
naturally as their more alert and pushing companions a chance of
getting their fair share of the teachers' attention. It is likely to
operate also toward effecting a larger attendance, since the per
capita principle stirs up the managers and the teachers to continuous
effort to keep the attendance at as large an average as may be.
The change will entail an additional draft on the Treasury, to the
extent, perhaps, of a couple of hundred thousand pounds ; but what
can that trifle be to a Government which thinks nothing of squander-
ing hundreds of millions upon wars and preparations for wars?
The National Board also authorize some further concessions in the
matter of the teaching of the Irish language. But these steps are
only preliminaries. They are precursors of the larger changes, how-
ever, adumbrated by the Archbishop of Dublin, and satisfactory in
so far as they intimate the conversion of the English Government
from the reactionary and futile ideas upon which the whole Na-
tional system was originally laid out. The system is at last seen to
be a failure, and for this disillusioning the steady passive resistance
of the people for nearly three generations is to be accorded the
credit.— J. J. O'S.]
584 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
THE STORY OF THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION.
II. THE STORM.
THE return of Knox from the Continent in May, 1559, could
scarcely have happened at a more opportune moment for
the fortunes of his party. The Queen Regent awaited the
arrival of the Protestant preachers at Stirling, while they with a
large following were assembling at Perth, determined to resist.
Erskine of Dun, one of the leaders, desirous of preventing harsh
measures, went alone to the queen, having prevailed upon the Con-
gregation to remain at Perth. Mary of Guise, while anxious to
keep peace with the Protestant party, was unwilling to let the con-
tumacious ministers go unchallenged. Erskine, therefore, with
some others, became security for their appearance before her at the
time appointed.
Meanwhile the preachers at Perth occupied themselves with the
delivery of inflammatory sermons, which set forth "how odious
idolatry was in God's presence ; what commandment He had given
for the destruction of the monuments thereof; what idolatry and
what abomination was in the Mass."^ At this crisis Knox appeared
on the scene. There is little doubt that it was by his persuasions
that the preachers decided to refuse to answer to the summons of
the Regent ; for, as he himself bears witness, he went to Perth "to
assist his brethren" and "to give confession of his faith with them,"
and arriving among them, "began to exhort, according to the grace
of God granted unto him."^ When the preachers failed to appear,
sentence of exile was passed against them, while Elrskine and their
other sureties were fined. .t.
On the day after these events Knox assembled his followers in
St. John's Church, and, as a contemporary writer says, "made such
an excellent Sermon to them that he set their Minds, already moved,
all in a Flame."^ The subject of the discourse is given by Knox
himself, although he does not mention that he was the preacher.
"The sermon," he says, "was very vehement against idolatry."* At
its conclusion, while "the most part were gone to dinner,"* as Knox
takes care to state, a priest, somewhat imprudently as it would seem,
entered the sanctuary and began to make preparations for oflfering
the Holy Sacrifice at the high altar. As he unfolded what Knox
1 Knox: "History of the Reformation" (ed. 1644), p. 143. 2 ibid, p. 1142. s Buchanan :
" History of Scotland" (ed. 1752), Vol. II., p. 248. •* Knox : " History," p. 143. * Ibid.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 585
•calls "a glorious tabernacle"® — probably a triptych adorned with
paintings or images — a boy cried out, 'This is intolerable, that when
God by His Word hath plainly condemned idolatry, we shall stand
and see it used in despite."^ The priest, roused to indignation, gave
the boy a blow; he retaliated by throwing a stone, which struck
one of the sculptured images of the altar and broke it in pieces.
This served as a signal to the people present. Already excited by
the Reformer's sermon, the incident roused them to action. In a
moment they threw themselves upon the pictures and carvings of
the altars, the statues of the saints, the painted windows and all the
other adornments of that glorious church and destroyed them ut-
terly. The sumptuous building, with its forty altars, the pride of
the "Fair City" and the origin of its familiar appellation, "Saint
Johnstown," was left a wreck — stripped of everything that marked
it as Catholic.
Knox, in his endeavor to shield himself and the Protestant
leaders from blame, calls the perpetrators of these sacrileges "the
rascal multitude" and "the common people;"^ but, as an historian
justly remarks, "when the feelings of an excited populace have been
systematically roused, when at the very time exhortations to vio-
lence are ringing in their ears, when the act itself is neither checked
nor punished, it is obvious that the multitude are not the worst
criminals."® Yet some writers, carried away with admiration for
their hero, acquit Knox of all blame. The reformer's biographer,
Dr. McCrie, actually asserts that Knox "exerted himself in putting
a stop to the ravages of the mob ;"^^ it would be interesting to know
what authority he has for the statement, as there is nothing in the
way Knox relates the circumstances to warrant it.
Their appetite for destruction once whetted, the mob rushed to
the other ecclesiastical buildings of the city to repeat the same
scenes of desecration. For two days they hacked and hewed at
crosses, images, paintings and windows of stained glass till every
fair church and chapel was reduced to ruin. The Charterhouse
had been founded by James I. and Jane, his queen, in 143 1, and
richly endowed; its buildings were of "wondrous cost and great-
ness,"^^ and were esteemed one of the special ornaments of the city.
The bodies of two queens lay buried there. This magnificent pile
was entirely destroyed, so that only the walls remained. Knox
places it to the credit of the "reformers" that the prior "was per-
mitted to take with him as much gold and silver as he was able to
« Knox : " History," p. 143. ^ ibid. 8 ibid. 9 Grub : " Ecclesiastical History of Scotland,"
Vol. II., p. 69. " McCfie : " Ufe of John Knox" (sixth edition), p. 156. " Knox : " History,"
p. 143-
586 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
carry."" A generous indemnity, truly, for the ruin of his beautiful
home ! The Dominican and Franciscan convents suffered the same
fate as the Charterhouse. The former, a favorite residence of Scot-
tish monarchs, was often referred to as "the Palace." In its church
many parliaments and ecclesiastical assemblies had been held, and
the decrees of the National Councils of the Scottish Church, de-
posited there for safe keeping, perished in its downfall. The in-
mates of these houses are styled by Knox "Black and Gray
Thieves;"^^ while their despoilers are spoken of as men whose con-
sciences were so "beaten with the Word" that their only thought
was "to abolish idolatry, the places and monuments thereof."^*
The example set by the Protestants of Perth spread to Cupar in
Fife, and the people of that place, "by general consent, either broke
the images or threw them out of the church, and thus," says the
Protestant narrator, "cleansed their temple."^"^
The Queen Regent was naturally deeply incensed by such pro-
ceedings, and particularly by the demolition of the Charterhouse,
with its royal tombs. She threatened to take extreme measures to
punish the ringleaders, and they, on their part, fortified the city
against any attack from the royal troops. To the Regent, the loyal
lords and the prelates and clergy they despatched letters justifying
their conduct. The insolent tone of these epistles, which clearly
declared their resolve to take up arms in defense of their cause,
judged in the light of after events, indicates the confidence they re-
posed in the substantial help of England. Particularly insulting
was the superscription of the address to the clergy : "To the gener-
ation of Antichrist, the pestilent prelates and their shavelings within
Scotland, the congregation of Christ Jesus within the same
saith " Protestant historians, such as Bishop Keith and Fraser
Tytler, are forced to lament the anti-Christian spirit which pervades
this disgraceful letter.
The Regent had prepared to lead an army against the rebels,
whose forces had been increased by the arrival of the Earl of Glen-
cairn with about three thousand men, when an arrangement was
come to between the opposing parties through the efforts of the
Earl of Argyll and Lord James Stuart (afterwards Earl of Moray), ^*
both of them deeply implicated in the Protestant cause, though
ostensibly on the side of the queen. The reforming party evacu-
ated Perth, and the Regent took possession of the city, and, to
Knox's indignation, "began straight to make provision for their
" Knox : " History," p. 143. " Ibid. »< Ibid, is Buchanan : " History of Scotland," Vol.
II., p. 249. w Through inadvertence this nobleman was erroneously styled in a previous ar-
ticle I,ord James Murray. He was raised to the earldom at a later date by Queen Mary.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 587
Mass,"^^ as a public restoration of that Catholic worship which the
inhabitants had virtually abolished.
The Protestant side was further strengthened by the defection
at this time of the Lord James and the Earl of Argyll, who openly
espoused the reformed doctrines and took a leading part henceforth
in the proceedings of the Congregation. Emboldened by success,
the Protestants repeated in other towns the sacrileges already wit-
nessed at Perth. After Knox had preached at Crail and Anstruther,
the mob proceeded to wreck both those churches. After another
sermon at St. Andrews, on the casting out of the buyers and sellers
from the temple, the Franciscan and Dominican friaries were laid
in ruins, and the work of demolition was commenced in the glorious
Cathedral by the wholesale destruction of everything holy or beau-
tiful.^* It was almost immediately after this "reforming" of St.
Andrews that the noble Benedictine abbey of Lindores was attacked.
In a letter to a female friend, Mrs. Anne Locke, Knox thus refers
to the event : "The abbey of Lindores, a place of black monks, dis-
tant from St. Andrews twelve miles, we reformed, their altars over-
threw we, their idols, vestments of idolatry and Mass books we burnt
in their presence, and commanded them to cast away their monkish
habits.""
The Cistercian monastery of Balmerino shared the same fate. Not
even Scone, the historic abbey which had witnessed for centuries
the unction and coronation of Scottish sovereigns, was destined to
escape the fury of the so-called reformers. The Lords of the Con-
gregation had already informed the Bishop of Moray, its Commen-
datory Abbot, that his only chance of saving the abbey from de-
struction lay in joining the Protestant party. Before he could reply
to this communication a mob from Dundee and Perth attacked the
buildings, and in spite of the attempt of Argyll and Lord James to
stay the work of devastation, the noble pile was reduced to a heap
of blackened ruins. The churches and monasteries of Stirling and
Linlithgow and the abbey of Cambuskenneth were next overthrown,
and the mob marched on to Edinburgh, sacking and destroying
every church and religious house in the city, even the royal abbey
of Holyrood itself, and ending by taking forcible possession of the
Mint.
It is worthy of note that by this time Knox had no scruple in
identifying himself with the iconoclasts. After complaining that
*'' Knox : "History," p. 151. ^^ Although contemporary writers do not mention the de"
molition of the Cathedral at this time, Grub says that it is "a tradition of very general re-
ception" that the destruction commenced then. Hist., Vol. II., p. 71 (note.) " McCrie :
" Wfe of Knox," Appendix, No. VII.
588 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the Provost of Edinburgh, Lord Seton, "had taken upon him the
protection and defense of the Black and Gray Friars," constraining
"the most honest of the town to watch those monsters, to their great
grief and trouble," he goes on to relate with evident satisfaction the
destruction of their property by the "poor, who had made havoc,"
he says, "of all such things as were movable in those places before
our coming, and left nothing but bare walls; yea, not so much as
door or window; whereby we were the lesser troubled in putting
order to such places. "^^ The extract already given concerning Lin-
dores is another proof of his sympathy with the action of the "rascal
multitude," upon whose shoulders some writers have vainly en-
deavored to shift the whole burden of responsibility. It must, more-
over, be borne in mind that the "Beggar's Warning,"^^ which had so
accurately prophesied the fate of the religious houses, was not the
work of any illiterate person, a fact which implicates some at least
of the leaders of the movement in the sacrileges which were the
result.
Events in Edinburgh called forth a strong protest from the Queen
Regent in the form of a royal proclamation declaring the Congre-
gation and all who favored them to be rebels. The document
stated in clear terms that the conduct of the Protestant party gave
evidence that not religion or anything connected with it, but rather
the desire for the subversion of all authority, was at the root of
their actions ; this was proved by their constant communication with
agents from England, and by the recent seizure of the instruments
of coinage. In conclusion, the members of the Congregation were
commanded to leave Edinburgh without delay. The reformers
answered by a letter to the Regent, in which they declared their
single aim to be the glory of God and abolition of idolatry. This
communication they followed up by sending two representatives
to the queen to explain more fully their desires and hopes. Besides
asking for liberty in the practice of their religion, they expressed a
wish that the French soldiers who had been taken by the Regent
into her service, and who had aroused the deep dislike of all, should
be dismissed to their own country. A second proclamation from
Mary, declaring that none should be molested who conducted them-
selves as peaceable and loyal subjects, had the effect of weakening
for a time the Protestant party by drawing many to the queen's side.
The mention, by the Regent, of English factions, and, by the
Congregation, of French mercenaries, necessitates some few words
20 Knox : " History," p. 156. 21 a summary of this extraordinary effusion was given in a
previous paper ; it may be found in the April number of this Review, p. 363.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation, 589
of explanation regarding the part taken by the two countries in
Scottish affairs at this period. The Queen of Scots, wedded to the
young king, Francis II., and at this time residing in France, was
naturally an object of interest to the princes of the house of Guise,
her mother's relatives; their efforts were consequently directed to
the strengthening of the power of the Scottish queen and her rep-
resentative, the Queen Regent. To this end they despatched to
Scotland several bodies of French soldiers, whose presence was a
constant source of chagrin to the reformers. Later on a French
bishop was sent to the Regent as legate of Pope Paul IV., and in
his train came several distinguished French theologians, whose
efforts were directed towards the reconciliation of backsliders from
the Faith. The legate took care to establish Catholic rites once
more in the collegiate church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and the
labors of his companions were rewarded by the bringing back of
many renegades and the strengthening of waverers. Thus it was
evident that French support meant the upholding of Catholicity,
and this it was that irritated the Protestant party.
Elizabeth of England had kept an anxious eye on Scottish affairs
since her accession. She hated Knox for his political opinions, and
disliked the Calvinistic principles of the reformers generally. Yet
it was her policy to break the power of the Guises, who favored the
right of the young Queen of Scots to the throne of England and
stigmatized Elizabeth as base-born. The easiest way of striking
at them, without breaking peace with France, was through Scot-
land. This was why, when France became active in helping the
Regent, the Queen of England resolved to assist the opposing party.
Knox had already constituted himself political agent in the mat-
ter, and his letters may still be seen among the State Papers^'^ beg-
ging for help against the French in money and men ; many of these
are written under the assumed name of Sinclair (that of his mother's
family), for the reformer evidently recognized the incongruity of
a minister of the "true church" persuading intrigue and bloodshed.
It was many months before Elizabeth could be induced to enter
into any definite agreement with the Congregation. When at length
she resolved to act, it was only on condition that there should be no
mention in the treaty of anything concerning religion ; it was to be
purely a political arrangement, intended to rescue Scotland from
French interference. Part of the scheme was the deposition of the
Regent and the appointment of the Duke of Chatelherault, the head
» state Papers, Scotland, IBlizabeth, Vol. I.. Nos. 65, 88-90, 97, etc. The reader who is de-
sirous of learning more of the moral character of Knox will find much information thereon
in these letters.
590 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of the house of Hamilton, or his son, the Earl of Arran, in her
place. Both these men favored the Protestant party, and as they
were next heirs, after Queen Mary, to the throne of Scotland, there
seemed some hope of changing the succession, and thereby render-
ing Elizabeth's position secure. The conduct of the leading re-
formers in this matter is reprehended by even Protestant historians.
'This transaction," says one, "presents us with a somewhat mortify-
ing view of the early reformers in this country, when we find that
after all the solemn warnings deneunced against trusting too exclu-
sively to an arm of flesh, Knox, who then acted as secretary to the
council of the congregation in the west, and Balnaves, who filled
the same situation in the council established at Glasgow, consented
to purchase the cooperation of mere human power by omitting all
allusion to that cause of religious reformation which they had so
repeatedly represented as the paramount object for which they had
taken up arms and were ready to sacrifice their lives. "^^
Elizabeth's policy, says another writer, "was in itself wicked and
unjust, and though apparently successful, was fraught with evils
which produced results fatal to the happiness and well-being of both
kingdoms."^* If this can be maintained from a Protestant point
of view, it becomes still more apparent when regarded in a Catholic
light. It is quite certain that but for English help the Reformation
would never have been brought about in Scotland. With Eliza-
beth's powerful aid a revolution was set on foot and maintained
until the jealous Queen of England had gained her end in the
overthrow of her rival, Mary Stuart. Her consent to join the cause
of the Congregation came just when help was most needed. Em-
boldened by fresh recruits to their ranks, the Protestant party had
had the audacity to address a document to the Regent informing
her that she was deprived of authority, as she had failed to carry
out the wishes of the young queen. This act of rebellion had
alienated many of their followers, the French soldiers had proved
too strong for them and they had been forced to quit Edinburgh
"amid the shouts and insults of a great proportion of the citizens."^*^
Without extraneous help their cause would have resulted in com-
plete failure, and the Regent's party would have gained a perma-
nent ascendancy.
The Treaty of Berwick between the Duke of Norfolk, represent-
ing England, and Lord James Stuart, on the Scottish side, was
signed on February 27, 1560, and a few months later an English
army eight thousand strong entered Scotland and a fleet of four-
23 Fraser Tytler :" History of ScoUand," Vol. 111., p. ii6. «< Grub :" Ecclesiastical His-
tory of Scotland," Vol. II., p. 74. 25 praser Tytler : " History of Scotland," Vol. III., p. 114.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 591
teen ships attacked Leith. The Congregation meanwhile resumed
their old work of plundering and demolishing sacred edifices. The
Abbeys of Paisley, Kilwinning and Dumfermline had already suf-
fered during the previous autumn ; now it was the turn of the more
northern sanctuaries. Aberdeen was visited by the barons of the
Mearns and the Dominican and Carmelite Friaries destroyed. The
houses of the Franciscans and Trinitarians were fortunately pro-
tected by the zeal and devotion of the citizens from a like fate, and
the noble cathedral of St. Machar was saved through the vigorous
action of the Earl of Huntly.
While the country was thus a prey to foreign invaders and sacri-
legious rebels, the Queen Regent lay down to die. Her health,
long failing, had been still more weakened by grief and anxiety at
the unhappy state of Scotland. From her sick-bed in Edinburgh
Castle she sent an urgent message to the leaders of the Congrega-
tion, asking them to visit her. In pathetic words she bemoaned
the evils that had fallen upon the country, and besought the nobles
to strive earnestly to procure peace and to rally around their youngl
queen. Then, bursting into tears, she asked pardon of all whom
she had offended, declaring that she heartily forgave all who had
offended her and prayed to God to pardon them. In the judgment
of a writer who had no sympathy for the queen's religious opinions,
"the pathetic scene of her last farewell to her foes" is "an incident
which for Christian meekness has no parallel in history."^^ Those
who witnessed it were deeply touched. The queen expired on the
following day, June 10, 1560. She had foreseen the difficulties
which would be made about her burial as a Catholic sovereign, and
had begged to be interred in the Benedictine Abbey of Rheims, of
which her sister was abbess. As she had expected, the preachers
forbade "the use of any superstitious rites in that realm, which God
Himself had begun to purge,"^^ and it was only after several months'
delay that the coffin containing her remains was conveyed secretly
to France and deposited in the resting-place she had chosen. The
death of Mary of Guise aroused, as an old chronicler declares, "the
great griefe and lamentation of the whole number of the estates and
people of the realme."^^ "This," observes Miss Strickland, in her
life of the queen, "could not have been the case if she had been the
unfeminine monster described by Knox. But," she continues, "the
accusations brought by Knox against this Princess are seldom borne
out by facts, while they afford abundant proof of the indomitable
26 Miss Strickland : " Queens of England," Vol. II., p. 266. 2t m. S. Calderwood (British
Museum) vide Fraser Tytler : " History of Scotland," Vol. III., p. 121. 28 Holinshed : "Chron-
icles," Vol. v., p. 603 (ed. 1808.)
592 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
nature of his prejudice, which neither her forgiveness of those who
had offended her nor her dying appeal for pardon to those whom
she had offended could soften."^^
The misery produced throughout Scotland by protracted warfare
moved all parties to strive for peace, and in less than a month after
the Regent's death hostilities were brought to an end by the signing
of a treaty at Edinburgh by commissioners sent from France and
England. The French representatives had received instructions
to ignore the Treaty of Berwick as an act of rebellion, but by the-
astuteness of Cecil they were won over to concessions which secured
the interests of the reformers, without any direct reference to the
aUiance of the latter with England. Elizabeth still maintained the
attitude she had assumed at first, and allowed no reference to be
made in the treaty to the religious disputes between the parties.
Nevertheless the Protestants gained their end in another way.
Among the articles was one relating to the proximate assembling
of a Parliament, which should have the same power and validity as
though it had been formally summoned by the king and queen. It
was upon this clause that they based their hopes of the success of
their reform. That they were well satisfied with the treaty is evident
from the flattering terms in which they expressed their gratitude
to the English queen for the part she had played in the affair. They
had good reason for congratulation, for, as Tytler says, the treaty
which they had just secured "led to the full establishment of the
Reformation," and was "intimately connected with the subsequent .
course of events."^^
Now that fortune seemed to smile upon the Congregation and
its undertakings, many timid or doubtful proselytes were encouraged
to join the ranks of the reformers. Among these were even some
of the prelates and several of the clergy. Whether their motives
were as pure as Knox would have us believe is open to doubt. It
is significant that some of them were rewarded by prominent posi-
tions in the Protestant ministry, which now began to be organized
with more regular method. Preachers were appointed for the chief
towns, Knox himself undertaking the charge of Edmburgh. In
his new capacity the arch-reformer presided with his usual anti-
Catholic ardor at a solemn service in St. Giles' Church to offer
thanks for the Treaty of Edinburgh.
Like all the other clauses of the treaty, that referring to the pro-
posed Parliament was inserted subject to the approval of Francis
and Mary, sovereigns of France and Scotland; yet, although their
20 Strickland : loc. cit. »> Fraser Tytler : " History of Scotland," Vol. III., p. 124.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 593
sanction had not been given (and it is clear that it never was), the
Congregation boldly pushed on their project. So early a date had
been fixed for the assembly that there was barely time for the royal
assent to reach Scotland beforehand had their majesties been willing
to grant it. This was doubtless premeditated, to judge from after
events. On August i the Parliament met, the number of represen-
tatives being unusually large. This was owing to the presence of
a large gathering of lesser barons, who had joined the reformers and
who claimed the right to sit and vote. This right was not unani-
mously or immediately accorded;-''^ for nearly a century scarcely
more than one or two had made use of their privilege, and then only
by virtue of a special writ. The treaty provided that all should sit
"who are in use to be present;" the expression was held by some
to militate against the right of these lesser barons. "It might well
be deemed somewhat unusual," says Keith, "for a hundred of them
to jump all at once into the Parliament, especially in such a juncture
as the present."^^
But the right of the lesser barons was not the chief question under
discussion at the opening of the assembly. Many of the members
maintained that until the assent of the sovereigns had been given no
Parliament could legally be held, and they urged delay. It was to
the interest of the reforming party, however, to carry matters
through as rapidly as possible ; it would even seem that strategem
had been employed, for the French king informed the English am-
bassador as late as August 9 that he had not yet seen the Treaty of
Edinburgh, or even heard from the commissioners.^^ The dispute
took eight days to settle, when the majority of votes decided in
favor of continuing the sittings.
Although many ecclesiastics were present, a large proportion of
them were mere titulary dignitaries, who were notably on the side
of reform. It is to be regretted that the true faith should have
had so few representatives. Several of the Catholic bishops and
abbots and their supporters among the nobility had declined to
attend. The Earl of Huntly, the Chancellor and leading Catholic
noble, excused himself on the plea of ill-health. In his absence
William Maitland, of Lethington, was appointed president. The
Lords of the Articles, who had to introduce the various measures,
were chosen by the temporal lords from among such prelates as
were known to favor the new opinions. The Catholic-minded eccle-
31 It Is noteworthy that Randolph thought well to enclose in a letter to Cecil a copy of the
petition of the lesser barons to be allowed their privilege. State Papers, Elizabeth, Vol. V.,
No. 8. M Keith: " Affairs of Church and State," p. 147. 33 French correspondence in State
Papei oflBce, quoted by Fraser Tytler : " History," Vol. III., p. 126 (note.)
VOL. XXV.— 12.
594 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
eiastics present protested against a mode of procedure so unfair, but
their protest was disregarded.
One of the first proceedings was the presentation of a petition
entitled : "The Barons, Gentlemen, Burgesses and other true sub-
jects of this realm, professing the Lord Jesus within the
same, to the nobility and states of parliament presently assembled
within the said realm, desire grace, mercy and peace from God the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the increase of His Holy
Spirit."** The document went on to recount the ardent desires of
the petitioners for "a godly reformation of abuses," especially with
regard to the doctrines of the Roman Church, which were asserted
to contain "many pestiferous errors." The petitioners craved the
abolition of idolatry, the reformation of the clergy, the renunciation
of the "usurped authority" of "that Man of Sin (who) falsely claimeth
to himself the titles of The Vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter,
the head of the Church, that he cannot err, that all power is granted
unto him,' " etc.,^^ with much more to the same effect — the whole
being couched in such violent and intemperate language that a
Protestant historian declares that it is "difficult to read (it) without
emotions of sorrow and pity."^®
The petitioners were asked to lay before Parliament a summary
of the precise doctrines they desired to establish, and four days later
— so well prepared were they — a document was presented entitled :
"The Confession of the Faith professed and believed by the Protest-
ants within the Realm of Scotland."^^ The Lords of the Articles,
according to custom, first examined and approved of it, and on the
17th of August it was read before the whole assembly, previous to
submitting it to the votes. There was very little discussion upon
the subject; the majority of the members present were heart and
soul with the movement, and the small Catholic minority kept per-
sistent silence.
It must be noticed here that in this procedure the reformers were
again flagrantly violating the terms of the Treaty of Edinburgh.
The last article of that treaty distinctly affirmed that the question of
religious changes was to be discussed by specially chosen commis-
sioners, and their decisions were to be submitted for approval to
the king and queen. Yet not only had the leaders of the Congre-
gation hurried on the Parliament without waiting for the royal as-
sent, but the very men who, by their management of the commis-
sioners from France, had fraudulently averted their own condemna-
•* Knox : "History," p. 219, » Knox : "History," p. 220. so Fraser Tytler: "History,'*
Vol. III., p. 128. 37 Knox : loc. Cit.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 59$
tion as rebels, actually dared to pose as lawgivers to the whole
realm, and that in a matter so sacred as the worship of God.
The silence of the Catholic prelates, which he attributes to anx-
iety as to their temporal possessions, is severely censured by one
historian. "They were probably right," says Grub, "in attending
Parliament, notwithstanding the doubts as to its lawfulness, but,,
being there, they were bound to defend to the utmost the faith
which they professed and the institution which it was their solemn,
duty to maintain. It might not be easy for them to determine
what precise line of conduct they should adopt, but under no cir-
cumstances could their silence be justified. It encouraged their
enemies and entirely disheartened their friends among the laity."^*
There is, however, another view of the case. It is clear from
documents afterwards found among the archives of the Scots Col- .
lege in Paris that the bishops had from the first relied upon the set-
tlement of the religious question by a properly constituted Parlia-
ment, assembled by royal authority. When this hope was frustrated
by the hasty convocation of the Parliament of August i, without
sanction from the crown, and the "Confession of Faith" was brought
forward to receive its assent, they seemed to have considered it
more prudent and dignified to hold their peace. They probably
hardly realized the serious nature of the crisis, and felt little doubt
that all would be put right again when the sovereigns had been
acquainted with what had been done. Archbishop Hamilton, in
one of the documents referred to, thus expresses himself on the sub-
ject: "I neither can nor will think that our sovereign will let all
this country be oppressed wrongously by subjects; but I will not
judge till I see the uttermost."^^ In the same letter, addressed to
the Archbishop of Glasgow, who was then in Paris, he gives his rea-
son for writing, as follows : "I must make this little billet to your
lordship more that remembrance be not lost between us than for
any matters of importance. "^^ The words in Italics are worthy of
note, as the letter is dated on the very day after the "Confession" had
been accepted by the Protestant majority in Parliament.
To us who look at the event in the light of subsequent history, the
adoption of the "Confession" is the destruction of the Catholic Faith
and the setting up of Protestantism in its place by the highest au-
thorities then in power. It had less significance to contemporaries,
for Bishop Lesley, in his history, has thought it unworthy of notice.
There seems no difficulty, therefore, in supposing that the bishops
were actuated by similar motives in keeping silence at the discussion.
»Grub: "Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," Vol. II., p. 85. » Keith: "Affair* of
Charch and State," pp. 485-88. *> Ibid.
596 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
But though they made no protest as to the matter comprising the
"Confession," they were forced to a decision when it was a question
of voting for or against it as the standard of faith for the realm.
And here also we may detect the same attitude of aloofness. The
Primate and the Bishops of Dunkeld and Dunblane stated their
willingness to reform abuses, but considered that study and delibera-
tion were necessary before the passing of so sweeping a measure as
that in question. In spite of the sarcastic invitation of the Earl
Marischal calling upon them to refute the doctrines if they could,
the prelates maintained the position they had taken up. They alone,
with the Abbot of Kilwinning, as representatives of the spiritual
lords, and the Earls of Cassillis, Caithness and Athole, and Lords
Somerville and Borthwick among the temporal lords, voted against
^he measure. The new profession of faith was accordingly accepted
in Parliament by an overwhelming majority.
Although the new doctrines were thus established by law, as far
as Parliament could do so, further means were necessary to com-
plete the work begun. Accordingly, on the 24th of August, three
more Acts were piissed. The first abolished for ever the authority
and jurisdiction of the Pope within the realm of Scotland; the
second repealed all former acts contrary to God's Word and the
Confession of Faith lately established; the third ordained that no
one in future should be permitted to administer the Sacraments
without a special license, and threatened all who should say or hear
Mass with confiscation of their goods for the first oflfense, banish-
ment for the second and death for the third.
The crowning work of this unauthorized assembly was a final
violation of the very Treaty of Edinburgh to which it owed its ex-
istence. In accordance with the terms of the treaty, several pre-
lates applied for the restoration of property which had been lose
during the war. Their petitions were ignored till the very last day
of the session, when they were set aside on the plea that no one ap-
peared in support of them. The Parliament further enacted that
all leases of Church lands granted since March 6, 1558, by the Arch-
bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the Bishops of Murray, Dun-
keld and Dunblane, the Abbots of Dunfermline and Crossraguel,
the Priors of Whithern and Pluscardyn and other opponents of the
Congregation, should be null and void.
Now that the articles of faith professed by the reformers had been
imposed upon the country, the next duty was to legislate for the
discipline to be followed in the practice of the new form of religion.
Accordingly certain persons were deputed to draw up the "Book
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 597
of Discipline;" amongst them were Knox and Winram, the apos-
tate sub-prior of St. Andrews ; the latter is thought to have taken
an important part in the compilation of the Catholic catechism known
as Archbishop Hamilton's some eight years earlier. The Book of
Discipline was submitted to a convention of the nobility at Edin-
burgh in January, 1561. It was by no means unanimously wel-
comed. ''Some," says Knox, ''approved of it, and willed the same
to have been set forth by a law ; others . . . grudged, insomuch
that the name of the book of discipline became odious unto
them. . . . The cause we have before declared; some were
Hcentious, some had greedily gripped the possessions of the Church,
and others thought that they would not lack their part of Christ's
coat."*^ Although the Book was not formally sanctioned by the
convention, yet many of the leaders subscribed their names to it,
adding a proviso that all prelates and beneficed persons who had
joined the Congregation should enjoy their ecclesiastical revenues
for their lifetime. It is needless to say that as the "Confession" had
swept away every vestige of the old Catholic faith, so the Book of
Discipline entirely overthrew Catholic ritual and practice — put-
ting an end to all feast days, even the festival of Easter, and retain-
ing Sunday alone as a day of religious worship and abolishing five of
the seven Sacraments.
The Congregation took care that the new laws should not remain
a dead letter. In December, 1560, the ministers and commissioners
of the reformed religion met at Edinburgh. In one of their assem-
blies it was decided to petition Parliament to punish as idolaters cer-
tain persons who still persisted in celebrating or hearing Mass.
Among the offenders were the Earls of Eglinton and Cassillis, the
Abbot of Crossraguel and the Prior of Whithern. It was stated
that Mass continued to be openly said in the churches of Maybole,
Girvan, Kirk-Oswald and Dailly — all in Ayrshire. In May of the
following year another Assembly of the reformers met at Edinburgh.
The members drew up a complaint to the privy council with regard
to the suppression of idolatry — their usual term for the Mass — and
all its monuments, mentioning also some other grievances. The
Lords of the Council, Knox tells us, agreed to their requests, and
the result of this promise was soon seen. The Parliament, which
reassembled in the same month, passed an act for demolishing
all remaining abbeys and monasteries. The work was entrusted
to Lord James Stuart, titular Prior of St. Andrews, and to the Earls
of Arran, Argyll and Glencairn. The beautiful Abbey of Paisley
met its fate at this time; the Primate, who was its Commendator,
*^ Knox : " History," p. 233
598 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
barely escaped with his life. Kilwinning, Crossraguel and other
houses were also destroyed, and every church in the kingdom
speedily became the scene of devastation and sacrilege. Bells, holy
vessels, books, vestments were wantonly carried off, and such as
were valueless to the spoilers ruthlessly destroyed.
The youthful Francis IL, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots,
died on the 6th of December, 1560. The ties that bound Mary to
France being thus severed, her return to her native land began to
be proposed. The Prior of the Knights of St. John, who had been
despatched to France to give an account of the transactions follow-
ing the Treaty of Edinburgh, and who arrived about September, had
been received with courtesy by Francis and Mary, but they had re-
fused to ratify the treaty, and the Cardinal of Lorraine at the
same time had spoken in plain terms of disapprobation to
the English ambassador regarding Elizabeth's share in the mat-
ter.
Now, however, it was felt by the Catholic party that the queen's
return to Scotland would have the effect of drawing many to her
allegiance who had objected to French supremacy under the rule
of her mother. In February, 1561, therefore, commissioners arrived
from France with a message from the young queen, announcing her
speedy return and empowering the Duke of Chatelherault and others
to assemble a Parliament.
The two parties in the state now vied with each other in being
the first to offer to their sovereign the profession of their devoted
service. John Lesley, Official of Aberdeen, afterwards Bishop of
Ross and Mary's faithful adherent, was sent to France by the Earls
of Huntly, Sutherland, Crawford and Athole and the other Catholic
leaders and prelates, on a mission to the queen. The Lord James,
as the representative of the Protestant party, was requested to pre-
sent to her the allegiance of the Congregation. Lesley arrived
first and was granted an interview. On the part of the Catholic
lords he warned the queen against her half-brother. Lord James,
who was even then at the court of Elizabeth, and advised her to
take care that he should be detained in France until her own safe
arrival in Scotland. He begged Mary to effect her landing at Aber-
deen, where her faithful Catholic subjects would provide her with
an army twenty thousand strong to escort her to the capital. Mary,
however, mistrusted Huntly, and was, moreover, desirous of offend-
ing no party ; so, though kind and gracious to Lesley, she did not
accept his proposals.
Lord James Stuart arrived next day. He was received by the
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 599
young queen with much affection. His urgent request that she
should confirm the Treaty of Edinburgh was, however, firmly re-
fused. There is good reason to suspect that Elizabeth had prompted
him in this measure, for Lord James made known the result of his
interview without delay to the English ambassador, who sent on
the news to the English queen, and the State Papers give evidence
of Elizabeth's indignation at the refusal of Mary to ratify the
treaty.*^ Mary embarked at Calais on the 14th of August, 1561,
and successfully avoided the English cruisers sent out by Eliza-
beth to intercept her, arriving at Leith six days later.
A warm welcome awaited her from the people, who flocked to
Holyrood Palace in crowds to testify their loyalty. Their attitude
towards their Catholic queen tended to foster the belief which Mary
had always entertained, that her presence would do much to set
religious troubles at rest, and that in course of time the Catholic
Church would regain her sway over Scotland. But events proved
the contrary. On the first Sunday after her arrival she prepared
to assist at Mass in her private chapel, together with her Catholic
attendants. When the news spread abroad a furious mob, led by
one of the reformers, the Master of Lindsay, invaded the court of
the palace and threatened death to the "idolatrous priest." It was
only by the presence and authority of Lord James, who personally
guarded the celebrant till the service was over, that violence was
prevented.
The queen's resolution to maintain for her own household the
benefit of Catholic rites was a sore point with the reformers. Some
of the nobles maintained her right to the practice of her religion,
but Knox and the ministers were furious. Yet, although the latter
party asked advice of Calvin himself, no measures were taken at
that period to disturb the queen in her religious practices. Knox's
fiery zeal found vent in vehement sermons against idolatry. Mary,
with undaunted courage, summoned the reformer to her presence,
and more than once granted him a lon^ interview, when religious
questions were discussed between them. No permanent benefit re-
sulted, and Knox continued to the end to cherish with regard to
the queen the feelings of the bitterest animosity.
It soon became evident that the Congregation was too strong to
be easily put down. Mary, with all her good will, never succeeded
in obtaining more than toleration for herself and her attendants, and
the time came when even this was denied her — when the Chapel
Royal at Holyrood was stripped of its altars and images and an
*> state Papers, Scotland, Eliz., Vol. VI., Nos. 51, 57. '
6oo American Catholic Quarterly Review.
imprisoned queen, deserted by her Catholic household, was forbid-
den the services of even a confessor.
The queen's position from the first was one of extraordinary diffi-
culty and danger. Elizabeth of England, her jealous rival, was
always watching for an opportunity to deprive Mary of her crown
and prevent the succession of a Catholic dynasty in either kingdom ;.
her spies were all on the alert to gain any advantage for their mis-
tress. Mary herself, only nineteen years of age and unaccustomed
to rule, stood in need of reliable councillors. By her side, prompt-
ing all her actions, was her wily half-brother, pretending to watch
her interests with affectionate solicitude; yet all the while he was
her greatest and most powerful adversary. Ranged against her
openly were the majority of the nobles, seeking to bring her round
to their supposed religious convictions in order to maintain 'their
unjustly gotten gains. A feeble minority only were really loyal,
and among these the Earl of Huntly and his house were alienated
through the machinations of Lord James Stuart.
Mary's fall was due entirely to the ambition of this unworthy
relative, who was in the pay of Elizabeth all along. He had power
and influence enough in the beginning to have made the queen's
authority felt; but his own aggrandizement was paramount. His
scheming tended all along to gain the kingly power for himself at the
expense of his half-sister's liberty or even life, if need be. History
shows this clearly. As early at 1559 a secret mission was despatched
from Paris to Scotland to investigate his motives, for the Queen
Regent feared even then that he was aiming at the crown. In 156a
Cecil was able to write of him to Elizabeth that he was "not unlike
to be a king soon."*^ When the time arrived for Mary's return to
Scotland, he made a point of visiting Elizabeth on his way, and
when at her court, as Fr. Stevenson points out, "he told her pri-
vately, as we learn from Camden, that if she had any regard either
for the interests of reHgion or her own safety, she ought to intercept
his sister during her homeward voyage."** It was neither his fault
nor Elizabeth's, as we know, that the attempt was unsuccessful, and
that Mary was not prevented from ever setting her foot on Scottish
soil again. When the queen was in the hands of her rebellious sub-
jects, Stuart, who had become through his successful scheming Earl
of Moray, threw off all disguise and openly proclaimed that he was
heir to the throne, for he could prove that he had been born in wed-
lock. When at last he had become Regent — a post which he had
coveted even before Mary's return from France and had unsuccess-
« state Papers, Elizabeth, Scot., Vol. IV., No. 17. « Stevenson : " Mary Stuart." p. 236.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 60 1
fully solicited from her — he led the army which was the means of her
utter defeat and subsequent cruel fate.
It is not to be wondered at that, under such circumstances, Mary
Stuart should have failed to carry out the darling wish of her heart
and restore the true faith to Scotland. The murder of Riccio, of
which Moray was the instigator, had more than one motive. Jeal-
ousy at the secretary's influence with the queen was one ; but an-
other and more powerful reason was the intercourse which, through
Riccio's means, Mary was able to keep up with continental courts,
and thus keep in touch with Catholic affairs ; this led to the fear of
Catholic interference and even the restoration of religion. In con-
nection with this subject Knox informs us that after Riccio's death
twelve wooden altars were "found ready in the chapel of the Palace
of Holyrood house which should have been erected in St. Giles*
Church."**^ This is a proof that Mary was always ready and anxious
to do her duty as a loyal daughter of the Church to bring back to
her realm the blessings of religion, and that Riccio was anxious to
help her.
The Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IV., recognized and appreciated this
disposition of the queen's. He had sent her the Golden Rose in
1560, soon after her widowhood. He urged her to send an am-
bassador from Scotland to the Council of Trent in 1562, but such
an act would have cost her the crown and perhaps even her life, and
she was quite unable to comply. Her letter stating this was read
to the assembled fathers, and was received with expressions of the
greatest admiration of her staunch Catholic spirit. In the same
year, 1562, the Pope sent to Mary a trusty Nuncio, Fr. Nicholas
Floris,*^ a Jesuit, to confirm her, if necessary, in her attachment to
the Church and assist her with his advice; he was the bearer of :i
letter from the Pope to Mary. The few bishops who remained
faithful to the Church feared to hold intercourse with the Nuncio,
and only the Primate dared to receive him into his house, and that
on condition that he was disguised.
The Nuncio's report to the General of the Jesuits of the state of
Scotland at the time gives a terrible picture of the misery into which
the realm had been plunged by the reformers. Some of the mon-
asteries had been utterly destroyed, others were in ruins, churches,
altars and sanctuaries were profaned. No religious rite was allowed
to be performed, no Sacraments were publicly administered with
Catholic ceremonial, no Mass could be publicly said except in the
queen's private chapel. Many of the clergy had abjured the faith
•*5 Knox : " History," p. 330. ^•Heis often spoken of as Goudanus ; he was a native of
Gouda, in Holland.
6o2 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
and married. The Protestant ministers, if not apostate priests or
monks, were ignorant laymen of low rank, whose preaching con-
sisted of the blasphemous denunciation of the Mass and virulent
declamation against the Pope. The queen possessed her title only,
but no power; scarcely twenty years old, destitute of all human
counsel and support, she could do nothing for religion or for the
country, as the chief offices of the state were in the hands of Protest-
ants and the few Catholic nobles were kept away from court by the
tyranny and violence of the former. The few faithful bishops for
the most part were lacking in the qualities necessary for defense
against the enemy, the Catholic preachers had neither courage nor
ability for discussion with the heretics, such religious as were living
were in strict hiding and secular priests did not dare to appear in
ecclesiastical dress.*^
The reference to Catholic controversialists in this report would
have been somewhat unfair had it been made a year later. An
able and energetic champion of the faith, Ninian Winzet, who had
been deprived of his mastership of the grammar school of Linlith-
gow because he refused to conform to Protestantism, was already
beginning to trouble the reformers by his skill in discussion. The
numerous controversial treatises which he wrote later on have never
been successfully refuted by Protestants, and they won for their
author at the time the reward of exile for the faith — his opponents
having recourse to violence when argument failed them. Winzet
barely escaped their attack and fled to the continent. He became a
priest, and eventually Abbot of the Scottish Abbey of Ratisbon.
Another courageous disputant was Abbot Quintin Kennedy,
Benedictine Abbot of Crossraguel, who wrote and spoke with bold-
ness and ability in favor of Catholic doctrines, and stirred up much
bitterness of feeling in his regard amongst the Protestants. He
was, however, at an advanced age when he stood forth as champion
of the Catholic cause, and died in 1564. "Had all the Scottish pre-
lates," remarks Grub, "possessed the learning and the virtues of the
last consecrated Abbot of Crossraguel, the reformation of the
Church might have been effected in a very different manner."''^
From the report of Goudanus as to the state of Scotland at
the time he visited the country, it is evident that there was little, if
any, hope of the revival of Catholicity among the people as a na-
tion. The toleration which had been shown to the queen was not
destined to last. Her unworthy husband, Lord Darnley, a Catholic
in name merely, was too weak to be any support to her, and became
« Vide Forbes-Ivcith : " Narratives of Scottish Catholics." pp. 72-74- *^ Grub : " Rcclesias-
tica History of Scotland," Vol. II., p. 127.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 603
'eventually the tool of her enemies. When her only child was born
his baptism was deferred for some months, owing to the opposition
of the Congregation to the use of the Catholic rite. It was the last
time, indeed, when it was eventually administered, that the public
and solemn ceremonial of the Church was seen in Scotland.
Moray and his associates brought their schemes to a climax at
last, in the imprisonment of the queen, after Darnley had been re-
moved by a violent death; henceforth Mary and the infant prince
were completely in the power of the reformers. After more than
one attempt to destroy her by poison,*^ the queen was forced, by
the threat of instant death should she refuse, to sign her abdication.
The effort she made to free herself from her adversaries by the help
of the small party of her supporters met with a disastrous defeat at
-Langside in 1568, and led to her long captivity under Elizabeth, and
her tragic end upon the scaffold.
Archbishop Hamilton, the last Catholic Primate, had long been
the object of the reformers' special hatred on account of his staunch
■adherence to the old religion. At Easter, 1563, he, together with
several others of the clergy, had suffered imprisonment for celebrat-
ing Mass and hearing confessions. After regaining his liberty he
became one of the leading supporters of Queen Mary, and it was he
who baptized the infant Prince James in 1566. After the forced
abdication of the queen, the Archbishop was seized by his enemies,
hurried through the mockery of a trial, and hanged at Stirling,
dressed in his pontifical vestments. He had been accused of com-
plicity in the assassination of the Regent Moray ; but the only crime
proved against him, as he himself asserted, was his fidelity to God
and the queen. He met his fate on April 5, 1571.
Knox, that "Father of the Scottish Reformation," before his
death, in 1572, was able to glory in the fact that the last Catholic
sovereign and the last Catholic Archbishop of St. Andrews had
been moved out of the path of what he was pleased to designate so
frequently "the true Church of God." Henceforth the completion
of the Reformation was but the work of time.
Enough has been said to show that the real nature of the move-
ment known as the Scottish Reformation was political rather than
religious. It remains for another article to trace out the part taken
therein by the nation at large ; as hitherto our attention has been
mainly directed to the attitude of the clergy and the higher orders in
Scotland towards the overthrow of the Catholic Church.
DoM Michael Barrett, O. S. B.
Fort Augustus, Scotland.
• Vide Nau : " Memorials of the Reign of Mary Stewart," edited by Stevenson, pp. 55, 63, ek:
6o4 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Sctentlftc Cbronlcle*
ATLAS OF VARIABLE STARS.
On the occasion of the dedication of the Yerkes Observatory of
the University of Chicago, Rev. J. G. Hagen, S. J., the director of
the Georgetown College Observatory, announced in a speech imme-
diately preceding the dedication ceremonies that through the kind-
ness of Miss Catherine Wolfe Bruce he was able to publish his atlas
of variable stars, on which he had been working for seven years.
The publisher, F. L. Dames, Berlin, estimated that the deficit in
the printing expenses, after the possible sale of such a work had been
taken into account, would be $1,750. This amount had to be met
before the work could appear. Through the kind mediation of Pro-
fessor E. C. Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory,
Miss Bruce gave the required sum and the atlas went to press. At
the same meeting at which Father Hagen made the announcement of
Miss Bruce's generous donation. Professor Pickering took occasion
to say that his appreciation of the "Atlas of Variable Stars" was best
shown by the action he had taken in its behalf, and the appreciation
of Miss Bruce of the same was as well shown by her generous gift.
He concluded by remarking that when the atlas came out astrono-
mers would wonder how they had got along without it.
A short description of the purpose and scope of the atlas may be
welcome to our readers. The purpose of the work is to assist in the
determination of the fluctuations in brightness of those stars whose
brightness is not constant. This determination is carried out prac-
tically by comparing the variable star with stars of constant bright-
ness which are brighter and fainter than the variable in its successive
stages. The determination can be made most accurately when these
stars of constant brightness, or comparison-stars, do not differ much
from the variable, and hence when the range of brightness of the
variable is considerable several comparison-stars must be employed
and their relative brightness inter se must be determined. When
the variable has been thus observed many times from brightest to
faintest and back again to brightest, the observer is able to determine
the range of brightness, the period or length of time within which
the variation takes place and the peculiarities of the variation.
To employ his time best the observer should be able to pick out
quickly and with certainty from the stars seen that one on which his
attention is to be fixed and the stars with which it is to be compared
Scientific Chronicle. 605
or with which it has been compared in former observations. Hence
the atlas consists of charts of the sky in the neighborhood of each
variable, on which the variable is so indicated as to be easily identi-
fied in the sky by comparing it with the chart and which contain a
sufficient number of stars whose position and brightness are such as
to make them serviceable as comparison-stars. Each chart is ac-
companied by a catalogue of all the stars on it and their relative
brightnesses from Father Hagen's observations.
The atlas will contain only the known variable stars. While the
discovery of new variables is always welcome, yet the thorough study
of those already known is of more importance. When a greater
amount of knowledge has been gained we shall be able to formulate
theories as to the causes of the variation of light in the different
classes of variables as has already been done for one type. There is
no branch of astronomy in which the amateur, with moderate instru-
mental equipment, can so easily produce results of scientific value as
in the observation of variables, provided his efforts are not mere
desultory star-gazing, but are carried on with a certain degree of
regularity and persistence.
The whole work is divided into five series, of which the first three
are devoted to those variable stars which at their faintest are below
the tenth magnitude and hence invisible in a telescope of three inches
aperture, the fourth to those stars whose variations can be followed
by the use of a three-inch telescope, and the fifth to those for which
the naked eye or an opera glass suffices. The first series, which
deals with variables below the tenth magnitude, at minimum and
lying between the declinations o and — 25 degrees, appeared in
March of last year. The series contained forty-four charts and
their accompanying catalogues, with all the explanations necessary
for the thorough understanding of the charts and catalogues.
Shortly after the appearance of the first series it was evident that
the proceeds from the subscription list, even together with Miss
Bruce's contribution, would fail to cover the cost of the work. Then
it was that Miss Bruce added to her first gift the sum of $1,400.
The second series is now out and the appreciation shown for the
iirst is repeated with even greater emphasis on the appearance of the
second. On the publication of the second series Miss Bruce sent
$630 through Professor Pickering, of Harvard, to the publisher to
pay for the expense of printing. In announcing this fact Professor
Pickering writes to Father Hagen: "I congratulate you upon the
^ood progress you are making in your excellent work. We are
going to use your charts for selection of standards for faint stellar
magnitude in a work of cooperation in which it is expected that the
6o6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Yerkes 40-inch, the Virginia 26-inch, the Princeton 23-inch and the-
Harvard 15-inch telescopes will take part."
Professor C. A, Young, of Princeton, writes: "Your atlas seems
to me to be one of the most important and well finished pieces of:
astronomical work that has ever been done in that line." At the
reception of the New York Academy of Sciences in April Professor
J. K. Rees, director of the Observatory of Columbia University,
New York, took great pleasure in exhibiting the second volume of
the atlas. A British officer. Colonel E. E. Marckwick, of the Ord-
nance Department, writes : "You must allow me to congratulate
you on the excellence of the maps you have published of the vicini-
ties of variable stars. They are indeed beautiful — nay, more, ex-
quisite. ... I have lately taken up the work of the post ofc'
director of the variable star section of the British Astronomical
Association, and such maps at present would be of the greatest use^
Failing such I have had to prepare charts of the vicinity of each
variable on our working list for the guidance of those amateurs who
are working in this direction. I thus know what a deal of labor is
involved in settling which shall be the comparison stars, and thert
deciding on their magnitudes."
Dr. Ernest Hartwig, director of the Observatory at Bamberg^
who is acknowledged as the leading European authority on variable
stars, writes in the Vierteljahrsschrift der Astronomischen Gesellschaft:
"As the Bonn star-charts in their day removed at once the difficul-
ties of finding one's way among the telescopic stars when observing
comets, planets and the like, difficulties which the younger genera-
tion can scarcely understand, so likewise do these charts, with one
stroke, sweep away the great difficulty hitherto existing, for even-
experienced observers in the identification of and the determination
of the variation of the light of the variable. Many who no doubt
would gladly devote their time to the observation of variable stars,,
an occupation yielding no less pleasure than profit, will be pre-
vented from acquiring this beautiful work on account of its high
price. The price is high, not for single charts, but on account of?"
the great number of charts in the work. The work, however, will,
perhaps slowly at first, become without doubt, in the course of time,
an indispensable constituent of the library of every astronomical
observatory, just as has happened in the case of the Bonn charts."
This is great praise, coming as it does from such an authority,
and will no doubt be appreciated by our readers, who perhaps may
not have heard of such a work going forth from one of our Ameri*-
can Catholic colleges. That the publication is so far advanced at
the present time is, no doubt, due to the kind interest of' Professor
Scientific Chronicle. 607
Pickering and to the generous support of Miss Bruce. This should
be an object lesson to many of our wealthy Catholics who could be
of assistance to many investigators in our Catholic colleges through-
out the country and enable them to bring to light much that would
contribute to the advancement of science and reflect credit on our
colleges.
We regret to announce the death of Miss Bruce, who has been
such a generous patron of science in this country.
THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE OF MAY 28, 1900.
This eclipse, of which we spoke in our last Chronicle, is now a
matter of history. The scientific results obtained are not collated,
discussed and prepared for publication, but some general observa-
tions on the character of the eclipse will be of interest to the many
who had an opportunity of viewing it only in its partial phases.
From all the reports received from the different stations along
the path of totality the weather was most favorable. Although the
work at these different stations was distributed so as to include
observations on the corona, the prominences, the shadow bands, a
search for intramercurial planets, comets and the like, still the great
object of interest was the corona. This was a magnificent sight.
So long as any of the sun's disc remained uncovered the character-
istic effects of the total eclipse were wanting. But in a fraction of
a second, so quickly that one was hardly prepared for it, the last
direct ray from the sun was quenched by the black disc of the moon
and immediately a great pearly halo sprang forth around this black
disc and streamed away in moving pendants. This was the corona.
This was visible as long as we were within the base of the great
cone of darkness which followed the moon in its transit across the
face of the sun. On all sides the horizon gleamed with a rim of
brilliant light. This was from the air and land which outside the
great round shadow was exposed to the light of the sun. In gen-
eral character the corona during this eclipse resembled the corona
as observed in the eclipses of 1878 and 1889. Both of these years
as well as the present year were years of minimum sun spots. These
facts seem to show a close connection between the sun spots and
the corona.
While at almost all the stations a sharp lookout was kept for the
shadow bands, still the reports are not all as favorable as one would
wish. This is due probably to the fact that the bands were not as
6o8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
distinct as at previous eclipses. Instead of being pronounced
parallel bands of shadow and brightness they appeared more like the
reflection of rippled water projected upon a screen. At Barnesville,
Ga., Dr. Aiken, of Savannah, devised an ingenious way of photo-
graphing the shadow bands. As yet nothing has been heard of
the success attending this experiment. If successful, Dr. Aiken will
be the first to succeed in this delicate work.
The spectroscopic and photographic work, judging from what
has been given out in the daily papers, has been most successful
and has revealed some new facts. From a report in the Baltimore
Sun of the results obtained by the Johns Hopkins observers we
learn that the spectrum obtained at Pinehurst, N. C, shows four
strong ultra-violet coronal lines which have never been seen before.
It was also shown, from the polariscope work of the same party,
that the light from the corona was polarized or sunlight reflected,
perhaps from meteoric matter; the light from the prominences,
however, is their own and not reflected light. Another important
report comes from Professor George E. Hale, who was at Wades-
boro, N. C. He writes that he obtained for the first time evidences
of heat from the corona.
The writer formed one of a party that went to Virginia Beach,
Va., to observe the eclipse. The party was under the direction of
Rev. John Hagen, S. J., director of the Georgetown College Ob-
servatory, and Rev. John Hedrick, professor of astronomy at Wood-
stock College. Rev. Joseph Algue, S. J., director of the Manila
Observatory, was in the party. There were besides Rev. G. Zwack,
S. J., of the Georgetown Observatory, and Professor George Coyle,
S. J., of Woodstock. As the observations were not in the specific
line of work of the observatories represented, there was no elabo-
rate preparation for observation. The observers were, however,
thoroughly repaid by the observations made.
Similar satisfactory reports come from other observers, and con-
sidering the favorable conditions under which the eclipse was
viewed we may expect a decided advance in our knowledge of the
sun when the results will have been carefully studied and published.
THE LEVEL OF LAKE NICARAGUA.
In our last Chronicle we referred to the assumed change in the
level of Lake Nicaragua. The arguments for such a change were
put forward by Professor Angelo Heilprin in the Scientific American.
Such a statement could not, of course, go unchallenged by the
Scientific Chronicle. 609
friends of the Nicaragua Canal project. In the National Geographic
Magazine Mr. C. Willard Hayes replies to Professor Heilprin.
In rebuttal Mr. Hayes tries to demonstrate on physiographic
grounds that the assumed abasement of level could not have taken
place. He assigns three causes which singly or in combination
might bring about a change in the altitude of the lake: i. A de-
pression of the whole of this portion of the isthmus without warp-
ing. 2. A depression of the lake basin by warping, the sea margins
remaining constant. 3. A cutting down of the lake outlet.
The first supposition is easily disposed of by the known stability
of the coast line on both the Atlantic and the Pacific sides. "A
depression of 20 feet of any occupied portion of the coast could not
possibly escape notice." This is admitted by all.
"As there is everywhere a nice adjustment of shore features to
present conditions," and no evidence of drowned shores or raised
ancient beaches, Mr. Hayes dismisses the second hypothesis. More-
over, such a subsidence, according to Mr. Hayes, would have
reached the coast, which is only twelve miles away.
The third supposition Mr. Hayes thinks is removed from the
region of possibility from the fact that the San Juan river "mean-
ders through an alluvial plain just covered by the streams when in
flood ;" that is having the character of "a growing flood-plain," it
represents a former extension of the lake silted up by tributary
streams, and proves conclusively that the present relations have
held for a considerable time.
The disposition of the first supposition we have already referred
to. As to the second supposition, Mr. Hayes relies on the presence
of drowned shores and raised beaches to prove its falsity, but every
geologist knows that the negative testimony of their absence is most
illusory. In other words, their absence proves nothing. With
regard to the third supposition, namely, that the lake bottom be-
came an exposed alluvial plain, it must be said that this could happen
in three ways : either by silting up or by the lowering of the lake,
or by the shrinkage of the waters. Mr. Hayes seems to take the
first way without advancing any proof for it.
In the Scientific American supplement for May 19 Professor Heil-
prin replies to the article of Mr. Hayes and brings forward a new
set of arguments, based on the rainfall, evaporation and outflow of
the lake, furnished in the report of the Walker Commission of 1897-
99, showing that there has been a shrinkage during the last twenty
years.
In the discussion of the subject so far the evidence seems to be
so strongly in favor of the theory of the shrinkage of the lake that
VOL. XXV.— 13.
6io American Catholic Quarterly Review.
it is still a serious objection to the acceptance of the Nicaraguan
route for an inter-oceanic canal.
A NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS.
Although our office of Standard Weights and Measures, with its
inadequate facilities and meager appropriation, has done excellent
work, still it could not compete with similar offices in foreign coun-
tries. This is unfortunate, seeing that the United States does more
than any other nation to develop the resources of the country and
to advance science. The annual appropriation in this country for
these purposes amounts to $8,000,000. Hence it is that our Depart-
ment of Agriculture, our Geological Survey and the like surpass
anything of the kind in European countries. Little, however, has-
been done for physics and chemistry as applied to the arts. The
portion of this large appropriation going to the office of Standard
Weights and Measures was $10,400. In Germany there is a na-
tional physical laboratory conducted at an annual expense of
$80,000, while the German Bureau of Weights and Measures receives
annually $36,000. For like purposes Great Britain spends every
year $62,000; Austria, $46,000, and Russia, $17,500.
The increased application of physics and chemistry to the arts
and manufacture necessitates the existence of accurate standards
imposed by some authoritative method of verification acceptable to
all users of said measurement. If such a source of verification does
not exist it soon ceases to be a standard. This fact has urged upon
the Secretary of the Treasury the importance of enlarging the scope
of the present office of Standard Weights and Measures. For this
purpose an amendment was added to the sundry civil bills provid-
ing for an office to be known as the National Standardizing Bureau^
The functions of this bureau, as declared in the amendment, are as
follows: It will have the custody of the Government standards,
and the office of comparing the standards used in scientific investiga-
tions, engineering, manufacturing, commercial and educational in-
stitutions with those adopted by the Government ; the construction,
when necessary, of standards or their multiples and sub-divisions ;
the testing and calibration of standard measuring apparatus ; the set-
tlement of discussions which arise about standards ; and, finally, the
determination of physical constants and the properties of materials
when such data are important for scientific or manufacturing inter-
ests and cannot be obtained elsewhere.
SciefitiHc Chronicle. "' 6i I
Such a bureau will be of great help to both the scientific and
industrial interests of the country, and we hope soon to see it in full
operation with all the facilities asked for it by the Secretary of the
Treasury,
A SUBSTITUTE FOR CELLULOID.
The action of sulphuric acid on paper, or paper pulp, has long
been known. The sulphuric acid acting on the cellulose changes
it into amyloid. The amyloid with an excess of water gives a gela-
tinous precipitate that serves to unite the fibers and forms a trans-
parent sheet resembling parchment. This new formation has not,
however, the suppleness of genuine parchment.
On this same principle the new substitute for celluloid is made.
To prepare this new substitute, called cellulithe, an exclusively
mechanical process is principally employed. Paper pulp is beaten
for an extremely long time, anywhere between 40 and 150 hours,
depending on the nature of the material used and the speed of rota-
tion of the cylinder that does the work. When a homogeneous
liquid, resembling mucilage, from which every trace of fiber has dis-
appeared, is obtained, the process of beating is stopped. To this
liquid the name of "milk of cellulose" has been given.
If a colored compound is desired, coloring matter is added at this
stage of the process. On account of the beating, the milk of cellu-
lose contains a quantity of air, which is now driven off by boiling.
The process of boiling and filtering takes about two hours. The
filtered material is received in a perforated vessel and the water
which it still contains is either evaporated slowly in the open air or
driven off rapidly in an oven, heated to about 40 degrees C. The
mixture settles down into a paste which slowly becomes as hard as
horn and like it in appearance. Like horn also, this compound can
be worked in all desired shapes and can be used for all the numerous
purposes for which celluloid is used to-day. It, moreover, is free
from the objectionable feature of celluloid, namely, its ready inflam-
mability. This new compound will evidently find a large sphere of
usefulness, for, judging from the cheapness of the material from
which it is made and the simplicity of the process of manufacture, it
can be produced at a very reasonable price.
LOCATING AN OBSTRUCTION.
Many of our readers are familiar with the fact that the mail in
several of our large cities is distributed from the central post office
6i2 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
to the branch offices by means of small cylindrical carriers about
six inches in diameter propelled through cast-iron pipes by means of
air pressure. Occasionally the carrier is caught in the tube, and
it is a nice problem to determine the position of the carrier so as to
avoid the tearing up of too much of the street.
Such an accident happened in Philadelphia some time ago, and
the following ingenious method of locating the place of the carrier
was devised by Mr. Batcheller, the engineer of the Pneumatic Tube
Company : A pistol was fired at one end of the tube and its report
was echoed back from the obstruction. One end of the tube was
capped and had a rubber hose connection with a diaphragm, to which
a stylus was attached. The pistol was fired in a hole near the capped
«nd of the tube. To reduce the violence of the first direct wave
from the explosion the rubber tube was partly closed by a stop-cock.
On the discharge of the pistol the diaphragm was moved by the
sound wave and the stylus recorded the movement on a recording
cylinder, on which the time was also marked. The hose cock was
then fully opened, and when the sound wave had traveled to the
carrier and was reflected back the diaphragm was again moved and
another record made. Noting the lapse of time between the direct
and reflected waves and dividing it by two the time it took the sound
"to reach the obstruction was found, and multiplying this time by
•.the velocity of sound the distance of the carrier from the end of the
tube was determined. Breaking ground at the calculated distance
the carrier was found almost at the spot determined by experiment
and calculation.
Denis T. O'Sullivan, S. J.
"Woodstock, Md.
Book Reviews. 613
Booft TRevtews*
Studies in Church History. By JSev. Reuben Parsons, D. D. Vol. VI. Part II, Nine-
teenth Century concluded. Large 8vo., pp. 722, including Topical Index to the whole work.
New York : Fr. Pustet & Co.
This volume completes Doctor Parsons' great work on Church
history. He has successfully brought to a close the difficult task
which he set for himself in the beginning, and he is worthy of great
honor for his labors. He has given to the English speaking student
something which he never had before, but which he needed very
much, a work which treats exhaustively and almost exclusively of
controverted points of Church history. Such a work is highly in-
teresting, not only to Catholics and Protestants, but to those who
have no religious belief. The history of the Church is closely inter-
woven with the history of men and nations, and she bears such close
relations to them that it is impossible to understand them without
knowing her.
We cannot hope to learn the history of the Church from profane
histories. Those who write them are generally incapable of under-
standing her, and through ignorance or prejudice they give us dis-
torted views that are sadly misleading. Even if they are competent
and honest they could not do justice to so vast a subject in such
limited space. If we turn to Church historians proper we shall find
that they give us two classes of works : One, an exhaustive treatise
in some foreign language which very few persons can purchase and
read, and which at best is a work of reference to be used at rare
intervals to verify facts gathered from other sources; the other, a
manual of Church history which is so general and so brief as to be
useful only as a bird's-eye view which prepares the way for more
careful study.
What was really wanted was a work on Church history which
would deal at length with the great controverted questions which
separate Catholics and Protestants and scandalize the unbeliever.
Doctor Parsons saw this need and resolved to supply it. A less
courageous man would have hesitated and declined. All history is
difficult, but this branch of it is the most difficult. It would seem
to be a hopeless task to try to reconcile conflicting authorities in
regard to so many questions that have separated men perhaps for
centuries. And it is hopeless, if one should expect to do it perfectly.
Until all men shall be able to bury their prejudices, and to hold the
scale of judgment with a steady hand without inclining to either
side, no matter which way the scale may turn, they shall differ in
6i4 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
regard to questions of history. This is equivalent to saying that
they shall always differ. Such perfection of judgment is not to be
hoped for. Even where it does exist many other qualities are re-
quired to make it available. Much learning is necessary to fit a
man for the gathering of authorities. Much patience also to enable
him to persevere in spite of the many obstacles that he shall surely
find in his path. With this combination, good results should follow.
The historian who is well booked, who is in love with his work,
who desires only the truth, who is willing to make great sacrifices
that the truth may be known, and who has a cool, fair judgment,
as far as imperfect man can possess such a quality, ought to write
history well. Dr. Parsons is that kind of a man. These six large
volumes which deal with the important questions of Church history
from the beginning until the present time are a monument to his
learning, zeal and industry. They are invaluable for the great ma-
jority of students, both lay and cleric, who have neither the time nor
the facility to study history at the fountain head. Such persons
must trust some one, and they cannot follow a safer guide than
Doctor Parsons.
Not the least valuable feature of the whole work is that it is written
from a Catholic standpoint. Some men imagine that in order to be
fair they must cease to be Catholic. They are so anxious to win
the approval of Protestant and unbelieving readers that they ac-
knowledge evils that never existed or exaggerate them until they
lose their true proportions. We do not believe that it is possible
for a Catholic to write from any other standpoint than the Catholic
without detracting seriously from the value of his work. A Catholic
has no good reason to fear the truth, but he need not be untruthful
to prove it. No one knows this better than a priest, but he need
not abstract from his Catholicity or his priesthood in order to prove
it to the world.
Doctor Parsons does not make this mistake, and he is to be com-
mended. He is a historian, but he is also a Catholic priest, and he
writes history from a Catholic standpoint, and therefore he writes
true history.
PORSCHTJNGEN zuR Christmchen Litteratur und Dogmexgeschichtb. Herausgegc
ben von Dr. A. Ehrhard und Dr. J. P. Kirsch. Mainz, Verlag von Franz Kirchheim.
We extend a cordial welcome to this new serial, which has made
its appearance from the press of Kirchheim in the historic See of St.
Boniface. Its scope is clearly defined in its title, ''Researches in
the History of Christian Literature and Dogma." Its aim, there-
fore, will be to combat Rationalism and heresy with their own
Book Reviews. 615
weapons. The favorite weapon of attack against the Church em-
ployed by non-CathoHc writers has been precisely the method of
"historical inquiry." Their endeavor has been to determine at what
period, and by whom, certain new dogmas were added to the "primi-
tive simplicity" of the Christian faith. Against this theory of "ac-
cretion" the Catholic theologian opposes the doctrine of a living,
active, developing, but always identical Apostolic creed. The idea
of establishing a CathoHc organ for the special study of Catholic
literature and dogma had been separately entertained by two dis-
tinguished German divines, Dr. Ehrhard, professor of Church his-
tory in the University of Vienna, and Dr. Kirsch, the eminent pa-
trologist and archaeologist of Freiburg, in Switzerland. By a lucky
chance, these two divines met and interchanged views at the Catho-
lic Scientific Congress, held in Freiburg in 1897, and the conse-
quence has been the founding of the new organ under their joint
direction. Their names will serve as an all-sufficient guarantee of
the thorough orthodoxy and efficiency of the publications which are
to follow. To set the pace, Dr. Kirsch has already presented the
public with the first monograph, under the title of "The Doctrine
of the Communion of Saints in Christian Antiquity," which we have
no hesitation in pronouncing the most exhaustive treatise on this
fundamental subject which has yet appeared. We express the hope
that some one will be found to translate it into English without de-
lay. Other monographs are announced as in various stages of prep-
aration for the press. It is the intention to issue, on the average,
four each year.
JulienL'Apostat, par /*«M/^//arrf, Tome premier. Iva Soci6t6 au IV. si$cle. Iva jeu
nesse de Julien. Julien Cesar. Un volume in-8o. Prix : 6 fr. Librairie Victor lyccoffre,
rue Bonaparte, 90, Paris.
Although above fifteen centuries have passed since the Emperor
Julian made his futile attempt to check the triumphant progress of
Christianity, it still remains as difficult to treat his career nee amove
et sine odio as during the days of his despotism. The reason is that
the antagonism between the principles which he sought to estab-
lish and the principles which he strove to eradicate continues as
active and bitter as ever. For with Julian the struggle against
"The Nazarene" was not one of brute force, as had been the
case with earlier persecutors, but of statecraft and worldly wisdom.
Hence he remains the immortal hero of anti-Christian writers of the
school of Gibbon. On the other hand, the dread detestation in
which he was held by the followers of Christ has been incorporated
indissolubly in his historic appelation of "The Apostate." The dis-
6i6 American Catholic Quarterly Review,
tinguished author of the biography, the first volume of which Hes
before us, protests that he employs the usual opprobrious epithet in
his title merely for the purpose of identifying the subject of his work,
but without any wish to give a polemical color to the book. This
life of Julian forms a fitting crown to the previous volumes of M.
Allard on the subject of the early persecutions, and the studies and
researches which he made in preparation for that valuable work en-
able him to take that comprehensive survey of the condition of
society and religion in the Roman Empire in the fourth century,
which occupies a full half of the present volume. To some impa-
tient readers this preliminary essay may appear too diffuse and re-
mote from the immediate subject under consideration ; but, as M.
Allard justly contends, "without a precise and detailed acquaintance
with the epoch in which he lived, it would be difficult to understand
rightly Julian's attempt to roll back the tide or to estimate the pecu-
liar character of the ephemeral reaction with which his name is asso-
ciated."
The volume is divided into four books, sub-divided into chapters.
Book First treats of paganism in the middle of the fourth century
and gives a bird's-eye view of the condition of the expiring cults in
the various provinces of the Empire. Book Second unfolds the
social condition of the different classes of the population, as well
Christian as pagan. Then follows the narrative, in the two remain-
ing books, of Julian's career until the year 360, when he usurped the
imperial diadem. As the hero during this portion of his life most
carefully dissembled his religious views, and, on the other hand, was
unexcelled as a civil and military commander, there is but little to
censure in his developing career, and M. Allard tells his story with
fullest sympathy. We await with impatience the appearance of the
concluding volume, which will treat of Julian's wretched ending;
and we sincerely hope that this valuable contribution to the history
of the Church will be speedily made accessible to English readers.
Thk Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. Edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, sec-
retary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Vol. I,XV. I^ower Canada, Missis-
sippi Valley— 1696-1702. 8 vo., pp. 273. Cleveland : The Buitows Brothers Company.
It is a remarkable characteristic of the Jesuit relations that they
are always interesting. One might think that so long a narrative
or series of narratives would lose its interest after the perusal of one
or two volumes, but it is not so. Each succeeding volume is as
intensely interesting as those that have preceded it. This is due to
the constant change of scene, to the introduction of new characters
Book Reviews. 617
into the narrative, to the variety of persons that are constantly ap-
pearing and disappearing, and to the constant recurrence of in-
tensely exciting incidents that produce pictures which surpass in
color the imagination of the novelist. But the chief characteristic
of the work, the one that renders it most valuable, and that enhances
the value of all its other good qualities, is its truthfulness. No one
ever thinks of questioning the veracity of the writer. His character,
the simplicity of the narrative, the circumstances under which it
was penned, and the end which the writer had in view, all vouch for
its absolute truthfulness.
How much men of the world might learn from a work of this
kind! How much of sacrifice, how much of faith, how much of
confidence in a Divine Providence, without whose knowledge not
even one sparrow can fall ! How much also of wisdom there is here
for our rulers! The greed, the lust, the general depravity of the
paid agents of governments who were sent to carry civilization to
distant lands and savage peoples, and who taught them new forms
of vice, have their counterpart in our own day, under every powerful,
conquering government. Our governors might learn many useful
lessons by reading the Jesuit Relations, and they might save them-
selves from many serious blunders, but they won't do it. Pride of
intellect is a very sad affliction, and it causes an enormous amount of
misery.
These books will be placed on the shelves of libraries, where they
will remain untouched and uncalled for except by the discriminating
few and the real student of history who is searching for the truth.
Very few men want to know the truth. Most persons want to make
things fit to their preconceived notions of the truth, which self-
interest induces them to hold tenaciously in spite of all evidence to
the contrary.
For the true student of history and the earnest searcher after
truth here is a mine of gold and gems.
Ecclesiastical Dictionary. Containing in concise form information upon Ecclesiasti-
cal, Biblical, Archaeological and Historical Subjects. By Hev. John Thein. Large 8vo.,
pp.749. Half morocco, $5.00. New York : Benziger Brothers.
Until the year 1883 there was no Catholic Dictionary in the Eng-
lish language. Before that time all English works of a similar char-
acter were by Protestant authors, and while many of them were
distinguished for learning and research in other respects, they were
ignorant or vicious concerning Catholic subjects. We had many
excellent works of the kind in other languages, but they were gen-
6i8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
erally too extensive and costly for the average reader, besides being
useless for the English speaking public. When Rev. William E.
Addis and Mr. Thomas Arnold announced that they would supply
the long-felt want of an English Catholic Dictionary, every one
rejoiced.
Cardinal Manning commended the undertaking in warm terms.
Cardinal Newman said that he had begun such a work himself,
many years before, because the need of it was so pressing. When
it came from the press, in 1883, it sprang into favor at once, and it
has held the field alone since that time. It has passed through
many editions both here and in England, and on the whole it is a
very excellent work. It is not complete, and it was not intended to
be. No dictionary or encylopedia is. No work of reference
answers every demand that is made upon it, and he is a young
student indeed who expects such perfection. Its treatment of some
subjects was questioned, but we are not concerned with them at
present. We know that on the whole it has been a very useful
book, and has answered our needs in the great majority of cases.
We have said thus much by way of introduction to the new Cath-
olic Dictionary, because we expect that those who have used the
older book will want to know in what respects the new one differs
from it. It is not our purpose to compare them, but to state the
points of difference.
The new book is much fuller as to the number of subjects, having
more than three thousand headings, whereas the old book has less
than seven hundred. It is not nearly so profuse or exhaustive in
its treatment as a rule, and hence it is far less satisfying. Indeed,
in most cases the treatment is very brief. The language and ex-
planations are not so clear in the later work as in the earlier, in some
instances being quite halty and obscure. It is, nevertheless, a very
valuable contribution to Catholic literature, and it will have, we be-
lieve, a large sale. It is excellently made. The arrangement, the
paper, the type and the binding are all most commendable.
St. Francis of Sales. By A. De Margerie- Translated by Margaret Maitland. With
Preface by G. Tyrrell, S. J. lamo, pp. xv., 206. Received from Benziger Brothers, New
York.
It is not long since this new series of "Lives of the Saints" was
begun, and yet they have appeared with such regularity that already
the list embraces eight names. Some fault has been found with
them by persons who do not understand the plan of action, but those
who have followed the series from the beginning, and who started
Book Reviews. 619
out with a clear understanding of the end which the editors pro-
posed, see that the scheme is being carried on in an admirable man-
ner. In these very convenient little volumes we have true historical
portraits of the great servants of God. They are not compilations
of the pious words and actions only which are attributed to the
saint, and which are built often on private tradition, but they place
the whole man or woman before us as the person really lived. They
show the relations which the saint bore to the persons and events
of the time and place in which he lived, and therefore they furnish
us with a true portrait. They are not complete finished portraits,
and they differ from the more lengthy treatise as picture differs from
picture, but they are complete sketches.
The other kind of biography, which is made up entirely of the
pious words and actions of the subject, occupies a field peculiarly its
own, and accomplishes a great deal of good when rightly under-
stood. It shows us the perfection to which man can attain, even in
this life, by the grace of God, but it may at the same time deter us
from striving after such perfection unless we remember that the pic-
ture is only one-sided, and that the saints were human, and failed
many times, and committed errors of judgment that some historians
might call by harsher names.
The two kinds of biography, then, are good, and do not conflict
with each other. Many persons will read the present series that
would be repelled by more highly colored treatises. The series
continues under the general editorship of M. Henri Joly, formerly
Professor at the Sorbonne and at the College de France, and the
English translations are revised by Rev. Father Tyrrell, S. J., who
contributes a preface to each volume.
The Testament of Ignatius I^oyola. Being " Sundry Acts of Our Father Ignatius,
Taken from the Saint's own Lips by Luis Gonzales." Translated by E. M. Rix, with
Preface by George Tyrrell, S- J. lamo., pp. 230. St. Louis : B. Herder.
The Autobiography of St. Ignatius. Edited by J. F. X. O'Conor, S. J. i2mo, pp. 166,
illustrated. New York : Benziger Brothers.
It is very rarely that two different editions of the same book are
published at the same time. It is the case with these two volumes.
They are different translations of the same work.
The one which bears the Herder imprint is an English book. It
has been translated by E. M. Rix, with a preface by Father Tyrrell,
S. J., and historical notes and bibliography by Father Thurston, S.
J. An amusing incident in connection with this bibliographical
appendix is that in the table of contents it is called a "Biographical
Appendix."
620 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The other edition, which has been made by Benziger Brothers, is
a different translation by some one not announced. It is edited by
Father O'Conor, S. J., and is made up of the simple narrative with-
out note or comment.
The work, though brief, is very valuable. Indeed, the Bollandists
considered it the most valuable record of this illustrious saint. It is
the groundwork of all the great lives of St. Ignatius that have been
written, and without it we cannot understand him well.
The two editions should not conflict at all, because they appeal
to two different classes of persons. The Herder book, being fuller
and because of the valuable historical notes that accompany the
text, will appeal more to the literary man and student; while the
Benziger edition, being briefer, will satisfy the wants of the casual
reader. It is beautifully made, and it is a delight to the eye as well
as to the mind. The paper is heavy with a rich creamy surface ; the
type is large, clear-cut and generously spaced ; and the illustrations
are well executed and artistic. Even the cover is attractive, except
in one particular. We mention it with the hope that the publisher
will not do anything like it again. In the centre of the outside front
cover there is a gaudy gold design, and in the middle of it a paper
medallion of St. Ignatius. They are not artistic.
History of the Catholic Church in the New England States. By Very Rev. Wil-
liam Byrne, D. D., William A. I^eahy, A. B., Rev. James H. O'Donnell, Rev. John E. Finen,
Rev. J. J. McCoy, Rev. A. Bowling, :Bdmund J. A. Young and Right Rev. JohnS. Michaud,
D. D. 2 vols., large 8vo., pp. XV.-707 and XV.-895. Boston : The Hurd & Everts Co.
In these magnificent volumes we have the histories of the Church
in Boston, Providence, Portland, Manchester, Hartford, Burlington
and Springfield, written by men especially chosen for the purpose.
It is a very important work ; it is done in the ideal way. Any gen-
eral history of the Church in this country must necessarily be made
up of scraps of history, if it is to be made by one man. The longest
life would be too short to enable a man to gather together the mate-
rial that is scattered over this vast half-continent, unless he was par-
ticularly fitted for the work and unless he had untiring energy, with
unlimited means and no other occupation. Such men are not found
in every generation, and even when they do rise, it is not the best
way to make the history of disconnected dioceses.
It is far preferable to have the history of each diocese written by
its own historian, and then have them put together to form one
complete history. Or, better still, as in the present instance, to have
the histories of all the dioceses in an ecclesiastical province or in a
Book Reviews. 621
geographical section written at the same time and pubHshed in a
uniform manner.
If each ecclesiastical province in the country would do what has
been done in New England, and would take these volumes as their
standard, following them in type, paper, size, illustrations and bind-
ing, we should have a grand history of the Church in the United
States.
The Church in New England has been signally favored. From
a literary point of view, as well as from the mechanical, here is a
book to be proud of. The type-work and illustrations are unusually
good, and altogether the work will be a lasting monument to those
who conceived it and brought it to completion.
Cbristiaiv Philosophy: God. Being a Contribution to the Philosophy of Theism. By Rev
John T. DriscollyS. 7". Z., author of " Christian Philosophy: a Treatise on the Human
Soul." lamo, pp. xvi., 342. New York: Benziger Brothers.
The author gives this account of the occasion which suggested
and brought forth the present volume: "In 1890 a translation of
Father Hettinger's Apology by Father Bowden, of the Oratory,
appeared under the title of Natural Religion. The great reputation
of the writer drew attention to the work. " Many criticisms appeared,
and of especial interest was an article on 'Reason Alone — A Reply
to Father Sebastian Bowden,' in the Fortnightly Review, November,
1890, by W. H. Mallock. The importance of the problem was
brought clearly to mind. Convinced that the existence of God was
a certainty — how present this truth to the mind of the present day ?
This volume is the fruit of the thought and study."
Father Driscoll has adopted the comparative method in this work,
because of the favorable reception which was given to his former
treatise on the Human Soul, in which that method was used. Al-
though the subject is heavy and abstruse in some parts, he has tried
to render the reading as easy as possible by introducing illustra-
tions and references to modern literature and by relegating doubts
and controversies to foot notes. The author's plan is to take the
idea of God as a fact of consciousness, and without stopping to
enquire how the idea came to the individual mind, to ask lather,
are we justified in holding the idea, and what is its content ? It w ill
be seen at once that this line of thought is a departure from that
followed in most treatises on the same subject. The plan is car-
ried with the same thoroughness and faithfulness which character-
ized Father Driscoll's former book, and those who study the subject
under his direction will be well taught.
622 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Theologia Moralis Decalogalis et 8ACRAMENTALIS. Auctorc clatissimo p. Patritio-
Sparer, Ord. FF. Min. Novis curis edidit P. F. Irenaeus Bierbaum, Ord. FF. Min. Tomus
II. Paderbornae, 1900. Kx Typographia Bonifaciana. PP. vii.,948. Price, marks, 7.80.
A recent moral theologian of note speaks of Sporer as highly
esteemed for solidity of doctrine and practicality — oh doctrinam
plerumque solidam praxique accomodatam a pkrisque niagni cestimatus.
(Genicot: "Theol. Mor. Institutiones," Vol. II., p. 770, third edi-
tion.) This is a qualification of St. Liguori's estimate of Sporer as^
plus quam par benignus in selegendis sententiis. It coincides sub-
stantially with Fr. Lehmkuhl's verdict: ''Sparer generatim solide et
erudite scripsit." To these merits Fr. Hurter's estimate adds that,
of perspicuity ; solide, erudite et perspicue conscript a is his character-
ization of the present work. It were superfluous to add further
commendation to the approbations of these eminent authorities in
moral theology. It is a significant tribute to the merit of Sporer's
theology that after a lapse of almost two centuries it should revive
its youth in a new edition, and that the editor should find little to
add or subtract in order to bring the work into adjustment with
present requirements. The present volume contains the theological
doctrine falling under the second five precepts of the decalogue.
The gravest subjects are here treated, those namely which concern
justice and injustice in their manifold species, restitution, ownership,,
contracts. It is a pleasure to note that the editor has done his best
to facilitate the study of these perplexing subjects, by the orderly
disposition of the material, whilst the publishers have seconded his.
efforts by the aid which typography can furnish.
BLiCAL Treasury of the Cathechism, Compiled and arranged by Rev. Thomas E..
Cox. Second Kdition. lamo, pp. 415. New York: Wm. H. Young & Co.
One of the objections brought against the Baltimore Catechism
is that it does not give quotations from the Sacred Scriptures to-
prove its answers. Many persons consider this omission a serious
mistake. Father Fox brings forward the remedy in the volume
before us. In it he reprints every question and answer in the Bal-
timore Catechism, and after each answer the texts of Scripture are
quoted that prove or confirm the doctrine of the Catechism. By a
system of cross references repetition is prevented when the same
texts are to be used more than once.
It is claimed for the Biblical Treasury that it will be of great
service to priests in preparing their sermons ; that the seminarian
will find in it abundant Scriptural proof for his theological theses;..
that the catechist may obtain from it thoughts to enliven every les- -
Book Reviews. 623
son, and that the catechumen and convert may learn from it convinc-
ing testimony for the truths of Catholic faith.
The author has worked with a generous hand, and has gathered
together a wealth of riches. The book bears evidence of careful
compiling on every page, and it will do all that the author claims
for it. It is well made and so arranged that it can be used with the
smallest possible loss of time.
Wbtzer und Wbltb's Kirchen I,bxikon. Zweite Auflage. Herder, Freiburg and St.
I<ouls.
The revision of this great Lexicon, which has been in course of
publication for fourteen years, is at length within easy distance of
completion. The latest number, just received, deals with the letter
V, and ends with the word Verfiihrung. Within a few months,
therefore, the great Catholic Lexicon will stand before us complete
in twelve stately volumes, condensing the whole mass of Catholic
lore, in all its departments, with such accuracy and comprehensive-
ness as to constitute an entire theological library in itself. Each
article is the work of an expert, generally of world-wide fame, and
represents the last word which contemporary science has to say on
the subject under consideration. Herder's Lexicon is an honor
to the Catholic Church and places Germany far in the van in the
march of Catholic progress.
Compendium Juris Canonici, Quod in Usum Suorum Auditorum Scripsit Andreas B.
Meehan, D. D. Rochester, 1899.
In the modest compass of 429 pages, the professor of canon law
in St. Bernard's Seminary, Rochester, has given an outline of the
principles and details of Church legislation which will be of interest
and instruction far beyond the walls of his class room. He is gen-
erally accurate and judicial in his statements, and devoid of that
captious spirit which has brought his department of theology into
bad repute in many quarters. His Latin is clear and good. Re-
ferring to page 149, the canonical age for the reception of the priest-
hood, according to the Council of Trent, is the beginning of the
twenty-fifth year. We hope to see the book adopted in all our
seminaries.
ZUR Codification Des Canonischen Rechts. Denkschrift von /f. Za^ww^r. 224 pages.
80. Freiburg and St. Ivouis : Herder, 1899. Price, $1.95 net.
Among the tokens of affection received by the venerable Bishop
of Ermeland on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his priesthood.
624 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
no doubt the most acceptable, as it will be the most enduring, was
this excellent treatise of Laemmer on the important subject of the
codification of the laws of the Catholic Church. The necessity,
magnitude and difficulty of the gigantic task, and the efforts hitherto
made toward the execution of it, are stated with a precision and
erudition worthy of one who has aptly been styled "the Nestor of
Catholic canonists."
BiBLiscHE Studikn. Herausgcsrebcn von Professor Dr. O. Bardenhewer in Munchen.
Herder, Freiburg and St. Louis.
These "Biblical Studies" consist of valuable monographs by emi-
nent Catholic professors under the editorial direction of Professor
Bardenhewer, of Munich. The impulse to the work was given by
the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. on the Holy Scriptures, in 1893,
and since its inception four volumes have appeared, each containing
four separate dissertations, all masterpieces in their kind. The
latest to appear is designated as opening the fifth volume of the
series. It is entitled "An Excursion Through the Biblical Flora,"
and is the work of Rev. Leopold Fouck, S. J. Like Solomon in his
last discourse on the same subject, the learned author treats of every
tree and shrub, "from the cedar that is in Libanus, unto the hyssop
that cqmeth out of the wall."
BOOKS RECEIVED.
The IriGHT OF Lifb: Set forth in Sermons. By the Right Rev. John Cuihberi Hedley, O.
S. B., Bishop of Newport. i2mo, pp. 383. I^ondon : Burns & Gates. New York: Benziger
Brothers.
The Franciscans in Arizona. By Rev. Zephyrin Englehardt, O. F. M., with a map
and numerous illustrations. 8vo. Printed and published at the Holy Childhood In-
dian School, Harbor Springs, Michigan.
Clement of Rome, and Other Tales of the Early Church. By Rev. John Freeland. lamo,
pp. 187, London: Burns & Gates. New York: Benziger Brothers.
Scripture Manuals for Catholic Schools (arranged with a view to the Oxford and
Cambridge local examinations). Edited by the Rev. Sydney F. Smith, S. J. The Gospel
According to St. Matthew. By Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S. J. lamo, boards, pp. 254. I,ondon :
Burns & Gates, New York: Benziger Brothers.
Theologi^ Moralis Institutiones quao in Collegio Lovaniensi Societatis Jesu tradebat
Edwardus G6nicot. Duo volumena, 8vo, pp. 678—872. I,ovanii : Typis et Sumptibui Pol-
lennis et Centerick. (For sale by Benziger Brothers.)
Sermons for Every Sunday in the Year. By Rev. B.J. Bay croft, A. M, Svo, pp. 351.
New York : Fr. Pustet & Co.
The I^ife of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi. Compiled by Rev. Placido Fabrini. Trans-
lated and published by Rev. Antonio Isoleri, Missionary Apostolic. Large Svo. pp. 469,
illustrated.
General Introduction to the Study of the Sacred Scriptures. By Rev. Francis E.
Gigot, S. S, 8vo, pp. 605. New York : Benziger Brothers.
History OF THE Passion OF GuR Lord Jesus Christ. Explained by Rev. James Green-
ings, S, J. Svo, pp. 315. St. Louis : B. Herder.
The Soldier of Christ ; or, Talks Before Confirmation. By Mother Mary Loyola, of the
Bar Convent, York. Edited by Father Thurston, S. J. Svo, pp. 420. London : Bums &
Gates. New York : Benziger Brothers.
THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC
QUARTERLY REVIEW
" Contributors to the Quarterly will be allowed all proper freedom in the ex-
pression of their thoughts outside the domain of defined doctrines, the Review not
holding itself responsible for the individual opinions of its contributors."
(Extract from Salutatory, July, 1890.)
VOL. XXV.— OCTOBER, 1900— No. 100.
A COMMISSION ON THE GREEK ORDINAL IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
WHILST lately in Rome awaiting the conclusion of some
business in one of the Congregations I obtained permis-
sion to make researches in the archives of Propaganda.
Amongst the great mass of papers which passed under my eyes
during the weeks I was able to devote to the work one set of docu-
ments proved of special interest to me, as they threw considerable
light upon the state of theological opinion on the question of "the
tradition of instruments" in the Sacrament of Orders in the early part
of the seventeenth century.
As all students know, there has long been a great difference oi
opinion as to what is the essential matter of the diaconate and
priesthood. It has been assumed, and is very commonly asserted,
that from the rise of scholasticism, and certainly since the Council
of Florence and the "Instructio ad Armenos" of Pope Eugenius
IV. up to very recent times no one in the Latin Church questioned
the ordinary teaching of theologians that the essential matter of
orders was the "tradition of instruments," i. e., for the diaconate the
giving of the Book of the Gospels, for the priesthood of the chalice,
etc., to the candidate. Further it is asserted that inasmuch as this
was practically the universal and ofHcial opinion of the authorities
of the Latin Church, many questions as to the validity of the Sacra-
ment of Orders were 4etermined in the light of this assumed prin-
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1899, by Benjamin H. Whittaker, in the
Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
626 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ciple — questions which might have been decided in a very different
manner had other and, as it is nov^ beHeved, sounder views as to the
matter of the sacrament prevailed. It is now unnecessary, of course,
to say that this assumption made by some writers that the tradition
of instruments was practically accepted by all theologians from the
thirteenth century downward as the essential matter of the Sacra-
ment of Orders, is as a fact not borne out by an examination of their
works. These prove beyond doubt that teachers in theological
schools, and above all the authorities of the Latin Church, were al-
ways aware that there was another opinion, and that certainly from
the sixteenth century in any decision on the question of the validity
of orders what is called the scholastic view had no undue weight.
The documents I came across in the Propaganda archives fully
confirm this opinion as to the full knowledge of the Roman theo-
logians on this matter in the early seventeenth century. The Con-
gregation de Propaganda Fide was established in 1622, and in the
early years of its existence much of its resources and a great deal of
its energy was occupied in the printing and publishing of books
which would be useful for the work of spreading and defending the
faith. For this purpose a press was established and types to print
in the Oriental languages were prepared, and in the volumes of the
"Acta" appear constant notes from which the history of the Propa-
ganda press might be written. In 1636 a question was raised as to
the publication by the Congregation of a new edition of the Greek
"Euchologium," or book of the Greek services and rites. On
March 4 of that year Cardinal Barberini, then Prefect of the Propa-
ganda, pointed out the need of preparing an edition of the Greek
liturgy for the Oriental churches in general and for those who fol-
lowed the Greek rites in Italy in particular. It would appear from
his statement that the editions of the "Euchologium" which existed,
and notably that printed in Venice "post annum 1557," were con-
sidered to be faulty and required careful correction, and a Commis-
sion was thereupon appointed by the Pope to thoroughly examine
the whole question.
This Commission came together for its first meeting on April 24,
1636, and so seriously did it fulfil its mission that it only terminated
its labors in 1640, having held some sixty-five sessions. During
those meetings the whole book of Greek rites was taken, part by
part, and the matter and form of the sacraments as well as the ritual
for the celebration of Holy Mass was fully gone into. At the com-
mencement it was agreed that to insure full consideration one mem-
ber of the Commission should be appointed to act as exponent. He
was specially to study the matter for discussion, and was apparently
to take the side adverse to the existing Greek ritual. Father Vincent
A Commission on the Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century. 627
Richardus, a Theatine, was asked to take this position, and in the
various meetings which followed his censura formed the ground-
work of all the debates.
The fact of this Commission having sat in the seventeenth century
was, of course, well known by the Preface of Morinus in his great
work "De Sacris Ecclesiae Ordinibus," which in one sense may be
said to have been the outcome of studies undertaken as a member
of this Commission. Morinus dedicates his work to the president,
Cardinal Barberini, and says that he was called to Rome in 1639 by
the Cardinal and a few days later was summoned to take part in "a
Commission appointed by Pope Urban VIII. to consider the Greek
Euchologium." When he first took his place at the sittings, he
says, the inquiry into the validity of the rite of Greek ordinations had
begun, and he seems to imply that it was through his exertions, or
mainly through the light he was enabled to throw on the subject,
that the Commission was saved from making a great mistake in this
matter. "It appeared to me," he writes, "not quite safe to settle a
question of such moment on the teaching of the scholastics alone."
In his view the members had no sufficient knowledge of Greek or of
the Greeks, "nor had it entered into their minds to inquire what,
how many and of what nature the Greek forms of ordination were."
It will be seen that in this opinion about his brother commissioners
Morinus was hardly fair, although no doubt the arguments and
knowledge of the learned French Oratorian had great weight with
them. He was not, however, able to remain to the end of the meet-
ings, for after having been nine months in Rome he was suddenly
recalled by Cardinal Richelieu to Paris. "Why I was called back,"
he says, "I know not, but the order of such a man could not be dis-
obeyed." The interest created in his mind by the discussions, how-
ever, continued after his return. The matter constantly occupied his
attention and finally took the form of the volume prepared for pub-
lication in 1655, in which he set himself to prove that what "many
of the scholastics" had taught to be the essential form of orders were
in the old rituals conspicuous by their absence.
From the "Acta" of this Roman Commission, to which I now call
attention, I believe for the first time, it appears that even before
Morinus came to Rome the fathers were fully aware of the difficul-
ties as to the scholastic view about the matter and form of the Sacra-
ment of Orders, which indeed the mere examination of the "Eucho-
logium" must have brought out. We are not concerned with the
early discussions of the Commission, but early in 1639 — i^ the thirty-
fourth session — the question of the sub-diaconate was formally
raised by the Theatine, Father Vincent Richardus. The point was
clearly stated by the ponente : in the ordination of sub-deacon could
628 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the old form of the Euchologium be kept, since it ordered mere im-
position of hands, whereas according to the Latin rite the order was
conferred by the tradition of the chaHce without any such imposi-
tion ? He quoted the Council of Florence, or rather Eugenius IV.'s
"ad Armenos," which he considered settled the question absolutely
by declaring the tradition of instruments to be the essential matter
of the sacrament. The ponente consequently strongly advocated
the substitution of this for the mere imposition of hands found in the
"Euchologium."
A certain Cistercian, Abbot Hilarion, another member of the
Commission, although admitting that the important question of the
tradition of instruments should be most carefully examined, was
himself of opinion that it was not necessary or essential and that the
matter of the sacrament was clearly the imposition of hands as found
in the Greek Ordinals. As proof that the orders conferred without
"the instruments" had been regarded as right and valid, he quoted
Clement VIII. in his instruction "Super ritibus Italo-Grsecorum"
(August 31, 1595), in which the Pope dealt expressly with the orders
of those "ordinati ab Episcopis schismaticis" according to Greek
forms, and assumes throughout their unquestionable validity.
At this meeting Cardinal Barberini spoke "at length and ex-
pounded the ground of both opinions. As a practical conclusion
he advocated the thorough examination of the question, because if
the Commission were to advise that the 'tradition of instruments'
should be insisted upon it was greatly to be feared that such a de-
cision would be attacked not only by the Greeks, but by many of the
Latins" who did not beheve in their necessity.
It is obvious from the above that at this period in the sittings of
the Commission the fathers were fully alive to the importance of the
questions at issue in regard to the matter and form of orders, and it
was only after two more sessions, in which the discussion was con-
tinued, that the members determined, in order to sift the matter to
the bottom, to obtain the assistance and advice of other skilled
authorities. On July 9, 1639, consequently, three new names were
added to the Commission. One was Father Anthony Hickey,^ an
Irish Franciscan, of St. Isidore's, Rome, and another the well-known
French Oratorian, Morinus. On August 14 the new members for
the first time took their seats on the Commission, which was then
holding its thirty-seventh session. The question being debated
was, as Marinus indeed tells us in his Preface, the subject of the
1 Father Hickey was doubtless proposed by Father lyuke Waddington, who was at this
time constantly consulted by the Propaganda officials. Father Mickey's portrait is painted
on the walls of the " Hall of the Theses" in S. Isadore's with the following inscription : "Ad
modum R. Pater Fr. Antonius Hignselus, Emeritus vS. Theologise Professor : Totius Ordinis
Definitor Generalis : Vir in omni scientiartim genere conspicuus ; studio totus et orationi
deditus : Diversorum author operum : Vita ac morum gravitate exemplarissimus.
A Commission on the Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century. 629
Greek ordinations, and the discussion of the sub-diaconate was again
resumed by the ponente, Father Vincentius Richardus. He, as
usual, took the position of uncompromising hostiUty to the Greek
forms, and in his role of advocatus diaboli maintained (i) that in the
Euchologium there was not sufficient matter and form, (2) that there
was no tradition of instruments which rendered it essentially defec-
tive, and (3) that the words used did not sufficiently signify the power
of the order bestowed. Further, that the form of words made use
of was "deprecativa et non eiHciunt quod significant, neque significant
quod eMciunt." Moreover, he could not accept the view held
by some authorities that the essential matter of orders was "the im-
position of hands," for it appeared to him to be distinctly against the
Councils, the ancient practice of the Roman Church and practically
condemned by the words of Pope Eugenius IV. in his Instruction
to the Armenians. In this opinion he was followed by one other
member of the Commission, who also added that in his opinion there
was no real distinction made in the Euchologium between the sub-
diaconate and the diaconate.
The other five members, including Cardinal Barberini, Father
Anthony Hickey and Morinus, held that the Greek form was cer-
tainly sufficient, and that no change should be made in it. They
gave their reasons with some minuteness, and they briefly amount
to the claim that the imposition of hands was the only essential and
necessary matter of the sacrament. They refer to the authority of
the learned Greek, Arcudius, whose work on this very question had
not long before been published in Rome, with the approval of
Roman theologians and at the command of Pope Paul V., and their
arguments are mainly drawn from the sixth book of the learned
treatise. They maintained that this authority fully proves (late
probat) that the Greek rites never had any other matter than "the
imposition of hands," and that in primitive times there could have
been no "tradition of instruments" since to take the case of the
diaconate, the book of the Gospels could not have been given,
or anything equivalent to it, by the Apostles in their ordina-
tions.
The principle that Morinus advocated in the examination of the
Greek liturgy, as he tells us in the Preface of his work, was that if
the Greek rites before and after the schism were shown to be the
same, then there could be no doubt that the Euchologium contained
all the essential rites of ordination. If, on the other hand, it was
found that changes had been introduced, it would be necessary to
examine the nature of these introductions, or omissions, and to dis-
cover the intention which had prompted the changes. For this pur-
pose Morinus obtained copies of the Greek ritual, certainly going
630 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
back beyond the days of the schism, and satisfied himself that the
"Euchologium" then being examined was in its forms practically
identical with these.^
Moreover, the upholders of the sufficiency of the Greek rites
pointed out that although it was well known that the Oriental
church had never made use of any other form of orders than the
imposition of hands and prayer, still the validity of the ordination of
Eastern churches had never been called into question by the Latins :
neither at Lyons nor at Florence had any doubt been thrown upon
the reality of these orders, nor the slightest hint thrown out that the
Oriental forms were invalid. On the contrary, the Greeks had al-
ways been accepted as true priests and honored as true bishops.
Further, in 1254 Pope Innocent IV., in his letter to a legate who had
been sent to Cyprus to end disputes which had arisen between the
Latin and the Greek bishops in the island, went carefully into the
question of the Greek rites. In regard to the orders conferred by
the Greek bishops he merely desired that the three minor orders,
not specifically given in the Greek ordinals, should be added "accord-
ing to the custom of the Roman Church," and in clearly admitting
the validity of the orders in general, says nothing about the neces-
sity of any tradition of instruments. This position of Pope Innocent
IV. in regard to the Greek forms of ordination was, moreover, in full
accord with his previous teaching in the schools. As the canonist,
Sinibaldi, he had maintained that imposition of hands accompanied
only by some form to specify the order, such as Esto Sacerdos, would
be sufficient for the valid bestowal of sacred orders.
The Commissioners, in order to show that their view, that the tra-
dition of instruments was not necessary, was a novel teaching, re-
ferred to the authorities adduced by the learned Arcudius and to the
even more recent teaching of Hallier, a professor at the Sorbonne,
who whilst urging in practice the necessity of bestowing the chalice,
etc., on the priest with the accompanying form, as signifying clearly
the sacrificial character of the priesthood, still held that there could
be no doubt whatever that imposition of hands was the necessary
and essential matter of the sacrament. To the authority of Hallier
the fathers of the Commission added the weight of ''other more re-
cent teachers," such, for example, as the admitted theses main-
tained in the theological faculty of Paris in 1633, 1639 and 1640.
I'hese are referred to by Dom Hugo Medaro in his edition of St.
Gregory's "Sacramentary," and are amply sufficient to indicate that
the trend of the then theological opinion was in favor of the view
held by the majority of the Commission.
3 On his return to Paris Morinus told Goar, the Dominican, who was then engaged in
editing the Greek ritual books of two copies he had seen in Rome, better than those he had
for the basis of his edition.
A Commission on the Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century. 631
In summing up their arguments in favor of the Greek traditional
forms, the fathers maintained that "the Sacrament of Orders was
mstitntcd by Christ our Lord in such a way that the consecration of
ministers was effected by certain words, or symbols, or external
signs by which the ministry to which the candidate was to be or-
dained was signified. The determination of specific symbol or sign,
however, was left to the will of the Church. The one thing which at
all times appeared as a part of the ordination services both in the
Greek and Latin Churches was imposition of hands accompanied
with prayer. Whilst the Latins had added to the ancient forms the
tradition of instruments to emphasize the character of the order
more clearly, the Eastern churches had left them as they were, and
there could be no sort of reason why they should now be added to
make them like the Western forms.
The majority of the Commissioners met the assertion of the
ponente that at the Council of Florence Eugenius IV. had settled the
question once for all by a denial that the "Instructio ad Armenos"
really taught what it was suggested it did, namely, that the matter
and form of the Sacrament of Orders was the tradition of instru-
ments accompanied by the usual form of words and nothing more.
"The Council of Florence," they say, "did not exclude, but rather
assumed, the existence of the Greek rites and merely gave to the
Armenians the more perfect forms which tlie Latins made use of in
conferring the Sacrament of Orders." In other words : Eugenius
IV. only intended in this "Instructio" to state what, in addition to
the imposition of hands, which the Armenians already made use of,
the Latins required de facto. It was on the one hand obvious that
the Council of Florence and the Pope fully and completely acknowl-
edged as valid the orders of the Greeks, and on the other that when
asked to state the Latin forms it was only reasonable that the Pontiff
should give the additional rite of the tradition of instruments, upon
which the teaching of the scholastics had insisted so strongly. It
cannot be conceived as possible that Eugenius IV. could have in-
tended to suggest that the orders as given by the Greeks were in-
valid, seeing that both he and the fathers of the Council of Florence
admitted their validity. Neither is it likely that his words were in-
tended to imply that there was no need of any imposition of hands
since it formed an integral part of the existing Latin rite. This is
all the more certain since the Pope and his successors, as the
fathers of the Commission point out, most certainly continued to
accept the orders bestowed by the Greek Church without any tradi-
tion of instruments. Taken by itself, it is possible to misunderstand
the "Instructio ad Armenos," but its terms must be interpreted by
the circvmistances of the times when it was given and by the way in
632 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
which the people of the time understood its meaning. The action
of the Popes in regard to Greek ordinations leaves no real doubt as
to the meaning to be attached to the direction. If, for the sake of
argument, it be admitted that the Pope did intend to lay down as cer-
tain the narrow scholastic opinion that the tradition of instruments
only was the essential matter of orders, it is still open to disagree
with this opinion. In practice the Pope did not himself maintain
such a view, as the mere fact of his accepting orders conferred with-
out this proves beyond any possibility of cavil or doubt. If it was
Pope Eugenius* opinion (which it is almost impossible to believe),
then we may hold, as the fathers of this Commission say : "It was a
practical instruction to the Armenians, and no dogmatic definition
on the nature of the sacrament." (In prcedicta instructione deiini-
tionem de fide non conteneri.)
So far as the Commission was concerned this discussion seems
practically to have decided their opinion on the question of the tradi-
tion of instruments, the sense of the members being clearly that the
imposition of hands was the essential matter of the Sacrament of
Orders. When in the next session, held on August 28, 1639, the
rite of ordination to the priesthood was taken into consideration
the point was raised only in the general statement of the objections
and difficulties at the conclusion. The point here proposed to the
Commissioners as the first difficulty was whether the second imposi-
tion of hands with its accompanying form : "Accipe spiritum sanc-
tum quorum remisserites peccata" which was not to be found in the
"Euchologium," was not essential as conveying the powers of the
keys to the priest, which Our Lord had bestowed on his Apostles
after the Resurrection. Several members of the Commission argued
against the necessity and adduced many strong reasons to support
their contention. The fact that, although in the Greek forms there
never was any such second imposition of hands, and that neverthe-
less no one had called in question the validity of their orders, was
insisted upon. One of the Commission pointed out that theologians
like Sotus and Valentia held that the Greek rite implicitly contained
the whole of the Latin forms. "In this latter," he said, "the second
imposition of hands was added at a late period to explain the nature
of the sacerdotal powers more clearly." There were not two forms,
but one, and it was certain that this and many other additions had
been made by the Latins at comparatively late tim:s in order to
emphasize more clearly the nature of the sacrament. This he con-
cluded was obviously the case, since in the most ancient Roman
form of orders there was only mention of imposition of hands with
prayer and nothing more.
Father Anthony Hickey, the Irish Franciscan, took the same view
A Commission on the Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century. 633
most strongly, saying that it was not open to doubt that orders in
primitive years were always given by the imposition of hands and
prayer. He suggested that as in process of time the sacrificial char-
acter of the Christian priesthood came to be expressed very definitely
by the tradition of the chalice and with its accompanying words, it
became almost necessary to introduce something so as to emphasize
the ministerial side of the priestly office and the power of the keys.
In the Greek forms, as indeed in the oldest Western forms, both were
sufficiently expressed in the same form.
The discussion was continued through several sessions, some of
the members allowing that they were doubtful about the point at
issue ; but Morinus expressed himself as clear that the second impo-
sition, etc., was quite a late introduction in the Western Church, and
certainly not to be found in any of the ancient Greek or Oriental
liturgies. Besides this point, upon which all the argument appears
to have been on the one side, the question whether a deprecatory
form, such as that in the Euchologium : "May Divine Grace make
thee, N, now a deacon, into a priest," was raised and its validity sim-
ilarly maintained by Morinus and others, who laid stress upon the
fact that all the Greek forms from ancient times had always been of
this kind and had nevertlieless always been acknowledged by the
Roman Church.
Before the close of the arguments on this matter, in March, 1640,
Morinus had been recalled to France, but his departure does not
appear to have changed the views of the Commission. In March,
April and May at the meetings a considerable portion of the time
was taken up in resuming the discussion on the necessity of the tra-
dition of instruments. Throughout one thing appears clearly : that
all fully admitted the fact that this was not an ancient part of the rite,
but a comparatively modern introduction, i.nd that what had always
existed from the days of the Apostles was imposition of hands and
prayer, as then found in the Greek Euchologium. One of the fath-
ers— Antonius Marulus — who had joined the Commission shortly
before the close of the discussion, at great length summed up the his-
torical argument by adducing examples of the admission of the im-
position of hands as the essential matter of the sacrament during the
nine previous centuries. In the course of the argument, too, various
theologians were quoted, amongst others the Jesuit Martin Becanus,
who taught definitely at the end of the sixteenth century that "Orders
are bestowed by the imposition of hands and the word of the ordain-
ing Bishop ;"^ that "there must be imposition of hands is absolutely
certain and has never yet been questioned by any one," and that "the
imposition of hands would appear to be the essential matter of this
3 His " Summa" was published in 1619.
634 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
sacrament instituted by Christ; the tradition of instruments, on the
other hand, would seem to be accidental only and introduced by the
Church."
The position taken by the Commission generally would appear,
then, to be the following : Just as Pope Benedict XV. considered
that in the Greek sub-diaconate all the minor orders were implicitly
contained, so the Latin rite had by its introduction of the tradition
of instruments and the second imposition of hands only amplified
and more clearly expressed what was actually contained in the sim-
ple imposition of hands and the accompanying words of the Greek
rite and the earliest Latin forms. The latter had not really changed
the form, but had merely expanded and extended it to give it great
significance.
This attitude of mind was mainly formed, as we have seen, upon
the work of Arcudius. This learned Greek priest, a native of
Cyprus, after having done much to help in the settlement of the
Oriental diijficulties, died at the Greek College in Rome, in 1634, two
years before the meeting of this Commission. In 1619 he had pub-
lished his folio volume on the agreement between the Greek and
Latin Churches in matters of doctrine, etc. In this work, when
treating the question of orders, besides showing that the Greek
priesthood, etc., had always been acknowledged by the Latins, al-
though given without any tradition of instruments, he claims to
prove that even among the scholastics he finds evidence of the prin-
ciple that imposition of hands was the essential matter of the sacra-
ment in spite of their common teaching. He bases this declaration
on St. Bonaventure's opinion, who in his Commentary on the fourth
"Book of the Sentences" says : 'Tn sacred orders, since a high and
excellent power is therein conveyed, imposition of hands is used,
and not mere tradition of instruments, for the hand is the organ of
organs in which in an especial way the power of action resides.
Hence in the primitive Church, where only the two orders (of deacon
and priest) were explicitly given, ordinations were conferred in this
way."
Again: "To what has been objected on this: that orders, as we
have them, are given by the bestowal of the Book or chalice, we
reply that as the (virtue of) every instrument is in the giving of it
by the hand, so where there is no such tradition of instruments their
import is signified by the imposition of hands alone. Hence . . .
in the primitive Church all the orders, which in process of time were
made distinct and more explicit both as to words and signs and per-
sons, were conveyed by the imposition of hands. . . .
"It is to be understood that there was always some word to ex-
press the fact that such or such a power was bestowed ; but only in
A Commission on the Greek Ordinal in the Seventeenth Century. 635
two sacraments did Our Lord Himself determine the special form of
words. In the case of the rest, though some words are necessary,
the actual form was not determined, but any words expressing the
sense, in as far as it is de ratione sacramenti, are sufficient, so long as
he who uses them does not intend to introduce any heresy. Now,
of course, it is necessary to keep the forms appointed and approved
by the Church . . . It is untrue to say that in the primitive
Church there were none but holy orders ; the rest were implicitly
given in the imposition of hands.
In some notes on this portion of St. Bonaventure's teaching the
editors of the recent edition say : "Many of his contemporaries,
taking a more strict view than St. Bonaventure, maintained that the
character of orders was bestowed by the tradition of instruments
with the accompanying words. This is most frequently understood
of all orders, even the priesthood, which is given by the bestowal of
the chalice with wine and the paten with bread, and the diaconate,
conveyed by the Book of the Gospels. This is even said in plain
terms in the decree pro Armenis. But, on the other hand, the friend
of St. Bonaventure, Peter Tarantesius (afterwards Pope Innocent
v.), excepted the diaconate and the priesthood, which he asserted
were given by the imposition of hands." The same opinion has
been constantly maintained in the Church, either practically by the
full recognition of Greek orders, or by the teaching of some theo-
logians, at all times. The Council of Trent refrained from settling
this question on the ground that the fathers had not met to arrange
disputes between theologians ; but when treating of the Sacrament
of Orders the Council implicitly supports the view maintained by
Arcudius, since it speaks of sub-deacons being ordained by the be-
stowal of the cruets and of "priests rite ordinate per impositionem
manuum presbyterii." Moreover, we know from the history of the
Council that the question was formally raised in the session held in
1562. The Cardinal of Lorraine at first desired that it should be
distinctly stated that the matter of the sacrament of the priesthood
was the imposition of hands, but subsequently "he considered that
where what is necessary for the Sacrament of Orders is given it
would be better not to designate specifically the matter and form ;
not that these did not exist, but because in this sacrament they could
not easily be determined. On the other hand, he would like to see
some mention rnade of the imposition of hands, since it was named
so frequently in the Old and New Testaments. His opinion on this
point met with universal approval, although finally, in order not to
define positively that imposition of hands was the essential part of
the sacrament, the more general expression "words and signs" was
determined upon to state the component parts of the Sacrament of
636 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Sacred Orders. Still the imposition of hands was not wholly passed
over in silence, since in the decree itself the words of St. Paul to
Timothy: "Admoneo te ut resuscites gratiam Dei, quce est in te per
impositionem manuum mearum' are quoted.
It must, of course, be borne in mind that the Council of Trent had
already taught distinctly (Sess. 21, c. ii.) that although "in dispens-
ing the sacraments" the Church might appoint or change what was
proper to their administration according to times and places, this
power did not, of course, extend to their substance as determined by
Our Lord. (Salva earum substantia.)
It is upon this teaching that many theologians of the seventeenth
century, and in particular Morinus and other fathers of the Com-
mission which sat upon the Greek "Euchologium" based their ar-
guments, maintaining that imposition of hands was the essential
matter of the Sacrament of Orders. In the West they say, in effect,
the earliest forms of ordination prove that imposition of hands
only was used, just as we find in the Greek Church at the present
day, and since "the essential matter of the sacraments is immutable,
as the Council of Trent declares," whatever the Church may subse-
quently order to be added by way of expansion or explanation, the
essential matter of the Sacrament of Orders must remain to-day
what it was in the first ages, the imposition of hands.
F. A. Gasquet, O. S. B.
lyOndon.
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN.
THE death of Charles Lord Russell of Killowen on the i8th of
August is a loss not merely to his family, not merely to
friends and acquaintances, however large the circle may be ;
it is a loss to the United Kingdom in general and that part of it called
Ireland in particular which will not be repaired in our time. One
circumstance we mention before passing to graver interests is that
he had given promise, given earnest of the promise of successful
legislation concerning a class of commercial dishonesty which had
escaped the attention of previous law reformers, at least in a clear,
searching and scientific manner. Whatever legislation of that kind
there had been was only incidental to other legislation, and its main
effect was illustrative or declaratory. The considerable efforts at
Law Reform identified with the names of Lord Westbury and Earl
Cairns were confined to practice and procedure. A mischief in the
Lord Russell of Killowen. 637
very midst of commercial activity was untouched except so far as
the spirit of provisions of the bankruptcy code suggested a danger
to adventurous promoters or agents, and except so far as recognized
principles in the Chancery side of the High Court of Justice might
lay hold of persons in a fiduciary position taking advantage of the
confidence reposed in them. This mischief Lord Russell began to
deal with ; and if his mantle have not fallen on some disciple, we fear
the continuance of successful fraud.
It has been said the distinguished career of Lord Russell is an ar-
gument against Home Rule ; that the separation of Irish and English
interests would deprive able and ambitious Irishmen of the wider
field open to them under the existing arrangement. There is noth-
ing in the point except an assumption which in one form or another
runs though the whole policy of centralization. The assumption is
that imperial interests are exclusively English and that the local
interests of Ireland are in conflict with imperial interests. The
scheme for Home Rule recognizes the place of Ireland in the Empire
and her representatives as part of it. Even Lord Rosebery's sug-
gestion of a policy in the phrase "predominant partner" is nominally,
at least, in advance of the principle couched under the assumption
just spoken of. It implies some rights of partnership in the subor-
dinate member of the firm. Even in pre-Union times, when the
Irish legislature was a sovereign and at the lowest view a quasi-
international body — it was very jealous of its style and title — the
King, Lords and Commons of Ireland — even in pre-Union times
the field of imperial labor was open to Irishmen, and many became
distinguished in policy and arms. We may mention Lord Moisa,
afterwards Marquess of Hastings, and Mr. Burke as Irishmen who
rendered considerable services to imperial policy ; but for our part,
indeed, we should prefer an adequate career for our own gifted coun-
trymen at home if the choice were to lie between the fields of local
and imperial labor. But no such election is necessary, for under
Home Rule certain Irishmen will sit in both houses of the imperial
Parliament, and thereby gain opportunities for service and distinc-
tion more surely guaranteed than under the present arrangement,
which imposes difficulties upon them only to be overcome by trans-
cendent ability or by conspicuous faithlessness. The deeper and
more enduring aspect of the question of conflict of interests between
Ireland and England — the latter an impudent and despotic synonym
for the term Empire — shall appear in our attempt to put before the
reader our estimate of Charles Russell.
The great cases — except one — in which he was counsel cannot be
dealt with in this paper. It may be sufficient to say that his income
v/as set down at £25,000 a year. This at the common-law bar, we
638 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
believe, has never been surpassed if equaled. Even the thirteenth
juryman, as Scarlett^ used to be called, does not seem to have
reached that figure. Some may have attained it at the equity bar ;
some possibly at the Parliamentary bar. At the latter Mr. Hope-
Scott was credited with £20,000 a year, and we have always heard it
said that he stood highest. We may mention a remarkable con-
sensus of opinion with regard to Russell's power of cross-examina-
tion. This question was asked in a newspaper some years ago :
Who was the ablest cross-examiner? From all parts of England
correspondents wrote their opinion, and Russell may be said to have
been elected by plebiscite. Now when one knows what an instru-
ment of the Nisi Prius lawyer the power of cross-examination is, we
must perceive that with such an expression of opinion he could not
be left out of an important case. A good speech to evidence is all
right, but without the power to test witnesses, solicitors and clients
alike attach little value or comparatively little value to the making of
a speech. We shall give some instances. Mr. Whiteside, after-
wards Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, was one of the last of the race
of giant orators, yet he was never allowed to handle a difficult wit-
ness. V/e were told long ago of a solicitor that he would bring
Whiteside into a great case for the purpose of addressing the jury,
but he would take care also to employ him in a case going on at
the same time in an adjoining court. To this other court he would
get Whiteside called when it was necessary to let a good cross-exam-
iner at an important witness in the first one. Mr. Whiteside, not
knowing the secret, thought such drawing of him from one court to
another was a compliment ; he was in such demand as it were. Sure
we are of this, that he was never paid a special fee to stay all the tim.e
in one court, as poor Butt used to be, and as a great ally of our own,
Mr. Francis McDonough, used to be.
We have implied that Russell's success as an advocate is not the
measure of his greatness. Even in the short period he was on the
bench he is admitted to have given proofs of qualities equal to those
of the greatest of the long and illustrious line of Chiefs of the
Queen's Bench.^ This is no ordinary praise. Men of every variety
of power and accomplishment filled the great place since the Con-
quest ; we believe there is hardly more than one man since the time
of that Gascoyne, whose name is familiar to the readers of Shake-
speare, down to the last occupant but was distinguished as a scholar,
a lawyer or statesman, and sometimes as all three. Perhaps the
one exception is that lawyer who presided at the Court of High Com-
mission which tried Charles I., but it may be said for him, take it as
^ Lord Abinger. We have an idea that ;^i3,ooo a year was his professional income.
'■^ Though John Bradshaw, the lyord President of the Court of Regicides, is not ordinarily
included in the list of Chiefs of the King's Bench, still his position was the same.
Lord Russell of Killozven. 639
its value, that he has the unquaUfied praise of Mihon for his scholar-
ship and law, so that the premier Bench as it was when there were
three common-law courts may be said to have had chiefs of unique
distinction all through since the reign of Henry IV. and very great
men amongst its chiefs anterior to that reign.
But not even in his mastery as an advocate or a judge, or both,
can we form the standard of Russell's amazing clearness of intellect
in grasping complicated facts and ability in imparting with clearness
his possession of them. His speech at the Parnell Commission is
not merely that of a great advocate — and it is that in the highest
sense — but it is the speech of a statesman rising above all others
save his own countryman, Edmund Burke. In that inquiry his
other qualities as an advocate found ftill scope. His discussions
from time to time on the admissibility of evidence were models of
rational test and inference directed to restriction where an act of
Parliament had fixed the issues to be tried. A more incredible out-
rage on common decency and sense was only once committed, and
that was when the King was ordered to be tried for treason against
himself. Even "the lurdan Parliament,"^ famous for the absurdities
of its legislation, never dreamt of being legislators and pleaders at
the same time, never thought of creating political offenses and ap-
pointing a special tribunal to try them, thought not of settling the
pleadings and directing the issues for both sides. This is what the
dreadful Unionist Government of 1886 and the few years succeeding
accomplished;. and the wonder is not at the one-sided report as we
have it, but that so much justice was reached by the able and honor-
able men who presided, in spite of the clogs upon their feet. There
seems to be no improvement in the spirit of the party. A recent in-
cident indicates that a bewildering recklessness, if not worse, still
governs it. If the conversation alleged by Dr. Clark, a Scotch
member, to have taken place between himself and Mr. Chamberlain
with reference to certain matters before the war in South Africa be
correctly reported, the Colonial Secretary stands in the invidious
position of impeaching the loyalty of Lord Russell. We do not
think it necessary to vindicate that great judge from the aspersions
of the right honorable gentleman. We will only offer a contrast —
while a son of the noble and learned lord was fighting for his Queen
and country, the Chamberlain family were only making money by
the war, making money by the supply of munitions for the war
under contracts exceptionally favorable to themselves. No, there
is no need to defend Lord Russell ; his character can be trusted to
his brethren of the Bar, to his colleagues of the Bench, to the affec-
tionate gratitude of the English people, for whose interests he sacri-
*< Parliamentum indoctum is the historic name, which is translated in old English as above.
640 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
ficed weeks going from platform to platform when his moments
were literally to be counted by guineas. He has in his life left an
example admirable indeed for those qualities which fire the ardor
of the young and generous and win the homage even of the aged
and cautious, even of those chilled to appreciation of the higher im-
pulses of our nature. But this is not his greatest praise. At a time
when political faith is regarded as a superstition, when the hucksters
of party are inspiring influences, when Tadpole and Taper and not
their statesmen lead the Liberal party, when Mr. Chamberlain, Mr.
Rhodes and the De Beers Company govern the party in power,
when the voice of justice is no longer hearkened to and the demands
of liberty and reason silenced by the bludgeons and revolvers of Mr.
Balfour's mobs, the life of Russell is a redeeming example ; and we
hope its influence will recall the people of England to the policy of
the great chief who almost emancipated them from the thraldom of
the classes.
Mr. Chamberlain's arraignment of the honor and loyalty of the
Lord Chief Justice, though of no value where fair play has influence,
no value because proceeding from the impartial betrayer of every
man and party that trusted him, is full of ill-omened possibilities
when the Ministers are the same, their allies the same as when
Charles Russell broke down the gigantic conspiracy against the
Irish people in the persons of their leaders. Edmund Burke de-
clared to the tyrannical government which taxed America and ruled
Ireland by the worst species of martial law — an armed, licentious
and ferocious class allowed a free hand over a defenseless people —
Burke told that government that it could not indict a nation. The
impossibility seemed to have been effected by the party of Mr.
Chamberlain and Pigott; but though the indictment was framed
and prosecuting counsel appeared in exceptional strength from the
allied forces in England and their henchmen of the Bar of Ireland,
though from purlieus and prisons the social outcast and the felon
emerged to give the testimony which would supply means of con-
tinued profligacy to the one and secure liberty to the ot}?er, the con-
spiracy was shattered to atoms by Russell's unbounded energy and
courage. This success is the first motive for the hatred of the
Colonial Secretary ; the second is that Lord Russell tried and sen-
tenced the ringleaders in the Jameson Raid. The secret complicity
of Mr. Chamberlain in that extraordinary violation of public law was,
we think, never doubted even by his friends. The proofs have not
been given, but the suspicion which attached to his conduct, preg-
nant enough in all conscience, is raised to certainty if the state-
ments of Dr. Clark can be relied upon. Nothing but the vindictive-
ness of a disappointed man could have found in the charge of the
Lord Russell of Killozven. 641
Lord Chief Justice to the jury ground for the impeachment of his
loyalty. We do not deny the ability of Mr. Chamberlain, but he
seems eaten up by a restless vanity which his admirers call ambition
and a love of experimental policies which he and they mistake for
statesmanship. Th^ strong sense of a great constitutional judge
interpreting statutes passed to preserve amity with friendly States
in accordance with the meaning of the words and the policy em-
bodied in them was the offense given to the Colonial Secretary.
The presumption which prompted him to call members of Parlia-
ment to account could not very well urge even him to an attack on
the Chief Justice and his rulings. If made during the prosecutions
Lord Russell would have laid him by the heels for contempt of
court ; if made since the trial, it would have afforded Lord Salisbury
and Mr. Balfour a justification for his dismissal, against which the
entire gang of Liberal Unionists, from the Duke of Devonshire to
Mr. Jesse Collings, would protest in vain. The dignity and interest
of the Empire were, in the opinion of Ministers, involved in the
selection of Russell to represent it on the Venezuelan arbitration.
And now we turn from this paltry episode to the thought of what
Mr. Gladstone accomplished in the one act of appointing Russell
Attorney General. It is impossible to do justice to the courage of
that great man who in making the appointment placed himself on a
plane far above the traditions by which bigotry was consecrated in
England. When he raised that Irishman to the Attorney General-
ship he effected a revolution as though no effect remained from the
enactments of evil days, as though the intolerance, the calculated
opinion, the national turn of thought, the exclusiveness of habit, the
privileges resting on descent and education had vanished into the
darkness of the past and all the influences which had gone to form
the Englishman since the Reformation and the social system of
which he was a part had been lifted off by a magician's wand. That
Charles Russell was worthy of the high distinction every one ad-
mitted then, every one will say now, except the colleague who plot-
ted against Mr. Gladstone, his former leader, as he plots against
Lord Salisbury, his leader, now.
Though we refrain from particular allusion to many of the lesser
things which cling to the memory of Russell and which in obituary
notices have found place as indicating some trait of character, some
quality of power, some degree of the esteem in which he was held,
we are tempted to mention a curious fact or fiction which seems to
mark him off from all the public men of the day. True or false, it
affords testimony of the opinion which prevailed in England that
Russell's high character was a protection for those who trusted him.
When men of different parties meet they are usually guarded by the
Vol. XXV.— Sig. 2.
642 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
presence of some persons who may be appealed to in subsequent dis-
putes. The honor of pubHc men is one thing, but considerations of
interest are another. Memory is treacherous, party feeUng strong,
the medium through which things are seen varying. Now the inci-
dent we refer to, known as the "strange" dinner party, is an exception
to meetings of the kind. No precaution was taken ; Russell simply
had as his guests Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Parnell and Lord Randolph
Churchill. The story is told as if he had a power to bring into har-
mony men of the most diverse opinions or bring them together with-
out any of them fearing a trap. It was a most important triumvi-
rate; for there was the old man eloquent, whom the Radicals
looked up to as the statesman whose policy would secure the rights
of all classes at home and the respect of foreign powers by a firm
and dignified attitude of peace ; there was the man who embodied the
wrongs of Ireland and the man who was the hope of wise Toryism.
If this story be not true, it still is a recognition of the high estimate
which the English people had of Russell as a man unselfishly faithful
to their best interests. Until Mr. Chamberlain implied that Lord
Russell could prostitute his office to his ambition, drag his ermine in
the dust in order to win a victory for his political allies, no one had
ever thought of attributing to him an unworthy motive. We shall
by and by offer a point to show a sacrificing love of Ireland not even
thought of.
Public men cannot escape criticism. It is not always that they
receive justice from contemporary opinion, but it does sometimes
happen that the purity of a character is so clear that the base who
mine in the dark alone are active to overthrow it. It was not sus-
pected that the man — this Catholic and Irishman — selected by the
Unionist Government to represent England in the Venezuelan treaty
was resting in tranquillity on the surface while Mr. Chamberlain was
sapping the ground beneath. It is impossible for him who has not
observed the ways of the Colonial Secretary to judge of the danger
to Russell lying in the possibilities of Mr. Chamberlain's ever ob-
taining supreme power.
A structure compacted from plausible mendacities and religious
and national hate would conceivably lash the English public into a
fury such as possessed their ancestors in the days of the Popish Plot,
which in a less degree spent itself in the Gordon riots, which found
expression in the Ecclesiastical Titles Act and which made the lives
of Irishmen unsafe in England and subjected their country to a drag-
gonade when the phrase "Parnellism and Crime" was a household
word from Berwick to the Land's End. If time and circumstance
favored Mr. Chamberlain, there is nothing rash in thinking that
Russell would have been removed from his office under an obloquy
Lord Russell of Killozven. 643
for the time recalling the infamy of Scroggs and of Jeffries ; that a
broken heart would bring him to the grave ; that his family instead
of finding, as now, a consolation for their sorrow in universal sym-
pathy, would be driven to seek in another land the toleration of pity,
and then, as usual in such cases, would come the tardy, ineffectual
acknowledgment of injustice by which Englishmen fancy they repair
the most odious and most cruel wrongs.
Passing in review the period when Russell practised as an attorney
and solicitor in Ireland until as a Lord Chief Justice and a peer he
represented England in international tribunals, we behold what ap-
pear to be the evidences of a vast change in the conditions of society.
At the same time we must be on our guard lest we take casual
phenomena for the effect of profound principles. His appointment
has this value with regard to the sentiment of the English people, it
is a break in the continuity of evil precedents. The authority of
Protestant exclusion from the two offices which, even more than
the Lord Chancellorship, mark the triumph of English Reformation
principles is impaired. The Attorney General was the officer spe-
cially charged with the duty of asserting the legal aspect of Pro-
testantism, all that it meant of insular pride and independence of
foreign codes ; the Lord Chief the functionary to declare as law the
triumph of English over Latin principles of jurisprudence. There
was to be no going back to external decrees and foreign interpreta-
tion ; the self-sufficiency of the English intellect and will in the
realms of law and order was to be maintained henceforth, even more
than in the domains of theology. Protestantism in England came
to be looked upon, despite the high pretensions of the Tudors and
the Stuarts, as the spirit of the Bill of Rights. It was a sort of air
in which trial by jury, habeas corpus, popular representation, taxa-
tion by consent, Ministerial responsibility, and so on, were born and
nourished. To pass into this atmosphere as a potent spirit, con-
trolling its forces as though he were an intelligence native to the
very air, was the fortune of Charles Russell — to our mind a more
striking success than that which put Benjamin Disraeli at the head
of the landed interest of England and made him head of the British
Empire as the representative of the landed interest.
These are the broad aspects of Lord Russell's rise, but they do
not tell the qualities of the man in their full significance. A few
words and we shall, we think, prove to the American reader that
his life is wonderful as a fairy tale. We have only to state the facts
to obtain the English reader's recognition of the marvel. Knowing
as we do his start in life, we have no hesitation in saying that if we
had been in some way cut off from surrounding intercourse while
possessing an exact knowledge of political and social life in England,
644 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the parties, the interests, the prejudices that react on individual
dispositions, we have no hesitation in saying that reading a biogra-
phy of Russell, presenting the steps of his advancement only, v^ould
carry with us the authority of one of Victor Hugo's nightmares of
fiction.
He had begun life in the lower branch of the legal profession in
Ireland. He might have obtained a leading practice in Petty Ses-
sions and Quarter Sessions and been the Catholic rival of the Orange
champion, John Rea. His name would not have passed beyond
the limits of these little local courts, for nothing would have induced
a man of his excellent good sense to imitate the eccentricities which
carried the name of Rea over the country as that of the bravo of
irreconciliables, whether Orange or Fenian. His services to the
Liberal party in local politics might have been rewarded with a
Sessional Crown Solicitorship, in which office it would be his prov-
ince to instruct counsel for the Crown in the few cases that might
be sufficiently important for their services in Petty Sessions and to
prosecute in person the larcenies and common assaults which con-
stitute the criminal jurisdiction of Quarter Sessions. He might rise
to the dignity of country solicitor for a few landlords, whose boxes
with their names inscribed in large white letters ranged on shelves
in his office would have an imposing effect on the small shop-keeper
and farmer, his ordinary clients. It would be a respectable but an
obscure life.
But he must have been born with a silver spoon of more than
ordinary dimensions. He went to England like so many of his
countrymen of ability and ambition, instancing the prediction of
Grattan in one of his anti-Union speecl:ies that the fall of Ireland
would draw to the capital of the country to be enriched by her fall
every Irishman conscious of great gifts and the energy to employ
them well. It is difficult to see at the first how this young Belfast
attorney expected to brush aside the obstacles to his career. He
was unknown in the classes which might be useful to him in the
country of his adoption. We think the few Catholics of landed
estate in England would prefer any one to an Irishman. English
Protestants of the landed or the commercial interest would cherish
their prejudices against the Irish Catholic adventurer. In those
days one of the ablest men at the common law Bar of England was
Mr. Sergeant Shee, an Irish Catholic. For years and years he was
passed over when vacancies occurred upon the Bench. The good
old maxim : "No Irish Catholic need apply" governed Ministerial
patronage over the Bench of England. The Irish Catholic might
be sent to India or to some other dependency of the Crown, but the
Bench of England should be kept sacred from the Pope. It was an
Lord Russell of Killowen. 645
ostentatious loyalty to the Protestant sentiment on the part of offi-
cial Liberals. Shee's success at the Bar is easily explained. He
was a man of large private means, of exceptional ability and knowl-
edge of law when he got the chance.
His wealth secured the chance ; he could wait, he could make
friends and become a sergeant when that degree possessed a monop-
oly of leadership in the Common Pitas, and when the degree was
to be obtained by the simple expenditure of considerably over seven
hundred guineas. Shee, notwithstanding political services in Par-
liament to the Whigs, was, as we have said, passed over year after
year and could not have been raised to the Bench until at long last
the generous indignation of his professional brethren compelled the
Lord Chancellor to recognize his merits. This is how things stood
when Russell went to the English Bar. With all the advantages
which Shee possessed at his start, he only obtained a puisne judge-
ship. This was a kind of ermined insignificance, a small concession.
With this before him a5 an object lesson of bigoted unfairness,
one must see that Russell possessed unbounded confidence in him-
self when he left settled chances at home for hardly one in England,
It is a condition of success to have this faith in one's powers, but it
does not always command success. There are opportunities which
must be laid hold of, and it happens that to some the opportunity
never oilers itself or comes and passes like a shooting star. Russell
was at or near the age which the greatest master in the knowledge
of men fixed as the period when the practical intellect attains its full
maturity. However, it was an undertaking, loaded as he was in
various ways, which might cause fear or anxiety to the boldest
spirit. A young man, married and waiting for the briefs without an
assured income, is in the most trying* position one can well conceive.
W^hat is he to do while waiting? The etiquette of the Bar is an
iron fence which shuts him ofif from ways of earning support open
to other professions. He is separated from the public by the lower
branch of the profession. Literature may be an aid, but the writ-
ing barrister who does not publish law books or who is not a law
reporter is suspected by the attorneys. The publication of a volume
of poems was fatal to one man we remember ; the suspicion of writ-
ing a novel was disastrous to another.
A good book on practice is unquestionably the best recommenda-
tion to the solicitors, but this means enormous labor and long wait-
ing for results. Solicitors will respect a man who writes a treatise
on some branch of law, but they may fight shy of him as a specialist
in opinion without the gifts of a court lawyer until he has proved he
possesses them. Their favorite, certainly, is the reporter, but 50
far as we can judge Russell did not try this exacting and laborious
646 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
part of legal training. We are glad of it. He was spared the strain
which has been too strong for many a young man whose university
career had been a succession of triumphs and whose life in society
seemed to fulfil the promise of the past. Reporters have become
great advocates and great judges ; but how many withering in their
environment have lost a man's life and have become an embodiment
of collected cases, principles, distinctions and obiter dicta! The
pride of his class fellows, the darling of society, when the vivacity
and hopefulness of manhood in its earliest prime was as a reflection
of the promise given by the sun of a high summer day, when the
glory of the world of sky and wood, lake and mountain are coming
into light, sinks as the years pass into a learned scribe, parchment-
faced, stooped, bloodless, the clothing of ten thousand cases. His
delight is now the imwinding of a knotty point, his wildest dissipa-
tion the effort to distinguish a case in process of development from a
current of authority which seems to rule it, to bring under a line of
cases one in appearance outside the principle. It is a terrible fate to
see what looks like a man a sort of animated mummy of technicali-
ties, yet possessing a special memory vast and well ordered in its
possessions as a government library, a penetration in its own walk
beyond the insight of mere science men to detect, discover, group.
Reporters are useful for all that we have said ; they are to be honored,
these victims of Juggernaut. They are really the makers of judge-
made law, in which we live and move and have our being.
Possibly Russell's intense vitality, like that of the great reporters
who became the Chiefs who preceded him on the King's Bench, his
indomitable will and his sympathy with the life around him might
have saved him from the fate we have sketched. We understand
that, with or without the knowledge of the attorneys, he employed
Hterature as an aid. All the same, we have the very best of reasons
for knowing that he was in considerable practice as a junior three
years after his call to the Bar. When we hear of the ordinary case
of a man not touching a brief for eight or ten years we find his career
an agreeable exception. Mr. Labouchere, who knew him well, in-
forms us that he was not very generally known until after he was
fifteen or sixteen years at the Bar ; but this is really not incompatible
with a large and lucrative practice for years before the date.
The flashes of repartee, the drolleries of combination which have
come from him are racy enough of the soil he sprang from to lead us
to hope that one or other of the group nearest him will supply a
biography with the good things, the epigrams, the Johnsonian
moods to relieve the shadows or tone the sunrays of a soul curiously
compact of passion, tenderness, daring and pride. He was Irish
from top to toe. It is wath a sort of amazement we have read opin-
Lord Russell of Killowen. 647
ions that he could not have been a distinguished success in Parlia-
ment. The Bar, we admit, is not the best training school for the
House of Commons. Mr. Burke in one of his famous passages ex-
plains how it happens that the acuteness, the persuasive power, the
command of the resources of rhetoric which obtain forensic triumphs
are accompanied with a certain narrowing of the mind due to the ap-
plication of principles to particular instances of rights rather than to
classes of rights and the obscuring of broad, fundamental principles
by making them subject to artificial limitations. That this is gener-
ally true there seems no reason to doubt, but we have clear and dis-
tinct evidence of the strength and largeness of Russell's political
philosophy,* to which we shall devote some attention if we have
space.
We hope, however, that some of those forming his family by blood
or af^nity, and nowhere could we search for persons more compe-
tent, will give the public a biography picturing him in all the moods
of feeling and ways of fancy and exercises of power in his home, in
society, at the Bar, on the Bench, in Parliament. Epigrams there
would be, running fires of sarcasm, airy or scorching, anecdotical
resurrections of lifeless stories endowed with a new soul to the sur-
prise and delight of listeners such as we find in the biographies of
many great lawyers, and which seem in some way to be revelations of
the whole man instead of the sunlit ripple on the surface below
which solemn and awful things peradventure lie.
He was all along, despite the claims of that "laborious life" to
which he alluded in a passage of great power and pathos in the
speech before the Parnell Commission, in the midst of those who
would recall with love and pride these phases of his nature or rather
scintillations going forth in the exuberance of his nature.
A singularly great and noble one was his, eloquent of his country
in all his peculiarities and powers, a product he was of her genius and
history. Not an Ulsterman merely, as a writer has said, but a child
of the w^hole land and the memorials studding it. The abbey, the
ruined castle, the rath, the storied river and the glen populous with
beings the imagination delights in, the romance of .certain spots
where pride and violence, chivalry and wrong, love and hate played
parts that still survive in thought, the old tumble-down town with its
fragment of a wall, a stage where crowns were staked and lost, all
wrote themselves upon his heart and helped in the shaping of the
man for deeds of high emprise. Some one of the gifted group that
had been nearest to him should take up the story of his life and tell
us all about him : the hidden springs of that noble eloquence, indo-
mitable will, fiery courage, calm strength, fidelity fixed as the deeply
■* We 6nd that Mr. I,abouchere,tiomean authority, entertains this view.
648 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
rooted mountains. Such a "life" would be more to us than all the
masterpieces of biography.
We have been a little long perhaps in speaking of things around
rather than in his life ; yet they, too, have their use. When a great
man has gone from amongst us we look here and there for all the
influences that shaped him to be a world-walker through obstruc-
tions, as one might say in high Carlylese, or troubled him to action,
or led him to the academy or portico, thence to return with the
honey of such hives. And sure we are that the domestic, and all but
domestic circle of Russell, his family inheritance of cultivation in
what is best and the romance and horror of his country's tragedy
all had their measure in equipping him for a war with giants. Yet
not without interest is it that he pitched his tent after his call to the
Bar in that town of England nearest to Ireland, as we may say with
substantial if not verbal accuracy. He began practice at the Liver-
pool Bar, as many others from the Emerald Isle had done and do.
There is a considerable Irish population there, men in business
worth a plum or two f and conceivably the nephew of the President
of Maynooth would be a persona grata to them. But then the attor-
neys : these gentlemen like to look before them to be sure of their
man, as it were. It is said his first brief came from Yates & Son. It
is something, if true, for this respectable family to remember with
pride. The prior of the firm, a clever man actively engaged in
municipal affairs, saw something above the common in the young
Irishman. We have said something already of the shyness of solici-
tors in giving business to an unknown or untried man. They will
not do it even at the request of a client unless it is a matter in which
the young counsel can do no harm. At the same time we know the
chance comes strangely and suddenly, very like what is read in
novels, but true, as we know, for all that. It is the tide in the affairs
of men. It is worth the rest of life ; all depends upon it. Let the
aspirant take it, grasp it with both hands, as William the Conqueror
did England; as Jacob wrestled let the young man wrestle, fight
desperately to win, or if losing, fight desperately to the last, unmind-
ful of judicial frown, opponents' sneer, the mild surprise of the un-
briefed around him listening with half-understanding ears. If one
make £20,000 a year in good time after that chance for thirty years
or so, and in a profession which gives a peasant's son equality with
the highest man's son, it is worth holding to for all that one may
prize in life. We take it Russell's opportunity came in a more pro-
saic way — good reports of amazing industry, his presence in the
Liverpool Hbrary, as Mr. Yates, senior, noticed, whenever possible,
and so on.
•' Plum — ^ioo,cxx).
Lord Russell of Killozven. 649
The more striking way of success may be as follows : A reporter
is in his seat, a case is called, counsel is absent, the solicitor is in
despair. He turns to the reporter and asks him to appear, endors-
ing a back sheet for a brief. It may be that that reporter becomes
his standing counsel forever after — having shown abundant law and
readiness at disadvantage — and that a rush of business from other
sources compels him to resign the reportership. Thenceforth he
sees the woolsack in his waking thoughts and sits upon it in his
dreams — Speaker of the House of Lords and second peer in prece-
dence after the Princes of the Blood, the Lord Archbishop of Canter-
bury being first, of course, in a country of whose Faith the reigning
majesty is Defender.
We have seen it stated since the death of Charles Russell that his
reading in general literature was not wide and his classical attain-
ments were not high. We have considerable doubt of the correct-
ness of this view, or impression, whichever it may be. It was at one
time the fashion to illustrate great speeches at the Bar and in the
House of Commons with passages from the Latin poets and from
Cicero or Tacitus. For all that Mr. Gladstone was the only man in
recent times who adhered to the usage in Parliament; we think Judge
Keogh the only man at the Bar. The important thing is, have
there been orators whose speeches bear the impress of classical cul-
ture? We mean do their style and thought bear the classic spirit
and substance ? There are only two of whom this can be said, Mr.
Burke and Lord Brougham. The first was an English Cicero,
greater incomparably than his master; the second an English
Demosthenes vastly inferior to his master. Yet the influence of
classical and polite literature has gone into the efforts of all the
orators, just as it affects the style of any well-bred man, whether he
writes a gossiping letter to an acquaintance or frames a state paper
in severe sentences. W^e think there are passages of supreme dig-
nity, power and pathos in Russell's speech before the Parnell Com-
mission. It was said of a certain orator that his speeches were
more florid than those of Demosthenes, less so than those of Cicero.
The same may be said of any fairly eloquent speech that has been
delivered since Cicero. Yet we venture to say there are passages
in the speech just mentioned approaching the fierce austerity of
Demosthenes; there are passages approaching the richness of dic-
tion, and exuberance of fancy which flame like a conflagration in
Cicero.
In fact, there was an Olympian environment around Lord Russell
all his life — from his infancy until he reached the great place that shall
know him no more. The reputation of Dr. Russell, once the Presi-
dent of Maynooth, is of a character not easily estimated out of Ire-
650 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
land or England. He united with an intimate knowledge of the
living literature of Europe in every department of cultivation a
mastery over those stern and high studies which peculiarly belonged
to his profession. To illustrate the point: Suppose an Oxford
divine's acquaintance with the Greek and Latin Fathers and all that
can be known of Church history for the first five or six centuries,
suppose in addition a remarkable knowledge of the ecclesiastical
and secular history of England in their reciprocal re%tions, and we
have a man of exceptional erudition. Now, in addition to knowl-
edge of this kind. Dr. Russell, of Maynooth, possessed an intimar.e
acquaintance with the entire literature of Germany, France and Eng-
land.
In speaking of him we are reminded of a remarkable contrast be-
tween the manner in which an Irish Secretary spoke of him and the
way Mr. Chamberlain spoke of his nephew. Sir Robert Peel^ was
known at one time as an official surpassing the worst traditions of
the Irish office in his contempt for Irish Catholic opinion. In the
House of Commons he had occasion to refer to Dr. Russell. It was
not merely an encomium he pronounced ; he acted as if any state-
ment from Dr. Russell should dispose of a controversy in which he
was concerned. Place by the side of this Mr. Chamberlain's refer-
ence to Lord Russell in the conversation with Dr. Clark. There is
some difficulty in writing with patience. Lord Russell had taken
the oath of allegiance and the official oath to do justice. He enjoyed
the dignity of the peerage, which was always supposed to carry with
it such a sense of honor and of public duty that the Lords on a trial
before them in which the life of a peer was involved gave their ver-
dict not upon their oath, but upon their honor. It may be said Dr.
Clark's statement has not yet been corroborated. We reply it has
not yet been contradicted, and we venture to say the matter will not
be allowed to rest there. If the Radicals of England have one parti-
cle of gratitude for the services of Mr. Gladstone to the cause of
liberty and reason, if they will only remember thai; it was by blow
after blow delivered by him to that House whose existence can only
be justified by its hatred of the people's rights he obtained for the
masses the place in the constitution which they now enjoy, they are
bound to render it forever again impossible that Mr. Chamberlain
should make his private piques the policy of the Empire.
However, as we have been saying, there was in a manner an
Olympian environment around Russell which made his life all along
as much in touch with intellectual exertion and the employment of
Hterary work as if he were a young man belonging to the reading set
in an university. We therefore doubt the opinion which denied the
6 Not the great Sir Robert Peel.
Lord Russell of Killowen. 651
extent and quality of his cultivation, nor in doing so are we oblivious
of the distinctions of the writer who expressed the opinion. Mr. T.
P. O'Connor is himself a man of letters, of admitted ability and of
a singular penetration into the solidity of another's attainments.
As a rule he would not be imposed upon by the dexterity which
makes a large show with comparatively little capital, he would read-
ily enough get below the summer warmth of the surface in pursuit
of depths where the treasures should live; and if he immediately
struck bottom the public would enjoy a feast and the victim criti-
cized hear something not altogether to his satisfaction. iBut it is
simply impossible that some speeches of Russel could have been
spoken by any but a reading man. We have not noticed in the
obituaries the divorce suit brought against his wife by French
Brewster; and yet the speech delivered at that trial for the poise
and beauty of the sentences, the Shakespeare coloring of the home,
the truth with which the domestic affections take form as motives
preserving the purity of a woman's life and giving strength to
her will seems to rank as one of the finished efforts of our day.
The difference between the great Bar speeches of the present time
and of antiquity is not quite so much in the evidences of thought
and reflection appearing in these and expressed in language most
carefully chosen. To a large extent the ancients wrote essays
which they got by heart and pronounced with all the adventitious
aids of the trained elocutionist. The difference seems to be that
the modern barrister speaks to the jury only ; the ancient one spoke
to posterity.
We have spoken of the difficulties before an Irish Catholic at the
English Bar. When Russel began they were almost insuperable.
Let us be understood. We do not mean that Irish Catholics at that
time were absolutely shut out from business, but the business given
to them was of an ordinary kind that is simply local and for the
most part not involving intricacies of law or large interests. Con-
sequently it could never lead to distinction. Now in Russel's case
it was the ante-room to a practice at Nisi Prius hardly if ever
equaled and to the great places of Attorney General and Lord Chief
Justice. This is the highest praise we can give him. There have
been and there are^ Irish Catholics of great ability and legal knowl-
edge at the very local Bar where Russell began. They are never
heard of outside their circuit, unless now and then one or other of
them is brought up to London on an appeal in a case fought by him
in the court below. But this may mean very little.
Again, there was a prejudice against Irishmen who were not Cath-
' We have heard that some of these — one certainly — is making ^2,500 a year at :the lyiver-
pool Bar. The gentleman we have in view is a member of Parliament.
652 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
olics. We are strongly of opinion that such Irishmen owed a good
deal of assistance to the press, so largely manned by their country-
men. Irish Catholics in the press would be naturally incHned to do
a good turn to their Protestant countrymen in the land of the
Saxon. It is curious how Irish they are in London, Orange and
Green alike. Unfortunately for social and national prejudice, \xn-
fortunately for the policy of the Times, newspapers could not do
without what that insufferable and cowardly snob Thackeray called
the Irish army of the press. Well, to these gentlemen whose lines
were not always cast in pleasant places Earl Cairns and other Irish
Protestants had reason to be thankful for a report or a significant
paragraph in their days of struggle. But to help an Irish Protestant
in this way was an easy task in comparison to that of lending a
hand to an Irish Catholic. Some one at the top would not like the
name, so all would end in a quarrel over copy.
If then, as a sympathetic writer said in the Daily Mail, we think
the lesson of Russell's life teaches how much is due to Ireland's
being one country with England — an English county as it were —
in possessing so vast a field to ability, energy and ambition, we
retort that such qualities would command success independently of
the legislative relations of the two countries, and that nothing but
the possession of them in the highest degree would command suc-
cess even in the existing relations. Suppose we had Earl Cairns
or Lord Rtissell on the Irish wool sack to initiate or sustain im-
perative measures of social and political reform conceived in a
spirit of profound enlightenment, adopted to the genius of the peo-
ple, informed by their history in all the aspects of terror, injustice,
violence and fraud which had been sent forth as forces to divide in
order that strangers should rule and directed by a sympathy which
would make their work enduring, can any one say that for such
results the mere elevation of Cairns and Russell in England would
be an adequate compensation to Ireland ?
For the fitness of both these men to the task of making Ireland a
nation — we like the phrase, though it was one of those relied upon
to sustain the charge of treason against Mr. Parnell; we like the
phrase, yet we are not a traitor ; it was made immortal by those ora-
tors who watched over the last days of Ireland as a nation, men
faithful to her fortunes, faithful in her fall — of the fitness, we say, of
Cairns and Russell for such work we have no doubt whatever. As
for the first we say with full conviction that his interests, bounded
by the four seas of Ireland, his heart stirred by those social ameni-
ties which in old days made English residents in Ireland more Irish
than the Irish themselves, would have infused into him the spirit of
Molyneux, of Swift, of Lucas, the spirit which in Grattan vivifies,
Lord Russell of Killozven. 653
illuminates and disenthrals the land. But in England Cairns was
the servant of his own ambition, the lacquey of the Orange Lodge.
So much for the Union as opening a career to Irishmen.
But to him who is the subject of this paper we can turn with no
merely speculative mind. He was our own. The last of the Irish
bards, happily still alive in honored age,^ imagines the bard of his
fancy saying in an ode what will forever echo in every Irish heart :
Owen Roe ! Our owu O' Neil,
And as Owen Roe is ours, so Russell is ; he has a place with the
first in the deep heart of the country. Having before us the report
of the inquiry by the Parnell Commission, we can only come to one
conclusion, that we can never know more than a part of Russell's
greatness. It is mainly, indeed, as a political philospher and states-
man that the speech in that trial exhibits him to us, but the whole
proceedings show him simply as a transcendent advocate, greater
in each quality of a great advocate than any one of those men who
owed their greatness to the exceptional endowment of a special
quality.
He was an advocate indeed, and a great one; but the forensic
patron of a client was lost in the protector of a people. Looking at
him we see no hired counsel, no briefed gladiator, no Colonel Blood
to cut throats in his employer's service ; on the other hand, no half-
hearted English Liberal, waiting on events while affording his digni-
fied patronage to ''incriminated" Irish leaders for so many guineas
on his brief, so many guineas each day as refresher, so many each day
as consultation fee. We have a particular man in our mind. Owing
to this trial the barrister in question owes that influence in the
Liberal party which enabled him to betray the policy of Mr. Glad-
stone for the political aggrandisement of a gentleman to whom
Doncaster or Epsom would offer a field for the exercise of his talents
more suitable than the House of Lords. This counsel seems to us
to have entered on this appalling investigation with the light heart
of an Englishman who would take care to gain no matter what face
turned up in the dropping of the coin. He would not compromise
himself, while at the same time he would be well paid and would hold
a prominent place in the sensation of the hour. For all that he did
his work well as time went on ; but we fearlessly attribute his loyalty
to his cause, his apparent conviction of its justice to the magnificent
ascendency of Russell, dominating counsel with him, dominating
counsel opposed to him, dominating a prejudiced public filling the
court — nay, by that ascendency almost arresting the draggonade in
Ireland.
These are grave words, but we do not shrink from their expres-
* Aubrey de Vere.
654 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
sion with reference to the misrepresented circumstances of the time.
MaHgnant influences led to charges irresistible in the judgment of
most men in Britain. They were tried by a tribunal created by the
Ministry which hoped to profit by them. It was a game in which
the accusers and their allies thought they held all the trumps.
The courage of Russell then, overthrowing witness after witness
hired against his country, raised his colleagues to the true concep-
tion of the issue. It was the Irish nation in the Imperial Parliament
that was on trial. It was not the defense of certain men libelled by
the Times — O'Connell would have thought a libel by the Times
proof that he had been faithful to the interests of Ireland ; any hon-
orable Irishman w^ould regard praise by the Times as the judicial
punishment of some abnormal wickedness, some enormous sacrilege
he had committed, the secret of which was hardly known to himself.
No, this was not the issue ; it was the impeachment of a rule that
had long lain heavily on his people. The agents of that rule
through all their classes were then employed in perpetuating it by
an unprecedented conspiracy against the Irish representation. The
events since should not be allowed to curtain the tragedy.
It is of consequence to England that the dreadful story should be
told again. It is due to Charles Russell that the attempt to wreck a
sacred cause was defeated. Mr. Gladstone's policy was to bind
Ireland and England in a union of hearts. Bitter memories were
to sleep, old prejudices to be put away and Irishmen to join with
Englishmen in consolidating the Empire and advancing the reign of
law and liberty over the world. To prevent this the Irish landlord
came, the agent, the bailiff, the rent warner, fresh from the burning
homes of the peasantry, the policeman with hands red with the blood
of defenseless men and women, the spy and informer from America,
whose countless perjuries were the dice with which he played, the
spy and informer from Ireland, the incarnation of a lie and the forger
whose documents were to link the whole mass of testimony into a
chain of inexorable logic.
From the guilt of this conspiracy few men then on the govern-
ment side can be considered wholly free. The same men rule the
Empire now as if that conspiracy had succeeded. Charles Russell
is a great loss, but if from his grave he arraigns, as he did at the
Parnell Commission, the men who dragged the honor of England
in the dust, if gratitude for his services rouse the English people
against the enemies of Ireland and sends them once more on Mr.
Gladstone's road of justice, the sting shall be taken from death, he
will live in the memory of his race. We hope for this consumma-
tion. Charles Russell was as faithful to those sound principles
which would enlarge the rights and liberties of the English masses
Lord Russell of Killowen. 655
as to the fortunes of his native country. The policy of Mr. Glad-
stone meant not alone justice to Ireland, but equal rights to Eng-
lishmen. His aim was to make all men politically equal, so that
an opportunity to work out individual and social elevation should
be within reach of the poor man's son. The privileges which hedge
round those who toil not were in his expectations to be no bar to
humble merit. The lever for this was the granting of a quasi-
autonomy to Ireland. No more able ally he had for this poHcy than
Russell. No more effectual blow in advancing it than when Rus-
sell put in the same eternal pillory the Ministers of the day, the
syndicate or corporation called the Times, Beach^ and Pigott.
In adopting as a Liberal the policy of Home Rule, Russell flung
on the table the great stake of his career. If he had ever looked
forward as the result of exceptional eminence at the Bar to attaining
the place of Attorney General, experienced men would have thought
he flung the hope of it aside when he took up this poHcy. To
identify himself with the national policy of Ireland a Catholic ex-
pecting to be Attorney General must have fancied that the settlement
securing the succession of the House of Hanover was a myth, the
Revolution an interesting fiction. This is really the attitude of mind
of the average Englishman. Russell could not have been ignorant
of this. We can fairly conclude that he deliberately closed the gate
on his own career for the sake of Ireland. Thinking seriously of
all this, we can only stand in awe before the greatness of Gladstone,
putting under his feet the insolence and pride and prejudice of gen-
erations of Englishmen, crystalizing in that one appointment his
belief in the justice and wisdom of his policy. It was the extreme
test of its righteousness that the Catholic was not helot, the Irish-
man no stranger in the British Empire.
We had intended to illustrate the marvelous duel between the
great counsel and the spy Beach, the cross-examination which re-
duced to pulp the wretched Pigott, to say a word or two about the
speech which saved the fortunes of Ireland in that darkest hour, but
however interesting we cannot essay the last. It would be well
worth the best exertions of the painter in words or in colors to put
before us the scene in Probate Court No. i on the 22d of October,
1888, when the Commission entered on its labors. Since Burke
opened the impeachment of Hastings there was no such scene in
England. When as Manager for the Commons of Great Britain in
Parliament assembled our great countryman impeached the pro-
consul of India in the name of all venerated influences, in the name
of Divine laws and of human codes reflections of the Divine, there
listened beneath the roof of Irish oak the most august tribunal, the
» lyC Caron was the traveling name of this spy.
656 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
most brilliant audience in the world. Yet it was only a pageant —
suggestive of vast imperial power indeed — but a holiday perform-
ance with the trappings and majesty of justice over a corpse galva-
nized into temporary life by the genius of Burke. Except in his
speech we see nothing of the marvelous history of India, myster-
ious, wonderful, infinitely varied, principalities and powers going
back to the dawn of time, a village life unchanged for thousands of
years, courts that were old before the Norman came to England, re-
ligions whose source was hidden in the foundations of the world.
This great scene lives on canvas and on the pictured page, but
affords not one tithe of the instruction one would derive from a word
picture or a painting of the first day of the Parnell Commission.
The elements of Irish society were there in the flesh, anachro-
nisms of far ccnturied life pulsating with the hopes and passions of
the nineteenth century all welded into a kind of hetrogeneous homo-
geneity the like of which had never been seen will never again be
seen. Each element has a significance of social change, each would
be to the philosopher an illustration of a phase of political existence
concerning which theory or inference was the extent of his knowl-
edge. There were peasants in a costume worn before the Danes
came to Ireland, worn when the City of the Tribes was still a great
emporium for the trade of France and Spain and its walls a bul-
wark against Norman barons and Celtic chiefs, peasants who had
not yet shaken off their belief that the landlord owned their lives as
absolutely as when their ancestors fought or died at the bidding of
chief or baron. There were yeomen instinct with the spirit of the
eighteenth century when they and their landlords smuggled, dis-
tilled, fought and stood shoulder to shoulder against the King's
writ ; but now in some dim way trying to think the thoughts of free-
men and articulate the language cf any justice save the landlord's
will. There were squires of the same century in all but dress, any
one of whom could have sat for a picture of Lord Eyres as we know
him in Mr. Lecky's great work, casting insolent glances round the
court, scowling when some priest made his way with bent face
through the press, whispering each other with ferocious scorn or en-
couragement as some shame-faced peasant was pushed forward to
perjure himself for their benefit. Here and there in green uniform
the terrible gendarmerie — confident, collected, threatening, as in
some Petty Sessions Court at home — mingled themselves among
the witnesses.
This was a large part of the assemblage — disentombed tragedies
of Irish history — for the rest, a hostile court. We say it with re-
spect, for the act constituting the court rendered it impossible for
the Commissioners to be otherwise, a prejudiced public, and so we
St. Francis of Assisi. 657
have a subject for the exercise of the highest idealizing skill in the
grouping and characterization of verbal painting like that in which
Macaulay puts before us the trial of the great delinquent Hastings.
There would be in such a picture a place for one or two figures
expressive of the union of hearts aimed at by the great leader whose
adoption of the cause of Ireland was the essential reason of the trial ;
there would be a place for Mrs. Gladstone, who watched the for-
tunes of Ireland as Sir Richard Webster and Sir Charles Russell
fought from day to day.
Le Caron or Beach turned inside out — a monster of perfidious
cunning — made men begin to think that a cause buttressed by such
support stood self-condemned. The wave of public feeling began to
turn, and with the fall and flight of Pigott the tide rushed on with
resistless power. Sir Charles was morally triumphant along the
whole line. The result was felt in the House of Commons. The
Tories sat cowed on their benches, while the Liberals sat like men
maddened at the thought that they had been deceived into counte-
nancing the systematic falsehood of their opponents and its fruit in
the atrocities of the then regime in Ireland. Mr. Gladstone was in
the House, he rose to speak in language made possible by Russell's
advocacy and concluded in words that may serve as a memorial of
the great advocate : ''You may deprive of its grace and of its free-
dom the act which you are asked to do, but avert that act you can-
not. To prevent its consummation is utterly beyond your power.
It seems to approach at an accelerated pace. Coming slowly or
coming quickly, it is surely coming. And you yourselves, many of
you, see in the handwriting on the wall the signs of the coming
doom."
George McDermott, C. S. P.
New York.
SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI AND THE RELIGIOUS RE-
VIVAL IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
AT a time like the present, when the Church is in the throe of
a new development in history, and when with the dawn of
the twentieth century she has to face a new world of ideas in
life, social, intellectual and political, it is instructive to look back
over her past history and seek an intelligent guidance from the lives
of those who have already contributed to the Church's greatness.
"It is only a fool who learns from his own experience ; a wise man
learns from the experience of others," is a reported saying of the
Vol. XXV— Sig. 3.
658 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
German Bismarck. The study of the lives of the men who have
made a people great is a wise precaution, especially at periods of
quick development and necessary unrest such as we live in to-day.
The movements which in the past have shaken the Church and
finally brought to her new life, leave an indelible mark upon Cath-
olic character which it would be fatuous to ignore at any subsequent
period in history. For example, in the further development of
Catholic thought which will mark the immediate future Catholics
cannot afford to ignore the work already accomplished by the
Christian Neo-Platonists and the Scholastics. The notion, not un-
frequently broached in these days, that Catholic theology should now
cast scholasticism behind it as a thing forever done with and use-
less, is historically untenable ; a community cannot get rid of its his-
tory in that fashion any more than a man can get rid of his past life
with all its moulding influences. So, too, in regard to the interior
and mystical life of the Church there has been, and still is, a con-
tinuous development; a tradition, constantly unfolding from the
days of the Catacombs to the present : the Holy Spirit working in
the Church for the fuller realization of the Christian life.
This constant movement of life goes on universally in the Church,
affecting the lives of the humblest members who are at all earnestly
concerned with their religion, but it manifests itself typically in cer-
tain individuals, the spiritual giants of our race, who by the intensity
of their character give point and body to the vague instincts and un-
defined convictions of the multitude.
Thus a St. Augustine becomes the centre of a widely scattered
group of thinkers and apologists who think as he thinks, but have
not his clear perception nor his power of expression ; and a great
intellectual movement thus becomes identified with his name. In
his writings, too, the excelling genius of the movement will naturally
be found.
Now, in the development of the moral life of the Church there is
one period which for some time past has attracted the most sympa-
thetic interest of students of Church history, both outside the
Church and within; though it must be acknowledged that as in
much else concerning Catholicism, so in this, the impetus came from
outside. In the life of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries students
have discovered one of the finest presentments of Catholicism, both
moral and intellectual, but especially moral. It is the period when
Catholic piety manifested itself in a most intense realization of
Christ's earthly life and in chivalrous devotion to His sacred human-
ity : the age of the Crusades and of the Crib. It is to be noticed
that at a period marked by strenuous speculation in the Christian
St. Francis of Assisi. 659
schools, tending to a cold rationalism, there blossomed forth this
intense devotion to the earthly, concrete Christ — the Man-God of
the Gospels and of Tradition — and that the moral reformation which
saved Christendom in the thirteenth century was chiefly connected
with this development of piety.
Of this movement the classical expression is St. Francis of
Assisi, the moral and social reformer, whom Pope Innocent III.
saw in vision upholding the tottering walls of the Church. And the
interest aroused in the history of the movement has resulted in a
vast quantity of literature dealing with the life of the saint and his
influence on his contemporaries. Not the least valuable result of
this literary activity has been the republishing of the ancient
"legends" or memoirs of St. Francis, written by his own friends and
companions. For centuries these precious documents, unique in
the history of Catholic literature, were hidden away and almost
forgotten. About half a century after the death of St. Francis dis-
cussions arose among the members of his order as to the interpreta-
tion of the rule which he had given them. The more zealous mem-
bers appealed to the "legends" in support of their contention against
those who were anxious for relaxation. The authorities in the order
desired to put an end to division by compromise; but this the
"zealots," as the upholders of the primitive austerity were called,
would not hear of. In order to overcome their opposition it was
decreed that the "legends" should be destroyed — a drastic measure
which it is difficult to condone. Fortunately some copies were pre-
served. The most ancient of the "legends" — the "First Legend by
Thomas of Celano" — was pubHshed by the Bollandists, as was also
a fragment of the "Legend by the Three Companions," which is a
compilation of personal recollections by the saint's three most inti-
mate friends. In 1806 the "Second Legend by Thomas of Celano,"
a supplement to the "First Legend," was again given to the world
by a learned Franciscan friar.
This "Second Legend" threw light upon several doubtful points
in the received "lives" of the saint and gave rise to a more critical
study of the sources already recovered. But it was reserved for the
last two or three decades of years to see the outburst of a world-
wide interest in the study of early Franciscan literature. As already
noticed the impetus to this study came in great measure from out-
side the Church, and it is only just to acknowledge the debt we
Catholics owe to non-Catholic efforts. And to no one is greater
praise due than to M. Paul Sabatier, whose "Life of St. Francis of
Assisi," published in 1894 and translated into most European lan-
guages, has done much to make the saint and the mediaeval revival
connected with his name known to the world. M. Sabatier's work
66o American Catholic Quarterly Review.
had many defects arising from a somewhat distorted view of the
action of the Papacy in regard to the Franciscan movement; but
he was able to make St. Francis Hve in the imagination. He did
still better work in editing the long-lost "Mirror of Perfection : The
Blessed Francis," the greater portion of which was written by Fra
Leone, the saint's most cherished companion. M. Sabatier is now
engaged in preparing other primitive Franciscan documents for
publication. Not less valuable have been the labors of two friars of
the order, Padre Marcellino da Civezza and Padre Teofilo Domeni-
chelli, who lately edited the entire text of the "Legend by the Three
Companions," the most delightful of all the "legends."
The value of these discoveries in confirming the popular cultus
of the saint cannot be exaggerated. We can now see Francis as he
appeared to those who knew him most intimately, and the result of
this increased knowledge is to deepen our reverence and love for his
name. "Those that loved him before may love him better now.
We knew him saintly and human. We find him more human and
saintly than we knew. The more clearly we see his features, the
more clearly may we trace their likeness to those of the Man of
Sorrows. It is the likeness of close kindred, the mystic likeness
that once seemed a peril and has always been a glory to the Church
of Christ."^ Yes, in these original documents Francis stands out with
a glory brighter than ever. His features, faithfully limned by his
own companions and personal disciples, are more Christlike than we
find them in any of the later biographies. These have generally
drawn the saint as they conceived he should have lived : by deepen-
ing the shadows here and heightening the colors there, they have
often caricatured and even falsified the saint's true features. The
Francis of the later biographies is like an ancient masterpiece of
art restored by inferior hands. But in the primitive "legends" we
have the real Francis. To be sure, he is ever the hero and the
saint and no common man in the mind of the writers ; but then he
really was a hero and a saint. With charming simplicity they relate
what they heard and saw. There is no attempt to criticize, for they
are disciples of a great master and they write with the candor of
faith. They do not think to hide his human infirmities or tempta-
tions; these do not detract from his moral grandeur. They evi-
dently do not think him the less a saint because he was more a man.
To them he was verily a prophet s ^nt by God to form a "chosen
people" whom God had called out of the midst of religious laxity
and degeneration, to bear witness to the true character of the Gospel ;
another Abraham, father of a mighty spiritual race that should
endure unto the end of time. No less than prophet and patriarch
1 Preface to the " Mirror of Perfection," by Sebastian ^vans.
St. Francis of Assisi. 66 1
was Francis to them, and with deUghtful simplicity they found
parallels in Scripture to apply to the saint and his religious family.
The Chapel of the Portiuncula is another Jacob's stone ; the promise
of God to Abraham is repeated to Francis ; the followers of Francis
are the new Israel. But in Francis the Old Law is transfigured and
becomes the New. He bears the character not of Abraham nor of
Moses, but of Christ. Assisi is as Bethlehem, Alverna as Calvary,
Umbria as Galilee. In the company of Francis they seemed to
themselves to walk with Jesus in the far-ofif Holy Land.
How all this worked out in daily life may be read in the "Legend
by the Three Companions," of which the following extracts are a
specimen :
"The Blessed Francis, being already filled with the grace of the
Holy Spirit, called unto him his six brethren (this was, of course, in
the very earliest years of the movement) and spoke to them of the
things that would happen to them, saying : 'Let us consider, my
brothers, our calling, wherein God has mercifully called us, not for
our own salvation only, but for the salvation of many others ; that
going forth into the world we may exhort other men, more by ex-
ample than by word, to do penance for their sins and be mindful of
the commandments of God. Fear not because you seem weak and
foolish, but without faltering preach simply penance, and put your
trust in God Who conquers the world, because by His Spirit He
speaks in you and through you, for the exhortation of all men, that
they may be converted unto Him and observe His commandments.
And you will find some men believing, gentle and kind, who will
with joy receive both you and your words. But many others you
will find unbelieving, proud, and blasphemous, who will resist you
contumeliously, both you and the words you will speak to them.
Therefore lay it up in your hearts to bear all things humbly and with
patience.' Now when the brothers had heard these words they be-
gan to fear. To whom the saint said : 'Fear not, for after no long
while many will come to you, learned and noble, and with you they
will preach to kings and princes and many peoples, and many will
be converted to the Lord Who will multiply and increase His family
throughout the world.' And when he had said these things and
blessed them, the men of God devoutly went forth, observing what
he had taught them."
This was the first missionary journey of Francis' disciples. They
went two and two, after the fashion of the Gospel, in various direc-
tions; nor were they long in experiencing the various receptions
foretold by the saint. Some received them with the reverence and
affection due to holy men ; others took them to be tramps and as-
saulted them, pelting them with mud and even stripping their
662 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
clothes from their backs. Such treatment must have been pecuHarly
trying to men of sensitive temperament Hke Fra Bernardo, the
saint's first disciple. But they bore all patiently, "according to the
Gospel, praying fervently and solicitously for their persecutors."
At the end of their missionary period they all returned to Portiun-
cula, outside Assisi, and says the Legend: "No sooner did they
meet each other again than they were filled vvrith such joy and sweet-
ness as to forget altogether the injuries of perverse men." The
Legend then gives us a glimpse of what we may call the friars'
home-life.
"Every day they gave themselves to prayer and manual labour
that they might altogether flee idleness, the enemy of the soul.-
They rose in the middle of the night and prayed most devoutly with
sighs and tears. They loved each other with an intimate affection,
and each served the other and cared for him as a mother loves and
cares for her only son. So great was the charity which burned in
their hearts that each one would have deemed it an easy thing to
give his life, not only for the love of Christ, but for the salvation of
the soul of his brother, and even to save his body. Thus it happened
one day, when two of the brethren went out, that a madman met
them and began to throw stones at them. Whereupon one brother,
seeing that the stones were hitting the other, at once threw himself
in the way, willing that he himself should be hit rather than the
other, so great was their mutual love. Thus were they prepared to
give their very lives for each other.
"So grounded were they in humility and charity that each rever-
enced the other as his father and lord, and those who were superiors
or who were in any way distinguished above the others, appeared
only the more humble and unassuming. Moreover, they were all
anxious to obey, and were so ready to carry out the will of him who
commanded that they never thought to distinguish between just and
unjust precepts ; because whatever was commanded they took to be
in accordance with the will of God. Hence it was easy and sweet
for them to obey. They put from them all carnal desires. They
judged themselves without indulgence, and especially did they be-
ware lest they should in any way offend each other. And if it hap-
pened at any time that one said anything which hurt another, he
was seized with remorse and could not rest till he had acknowledged
his fault. . . . No one of them considered anything as his own ;
their books and whatever else they had were for common use, ac-
cording to the tradition handed down from the apostles. But, al-
though they themselves were truly poor, yet out of the things God
had given them they liberally and ungrudgingly, for the love of God,
2 This phrase, "idleness, the enemy of the soul," was frequently on the lips of S. Francis,
and occurs several times in his Rule and Last Testament.
St. Francis of Assisi. 663
gave to others, especially the poor who sought an alms. Some-
times when they were traveling and met beggars, having nothing
else to give, they would share with them their garments, sometimes
giving away their hood, sometimes tearing off a sleeve : that so they
might fulfil the Gospel which says. Give to them that ask.
"When the rich ones of this world came to them, the brethren
received them readily and with kindness, being anxious to draw
them from evil and lead them to penance. They were anxious not
to be sent to their native places, in order to be free from the com-
pany and conversation of their relatives ; thus observing the
prophet's words : 'I am become a stranger to my brethren and as
an alien to the sons of my mother.' Thus did they rejoice much in
their poverty, . . . and they were joyful in the Lord at all
times because among themselves there was no cause for sadness."^
No wonder that Jacques de Vitry, traveling through Italy in
A. D. 1 2 16, in the early days of the Franciscan movement, was
struck with astonishment at this new body of men and women whose
life recalled to him ''the manner of life of the Primitive Church,
concerning which it is written : 'The multitude of them that be-
lieved had but one heart and one soul.' "*
Surely in the whole history of Christendom since the days of the
Apostles themselves, there has been no such another evangelical
movement as this. Never has the world seen such another dramatic
setting of the Gospel, played with such fidelity in the minute details
of daily life. It was too sublime really for general acceptance. As
the number of Francis' disciples increased (and they increased with
surprising rapidity) the first high fervor waned. There were still
some who walked on the high road of Francis' heaven ; but the
majority could not attain thereto. Historians lament the decline of
the movement. Need we be surprised? The life of Francis and
his early disciples was an inspiration rather than a set rule of life.
Other men of less spirituality came after them, who aspired to walk
in their footsteps. Most frequently they followed only at a distance ;
yet the world has been the better even for such a following as
theirs. The humblest follower of Christ is still a witness to the Christ,
even though he point to the Christ from afar off, and were he to dis-
appear the world would oftentimes be lost in utter spiritual dark-
ness. We must be grateful when Providence sends us the greater
3 " Ivegend by the Three Companions," chaps, x. and xi. ■* This letter of Jacques de Vitry
is most valuable to the student of the early Franciscan movement. But its significance
will easily be exaggerated unless we bear in mind that it is the letter of a traveler giving his
impressions. M. Sabatier has, it seems to me, done violence to the text when he draws the
conclusion that the religious Sisters of the order were "soeurs hospitalieres," and not
contemplatives, because Jacques says : •' They dwell together in various hospices ; they
receive nothing, but live by the labour of their hands." But this is quite consistent with
the contemplative life. Francis did eventually enlarge the scope of his order, so as to in-
clude women devoted to a more active life.
664 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
lights of religion ; but let us not despise the lesser lights who are
more constantly with us.
Besides these humbler, but honest, disciples of Francis, there were
others who called themselves disciples — and they were not a few —
who seemed destined to subvert, if it could have been subverted, the
noble ideal of Francis' life. They saddened the saint's last years ;
after his death they well nigh brought the Franciscan movement
into contempt. They gathered round Francis like moths around
a lamp. They were not of his ; they only usurped his name. We
may therefore leave them to their fate in the contempt of history,
and fix our gaze upon the pure and heroic figure of the saint him-
self. For by doing so we shall be able most surely to understand
the spiritual motive which lay at the back of that wonderful re-
ligious revival of the later middle ages.
Renan, in whose mind truth jostled so intimately against error,
had long ago singled out St. Francis as one whose personality has
a religious message for the present age ; and in his brilliant critique
of Karl Hase's "Franz von Assisi" puts his finger upon the secret
of the saint's influence, both in his own age and in the present.
"Francis of Assisi," he wrote, "possesses for religious criticism an
interest beyond expression. After Jesus, no other man has been
endowed with a clearer conscience, more absolute ingenuousness, a
more lively sentiment of his filial relation to the Heavenly Father.
God was in very truth his beginning and his end." Then after
pointing out how the life and character of Francis transcends our
ordinary conception of life so far as to be almost incredible, and
that nevertheless we have incontestable documentary evidence to
prove it, he proceeds : "Francis of Assisi has always been one of
the strongest reasons which has made us beHeve that Jesus was
nearly all that the Synoptic Gospels have painted Him to be." In
this last sentence we believe Renan has expressed in somewhat
pedantic fashion the weightiest argument for Francis' popularity.
Francis is a unique witness of the Person of Christ. The study of his
life makes one realize the beauty of the perfect Christian life and its
possibility; for here in a mortal man like ourselves, without any
claim to divinity, we have a character so supremely Christlike, that
the Gospel itself, in the light of his history, becomes an actual pal-
pitating truth, convincing beyond any argument drawn from specu-
lative reason. After all the most persuasive argument for Christian-
ity is the living Christian. Yet even when we have admitted this,
we can hardly be said to have given a satisfactory answer as to the
secret of Francis' influence in the Christian world both in the Church
and outside ; nor can we be said to have given any sufficient reason
for assigning to him, as many do assign to him, a special influence
vS*^. Francis of Assist. 665
upon the further development of spiritual life in the Church of the
future. Conformity to Christ is always the lever of spiritual power
in the Church ; but this conformity must not be merely of external
life, but of the interior spirit. The real Christian embodies in him-
self the Truth of Christ, not simply the outward action ; and it is in
the degree that he helps us to realize truly and understand the very
life and thought of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus that he is a perma-
nent factor in the development of the Christian life.
Now we believe that the most potent claim of St. Francis to the
reverence of the Church is that he in great measure solved in his
own actual life the difficulty which has always faced, and still faces,
earnest souls as to the apparent duality of life. From the very be-
ginning, at least since men began to look into their own souls, hu-
man nature has seemed to be the battleground of two irreconcilable
forces, each of which seems to claim the proper allegiance of man,
and each of which seems necessary in opposition to the other. So
that man's nature has seemed to be an essential contradiction, and
the only way to obtain interior peace has seemed to lie in sacrificing
one element to the other. Yet, on the other hand, the instinct of the
Church has been opposed to this view. She admits the apparent
contradiction, yet points to a further development of man's being in
which the contradiction shall exist no more, and yet the apparently
opposing elements shall be retained. How to harmonize the natural
and supernatural, the temporal and the eternal, has always been the
crux of philosophers ; Christianity has given the only satisfactory
solution. Yet how few Christians realize it! In St. Francis of
Assisi, however, it has been realized in a notable degree, and it is
in this fact that his power lies. In him religion and all that was
best in the world-life of his time met and intermingled in a rich
harmony; in him it may be said with truth the world-spirit of the
middle ages took flesh and blood and was indissolubly allied to
religion.
It has been sometimes urged against mediaeval Christianity that
it retained a great measure of paganism in its spontaneous delight
in the visible world and in its worship of the palpable Present, whilst
at the same time religion was held to represent something apart from
the Visible and the Present. So that, it is urged, the life of the mid-
dle ages was a dualism ; Sense and Spirit being the two poles of a
perpetual antagonism. We must, however, admit that if our me-
diaeval forefathers were conscious of this dualism, they had also an
idea, more or less vague, that this dualism could be resolved into a
deeper unity, as is evident from the manner in which they were
able to bring their delight in the sensuous into the rehgious liturgy.
In doing so they rhanifested a belief that harmony between the
666 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
spiritual and the temporal is possible, however dimly they may
have realized this harmony in actual life. They might not be able
to reconcile the two terms of life ; but they believed reconciliation
possible. Their healthy instinct preserved them from that subtle
form of Manichean heresy which has been so prevalent since the
middle ages. Puritanism in all its forms (and we must bear in
mind that Puritanism went beyond the Puritans) banned nature
from the realms of grace, as an evil spirit is banned from heaven.
But nature when thus banned is apt to become a troublesome
enemy. The joy of life is not found in outcasting one of life's
constituent elements. Mediaeval Christianity recognized all the
elements of human nature, from an instinctive belief in their essen-
tial harmony ; and this instinctive belief was vindicated by Francis
in his own personality. He was, in fact, the hoped-for Messiah in
whom the promise of the mediaeval spirit was realized. The patient
belief that life's apparent dualism (represented in scholastic phrase
as nature and force) did but hide a deeper essential unity (also repre-
sented in scholastic phrase as regenerate nature) was realized in
Francis. He was a manifest embodiment of regenerate nature.
Others beside him realized this belief in their own inner life, as
any one acquainted with mediaeval biography knows ; but Francis
did so on a larger and more generous scale.
He had indeed the natural genius which enabled him to do this.
Of a poetic temperament he was quick to take note of the beauty of
all created forms and to recognize a universal kinship between him-
self and all creatures, whether man or beast, or the very elements.
He lived, so to speak, in them, and their life was part of his. The
flower of the field and the running brook sent him into an ecstacy of
delight ; he seemed to understand the mute language of the beasts ;
he would sing for very joy because of the mysterious beauty of the
sun and stars. His soul moved in all the grand elemental forces
of nature as the soul of the musician delights in the complex har-
monies of the symphony. He was a poet, with a poet's largeness
of heart vision and intimate sympathy. But he was more. He
was of that rare order of men to whom a right intellectual concept
or an intuition is a moral conviction. Such men do not so much
sing of truth or beauty as act it. They are themselves embodiments
of the beauty and truth which they behold in the world outside
themselves; in them the best that the world can give is mirrored
and expressed. Such men are not merely artists : they themselves
are an inspiration of art, and the value of their inspiration is in pro-
portion to the generosity of their sympathy. Francis' sympathy
with the world outside himself was indeed great and generous, as
any one can learn who will but open the "legends" of the saint —
St. Francis of Assist. 667
now easily accessible to all — or the Fiorretti, that wonderful supple-
ment to the historical narratives, embodying the traditions and*
impressions of a somewhat later age.^
Now this sympathy with nature in its various creations was the
very groundwork of Francis' religious life. With his poetic intui-
tion he could never have acknowledged that nature was the work of
the devil. In him the mediaeval belief was strong that God and
nature are allied, and that to love nature is to worship the Creator.
He had an intuitive conviction of the great Catholic truth that the
Divine is revealed in the Creaturely. "The earth is the Lord's, and
the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein" — such
was the song that the heart of Francis perpetually sang. It was the
chant of his worship both before and after his "conversion."
It was towards the end of his life that he composed his "Song of
the Sun," an unmetrical string of verses in which he praised the
Creator for the beauties of the creation. But this was only a more
conscious rendering of the religious sentiment of his youth.^
Francis' conversion was, of course, the leading incident in his
life, both historically and from the point of subjective analysis. He
was in his twenty-fifth year and full of the ambition of youth when
he fell sick of a fever. He was only just released by the Perugians,
having been taken prisoner in a battle fought between the "patriots"
of Assisi and the robber-nobility, who were assisted by the neighbor-
ing republic of Perugia. As soon as he was convalescent he longed
once more for the freedom of the fields and the hills. But to his
vast disappointment when he went forth the country had lost its
charm, and he returned home with a chilled and stricken heart.
Again he mingled in the civic revelries and led the light-hearted
youth of the city as had been his custom ; but the sunshine had gone
out of it all, and in the midst of the fun Francis was sad and listless.
The fact was that during his sickness he had been brought face to
face with the thought of eternity ; and the thought had taken hold of
his soul and given him a new vision of Hfe, or rather it had clouded
the simplicity of his former view of life as a present enjoyment, and
he could not yet grasp the mystery that had taken its place. He
felt lonely in the midst of his former life ; its joys had fled when the
reality of eternity had first dawned upon his mind. Slowly and with
much anguish of spirit which at times caused him to go out of the
city to some solitary cave, and there cry aloud for very pain, Francis
s See especially the twelfth part of The Mirror of Perfection , which treats of " His love
towards creatures." ''This song is supposed to be one of the earliest efforts in Italian liter
ature. Generally St. Francis composed his songs in the language of the Provengal trou-
badors. The " Song of the Sun" takes its name from the verse coming immediately after
the stately prologue. It begins :
I^audato sia Dio mia Sign ore contute le creature,
^^ Specialmente messer lo f rate sole.
668 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
came to see the truth. He had now become conscious that there is
a duality in Hfe ; that the temporal and the eternal, the secular and
the spiritual, are two actualities. Hitherto he had professed this
belief, and now he realized it. This realization it is which precedes
any spiritual conversion. One must perceive life as a contradiction
before one can attain to any perception of the deeper spiritual unity.
It is the way in which the human mind is accustomed to work.
To such a man as Francis, so sensitive to the beauty and joy of
life, the perception of any essential, or apparently essential, contra-
diction between the temporal and eternal, must be the acutest pain.
He was ever too much alive to allow himself to be comforted by the
belief, generally adopted by men of less spiritual energy, that things
will right themselves somehow. For him to live, was to live in the
full consciousness of the realities around him. Life might be a con-
tradiction ; then he must drink the cup of contradiction to the very
dregs. Or beyond the contradiction of life there might be a higher
truth and more essential unity ; if so, such a man as Francis will dis-
cover it. It was the same problem as presents itself in the fascinat-
ing legend of the founder of Buddhism ; but in Francis how differ-
ently it worked out. The solution as it came to Francis may be
stated thus : "The eternal begins in the temporal ; time is the seed
of eternity. What you see to-day with your eyes is not wholly true,
neither is it wholly false. Nature in so far as it is not spoiled by
man, is the germ of heaven ; the beauty you delight in to-day is the
promise of a greater beauty hereafter." Thus was Francis recon-
ciled again with the visible world, from which the consciousness of
eternity had for a time separated him. But the reconciliation was
not yet complete. The visible world had gained with him a new
reality ; it had become part of the eternal ; at least there was in the
visible world the beginnings of eternity, mixed up with much that
was a mere perversion of the original creation. Something was yet
necessary to bring Francis into actual touch with the realities of his
new spiritual vision, so that he might not be, a mere stranger wan-
dering through the Father's Kingdom.
Never, as far as we know, had Francis felt the need of total self-
surrender. He had enjoyed life with the irresponsible enjoyment
of youth. This was no longer possible. Had he been other than
he was, or had his realization of the eternal been less intense, it
might have been possible for him to regain touch with the facts and
duties of life by taking to himself a wife or attaching himself to some
great leader of men. Some such surrender of oneself to a personal-
ity other than one's own is necessary to every man who would live
in actual spiritual contact with the world around him. Such is the
law of human life. But no ordinary love was able to bring Francis
St. Francis of Assisi. 669
into touch with the greater world now opened out to him. He
must surrender himself to Christ only and for Christ's sake renounce
those lesser ties which bind lesser men to the reaHties of life. He
must renounce all for Christ, as under other circumstances he might
have had to renounce all for some chosen woman's sake.
When this inward call made itself manifest, Francis was once more
happy. He no longer went aside from his friends and groaned for
the solitude of his soul. In surrendering himself to Christ he had
again found the joy of life, only now it was a deeper joy — the joy
born of an extended vision and of a deep personal love. He was
once more at home in creation ; but creation had now a larger aspect
and a deeper significance. The vision of truth which was within
his soul cast itself upon the vision of beauty without, and mingled in
inexpressible delight. There were shadows there, wrought by
man's sin, especially by luxury and selfishness. But the vision of
earth which Francis now saw was one of essential delight. And
with all this Christ had put him into immediate relationship, be-
cause Christ was the centre of it all. It was Christ's own kingdom.
The glory of the earth was Christ's glory ; the sorrow of the earth,
too, was Christ's. Love of Christ therefore meant love of all crea-
tion, especially of all mankind.
The intuitive apprehension of this truth is the explanation of
Francis' subsequent career and of that widespread movement which
for a period brought back to earth the primitive spirit and condi-
tions of Christianity when men forsook all for Christ and learned
from Christ how to love one another. This evangelical revival,
which realized the yearnings and hopes of all the best spirits of the
later middle ages, was remarkable chiefly in that it reconciled the
religious spirit of the age with all that was best in the secular spirit.
The reconciliation was brought about by a fuller appreciation of that
central mystery of the Gospel, the Incarnation, and its influence
upon life in general. In the Incarnation Francis saw the reconcilia-
tion of the world with God, a reconciliation which implies that of
the secular spirit with the religious, of temporal interests with the
eternal. But in Christ he also saw how this reconciliation is brought
about only by suffering and renouncement. This is the cost man
has to pay for making an idol of the Present and Visible and sepa-
rating it from its proper relationship with the Unseen and Future.
Not until Francis became impressed with the reality of the other
world had Christ any real significance to him as the Reconciler of
this world with the Father. At the same time the Incarnation
taught him to give the visible creation a positive value, fraught as
it is with eternal verities. With Francis renunciation was but the
stepping-stone to a larger life; it gave him freedom to satisfy his
670 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
spiritual aspiration and it likened him more closely to his Master,
Christ. His renunciation of wealth and comfort had in it none of
the Puritan's belief in the wickedness of nature. Even to the last
he could appreciate the spirit in which ordinary mortals make merry
at the dinner board over the meeting with a friend. He would
order the knight Orlando to go and entertain his guests, when the
knight himself thought it becoming to converse on spiritual mat-
ters with the saint. His religious songs were couched in the style
and phrase of the troubadour. He saw nothing improper in apply-
ing the titles and style of chivalry to his own disciples. The friars
were on his lips, "God's Knights of the Table Round;" St. Clara
and her companions were ''fair ladies of Poverty ;" he himself was
"the herald of the Great King." He was, then, no hater of the
world ; he loved the world for what was good in it ; he pitied it with
a gentle sorrow for what was evil. The evils of the world were the
thorns which tore the bleeding feet of God's fair creation. This
generous sympathy with all creatures it is which makes Francis so
like unto Christ. Others have renounced the world for Christ's
sake as completely as did Francis; others have preached to the
world and ministered to its wants, spiritual and temporal ; but few
have so utterly appreciated and sympathized with the world as
Francis did. In this he is almost unique. Not more truly did the
impression of the five stigmata on his body mark him out as Christ's
special follower than did his Christlike love of the world.
In his passionate love of Christ Francis again realized in the high-
est degree the aspiration of mediaeval piety, which as Harnack has
pointed out' found its first great expositor in St. Bernard of Clair-
vaux, and its complete expression in the Poor Man of Assisi. To
attach oneself to Christ and to follow Him in all the humble estate
of His earthly life — this was the ideal of the middle ages, especially
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was an ideal which ap-
pealed at once to the imagination and the heart ; and the secret of
all great moral movements lies in the appeal to the imagination and
the heart.
I doubt whether people brought up outside the Catholic Church
can appreciate what such personal devotion to Christ meant to those
mediaeval revivalists. To them Christ was an ever-present Reality,
without Whom there was no reality, but only vanity and disappoint-
ment. He was the unifying principle of creation ; everything visible
received a permanent value only in so far as it proclaimed the beauty
and truth and love of Christ's spiritual kingdom. Hence they
sought for vestiges of Christ's presence everywhere, and every dis-
covery increased their joy because it bore witness to the fact of
7 " History of Dogma," Vol. VI., chapT^l
St. Francis of Assist. 671
Christ's presence among them. Thus Christ was the bond which
united them to all external objects. Now Protestantism, whilst pro-
fessing to be an evangelical reform, effectually severed this bond of
direct spiritual relationship with Christ which was alike the secret of
primitive Christianity and of mediaeval Catholicism. The Reform-
ers declared that the Catholic Church with its sacraments and
dogmas had come between the soul and Christ ; but they themselves
created a barrier which experience has shown to be impassable in
their worship of the Bible. They at once reduced Christianity to
the servile observance of a moral code in place of that personal at-
tachment to Christ, spiritually conceived by the believer, which me-
diaeval Catholicism in its best representatives endeavored to foster.
The influence of the rationalizing party among the Schoolmen un-
doubtedly tended to base Catholicism exclusively upon an intel-
lectual assent to certain formulae. And, too, there were the me-
diaeval ritualists who in their multiplication of ceremonies tended to
forget the significance of the symbol and to reduce religion to mere
externalism. Oftentimes they put the jeweled cope in place of the
clean heart, and sang psalms when they should have been teaching
the poor. These were the abuses of the mediaeval Church against
which many a reforming spirit had protested long before Luther.
But the constant teaching of the leading lights of the middle ages —
of such men as SS. Bernard, Bonaventure and Aquinas — was that
true religion depended upon communion with Christ as a present
spiritual Personality. Only a few might attain to this intimate com-
munion in any high degree; but all were urged to strive after it.
To them the Bible was of value only in as far as it gave them some
glimpse of the life of Christ, either in His earthly career or in His
spiritual working, as the Divine Word, in the hearts of His chosen
people. What they sought was, in a word, the Personality of Christ,
that they might conform themselves thereto. The Reformers, on
the other hand, did as many modern nations which have taken to
themselves a written Constitution, and govern by conforming to
the letter of the law rather than by fidelity to the national ideal.
Hence to the mind steeped in sixteenth century Protestantism, the
religious life of St. Francis and his mediaeval compeers is as imin-
telligible as is the English ideal of free government to the peoples of
the Latin race.
Perhaps nowhere is the character of the mediaeval devotion to
Christ more vividly expressed than in the dramatic poem, *'Amor de
Caritate," sometimes, but erroneously, ascribed to St. Francis,^ and
more generally supposed to have been written by the friar-poet,
Jacopone da Todi. The poem describes the surrender of the soul to
8 The style of the poem is evidently of a somewhat later date than the opening of the thir-
teenth century.
672 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Christ and gives utterance in the unrestrained style of a decadent
period to the idea of mediaeval devotion :
" I asked, not knowing, when I prayed.
For love of Christ ; it seemed so sweet.
Methought in peace I should have stayed. "^
But the soul finds the love of Christ a consuming fire. It can find
no peace now in mere creaturely delights. Heaven and earth do but
cast the soul back upon itself with the sharp admonition :
" with all thy heart love thou the love
Which has created us that we
Might draw thy spirit heavenward
To love Him Who hath so loved thee."i*'
And SO the soul finds no peace except in entire self-surrender. Then
" Transformed by Christ, with Him made one,"ii
the soul gains a new life and joy. It
" is made
The likeness of its Lord to bear ;"i2
and in its new life indeed no soul-peace but the soothing ardors of a
great love.
" In Christ I'm newly born again —
The old man dead, the new restored ;
And whilst my heart is cleft in twain,
Transfixed by love as by a sword.
My spirit, all on fire, would fain
Behold the beauty of its IvOrd,"i3
This beholding of the beauty of the Lord, or more correctly, of
Christ all beautiful was the supreme ideal of the mediaeval religious
spirits. The beauty of Christ was the dream of their life, and it
must be added that the sorrow of their life — a sorrow which finds
expression nowhere more pathetically than in the life of Francis —
was that the beauty of Christ was marred by the world's sin and
misery. Sin to those mediaeval disciples was no mere disfigurement
® Inanzi ch'io provasse, domandava
Amor a Christo pensando pur dolzura ;
In pace di dolzezza star pensava.
1" Che celo e terra grida et semper clama,
Kt tutte cose ch'io dibbia amara,
I,ascuna dice : Cun tutto core ama,
L,'amore che n'ha fatto briga d'abbrazzare ;
Che quel amore perzo che te brama,
Tutto nui h^ fatte per ti k se trare.
" In Christo transformata quasi e Christo
Cum Dio unita tutta sta divina.
12 De Christo se retrova figurato.
1' In Christo e nata nova creatura,
Spogliata homo vecchio, e fato novello ;
Ma tanto I'amore monta cum ardura,
lyO cor par che se fenda cum coltello,
Mente cum senno tolle tal calura ;
Christo se me tra tutto tanto bello.
St. Francis of Assisi. 673
of a passing world ; it was rather a gaping wound in the body of
Christ. As Christ is spiritually united with the whole world in
intimate relationship of joy and sorrow, so the world's evolution
was to their mind an extended drama of the life of Christ. Christ
Himself was glorified in the pure heart, in the patient and in the
just and in all the extension of His moral kingdom. He was also
crucified again in the world's suffering. The stricken leper, the
hungry beggar, even the broken flower, were incidents in the mys-
tery of Calvary. Hence to the mind of Francis suffering had a pe-
culiarly religious significance. To him it was the price of the
world's redemption. Through suffering only could man attain to
the perfect state ; whoever would be of Christ must suffer with Christ
the penalty of the world's sin. Like Christ Himself, Francis would
willingly have borne, had it been possible, the world's burden upon
his own shoulders; have suffered its pain and endured its varied
wretchedness. As it was, his soul melted with compassion for his
fellow-mortals. He welcomed all his personal pain because it identi-
fied him more and more with the suffering Christ and his suffering
fellow-creatures. Days and nights he spent in prayer beseeching
the Divine mercy to pardon a sinful world. He himself became an
apostle, and willed that his friars should become apostles, to spread
abroad the knowledge of God's love to comfort the sorrowful and
to preach repentance for sin that Christ's passion might not be in
vain nor the world's suif ering misery unending. In sin he saw the
source of all suffering ; in penance and reformation of life, the rem-
edy. With this conviction he put aside the idea of living a hermit's
life and became a religious and a social reformer. "The world's
suft'ering and Christ is still crucified in the world. Let us go forth
and preach the Gospel of Divine Love and Eternal Life, that men
may be stirred to put aside selfishness, hate and luxury, which are
the cause of the people's misery." Such was in effect the precept he
gave his disciples on the memorable day when he sent them forth to
be evangelists, "to preach to the poor and heal the broken heart."
Such then was Francis of Assisi, the most Christlike of saints, and
such was the character of the evangelical revival associated with his
name. Rightly to appreciate him, one must, as we have already
pointed out, view him in connection with his own time. He was
typically mediaeval, of the thirteenth century. Yet in the circum-
stances created by his own time he solved the question that has puz-
zled many souls in every age, and not least in our own. He dis-
covered in religion a unity and perfection of life, a harmony of life's
varied realities, such as the present world with its long tradition of
Manichean duality is hungering for. It was said that he who would
find heaven must leave the earth to the devil ; that to take delight in
Vol. XXV.— Sig. 4.
674 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
the world that is, is to forfeit the heaven that is to be. For a time
men tried to Hve by this doctrine with consequences sometimes
heroic, sometimes hideous, according to the temperament of the
individual and his circumstances. The doctrine produced a Crom-
well and his hearts of iron — no mean advantage to a demoralized
nation such as the England of the seventeenth century — but it also
gave us the prime hypocrite and the soul-stricken gospeler of a
later time. The revolt against so sore a heresy was sure to come in
time. When it came there was danger of the Present and Visible
being idolized and put in place of God Himself. Yet if Christianity
teaches any truth at all it is that man is to look forward to another
life and another world. Other-worldiness is the essence of Chris-
tianity. At the same time it has consistently fostered an apprecia-
tion of the Present and Visible, differing from that of ancient Greek
and modern Pagan, because it teaches us to look through the Visi-
ble to the Invisible, through the Present to the Future. This world
is the step to eternity. We are not to sit down and make ourselves
comfortable on the step, but to pass over and enter in.
Francis of Assisi explains the problem on the mediaeval back-
ground of his. He does not give us a direct solution of the problem
in its modern details, but he gives us a key wherewith to work out
the solution for ourselves. This key is a realization of and a per-
sonal devotion to Christ in His relationship with the world, and a
Christlike love of the world. I say Christlike love, because there is
another love which has for its patrons Epicurus and the leaders of
the Pagan Renaissance, and in these days of catch phrases it is well
to mark the significance of one's words. The evangelists of the
thirteenth century, inspired by the life of Francis, would have had
little to say that was pleasant to such love as this. Not Epicurus,
but Christ, was their ideal ; and how their endeavor to give effect to
their belief brought to the world for a while something of the glow
of undiluted Christianity can be known by the perusal of those early
"legends" written by St. Francis' personal disciples and now once
more published to the world.
As I have already said, it is well for us Catholics in the midst of
the evolution of modern life and its necessary influence upon the life
of the Church to keep in mind the heroic figures of the past. They
have many a lesson to teach us which will be of value to us in these
days, and save us perhaps much trouble and waste of energy. The
Church of the future has its own work to do ; it cannot afford to lose
sight of the work already accomplished. A neglect of the history
of the past would only entail greater labor in the days to come.
Father Cuthbert, O. S. F. C.
Crawley, England.
Some Inconsistencies of Russian ''Orthodoxy." 675
SOME HETERODOXIES AND INCONSISTENCIES OF
RUSSIAN "ORTHODOXY."
NOT long ago an indubitably Catholic journal in one of our
Western States, a journal which is not one of those weak-
lings which are so wanting in Catholic stamina and in
proper knowledge that their demise would benefit the Catholic
cause, told its readers in an editorial that "the Russian Church is not
heretical; it is merely schismatical." Such an assertion would not
have been astounding, if emitted by that leading secular journal of
the metropolis which, on the occasion of a recent attempt at theolog-
ical excitement, showed that its religious editor was incapable of
distinguishing the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
from the divine origin of Jesus, or from a supposed virginity of St.
Ann.^ But so important an error on the part of a professedly Cath-
olic journal, one which has shown itself to be well equipped for a
•defense of Catholic truth, and which has battled for that truth more
successfully than very many other American Catholic organs, might
add to the material for a future volume on "The Curiosities of
American Catholic Literature," were it not too true that similar
misconceptions concerning the Greek Schism and its offshoots have
found lodgment in the minds of perhaps the majority of our people.
Russia, as well as the other lands where the spiritual progeny of
Photius languishes, is very distant from us. Until recently very
few of her sons came to our shores, and very few even of our more
educated Americans have cared to know anything about the spir-
itual condition and the religious history of her children. Then we
have been accustomed to hear that the Russian Church "is almost
Catholic ;" or that "it is Catholic in everything, save the Pope ;" or
the real truth that "it has a true episcopate and a true priesthood,
the Holy Mass and all the Seven Sacraments ;" and the more simple-
minded among us have come to believe implicitly, certainly not ex-
plicitly, that perhaps after all the poor Schismatics are about as well
off spiritually as is the obedient flock of him to whom Our Lord and
Saviour said : "Feed my sheep !" Again, comparatively few among
us have had anything like an accurate notion of the meaning of the
word "Schism," unless in its philological sense ; and hence it seemed
quite natural to think of a Russian as only or merely a Schismatic,
one who might not be on the straight road which Christ indicated as
1 This genius probably had for his Gamaliel that theologist of Agnosticism, James An-
thony Froude, who discovered that when Pope Pius IX. proclaimed the dogma of the Im-
maculate Conception, " by one stroke of his pen he made St. Ann a virgin."
676 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
leading to heaven, but who, at any rate, skirted the road, and who,,
with a Httle care, might avoid the ditches at its sides. We heard,
now and then, of some unfortunate priest who disobeyed his bishop,,
and who, followed by some poor ignoramuses or perhaps by some
problematical Catholics, set up a little "Catholic Church" of his own.
We pitied the poor schismatics, and in time we saw them all return-
ing to the obedience of him who was commissioned by the Vicar of
Christ; but in all such instances we failed to apprehend the deep
significance of the term ''Schismatic" in the sense in which it is ap-
plied to, and deserved by, the "separated churches of the East."
The great misery of all the Oriental Schismatic churches, including
the Russian, the principal one, is found in the stubborn fact that
each of them is historically and theologically heretical. The poor
man, or set of men, who simply refuse to obey the authority divinely
established in the Church, may be merely schismatical ; but they who
absolutely deny the supremacy of the successors of Peter are heretics
purely and simply, since they deny an article of Catholic faith.
Again, the "Orthodox" Russian Church is heretical because it
denies the Catholic dogmas of the Procession of the Holy Ghost
from the Father ayid from the Son; of the existence of Purgatory ; of
the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady ; and of the Infallibility of
the Roman Pontiff. The time was when there was no great need
for an accurate perception of this truth by the Catholics of this re-
public ; but now that large numbers of Russian and Greek Schis-
matics are dwelling among us, too frequently mixing with our Cath-
olic congregations, and not seldom causing dissension among them
(whether as emissaries of the Holy Synod or not, we are unaware) ;
now, we insist, our people should be taught the wicked absurdity of
which they Would be guilty, were they to palliate the heinousness of
rending the seamless garment of Christ by the cherishing of such a
thought as that expressed in the asseveration : "The Russian Church
is merely schismatical.'' Reflections such as these have prompted us
to dilate to some extent on the heterodoxies of which Russian "Or-
thodoxy" is culpable, and upon some of the flagrant inconsistencies
into which its heretical blindness and obstinacy have led it.
One of the principal grievances of Russian "Orthodoxy" against
the Roman Church is found in the fact that the Mother Church ad-
ministers the Sacrament of Baptism by "infusion" instead of by "im-
mersion." Both the "Orthodox" and the Constantinopolitan Schis-
matic theologies hold that immersion is probably of the very essence
of valid baptism ; and therefore, say all the separatist Eastern Chris-
tians, the efficacy of the Roman rite of baptism is at the best proble-
matical. Thus, in the reply to Gagarin's "Will Russia Become
Catholic?" written by Karatheodori, physician to the Sultan of
Some Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy.'' 677
Turkey, under the title of "Orthodoxy and Popery," we are told
that "the baptism of the Latins is not a true baptism," although,
strangely admits the medical theologian, "it may be adopted in case
of urgent necessity." The same doctrine, we are told by Gagarin,
one of the most learned and judicious of the modern converts from
the Russian Establishment, is inculcated in many works which have
received the approbation of the Russian Holy Synod ; and we know
that after the rupture of the reunion of the Eastern Schismatics with
the Catholic Church which the Council of Florence had effected in
1436, and after the deposition of Isidore, the Muscovite patriarch
who had signed the Act of Reunion, his successor decreed : "The
Russians must rebaptize all Roman converts to their faith, since the
Westerns baptize only by infusion, a condemnable practice which
renders the rite null and void." But, strange to say, in the face of
this opinion of the Holy "Orthodox" Church, and despite the tre-
mendous importance of baptism in the minds of Russian theologians,
it is not the custom of the "Orthodox" clergy to insist on a rebap-
tism, even on a conditional one, of such Catholics and Protestants as
embrace the Photian Schism. None of the German Protestant
Princesses who enter the imperial Russian family, not even the one
who becomes Czarina, is asked to submit to what "Orthodoxy" pro-
nounces essential to her status as a Christian ; she is simply required
to declare her adhesion to the Holy "Orthodox" Church of Russia,
even though there is very great probability that, owing to the not
uncommon carelessness of Protestants in the essentials of the bap-
tismal rite, the "converted" lady is a mere pagan. The clergy of
Holy Russia are not shaken out of their supineness by the fact that
some day the possibly pagan Czarina, like that Princess of Anhalt-
Zerbst who became the infamous Catharine H,, may become in time
the Russian Pope as supreme mistress of their Holy Synod; they
know that the lubricious "Semiramis of the North" was not rebap-
tized when she married Peter HI. ; and the fairly well-read among
them know that Catharine avowed to the sycophantic philosophist,
Voltaire, that the Russian Church does not rebaptize its converts
from Catholicism or from Protestantism.^ In our own day there
have been instances of wholesale so-called "conversions" to the Rus-
sian Establishment on the part of Polish Catholics, thanks to the
knout, the bayonet, starvation, fear of Siberia, and, above all, to
treachery and chicanery f and in no instance were these "converts"
rebaptized, thanks to Peter the Great, the institutor of the Holy
2 On December 27, 1773, O. S. (January 7, 1774), Catharine wrote to Voltaire, who had
alluded to his impression that the " Orthodox" rebaptized their converts from other Chris
tian denominations : " As head of the Russian Church I cannot allow you to persist in this
mistake. We do not rebaptize." ^ see the American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol.
XXIII., p. 194 et seqq.
678 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Synod, who by virtue of his autocratic power abrogated the decree o£
the Patriarch Jonas, thus opening to many a perhaps unbaptized
Protestant the way to the priesthood and even the episcopate in the
Russian Church. It is worthy of remark that the more intellectual
among the "Orthodox" clergy have frequently appreciated the sig-
nificance of this inconsistency, especially when they reflected on the
more consistent practice of the clergy of the Constantinopolitan
Schismatic Patriarchate, from which they pretend to derive their
origin, and with which they communicate ; they have endeavored tO'
explain away the contradiction in a very curious fashion. Thus, in
the Causerie Ecclesiastiqiie, a periodical published by the Ecclesiasti-
cal Academy of St. Petersburg under the very eyes of the Holy
Synod, we read in the issue of September 17, 1866: "The Greek
Church (Schismatic) admits willingly the validity of baptism given by
infusion ; but it demands from converted Latins a new baptism in
order that it may draw a well-defined line of demarcation between
the Greeks and the Latins — in fact, the Greek Church so dreads a
possible reconciliation with Rome that it has thought it wise ta
make the Greeks believe that the Latins are in no sense Chris-
tians." It is amusing to note that the famous William Palmer,*
while still involved in the mazes of the English Royal Establish-
ment, discovered that if he wished to become a Constantinopolitan
Schismatic a trip to St. Petersburg would dispense him from a re-
baptism. "There is a way out of the difficulty," he wrote ; "a trip
to St. Petersburg will settle the matter. I can join the Russian
Church without being rebaptized ; then I can go to Constantinople,,
and since the 'Orthodox' and the Greek (Schismatic) Churches com-
municate, I can be admitted to the sacraments and even to the priest-
hood at the hands of His Greek (Ecumenicity."^
No less striking than that in reference to baptism is the incon-
sistency of the Russian "Orthodox" Church in regard to the dis-
solubility of matrimony. According to the olden doctrine of that
Church, just as according to that of its pretended source, the Schis-
matic Greek Church, a consummated Christian marriage can be dis-
solved only because of adultery ; but in practice there are now one
hundred and ninety-five cases in which the tie of marriage may be
nullified. One of the most interesting modern instances of this flag-
rant inconsistency was that of the divorce of the Grand Duke Con-
stantine, brother of Alexander I., from his wife, Anna Feodorowna.
* William Palmer, oue of the luminaries of the Oxford Movement, characterized by Dean
Church as " a man of exact and scholastic mind, well equipped at all points in controversial
theology," was perhaps most famous for his attempt to effect a union |between the Russian
and the Anglican Establishments. His efforts resulted only in his being told by the Greco-
Slavonic heretics that he should be reconciled with his own patriarch, ere he extended the
olive-branch to the separatist patriarchates of the Orient. He became a Catholic in 1856.
* See Palmer's " Eastern Question," p. 10.
Some Inconsistencies of Russian ''Orthodoxy." 679
Not a soul breathed a word against the matrimonial fidelity of the
Princess ; the state of her health compelled her to live apart from her
husband ; and he had fallen in love v^^ith the Countess Grudzinska.
On March 20 (April 2), 1820, Alexander I. made known to all his
subjects that the Holy Synod, "relying on the precise text of the
thirty-fifth Canon of St. Basil the Great, declared that the marriage
of the Grand Duke and Czarwitch, Constantine Paulowitch, with the
Grand Duchess, Anna Feodorowna, was dissolved, and that he was
free to contract a new marriage." It would be interesting to know
how many members of this Holy Synod, this servile creature of the
autocrat, were acquainted with the life of one of the glories of the
Greek Church — St. Theodore Studita, who flourished at a period
when the Eastern Churches were still devotedly attached to the com-
munion of the Apostolic See. When the Greek Emperor, Constan-
tine VI. (Porphrogenitus), having discarded his wife and contracted
a "marriage" with his concubine, Theodota, was upheld by a concil-
iabulum of courtier prelates like those who are the slaves of the Prota-
soflFs, etc., of our day, Theodore protested against the legalized
adultery, and from his dungeon he wrote to the Father of the Faith-
ful, Pope St. Leo HI. : "Since Our Lord Jesus Christ confided the
keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter, and afterward conferred
on him the dignity of Prince of the Apostles, it is our duty to make
known to the successor of Peter such innovations as are introduced
into the Church of God. . . . Oh divine superior of all super-
iors ! There has been formed here, according to the expression of
Jeremiah, an assembly of prevaricators and a meeting of adulterers."
But the members of the Holy Synod were then, as they have ever
been and still are, of calibre diametrically contrary to that of the
Studita ; as for the support which they pretended to find in a Canon
of St. Basil, it is evident that just as in the case of the Grand Duke
there was no question of adultery, so in the adduced canon there was
no question of divorce, but simply one of a more or less grave ecclesi-
astical censure to be visited on spouses who separated "from bed and
board."® But instances like this of Constantine Paulowitch are in-
6 The text of the Canon is thus given in the "Juris Kcclesiastici Grfficorum Historia et
Monumenta, Jussu Pii. IX., P. M., Curante J. B. Pitra, S. R. E. Card." Tom. I., p. S92 :
'En-t Si rov KaTa\ei<t>6tvTOs avSpos vnd r% yvvaufi)?, rfiv airiav xph (TKOnetv rfjs £y«araX£t*£wf
jftti; <pavfi aXdywj dvaXMpfiaaaa, 6 fiiv (TvyyvMum evrXv o^ioj, ij Sc cTTirifiiov 1] 6i avyyv.'nt^ rowrc5
Tpdff rd K0iv(i3vziv rfj iKKXtiaia SoOfiaerai.
The following is a free but accurate translation : " If a man has been abandoned by his
wife, the reason for the abandonment must be investigated ; and if there seems to have been
no just reason, the husband will deserve indulgence, while the wife will merit punishment
the indulgence toward the husband consisting in his not being segregated from the com-
munion of the Church." The judicious Oratorian, I.escoeur, in his valuable work entitled
" The Church in Poland" (Paris, 1876), tells us that he compared the Greek text with the
Slavonic of the A'ni.g-a Pravil, or Book of Canons of the Russian Church, and with the
Kormtchaia Kniga used by the Holy Synod in 1S20 : and that he found the three versions
agreed.
68o American Catholic Quarterly Remew.
significant when compared with the consequences of a ukase of
Nicholas I. permitting new marriages to all Catholic wives whose
husbands had been sent or would be sent to Siberia, to prison, or to
forced labor in the mines — providing, of course, that they would
promise to raise their children, future and already born, in the
Church of the State. The reader who accompanied us in our in-
vestigations into the martyrdom of Poland from the days of Vol-
taire's '*St. Catharine" to the advent of the present Czar, and who
is therefore able to appreciate the iniquities of the great majority of
the ''criminals" who have languished in Russian penal establish-
ments, will understand how widespread would have been the desola-
tion if most of the Polish women had not been worthy of their
Catholic ancestors. We would merely note that by the provisions
of his matrimonial ukase Nicholas I. simply enforced the principles
of modern Liberalism regarding the competency of the State, and
the incompetency of the Church, in matrimonial causes — principles
which an American proconsul has recently actuated in Cuba, in
illustration of the beauties of a new "civilization," and which were
interpreted for the benefit of Pope Gregory XVI. by Count Gourieff,
Russian Ambassador at the Vatican, when in a memorial ad hoc
presented to the Pontiff in May, 1833, he impudently asserted that
"the pretensions of the Catholic Church in regard to matrimony
constitute an attack on the prerogatives of the State, and that the
efforts of the Roman Court in behalf of those pretensions are mere
attempts to actuate certain enactments of ancient Councils zvhich
have now fallen into desuetude.'' Such inanities as these of the little
diplomat call for no attention. Let us rather use some of our limited
space for a few observations on the manner in which the Canon
Law of "Orthodoxy" came to recognize the one hundred and ninety-
five causes for dissolution of matrimony which are unknown to the
Divine and to the original Russian Ecclesiastical Law. In every
age of the Christian era, just as in the days of the Old Law and of
Gentile Paganism, the conflict between the ecclesiastical and the
civil power has been perennial ; and such it will be until the end of
time, since the average human ruler will ever refuse to act as though
he recognized that between him and his subjects there is always ex-
tended the ordaining and guiding hand of God. Rulers like Charle-
magne, St. Edward, St. Louis IX. and Garcia Moreno are seldom
granted, even to Christian peoples. Thus the Eastern Emperors,
even while the Eastern Patriarchates were still devotedly bound to
the Chair of Peter in ecclesiastical and filial communion, frequently
pretended to a right to arrange matrimonial causes according to
their momentary whims. Justinian, by his Novella iif, admitted
six reasons for divorce in favor of a husband and five in favor of a
Some Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy." 68 1
wife, in spite of the fact that even the Eastern Church, when it mis-
takenly relied on a false interpretation of certain verses of St.
Matthew, allowed divorce only in the case of adultery. Then, just
as in later days in the case of the United Greeks, the Holy See could
only protest, and exclaim : "Ipsi viderint." But the condemnation
was launched against this violation of the law of God, and the obsti-
nate and puerile Orientals could enjoy such satisfaction as may be
derived from continuing a practice which is reprobated by the
Vicar of Christ. In tim.e the sins of the Lower Empire merited for
it the usurpation of Photius, the imperial sword-bearer ; and when
governmental brute force had detached the Constantinopolitan
Patriarchate from the communion of the Catholic Church, the in-
truder compiled a new code of Canon Law which he designated as
a Nomocanon, and in which he incorporated all the Novellce of Jus-
tinian. From that day the canonists of the Constantinopolitan
Schism, and those of all the derivatives of that Schism, have ac-
corded a place, aye, even the first place, to the matrimonial ordi-
nances of a civil government. Nor should we forget that Photius
augmented the matrimonial consequences of the Justinian Novella
by the addition of three new causes for divorce ; for that matter, the
Canon Law of the Wallachian Greek Schismatics admits three
others. And we must note that the most recent Collection of
Canon Law received by the Schismatic Greeks, the one compiled by
Rhalli, the president of the Athenian Areopagus, under the auspices
of the Holy Synod of the governmental Hellenic Church (1856),
opens with the Nomocanon of the disreputable Photius, and eulogizes
the reprobate in most extravagant terms. From these observations
the reader will understand the readiness with which the Holy Synod
recognized the Nicholaite one hundred and ninety-five causes for the
dissolution of the matrimonial tie, when it failed to breathe a word
of disapproval of them, and allowed the "Orthodox" clergy to bless
the unions which were contracted in accordance with the imperial
dispensations. It is true that these privileges of Satan were ostensi-
bly granted to the Poles alone; but we fail to comprehend hov\' &n
autocrat can possess religious jurisdiction over one portion of his
"thrice blessed subjects," and not over all of them. Nor can it be
said that the case of the hundred and ninety-five dissolving causes
was a matter of the civil law. In Russia the civil and the ecclesiasti-
cal law emanate from the same source ; the civil and ecclesiastical
autocrat cannot be supposed to regard his civil and his ecclesiastical
enactments as mutually destructive; and when the "Orthodox"
priests perform a religious rite with the consent of the Holy Synod,
that tribunal must be supposed to approve the act.^ However, we
^ For details concerning the matter of imperial interference in matrimonial causes in the
682 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
cannot drop this subject of Russian Cesarian usurpation in matters
of matrimony without an admission that in our day there have been
many abuses by Polish CathoHcs in the matter of divorce ; there
have been adduced nullifying reasons which were deliberately ig-
nored by the contracting parties at the time of the marriages. But
we must remember that in the premises there is one great difference
between the conduct of the "Orthodox" Schismatics and that of the
Catholic Church, namely, the protestation which the latter, when
suffering because of human passions, never fails to emit. The
Catholic Church is never derelict in this matter, even though the
blood of her bishops and priests must necessarily flow in conse-
quence of her steadfastness. In 1830, when Poland still had a sem-
blance of a National Diet, that assembly heard the courageous pro-
tests of the Polish bishops against the frequent violations of the
Ecclesiastical Canons in matrimonial causes, and it was in spite of
those protests that supposedly nullifying reasons were relegated to
the consideration of the civil tribunals, and that the apostolic zeal of
Gutkowski, Bishop of Podlachia, and of Skorkowski, Bishop of
Cracow, entailed upon them dismissal from the capital before the
dissolution of the Diet.
The great "reformer" of the Muscovite Church, and also its great-
est robber, was the Czar, Ivan the Terrible ; and according to him
the foulest error of the "Western heretics" was the shaving of the
beard. In an edict which this Head of the "Orthodox" Church
issued in 1551, being unaware that another Russian Supreme Pon-
tiff, the "great" Peter, would one day enact the contrary, he pro-
claimed that "the effusion of a martyr's blood would not atone for
this crime." However, with all due respect to the memory of the
terrible Ivan, the modern clergy of Holy Russia agree with their
cousins of the Schismatic Constantinopolitan Patriarchate and with
the derivative Churches of that separatist organization, in the declar-
ation that the prime justification of the Photian rebellion must be
found in the fact that the Roman Pontiffs had confirmed the "hereti-
cal" teaching according to which the Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Father and from the Son. In fact, the doctrine that the Holy Ghost
proceeds from the Father alone is the cardinal dogma of the "Ortho-
dox" belief. And nevertheless, in the most important official act
which the Russian Establishment has performed in modern times,
namely, the declaration of the Holy Sytiod dated March 25, 1839,
whereby certain apostates from Catholicism, certain United Greek
bishops of Lithuania, were received into the communion of the Rus-
sian Establishment, no recantation of "the most damnable Latin
days of the Eastern Empire, the reader may profitably consult Perrone's " De Matrimonio
Christiano," Vol. III., p. 397, el seqq. Rome, 1858.
Some Inconsistencies of Russian ''Orthodoxy.'' 683
heresy" was demanded from the "converts." The sole requisite for
an admission to the yearning embrace of Holy Russia was a renun-
ciation of obedience to the Pope of Rome. Listen to the text of the
Synodal declaration : "Their solemn profession that Our Lord and
God, Jesus Christ, is alone the veritable Head of the One and True
Church, and their promise to persevere in unity with the holy ortho-
dox patriarchs of the East and with this Holy Synod, leave nothing
for us to demand from these members of the United Greek Church
in order to effect their true and essential union in the faith ; and
therefore nothing prohibits their hierarchical reunion with us. There-
fore the Holy Synod, by virtue of the grace and power given to it
by God the Father, by Our Saviour Jesus Christ and by the Holy
Ghost, has resolved and decreed," etc. And then the Holy Synod
warns the "converted" prelates not to trouble their flocks, whom
they hoped to drag with themselves into the vortex of the schism,
with questions of mere "local significance," things which "involve
neither dogma nor sacraments." Can it be that the Holy Synod
would have asked the innocent and ignorant to believe that an ex-
terior and public manifestation of the nature of the belief in the Pro-
cession of the Holy Ghost was a mere matter of "local significance,
which involved no dogma ?" Truly this act of the Holy Synod was
both cowardly and (according to its faith, if it had any) sacrilegious ;
and when the brigandage of Chelm, which we have elsewhere de-
scribed, almost destroyed the remnants of the United Greek Church
in Russia, there was observed what the powers of darkness must
have regarded as the same "prudent silence." How different this
course from that pursued by the Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apos-
tolic Church, which receives no convert into its pale, let the person
be ever so humble or ever so exalted, until he or she has abjured not
only every dogmatic error in general, but also the specific errors of
the forsaken creed !
Plato, metropolitan of Moscow, probably the most illustrious
churchman whom Russian "Orthodoxy" has produced during the
nineteenth century, was once asked by a Western concerning the
teaching of his Church on Purgatory ; and the prelate replied : "We
reject the doctrine of Purgatory as a modern invention, excogitated
probably for the sake of money."^ And this assertion, a delectable
morsel for the average Protestant, is dinned into the ears of every
"Orthodox" student, despite the notorious fact that almost the prin-
cipal revenue of the Russian priests is derived from prayers for the
dead, and although the Russian "Particular Catechism," the work of
Philarete, metropolitan of Moscow, inculcates the propriety and
even the necessity of that practice.
8 Lescoeur : " L'l&glise et I,a Pologne," Vol. II., p. 504.
684 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Not the least strange among the inconsistencies of Russian "Or-
thodoxy" is tlie hostility which it manifested toward the definition of
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady ; it is strange
indeed, since the principal monuments of the Eastern Church are so
redolent of testimonies in favor of the doctrine, that it may well be
said that if Pius IX. had proclaimed its contrary, the Holy Synod
would have denounced him as a heretic ex alio capite. However,
the author of "Orthodoxy and Popery" avers that in the dogmatic
definition of Mary's great prerogative, the Roman Church "mani-
fested its unbridled love of change, of movement, and of innovations
in the domain of a faith which is eternally unchangeable by its very
nature." And, nevertheless, this author tells us that according to
the Eastern Church the Blessed Virgin "was exempt from the effects
of original sin" — an avowal which is so true, that any reader of the
Bull Ineifahilis Deus will perceive that His Holiness relies chiefly
on the testimony of the Eastern Fathers for the establishment of his
thesis. This same "Orthodox" author knew very well that one of
the chief complaints of the Russian Starovere heretics against the
Holy Synod is to the effect that this would-be authoritative tribunal
renounced, in 1655, the ancient behef of the Christian East in the
Inmiaculate Conception of the Mother of God. The same author
must have remembered that in the seventeenth century the ecclesias-
tical Academy of Kiev, speaking through Lazarus Baranowitch,
Bishop of Tchernigow, regarded that doctrine as indubitably true f
and we can scarcely imagine that the Academy could have deemed
otherwise when it was accustomed to hear, among other and innum-
erable evidences furnished by the Russian Liturgy, that passage
of the Office for the Nativity of the Virgin : "We proclaim and cele-
brate thy birth, and we honor thy Immaculate Conception."
We shall merely touch the manner with which the "Orthodox"
Church treats the secret of the confessional. The awfulness of the
subject, and the notoriousness of the sins of "Orthodoxy" in this
regard, excuse us from dilation on the matter. In 1854 Snagoano,
a Greek archimandrite, who gloried in his communion with "the
holy patriarchs of the Orient," published in Paris a work on "The
Religious Question in the East," from which we cull the following
passages: "The Russian Church is simply a schism, because it has
separated from the great Eastern Church ; because it does not recog-
nize the Patriarch of Constantinople as its head ; because it does not
receive the Holy Unction from Byzantium ; because it is ruled by a
Synod, over which the Czar is a despot . . . and because Confession,
instituted for the betterment and the salvation of penitents, has become,
through the servility of the Muscovite clergy, a mere instrument of
» Gagarin: "L'EgHse Russe et L'lmrnaculee Conception." Paris, 1876.
Sofne Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy." 685
espionage in the interest of Csarism." That this accusation is well
founded has been demonstrated for the enlightenment of those who
have had no extensive experience in Russia, by Tondini^^ and by
the "Orthodox" author of "The Raskol."^^ The latter writer tells
us that "there is an ordinance which compels each priest to reveal
to the government every plot against it which may come to his
knowledge in the confessional." And this ordinance is in accord-
ance with a ukase issued by Peter "the Great" on February 17, 1722,
enjoining the taking of the following oath upon every priest of the
"Orthodox" Church : "I will denounce and reveal (all conspiracies)
with entire truthfulness and without any disguise or palliation, hav-
ing in my mind the fear of losing my honor and my life." Certainly
the term "inconsistency" is too mild to serve as a qualification of
such sacrilege on the part of the priests of a Church which holds,
at least theoretically, the same views concerning Sacramental Con-
fession that are taught by the Church of Rome. However, this ab-
ject cowardice and diabolical treachery is but natural in an organi-
zation in which the civil power takes no pains to disguise its tyranny
over the ecclesiastical, and in which the clergy manifest no shame
because of their groveling, but rather consider it a matter of course
that they should give to the autocrat the blind obedience of a soldien
The "Orthodox" Church claims to be a divinely instituted organ-
ization, empowered to labor for the eternal salvation of men, and re-
sc^lved to accomplish its task in spite of the influence of earthly
power, when that power is hostile to its objects. Did it not claim
such origin, endowment, and intention, it could not present itself as
the Church of God. We pass, for the present, the matter of the
origin of the Russian Ecclesiastical Establishment ; now we would
briefly consider its course when it finds itself confronted by the civil
power. "It would be easy," remarks Lescoeur, "and it has been
done a thousand times, to multiply proofs of the absolute degrada-
tion of the Russian sacerdotal order in its relations with the govern-
ment. Were we to examine all the grades of the hierarchy, from the
pretended Holy Synod which is servile when it is silent, and more
servile when it speaks, down to the humblest village pope ; from the
Universities and the privileged convents where are trained the few
distinguished governmental candidates for bishoprics, or for diplo-
matic posts, or for the general run of the public offices, down to the
miserable convents of men or of women, in which there languish
wretched beings without piety or charity, and which are inevitably
homes of ignorance and vice ; everywhere we would find the same
conditions produced by the same cause — the subordination, or rather
10 In his commentary on " I^e Reglement Rcclesiastique de Pierre le Grand," p. 248. " " I,e
Raskol, Essai sur les Sectes Religieuses en Russie," p. 236. Paris, 1859.
686 American Catlwlic Qimrterly Review.
the absolute effacement of the reHgious element, absorbed by the
civil power."^- Even in purely theological matters, the "Ortho-
dox" episcopate and priesthood have seldom or never been able, if
willing in rare instances, to withstand the governmental pressure.
When Peter "the Great," following the counsels of the Genevan,
Lefort, to whom he owed the invention of the Holy Synod, tried to
demi-Protestantize his Church, he found his clergy, his semina-
narians, and even his bishops, so subservient, that when the Luth-
eran, Frederick Lutiens, dedicated his curious book to the Grand
Duke Peter Feodorowitch (afterward Peter III.)' he felt justified in
congratulating the Prince and his bride (the future Catharine II.)
on the fact that "the glorious Peter had so restored and modified the
modern religion of the Russians in accordance with the Scriptures
and with the rules of tfJe primitive Church, that he had made it as
similar as possible to that of the Evangelico-Lutherans."^^ And the
Lutheran was able to support his assertion by quoting the text of
the Catechism which had been compiled by the "Orthodox" bishop,
Theopanes Procopowitch, the prelate whom Peter "the Great" had
employed to draw up his "Ecclesiastical Regulation." In this Cate-
chism, declared Liitiens, "we find the purest Evangelical doctrine on
the forgiveness of sin, on justification, and on the eternal salvation
which is attained by faith in Jesus Christ alone."^* And when, in
1807, the court of St. Petersburg had tired of its playing with Pro-
testantism, and felt the necessity of resuming its comparatively closer
connection with the primitive Church, did it turn to its bishops for
the accomplishment of the restoration ? By no means. The impe-
rial "supreme judge of the Holy Synod" appointed a mixed com-
mission of ecclesiastics and laymen, according to it absolute control
over the curriculum of each seminary ; and in this commission there
were numbered merely a few bishops, and they were all favorites of
the court.^' But the Holy Synod perceived no insult to itself, no
usurpation of the things of the sanctuary, in this imperial preten-
sion ; it was as ready then to abrogate every ecclesiastical preroga-
tive as it was in 1830, when, in order to aid in the final destruction
of agonizing Catholic Poland, it took from the seminaries 20,000
seminarians, declared them forever debarred from the priesthood,
incorporated them into the army, and sent them to evangelize the
Poles in the fashion which we have seen recommended and adopted
by Siemaszko.^*' There is one instance of abjection, however, on
12 Loc. cit.. Vol. II., p. 468. 13 " Dissertatio Historico-Ecclesiastica de Religione Rutheno-
riim Hodiema." 1745. " For more information on this subject, see the already cited work
of Tondini, Gagarin's " Etudes de Theologie et d'Histoire," Vol. I., p. 56, and De Maistre's
" Quatre Chapitres lu^dits sur la Russie," ch. 3- Paris, 1859- ^" See Gagarin's " Clerg^ Russe,"
p. 135. 1 i« The reader need not be surprised at this treatment of the seminarians by the Holy
Synod ; for during many centuries the Russian Church has not known the meaning of the
phrase " ecclesiastical vocation." In Russia the priesthood has been, until very recently, as
Some Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy." 687
the part of the '"Orthodox" clergy, which perhaps speaks more elo-
quently than those which we have indicated. In every Russian lit-
urgical service at which the litanies are recited, not only the name of
the Czar, but that of the last little baby of the imperial family, is
mentioned before the existence of the Holy Synod is recognized.
But hearken to a few of the abject phrases used by the Holy Synod ;
we cull them at random from some acts of the tribunal : "Conform-
ably to the most exalted will of His Majesty, the Holy Synod has
undertaken to better the condition of the provincial clergy — By
order from above, many monasteries have been deprived of their
rights of fishing — The bishop of Kursk is allowed to print his ser-
mons— His Majesty has found it wise to dissolve the Commission
for Ecclesiastical Schools, and to confide their direction to the Holy
Synod, charging the supreme procurator (always a layman, and gen-
erally a soldier) with the execution of its orders — By a decision of the
Imperial Council, confirmed by His Majesty, the marriage of ,
a pagan, with , a Mussulman, is pronounced valid, provided
that the latter receives Baptism — We humbly beg Your Majesty to
assure the salvation of the United Greeks by allowing them to join
the Orthodox Church of All the Russias." It is not surprising that
Voltaire, after feasting on such fulsomeness as exhales from these
and similar phrases, should write to his "saint," the Messalina of St.
Petersburg : "As for me, Madame, I am faithful to the Greek Church
(Voltaire was very weak in historical knowledge), and so much the
more since in a certain sense your beautiful hands swing its thurible,
and since you may be regarded as the Patriarch of All the Russias."^"
Nor can we wonder that among the many millions of Russian dissi-
dents who to-day despise the authority of the official Church, who
await an opportunity to combat it a Voutrance, and who hate the
Catholic Church with a venom almost equal to that expressed by the
Holy Synod, by far the greater number find the sole justification of
their revolt in the really unchristian dependence of "Orthodoxy" on
an earthly power. "For a long time," remarks Gagarin, "the bosom
of the Russian Church has been lacerated by dissident sects, but the
development of these to-day is immense ; between fifteen and eigh-
teen millions are enrolled under their standard. "^^ The "Orthodox"
author of "The Raskol" says that the Raskolniks "confound the
temporal sovereign with the head of the Church (and why not?),
and therefore they are in a state of perpetual, although latent, war
with the laws of the land. They excommunicate the Czar; they
style him Antichrist."^^
much a hereditary caste as it is in Hindustan ; but with this difference, observes I<escoeur,
that in the latter country the priesthood is honored, whereas in the former to be called a son
of a pope is to receive a mortal affront. See Gagarin's " Clerg^ Russe," p. 20.
1^ Letter of July 6, 1771. i* " Etudes d'Histoire et de Theologie," Vol. III., p. 483. ^^ gome
688 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Now for a few reflections concerning the Holy Synod, the pre-
sumed authoritative voice of Russian "Orthodoxy;" we shall see
that the very existence of this tribunal is both an inconsistency and
a heterodoxy. We have noted that the author of "Orthodoxy and
Popery" reproves the Roman See for an alleged "insatiable yearn-
ing for religious innovations ;" and it is notorious that the "Ortho-
dox" have always prided themselves on the immobility of their
Church, even when they were obliged to ignore the fact that with
them immutability and lethargy are generally synonymous. But
can the "Orthodox" show us, we will not say any Scriptural founda-
tion, but rather any Eastern tradition — any Eastern conciliar or
patristic warrant for the existence of this Holy Synod ? Is it not a
matter of cold history that this body is much less than two centuries
old? And can any student deny that from its very creation it has
been the docile instrument of innovations at once anti-canonical and
scandalous ? Has the Roman Pontiff, whose alleged "omnipotence"
is denounced as strenuously by the "Orthodox" as by the Anglicans
and other Protestant sectarians, ever attempted to change the essen-
tial form of ecclesiastical government ; has he ever dared to suppress
anything in this line that the Apostles prescribed ; has he ever pre-
sumed to substitute a cardinalitial, episcopal, presbyteral, or civil
governmental regime for that monarchical primacy of Peter alone
which all his predecessors declared to be of divine institution?
But this most fundamental of all innovations the Russian Czarate
effected, without any efficacious or even serious protest on the part
of the "Orthodox" hierarchy, when it instituted the Holy Synod.
In the "Particular Catechism" of the Russian Church the sublimity
of impudence is reached when, on page 68, to the question as to
"what ecclesiastical authority rules the principal divisions of the
Universal Church," the following answer is given : "The orthodox
patriarchs of the East and the Synod of Russia, the order of hier-
archical precedence being, ist, Constantinople; 2nd, Alexandria;
3rd, Antioch; 4th, Jerusalem; 5th, the Patriarchate or Synod of
Russia." And then to the question as to the rank of the Holy
Synod, the reply is : "The Synod has the rank of a patriarch, since
it takes the place of the Patriarchate of Russia which was abolished
with the consent of the other patriarchs." The more than implica-
tion that there is no such thing as the Patriarchate of Rome ; that
the Church of God is peculiarly an Oriental Church ; was probably
very acceptable to the simple "Orthodox" who received as Gospel
truth the lessons in history which Nicholas I. gave to his subjects
when he decreed that in all the educational institutions of his empire
Tery interesting studies on the Raskolniks were published in 1874 by Leroy Beaulieu in the
Revue des Deux Mondes.
Some Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy." 689
the qualification of "tyrant" should never be given to Nero, Caligula,
or Ivan the Terrible ; that no teacher should dare inform his pupils
that the House of Romanoff became extinct '"i 1761 in the person of
the Empress Elizabeth, and that it was the foreign family of Hol-
stein-Gottorp which then (as now) held the czarate ; that every peda-
gogue should insist that the reigning autocrat descended in direct
line from Rurick of Moscow ; and that the reason for the preference
of the ancient Romans for a republic is to be found in the fact that
they had not the good fortune of being acquainted with the blessings
which are entailed by the rule of an autocrat."^^ As for the implied
falsehood that the consent of the Oriental patriarchs to the estab-
lishment of the Holy Synod was both seriously asked and freely ac-
corded, we reply that granted this seriousness and this freedom, the
prelates in question had no power to change the patriarchal constitu-
tion of their churches ; and, furthermore, that there is good reason
to believe that at least the patriarchate of Constantinople afterward
withdrew its consent. This we are led to believe from the words of
the well-informed Greek archimandrite, Snagoano, who added to the
already cited anathema against "Orthodoxy" the following indict-
ment : "Since the impieties of this Synod are so signal, who will dare
to assert that the Russian Church is not schismatical ? It is rejected
by the Councils; the Canons forbid its recognition; the Church
spurns it, and all who hold the faith of the Church, and whom the
Church acknowledges as her children, must respect her decisions
and regard the Russian Rite as schismatical." However, even if we
hold that the Oriental patriarchs could and did abolish the Russian
patriarchate, we cannot forget that the constitution of the Holy
Synod destroyed the episcopal authority, a thing of divine institution,
as to its very essence ; that it left the Russian bishops that episcopal
character which is God-given, and which no Synod could efface, but
that it left them no more authority than that exercised by the uncon-
secrated Methodists, Episcopalians, Moravians and such like, who
merely parade an empty episcopal title. But what would the Greek
Fathers have thought of this assembly composed of nominees of an
emperor, men who were movable at his caprice ?^^ Listen, for in-
stance, to that St. John Damascene whom the "Orthodox" are so
fond of quoting in fancied support of their theory concerning the
Procession : "The emperors have no right to give laws to the
Church. Hearken to the words of the Apostle: The Lord has
established Apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers. He says noth-
ing about emperors. "^^ And what would St. Athanasius say ? "If
20 " I^a V6rit6 sur la Russie," par le Prince Pierre Dolgoroukow, p. 317. Paris, i860.
21 Only three bishops sit in, the .Synod ex^ officio — those of Moscow, Kiev and St. Peters-
burg, and of course these can be removed from their sees at the imperial pleasure. 22 << jjg
Vol. XXV.— Sig. 5.
690 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the bishops so decree, why do you speak of the emperor ? When
did an episcopal decree derive any authority from an emperor ; when
was such a decree regarded as an imperial decree? Long before
our day many synods have been assembled and many decrees have
beeen published by the Church ; but the Fathers never consulted the
emperors, the emperors never examined into ecclesiastical matters.
St. Paul had friends among the familiars of Csesar; but he never
admitted them into his councils. "^^ Bishops of the calibre of Sts.
John Damascene and Athanasius would scarcely have submitted the
results of their deliberations to the judgment of a colonel of hussars,
himself the creature of a temporal ruler. But this temporal ruler
must fain talk in pontifical fashion when he institutes his new secre-
tariate. In 1720, announcing to his subjects the great blessing about
to accrue to them, Peter the "Great" thus perorated : "Amid the
innumerable cares which are entailed upon us by the supreme power
which has been given to us by God, we have cast our regards on
ecclesiastical affairs in order to reform our people and the kingdoms
subject to our empire ; and we have discovered grave disorders, as
well as many faults of administration. This fact filled our con-
science with legitimate fear lest we would prove ungrateful to the
Most High, if, after having effected, through His aid, such happy
reforms in the military and civil orders, we neglected (mark the
logical sequence of ideas) to exert ourselves to the utmost in order
to restore sacred affairs to their highest perfection and their greatest
glory. Therefore, following the example of those monarchs of both
the Old and the New Testament whose piety was so illustrious,^* we
have determined to improve the present condition of sacred things."
And observe the eloquent significance of the oath which each mem-
ber of the Holy Synod takes on his installation : "I avow and affirm
under oath that the supreme judge of this Synod is our monarch, the
Most Clement (listen, spirits of Polish martyrs !) Emperor of All the
Russias."^''^ It is a remarkable fact, observes Tondini, that this
avowal of dependence on the Czar — a dependence so utterly incom-
Imaginibus," Art. II., No. 12 ; cited by Pope Gregory XVI. in his Brief to Mgr. Lewicki,
Archbishop of Leopolis, Ruthenian Rite, July 17, 1841. -^ " Hist. Arian. ad Monachos," No. 52.
2* What one "of these pious monarchs had three " wives" at the same time ? Peter had
discarded Kudoxia lyapoukine as well as her successor, and was at this time, while both of
these women were still living, " married" to Catharine (afterward Empress as Catharine
I.), the wife of a Swedish soldier who had been made prisoner of war. Catharine had been
the mistress of two Russian nobles before Peter "married" her. 25 The journals of Russia
seem to consider the enslavement of both the Holy Synod and its subjects as a matter of
course. On February 2, i860, just after the death of Colonel Protasoff, the late procurator
of the Synod, the JVord of St. Petersburg said: " He was in reality, if not in name, the
head of the Orthodox Church in Russia. With his firm and energetic will he knew how
to conquer the retrograde tendencies of the older clergy. By means of the Synod of which
he was the veritable head, he distributed mitres among young and civilized ecclesiastics,"
etc., etc. In a previous number of the Quarterly we have shown how Dimitri Tolstoy,
although a mere civilian, was a fit successor of this colonel in the matter of civilizing
the Russian clergy.
Some Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy." 691
patible with the Gospel and so repugnant to the honest student of
ecclesiastical history — is not demanded from the members of other
Russian tribunals. "The framer of the oath knew what he wanted,"
says Tondini ; "he wanted docile prelates, and he gained his point,
thus proving, as he himself boasted, that he was greater than
Louis XIV."
Before we treat of the prime inconsistency of Russian "Ortho-
doxy," its rejection of the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, it may
be well to notice another inconsistency which it manifests in regard
to the instigator of the Greek Schism. Prince Augustine Galitzin,
in his valuable work on the "Orthodox" Church,^^ remarks that
"the origin of the Schism was so disgraceful that it dares not venerate
its founder, whereas, among its thousand other contradictions, it
joins the Universal Church on October 23 in celebrating the Feast
of St. Ignatius (patriarch of Constantinople), the first victim of
Photius."-^ It is true that individual writers of the Russian Church
and of the Schismatic Constantinopolitan Patriarchate have been suf-
ficiently audacious to describe Photius as of "happy memory ;" and
some have ventured to quote his letters to Pope Nicholas I. as
models of piety, brazenly ignoring his deposition of his legitimate
patriarch and his violent occupation of the patriarchal throne after
a reception of Orders per saltum — of all, from tonsure to the episco-
pacy, in the space of six days. Sincerity could not have been char-
acteristic of a prelate who, when prepared to forswear his allegiance
to the Holy See, nevertheless wrote to the Pontiff in the following
strain, so long as he conceived it possible that Rome might counte-
nance sacrilege and ecclesiastical intrusion : "My predecessor hav-
ing resigned his dignity, the assembled metropolitans, the clergy and,
above all, the emperor, who is so kind to others but so cruel to me,
impelled by T know not what idea, turned to me, and paying no at-
tention to my prayers, insisted that I should assume the episcopate ;
in fact, in spite of the tears of my despair, they seized me and exe-
cuted their will upon me."
As is well observed by Lescoeur, if the "Orthodox" theologians
have frequently fluctuated between the Church and Protestantism,
according to the spirit of the times, and especially according as the
imperial will has inclined for the nonce, there is one doctrine con-
cerning which they are frankly Protestant. "When one hears the
theologians of the Holy Synod declaiming against Popery, he might
believe himself in London or in Geneva ; but when he beholds the
26"L']gglise Greco-Russe." Paris, 1851. This Galitzin should not be confounded with
another Galitzin, also a convert, and the author of " T,a Russie, Est EHe Schismatique ?'*
Paris, 1859. The name of the latter was Nicholas Borrissowitch. -' For a concise but de
tailed account of the beginnings of the Greek Schism, and therefore of the sufferings of Ig-
natius, see our " Studies in Church History," Vol. II.
692 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
measures, sometimes petty and often barbarous, with which all re-
course to Rome is either prevented or punished, he recognizes that
he is in Russia. The Poles know full well that it is more dangerous
to be a Papist frankly in Warsaw than it is to be a Raskolnik in
Moscow." And nevertheless — and here we approach the chief, the
most radical inconsistency, and the raison d'etre of every heresy
which afiflicts "Orthodoxy" — a Russian cannot consult the Liturgy
of his own Church, or celebrate the feasts which that Liturgy pre-
scribes, or peruse the most authoritative books of devotion recom-
mended by his spiritual advisers, without being confronted in bold
relief, as it were, by St. Peter proclaiming his prerogatives, and by
the entire body of doctrine which the Roman See teaches- to the
world. The cultivated Russian cannot escape the knowledge that
the Church of Constantinople, from which, as he believes, his an-
cestors received Christianity, was at that time subject to the See of
Rome, or was, as moderns are fond of saying, Roman Catholic. He
knows that originally his "Orthodox" Church was far more Roman
than Greek ; that his Church was not Schismatic Greek in its origin,
and that it is not Greek in its language, its polity, or its govern-
ment. History tells him that his ancestors were converted by the
Roman Catholic Apostolic Church ; for whether, as we learn from
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the first missionaries to Russia were
sent by the Catholic patriarch of Constantinople, Ignatius, in 867, or,
as Nestor asserts, by the schismatic intruder, Photius, in 866, it is
certain that no real impression was made upon the Russian masses
before the close of the tenth century,^** when the Grand Duke Vladi-
mar, called "the Apostolic," embraced Christianity — an epoch at
which the Greeks were in communion with Rome, for the properly
so-called Photian Schism had ended with the second and final deposi-
tion of the intruder in 889, and the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate
remained subject thenceforward to the Holy See until the definitive
actuation of the Greek Schism by Cerularius in 1054. Our culti-
vated Russian knows also that the definitive defection of the Greeks
did not much affect the relations of his countrymen with the Papacy
until the twelfth century ; that only then they were seduced entirely
from the Roman obedience ; that a reaction having taken place, by
the time that the Council of Florence was held (1439) there were as
many Catholics as Schismatics in Russia f^ and that it was a second
Photius, Archbishop of Kiev, who extended the Schism throughout
the land about the middle of the fifteenth century.^® Nor will our
28 About the year 945 Olga or Klga, widow of a grand duke of Russia, journeyed to Con-
stantinople, and was there baptized. Returning to Russia, she tried in vain to convert her
countrymen. But her grandson, Vladimir, having married Anna, a sister of the Greek Km-
peror, Basil II., was baptized in 968, and in a few years nearly all the Russians received the
faith 29 See ;the BoUandists, at Month of September, No. 41. ^o gome authors hold that
Some Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy." 693
well-informed Russian fail to realize that his Church is not Greek in
its liturgical language ; that this language is the Slavonic, and not
the vernacular, but the Old Slavonic, with which the people are not
familiar.^^ Again, this unbiased Russian will learn from the monu-
ments of his own ''Orthodox" Church that the Papal supremacy over
the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate or, as it was at that time not
improperly termed, the Greek Church, dates from the first day of that
patriarchate's existence. He must feel that if obedience to the See
of Peter had not been part of the faith of all the Oriental Patriarch-
ates when Photius started the Greek Schism on its first stage, that
desperate intruder would not have troubled himself so exceedingly
to obtain the Pontifical confirmation of his sacrilegious and all but
murderous seizure of the Constantinopolitan crozier. Quite naturally
he must reason in the same manner when he thinks of Cerularius,
who separated definitively the greater number of the Eastern Chris-
tians from the communion of Rome. He must ask himself how it is,
in the supposition that his own "Orthodox" Church was not Roman
in its origin, that his Church celebrates so many feasts which Rome
prescribes, but which the Schismatic Greeks reject? And finally he
must wonder how it happens that if the Russian Church did not in
its early days proclaim the supremacy of the Roman Pontifif, never-
theless the ancient "Orthodox" Liturgy avows that supremacy in
terms which admit of no exception on the part of a Catholic theo-
logian. For instance, St. Peter is termed "the sovereign pastor of
all the Apostles — pastyr vladytchnyi vsich Apostolov'' Pope St. Syl-
vester is called "the divine head of the holy bishops."^- We read of
Pope St. Celestine 1. that "firm in his speech and in his works, and
following in the traces of the Apostles, he showed himself worthy of
occupying the Holy Chair by the decree with which he deposed the
impious Nestorius (patriarch of Contantinople)." It is said of Pope
the Schism of Cerularius did not affcet the entire Greek Empire in the eleventh century. It
is certain that Pope Alexander II. had an agent, an apocrisiarius (not a legate) at the
court of the Emperor, Michael Ducas, in the person of Peter, Bishop of Anagni: audit
is equally certain that this representative of the Papacy remained as such in Constantino-
ple for a year. Pope Pascal II. sent jChrysolanus as legate to Alexis Comnenus. It is to
be noted that Euthymius Zagabenus, who obeyed the order of Alexis Comnenus to collect
all patristic testimonies against each and^every heresy, never speaks of the Latins as here-
tics. Even in the twelfth century there were many Greeks in the communion of Rome, as
we learn from many narratives of the Crusades, from the "Alexias" of " Anna Comnena ,
from the " Ivife of Mannuel," by Nicetas Choniates, and from the letters of the Venerable
Peter of Cluny to the Emperor, John Comnenus, and to the Patriarch of Constantinople.
31 Protestants should note this fact as evidence of their mistake when they adduce the ex-
ample of the Russian Church as an encouragement for their own use of the vernacular in
their Liturgy— when they have one. Not one of the ancient Churches, neither the Greeks,
nor the Syrians, nor the Copts, nor the Chaldeans, nor the Armenians, nor the Nestorians,
nor the Jacobites have the vernacular of the people for the medium of their Liturgy. The
reason is evident ; they all have preser\-ed the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and they realize
the necessity of having an unchangeable medium for the expression of their sentiments
and doctrines — a medium which is furnished by the now unspoken languages in which
their ancestors learned the truths of Christianity. For information on this point consult
Assemani's " Bibliotheca Orientalis," Vol. IV., ch. 7, 22. Rome, 1719. *- Gagarin cites the
694 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
St. Agapetus that "he deposed the heretical Anthimius (another
patriarch of Constantinople), anathematized him, and consecrating
Mennas, whose doctrine was irreproachable, placed him in the S'^e
of Constantinople." Similarly we hear of Pope St. Martin I. that he
"adorned the divine throne of Peter, and holding the Church upright
on this rock which cannot be shaken, he honored his name ;'* and
this praise is given to St. Martin because "he segregated Cyrus
(patriarch of Alexandria), Sergius (another patriarch of Constanti-
nople), Pyrrhus and all their adherents from the Church." Pope
St. Leo I. is styled "the successor of St. Peter on the highest throne,
the heir of the impregnable rock." Pope St. Leo IIL is thus ad-
dressed : "Chief pastor of the Church, fill the place of Jesus Christ."
What must be the feelings of any sacerdotally sensitive member of
the enslaved "Orthodox" clergy, when he hears his Liturgy teaching
how a Pope ought to speak to a wicked or heretical sovereign ! We
hear Pope Gregory IL warning Leo the Isaurian, the imperial cham-
pion of the Iconoclasts : "Endowed as we are with the power and
sovereignty of St. Peter, we have determined to prohibit you," etc.
Nor does this same Liturgy of the Russian Church hesitate to admit
that a Roman Pontiff can excommunicate emperors as well as patri-
archs ; and not only emperors who belong to the Roman Patriarch-
ate, but also those of the Eastern. In a fragment of a Life of St.
John Chrysostom this Liturgy tells its admirers that "Pope Innocent
wrote more than once to Arcadius, separating him and his wife,
Eudoxia, from the communion of the Church, and pronouncing
anathema on all who had helped in driving St. John Chrysostom
from his See. He not only deprived Theophilus (patriarch of Alex-
andria), but he segregated him from the Church. Then Arcadius
wrote to Pope Innocent, begging pardon most humbly, and assuring
the Pope of his repentance. The emperor wrote also to his brother
Honorius, asking him to implore the Pontiff to lift the excommuni-
cation, and he obtained the favor." It certainly appears strange that
during so many centuries the leaders of the "Orthodox" Russian
Church have not found some means of disembarrassing themselves
of these and many similar testimonies of their own Liturgy to the
supremacy of the Chair of Peter ; but at least they have endeavored
to neutralize the force of these arguments by a free use of that
favorite weapon of all heretics — calumny. Prince Nicholas Galitzin,
writing while he was still an "Orthodox" professor, averred that "in
Russian seminaries it is taught that in the eyes of Catholics the Pope
is an irresponsible autocrat, claiming to be impeccable. "^^ And that
quotations which we give, and many similar ones, in the Old vSlavonic text, in his •' E^tudes
de Theologie," Vol. II.; and Tondini comments on them most judiciously in his " I^a
Primaut^ de Saint Pierre Prouv^e paries Titres que I^ui Donne I^'^glise Russe dans Sa
I,iturgie." Paris, 1867. 33 " La Russie, Est-KHe Schismatique ?" p. 38.
Some Inconsistencies of Russian "Orthodoxy." 695
medical theologian, Karatheodori, whose work, by the way, was
translated into French by a Russian priest formally commissioned to
the task by the Russian government, dared to emit the following :
"Popery asks us to recognize in this mortal (the Pope) all the rights
and all the authority of the Universal Church . . . and what is
more, it asks us to believe that by ordinance of God this mortal is
superior to all the Divine Commandments themselves, and that he
enjoys the right to change them, adding to them or subtracting from
them according to his own will." Having read this barefaced illus-
tration of "Orthodox" mendacity, we are prepared for the Greek
physician's assertion that men of the stamp of "the Jesuit Prince"
(Gagarin, whose writings Karatheodori aflfected to refute) are "ever
ready to reject the clearest truths," and that they prosecute their ends
by means of lies and the falsification of documents, following the
example of the "Council of Florence, in which Cardinal Julian
(Cesarini) adduced forged Acts of the Seventh General Council."'
Here the Sultan's physician simply imitated the time-serving Mark
of Ephesus in his too successful efforts to undo the good work of the
Florentine synodals, carefully refraining, however, from any mention
of the refutation of the Ephesine prelate's charges which Bessarion,
the most eminent Greek Schismatic of any day, and who was con-
verted by his experience at this same Council of Florence, adduced
in his apposite letter to Alexis Lascaris. The reader will scarcely
accuse us of digression, if we dilate somewhat on this charge against
the Florentine synodals, since the words of Bessarion illustrate the
position assumed by Karatheodori and others of that ilk. Mark of
Ephesus had accused the Latins of having adduced falsified testi-
monies of the Fathers as corroboratory of the Catholic doctrine on
the Procession of the Holy Ghost ; and to this calumny Bessarion,
who was still the Schismatic Archbishop of Nicea, thus replied:
"Finally they (the Latins) showed us testimonies of the Fathers
which evinced most clearly the truth of their teaching ; and they ad-
duced passages not only of Western Fathers, against which we
could only contend that they had been corrupted by the Latins, but
also sayings of our Epiphanius which declared plainly that the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, and to this evidence
we also retorted that it had been corrupted. Then they introduced
Cyprian and others, and we gave the same answer; finally we re-
peated this reply when they adduced the authority of Western saints.
And when we (the Schismatics) had debated among ourselves for
many days as to what we ought to say, we could devise no other
reply, even though it seemed too trivial for our purpose. And
firstly, the doctrine (of the Roman Church) appeared to be con-
cordant with the mind of the saints ; secondly, so many and so an-
696 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
cient were the volumes containing it, that they could not have been
falsified easily, and we could show neither Latin nor Greek copies
which gave the quoted passages differently from the version of the
Latins; and thirdly, we were unable to cite any doctors who contra-
dicted the Roman doctrine. Therefore it was that being unable to
find an apposite reply, we remained silent for many days, holding no
sessions with the Latins.'*^*
So much for the "Orthodox" allegation of dishonesty on the part
of that CEcumenical Council which put a temporary end to the Greek
Schism. Such charges form the stock in trade for such of the
''Orthodox" clergy as enjoy some smattering of theological educa-
tion ; but unfortunately for the prospects of conversion of the ma-
jority of the teachers of "Orthodoxy," the average Protestant
preacher in these United States is scarcely less versed in the essen-
tial elements of ecclesiastical lore. Were the "Orthodox" clergy
well indoctrinated even with profane science, of course not with the
German materialism which alone has affected some of them, they
would come to realize the truth of those words which Lamoriciere
addressed to the Pontifical army on the eve of the unsuccessful but
glorious campaign of Castelfidardo : "Christianity is not only the
religion of the civilized world. It is the moving principle and the
very life of civilization, and the Papacy is the key-stone in the arch
of Christianity. To-day all Christian nations seem to have some
consciousness of these truths." Gagarin would discern Russia
among the nations whose perspicacity appealed to Lamoriciere.
"Russia does not yet believe," reflected the zealous ex-Orthodox
polemic, "that the Papacy is the key-stone of Christianity ; she does
not comprehend the phrase, but already she seems to have a sort of
consciousness of its truth, and in her pale there is an increasing num-
ber of souls who are penetrated by that truth, and who place their
chief hopes in it."^^
Reuben Parsons.
Tonkers, N. Y.
^ But Bessarion was not satisfied with repelling the Schismatical charge that the Roman
theologians were falsifiers ; he retorted the charge against the Greeks. .Speaking of a pass-
age from St. Basil in which that Father says that " the Holy Ghost is from the Son, having
His being from Him, receiving from Him, and depending entirely from that Cause," the
Archbishop of Nicea declared that out of six codices of St. Basil's works brought by his fel-
low-schismatics to Florence, five gave the passage in qviestion in its entirety, while the
sixth codex " was defective in some parts, and presented many additions which had been
made according to the whims of the transcriber." When he returned to Constantinople, the
Archbishop searched the libraries, and he discovered indeed some codices in which the
questioned passage was absent ; but those codices were perfectly new, having evidently
been written after the termination of the Council of Florence. At the same time the prelate
found in the libraries many ancient manuscripts of St. Basil's works in which the passage
occurred. ^5 " Tendances Catholiques dans La Soci6t6 Russe," Paris, i860.
The Tzvo Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 697
THE TWO KENRICKS: THEIR EARLY ENVIRONMENT.
REGARD for the interests of the Church, the requirements of
historical justice, and the characters of the two distinguished
brothers, the Archbishops Kenrick, necessitates the task of
preparing a record of their Uves, in the world and in the Church,
which may fill up and complete such sketches of each as have already-
been given to the world. It is true that each of these distinguished
men filled so large a space on the Church's canvas, in his own time,
that no biographer could possibly hope to present a complete reflec-
tion of their lives, their views, and their acts in the compass of any-
thing less than an encyclopaedia. But so many details have been
left untouched by former writers, so many lacunae remain to be filled
in, and so many lights require to be thrown upon the picture, that
the attempt at a complete biography ought no longer to be post-
poned, lest the importance of so doing should become obscured by
the demands of an ever-widening ecclesiastical growth. Such a
work is now in preparation ; and as a note of introduction to it some
word of the early surroundings of the Kenrick family and the social,
political and literary atmosphere which prevailed when they began
to imbibe their ideas may not be without interest.
It was in the old portion of the Irish capital, known for centuries
of warfare as "the Pale," that the Kenrick family had their habita-
tion. This was in earlier times the part of the city which was en-
closed within embattled walls, with fortified gateways and loop-
holed towers, designed to repel the "wild Irishrie," camped often
enough on the opposite bank of the Lififey, in threatening design
and formidable force. Circumscribed by the military cincture, the
citizens were obliged to restrain their taste for wide streets, if they
had any, and so all around the central fortress, known as "the Cas-
tle," there spread a network of narrow, crooked and dingy thorough-
fares, many of which might be easily spanned by a man's extended
arms, some by much lesss It was in one of these, which was called
Chancery lane, that the family of the Kenricks had their abode. The
thoroughfare, which a few years ago was condemned to demolition
for street improvement, ran from Bride street to Golden lane, and
was in early times quite an aristocratic part of the city. Here, in-
deed, was kept the Court of Chancery, from which it derived its
title, and here lived in great state some of the high officials con-
nected with that important department of the State, as well as some
of the great legal lights of succeeding eras. The Chancery Court
was in the evolution of the city transferred to the central building
698 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
across the river, known as the Four Courts — the first stately pile
which compels the admiration of all travelers driving along the
Dublin quays from the western side. Not one in a thousand ex-
plorers in old Dublin could realize, from the present condition of
such ancient thoroughfares, it is safe to say, what was their estate
in the more prosperous period before the Act of Union despoiled
Ireland of her Parliament and Dublin of her resident notables. No
one could ever dream that such forlorn and dilapidated and foul-
smelling places as Chancery lane was one of the most fashionable
thoroughfares in the city, or that crowds of beaux in court suits and
powdered periwigs, and dainty ladies a la Watteau as to attire, borne
in sedan chairs, might be found there, on the way to Christ Church
or St. Patrick's on Sundays, or mayhap to the Fishamble street or
Smock alley theatre, close by, on week nights, with the link-boys run-
ning before them to light the way. Yet such indeed was the posi-
tion of the whole interesting neighborhood. Across the street lay —
and still lies — a little pocket of old rookeries called Derby Square,
the entrance to which is a passage little more than a yard in width
yet in its time this was the abode of a number of the Irish nobility
and a place of the most exclusive haut ton. Crossing the thorough-
fare called Skinners' alley, just outside the opening of Bride street
(which was originally "St. Bride's"), one came to an archway which
spanned an arcade running alongside the southern wall of Christ
Church Cathedral. Above this archway stood a carved wooden
effigy of Satan, and the arcade itself, as if in cynical mockery of its
proximity to a consecrated edifice, bore the awesome name of
"Hell." The arcade itself was a warren of lawyers' offices : per-
haps this circumstance may be explanatory, to some extent, of the
strange title, for in Ireland there is some traditional connection be-
tween the gentleman in black and the black-robed gentlemen who
plead in the law courts — a. connection which they themselves, in that
age, did not repudiate, since we know from O'Connell's biogra-
phies that the corps of volunteers formed from the members of the
Bar, and of which he for some time was one, was known as "the
Devil's Own." The presence of these lawyers' offices in the sul-
phurously-named arcade was explained by the fact that in a sort of
annex of Christ Church Cathedral was held the Court of Exchequer,
which was also originally located near Chancery lane, in another
dingy thoroughfare called Exchequer street. Interspersed with the
lawyers' dens were several of the more congenial resorts known at
the time as chop houses, some famous coffee houses and some
equally celebrated taverns. Night-time at all these establishments
found them crowded with the wits of the Irish Bar and the idle class
of Dublin — men of the stamp of John Philpot Curran, Ned Lysaght
The Tzi'o Kenricks: Their Early Envirofiment. 699
and Jonah Barrington ; and mirth and repartee prolonged far into
the small hours gave a colorable base for a theory of ''happiness in
Hell." Only separated by the width of St. Werburgh's Church —
where the Irish Viceregal Court worships when not residing in "the
Castle/' but at the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park — from
Chancery lane ran Hoey's court, another constricted avenue to the
Castle region, made immortal by its connection with the great Dean
of St. Patrick's. It was in this now squalid and fever-laden purlieu
that Jonathan Swift first assumed his "heritage of woe ;" and if the
house in which he was born is still allowed to lurch and nod there,
propped up by internal and external crutches, a menace to the
denizens and curiosity-hunters, it is simply a tribute to one
who had very little respect himself for things deserving of
demolition.
If in the secular sense the ground was classic, in the loftier one it
was far more so. It was ground consecrated to the holiest use by
the sainted footsteps of Ireland's glorious Apostle, Patrick, by the
scarcely less sanctified sandals of St. Laurence O'Toole, and by
many a martyred prelate and priest of the sanguinary days of the
Tudors. Perhaps the first sounds that broke on the infant ears of
the future Archbishops were the peals of the campaniles of the twin
Cathedrals of St. Patrick and the Holy Trinity, whose shadows fell
athwart the family homestead, from the one at noonday, from the
other at eventide. The older pile was originally reared by St. Patrick
himself. In its crypt may yet be seen portions of the original struc-
ture, while many mementoes of the days when Catholicism was the
only faith of the land show in the larger pile which grew up around
the foundation that the holy hand of the great Apostle had laid.
In the days of Danish supremacy in Dublin the newer mass of the
Holy Trinity Cathedral sprang into being, as a memorial of the
piety of the Scandinavian monarch, Sitric. The rapacity of the
"Reformers" had wrested from Catholic hands both these beautiful
"poems in stone." And within a stone's throw of each are similar
proofs of the satire of the newer "evangelization." St. Audoen's
Church and tower are monuments of the piety of a foreign mer-
chant, it is said, who was shipwrecked on the estuary of the Liflfey,
and who in gratitude for his rescue devoted a fortune to their erec-
tion. So, too, the Church of St. Nicholas Within, in near by Patrick
street. The forgotten founder of this edifice left a fund for its main-
tenance, on condition that a Mass be ever afterward offered for the
repose of his soul, once a year, within its walls. The church is now
a ruin, but the bequest remains ; and on the disestablishment of the
Protestant Church in Ireland, thirty years ago, it came out that the
then incumbent, the Rev. Tresham Gregg, drew his salary of four
700 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
hundred pounds per annum from that bequest, although the church
had fallen into desuetude, on the plea that he had held a Protestant
service of some kind within the ruin once in every year since
he had come into enjoyment of the benefice, although prayers
for the dead were to clerics of his stamp a Popish supersti-
tion. The names of St. Bride and St. Werburgh suggest also the
reverence which in the older days of the City of the Pale was felt by
the inhabitants of this particular quarter. No Catholic can tread
this ground insensible to the sacred memories which make it hal-
lowed. We may be sure that they sank into the souls of the youths
who were destined in other lands to revive the glory of the old
faith, and fired them with the noble ambition of compensating in
some measure for the great wrong by which such beautiful temples
of the Most High were wrested from their proper purpose, by rear-
ing, under other skies, many a fane wherein the worship banned by
English law might be rendered by hearts still leal to the true Church
of Christ.
While the Protestant churches thus flourished in the borrowed
splendor of other days all around, in the same ambit the sanctuaries
of the Catholics existed only on sufferance. Mole-like they carried
on their office in obscure alleys, hidden by the surrounding factories
and dwellings of the poor. They were not honored with the title
of church. In the Puritan regime they were "Mass-houses" (with
a small m) ; when the period of toleration supervened, they were, by
a great stretch of liberality, designated "chapels." Catholics them-
selves, by force of usage, grew into the habit of so referring to
them. Thus we find Dr. Clarke, in his short sketch of Archbishop
Kenrick of Baltimore, stating that his uncle was "parish priest of
Francis Street Chapel." The proper description of the edifice is
"Church of St. Nicholas of Myra ;" and in Catholic days the street
on whose line it is situate received its full title of St. Francis street.
This curtailment of name of street and square became a universal
practice, in Dublin as in most other places where the "reformers"
had a strong footing. Bride street was originally "St. Bride's
street," Stephen's green "St. Stephen's green," Audoen's Arch "St.
Audoen's," Patrick street "St. Patrick's street." The great Abbey
of White Friars, said to have been founded in Dublin several cen-
turies before the Anglo-Norman invasion, was represented in those
days by a modest church walled in by a mask of high houses on
Aungier street in the front and Whitefriars street in the rear ; and
the principal approach to the edifice to the present day is through
a passage cut in these same houses (now tenanted by the Carmelite
community themselves) from Aungier street. The Church of St.
Michael and John was buried in a wretched little wynd called
The Tzvo Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 701
Smock alley; so, too, the neighboring Church of St. John the
Evangelist, familiarly known in that period and much later as
"Adam and Eve Chapel." These examples will serve to show the
spirit of the days of relaxed persecution. Not only was the Catholic
system held in contempt by the dominant spoilers, but Catholics
themselves, insensible to self-respect, accepted the contempt unmur-
muringly, content, apparently, that they were accorded the privi-
lege of a despised existence as a separate religious denomination.
This was the degeneration which caused the Protestant poet,
Thomas Davis, to write :
" No wonder that his step betrays
The freedman born in Penal days.''
Nor was it merely in material and inanimate things that the brand
of moral inferiority was thus sought to be permanently affixed upon
the vanquished downtrodden. All public and private life around
was redolent of insult and injustice to Catholics. They were de-
barred from citizen rights, they could not aspire to any public office.
They had to endure the galling wrong of taxation without repre-
sentation. Their vulgar-minded and implacable foes seized every
possible opportunity of taunting them on their overthrow and their
condition of serfdom. The name of Skinners' alley has been men-
tioned. It no longer exists, but in those days it was an unsavory
narrow thoroughfare which lay where Christ Church place now
opens up the view along Thomas street, and its chief claim to noto-
riety was the house of a fraternity called the "Aldermen of Skinners'
Alley." Antedating the Orange Society, the aims and principles of
these conspirators were precisely the same as those avowed by the
Ulster brotherhood. They held drunken carousals on all Williamite
anniversaries, and their headquarters on these occasions were
always the focus of riot and noisy demonstrations intended to insult
the Catholic population. They drank sulphurous toasts to the
downfall of Pope and Popery ; they marched in defiant procession,
decked with the flaunting emblems of bigotry, on Boyne anniver-
saries, down to the statue of King William on College green, and,
having decked it with festoons of orange lilies and streamers,
marched around it like bacchanals, to the clamor of fife and
drum. They lorded it in the Municipal Council, and squan-
dered the citizens' money without let or hindrance in these orgies of
insult.
Such was the condition of things which the Catholic community
in the Irish capital had to endure year after year down to the date
of the Emancipation Act ; and such on a smaller scale was it in the
lesser cities wherever the Ascendency party was numerous enough
to indulge in insult and outrage with impunity. In such an atmos-
702 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
phere, and right in the storm-centre of perennial persecution, was
the abode of the Kenrick family.
A difficult thing, one may well imagine, to cultivate, amid such
environments, the holy virtues of piety, charity, self-restraint and
love of one's neighbor. Yet this was precisely what the Kenrick
family did during many trying years. Only supernatural grace
could have enabled them to do it. And this grace, beyond all ques-
tion, was given to the two youths who were destined to plant the
flower, in due time, upon a far-off strange soil.
The fact that the orthography of the family name has seemed
doubtful to some who were familiar with it need not surprise any
reader, since variorum spellings of patronymics are common,
especially under Anglo-Saxon processes of adjustment. The name
would appear to be of Danish or Scottish origin, judging from its
modern form of presentation ; but it is unsafe to be guided by such
a rule. If the Kenricks had long been rooted in Dublin, it is highly
probable that they sprang from a Danish stock, since the Northmen
had obtained a firm foothold in the Irish capital and held it stead-
fastly for several centuries, even after their power was broken at
Clontarf. They became highly civilized, and developed not only
talents for commerce, but for the liberal arts, as may still be seen
by the noble structure of Christ Church Cathedral, as well as by
many interesting relics of their regime preserved in the Royal Irish
Academy. A large number of notable Dublin famihes trace their
origin to this period, and if that of the Kenricks were of the same
stock the fact would, so far from militating against their intellectual
claims or their patriotic standing, only strengthen the belief in the
benefits of an admixture of the strongest races in the development
of the highest physical and spiritual types. A process of mutation
has been going on in the spelling of family names ever since the
English language was introduced into Ireland and endeavored to
accommodate its characters to the different sounds and signs of the
Gaelic speech. Still it is hard to conceive how the change from
Kendrick, as sometimes spelt, to Kenrick could have taken place,
since the d is, in such a position as in this case, a forcible factor in the
determination of the sound, not to be eliminated by the natural
tendency to drop such letters as finals. Kendrick and Kenrick may
have been originally entirely distinct family names. Indeed genea-
logists might find a purely Irish derivation for Kenrick by tracing
its connection with the other Irish patronymic MacEnery, by pre-
suming that in course of time the common process of ellipsis had
worn away the first two letters of the Mac and left the strong final
consonant as the first and determining particle of the parent name.
This is notoriously the case with regard to many Irish names, such
The Two Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 703
as Guinness or Ginnis, evidently an abbreviation of Maclnnis or
Innes, Keever from Maclvor or Eever, and so on. There is in ex-
istence a couple of convincing proofs that even those connected
closely with this particular Kenrick family believed that the proper
orthography of the name included the d; and this fact starts the
query whether any members or branches of it had conformed to the
State religion in the penal days, for certain it is that at least one
Kendrick is found in that unfortunate position. This individual,
moreover, was one who had acquired a certain share of reflected
fame by his connection with immortal genius, and lives in biography,
although in most cases anonymously. It is known tliat during the
earlier part of the eighteenth century one Roger Kendrick was City
Surveyor to the city of Dublin, and afterwards Verger of St. Pat-
rick's Cathedral. He acted in the latter capacity to the famous Dr.
Jonathan Swift. When the Dean on a certain occasion had pre-
pared to address a congregation, he only found the official Verger
present. However, in no manner disconcerted, the witty Dean com-
menced his sermon with the words, "My dearly beloved Roger,"
and the discourse was rendered brief as the circumstances very
properly required.
This Roger Kendrick, however, appears to have had talents be-
yond the needs of a verger — in fact, had claims to a literary distinc-
tion of his own. Some years ago there lived in Werburgh street,
in Dublin, a curious antiquarian — one who combined archaeology
with commerce in a very prosaic way — Mr. Edward Evans. Like
the Scottish devotee, he might describe himself as cultivating the
Muses on oatmeal, since while his shelves upstairs were loaded with
the rarest literary treasures he dispensed meal and flour from behind
his counter to customers with the unaffected bonhomie of the gen-
uine philosopher. When Mr. Evans died his precious collection
was put under the auctioneer's hammer, and amongst the rare vol-
umes disposed of was a collection of Sir James Ware's works (Wal-
ter Harris' edition). In the catalogue of these was found the fol-
lowing note :
"The first volume ('History of the Bishops,' etc.) belonged to a
subscriber, Roger Kendrick, City Surveyor to the Corporation of
Dublin, and afterwards Verger of St. Patrick's Cathedral ; it con-
tains his autograph and numerous interesting MS. marginal notes
by him ; several of the subscribers are noted as being his friends ;
after Dean Swift's name is written : 'Under God, my best friend.*
It afterwards passed into the possession of the Ven. Archdeacon
Cotton (has his autograph), who made corrections in the addenda,
and it subsequently became the property of the present owner, who,
with great labour and research, compiled, as a supplement, in clearly
704 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
written MS., The Succession of the Roman CathoHc and Protestant
Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland from the Reformation to the
present time, with the Ecclesiastical Division of the Dioceses, Bio-
graphical Memoirs and Notices of the most distinguished Ecclesi-
astics, and an Index, thus rendering it a Unique Copy of the Work,
and an invaluable contribution to the Ecclesiastical History of Ire-
land."
The man who could claim Swift as "his best friend under God"
enjoyed a rare distinction, and if he were a real Kenrick it is to be
regretted that such an intellect was to be found on the side of those
who made the laws to oppress the more steadfast Kenricks and men
of like genius and fidelity, and scattered them all over the globe.
Thomas Kenrick, the father of the two famous prelates, lived
in No. 16 Chancery lane ; later on he kept a scrivener's office in
York street, a thoroughfare running eastward from Aungier
street to St. Stephen's green. It was at that day an exceedingly
select section, and, indeed, it has not very much deteriorated
since. The business of scrivener was an important and respect-
able one ; for all , legal documents were then required to be
copied by hand, to be rigidly correct in the minutest particular, fol-
lowing set legal formulae, and abounding in quaint Latin and Nor-
man-French phrases and abbreviations. In this office the two
youths successively spent several years before entering on their
clerical studies ; and it was here that the wonderfully gifted, "most
musical, most melancholy" Irish poet, James Clarence Mangan,
spent an apprenticeship which he seemed to regard as a kind of
Promethean fetterment. This may be gathered at least from an
article of his on the life of Dr. Petrie, the renowned archaeologist, in
whose company he afterwards spent several years in the Record
Office of Dublin. A true poet is a sort of unconsecrated priest —
though in his material life he may be the very antithesis of one, as
the world knows too well. Mangan seems to have had all the refine-
ment of the spiritual nature; but he possessed, unfortunately for
himself, that species of fatalistic melancholy against which the sacred
calling is, in sensitive and high-strung natures, the onl_y true shield
and antidote. His sublime gloom — worse by many degrees than
that of Byron — was intensified by poverty. He was compelled to
drudge at the scrivener's desk for the support of a helpless family ;
and to make his servitude all the more poignant, he had betaken
himself to the deadly solace of drink — some say opium besides.
The poet's plaint of this period when he felt, like Samson, "in brazen
fetters doomed to grind," is heartrending ; yet it compels the tribute
of sympathy and admiration, for in its deepest agony his spirit con-
fessed the hand of the Divinity and acknowledged his own lament-
The Two Kcnricks: TJieir Early Environment. 705
able weakness, as in the opening note of that cry of anguish, un-
matched since the psalter of Job, "The Nameless One" —
" Roll forth, my song, like a mighty river
That rushes along to the boundless sea :
God will uphold me while I deliver
My soul of thee."
Under all his trials and mental submersions Mangan carried the
rectitude of the Catholic heart. To his exemplary conduct in the
scrivener's office the late Archbishop of St. Louis, who had spent
some years there along with him, bore unqualified testimony in a
letter to Mr. John McCall, of Dublin, in October, 1877. His Grace
«aid:
"I knew James Mangan for several years very intimately, and
highly esteemed him for his talents and virtue. . . . After my
father's death, in 18 17, his office was continued for some years, in
which both Mangan and myself were engaged. The office was in
York street."
It was Father Francis Kenrick who continued the office for those
years. He conducted it for the benefit of the widow and children of
his brother. We may be sure that this holy priest would have no
one in his employment who was UMworthy of confidence and respect.
Great, then, must be the admiration felt for the gifted poet's char-
acter when he is found bearing up manfully with a condition which
was repugnant wholly with his aspirations, for the sake of those who
were cast helplessly on his hands. He was at this time a lad in his
teens, and the power of poetical expression which even at that early
age was his is indicated in those lines which he afterwards recalled
when penning his article on his departed friend, Dr. Petrie :
"O Genius ! Geniits ! all thou dost endure
First from thyself, and finally from those
The earth-bound and the blind, who cannot feel
That there be souls with purposes as pure
And lofty as the mountain snows, and zeal
All quenchless as the spirit whence it flows,
In whom that fire, struck like the spark from steel,
In other bosoms ever lives and glows.
Of such, thrice blest are they whom, ere mature
Life generate woes which God alone can heal, '
His mercy calls to a loftier sphere than this —
For the mind's conflicts are the i worst of woes : . , ;
And fathomless and fearful yawns the Abyss
Of Darkness thenceforth under all who inherit
That melancholy changeless hue of heart
Which flings its pale gloom o'er the years of youth,
Those most — or least — illumined by the spirit
Of the eternal archetype of Truth.
For such as those there is no peace within
Either in action or in contemplation,
From first to last— but even as they begin,
They close the dim night of their tribulation ;
Worn by the torture of the untiring breast.
Which, scorning all, and shunned of all, by turns,
Vol. XXV— Sig. 6.
7o6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
upheld in solitary strength begot
By its own unshared shroudedness of lot,
Through years and years of crushed hopes, throbs and burns,
And burns and throbs, and will not be at rest.
Searching a desolate Earth for that it findeth not.'
Although the aloes of disappointment permeates this rhadsody,
there is none of the misanthropy of the weary sensualist that cast
a pall over Byron's melancholy spells, as mirrored in "Manfred."
Hence when it is known that the intimacy between the elder Ken-
rick and Mangan was so close as to permit the one to learn German
from the other, there could be no fear that any distrust in God was
drunk in with the communion of ideas. Mangan was an enthusi-
astic student of German literature, and singularly well versed in the
language. His "German Anthology" is a living proof of his genius
in this regard, and his whole-souled sympathy with the spirit of Ger-
man poesy.
Father Kenrick, as already stated, carried on his brother's busi-
ness for the benefit of his widow, whose name was Jane. He did so
until the year 1825 (two years before his own demise), and though
there is no documentary or other authority for his reasons in resign-
ing it then, we may be sure that the necessity for continuing it had
quite ceased, for the business of scrivener was at that period, and for
many years after, both profitable and reputable. Hence those who
read the life of James Clarence Mangan will find it necessary to
fortify themselves against the wayward and lymphatic poet's morbid-
ness over this period of his career, lest they be led into doing a grave
injustice to the memory of an exemplary and most conscientious
priest. One would really think, from Mangan's tone, that he was
little more than such a drudge as Dickens painted in drawing the
character of Smike, toiling unconscionable hours in a dingy den for
the most jejune pittance. He left a blood-curdling account of the
moral tortures he underwent while earning his bread as a scrivener's
apprentice and afterwards as an attorney's hack, but these are de-
clared unreliable. The late Father Meehan, O. S. F., the eminent
historian of "The Franciscans in Ireland," and kindred makers of
ecclesiastical history, a personal friend of the poet's, questioned him
on the subject, and concluded the story was based on self-deception
or morbid fancy.
At the period when the two Kenricks began to receive their first
impressions of the meaning of life the atmosphere was redolent of
the spirit of heroism and sacrifice. At every Catholic fireside the
tale of persecution and chivalric resistance was told with emotion
and lingered over with pious delight. The daring of the priests in
the crucial times when hunters like the Portuguese Jew, Garcia,
made it a regular business to set and capture them by means of ma-
The Two Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 707
chinery resembling somewhat that of Pinkerton's agency of our own
day, was the theme of many a fireside story. The Unitarian his-
torian, John Mitchell, pays a tribute to the steadfast heroism of the
priesthood, amid that storm of savagery, which brings it vividly be-
fore the mind's eye: "In truth," he says, "the ardent zeal and con-
stancy, utterly unknown to fear, of the Irish Catholic priests during
that whole century" (the eighteenth) "are as admirable in the eyes
of all just and impartial men as they were abominable and mon-
strous in the eyes of the Protestant interest. They often had to
traverse the sea between Ireland and France in fishing smacks, and
disguised as fishermen, carrying communications to or from Rome,
required by the laws of their Church, though they knew that on
their return, if discovered, the penalty was the penalty of high trea-
son— that is, death. When in Ireland, they had often to lurk in
caves and make fatiguing journeys, never sure that the priest-hunt-
ers were not on their trail ; yet all this they braved with a courage
which, in any other cause, would have been reckless desperation.
The English colonists could not comprehend such chivalrous devo-
tion at all, and could devise no other theory to account for it than
that these priests must be continually plotting with foreign Catholics
to overthrow the Protestant interest and plunder them of their
newly-gotten estates. This was the secret terror that always urged
them to fresh atrocities."
Nor were the Muse's favors limited, in that unlikely old precinct
of Dublin, to the eccentric children of genius, Swift and Mangan.
Not very far off, in Aungier street, the more fortunate child of
song, Thomas Moore, first saw the light a few years before the latten
The house in which Mangan came into the world almost faced
Hoey's court, wherein Swift first drew breath. Probably not more
than twenty or thirty yards' length separated the two. Moore's birth-
place was a few hundred yards away. It was a grocery store, and
so was the Mangans' place. But Moore's parents were prosperous,
while the other poet's were the reverse. Moore got the best educa-
tion that Trinity College could give, while his less fortunate but
more gifted brother of the lyre was fain to be contented with what-
ever odd learning he could pick up outside the parish school.
Mangan's patriotism, if we may judge from his writings in the Na-
tion and the impassioned spirit of some of his poems, was more ster-
ling and deep-seated than that of the "curled darling" of the Irish
aristocracy, Thomas Moore. The lines in which it found expression
flowed from the soul of one who had nought to gain by the iambics
which attuned an individual melancholy to a nation's threnody of
bereavement. But it had no share in the formation of patriotism
in the mind of Francis Patrick Kenrick, inasmuch as he never knew
7o8 N;-^- American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
Mangan personally. The times in which his youthful mind found
expansion would be likely to infuse in him a spirit of defiance and
revolt without any external stimulus. His infant ears may have
been pierced with those sounds which filled O'Connell's heart with
dread of a further appeal to physical resistance to the powers that
were in Ireland. Born within bowshot of the Castle-keep of
Dublin, the cries of the men tortured at the triangles in its court-
yards must have fallen upon his undiscerning ear, and were he ever
taken abroad by parent or nurse, his wondering eyes might have
fastened with instinctive shuddering upon tthe phenomenon of a
crimson tinge in the street gutters — the sickening token of slaughter
in the public ways which impelled the Lord Lieutenant's wife to im-
plore her husband to put a stop to the daily butchery of Irish patriots
in Thomas street and the adjoining thoroughfares upon the defeat
of the insurgents of '98. He was ten years old when the mad at-
tempt of young Emmet was quenched in blood, and then, surely,
he must have received a vivid impression of the meaning of English
rule in his native land and the fate of those who dared to oppose it.
His youthful ears must have drunk in the thrilling story of that
daring enthusiast ; he may have heard his voice thundering out its
notes of defiance to Norbury in the courthouse across the river ; per-
chance he was one of those who caught a glimpse of his bearing on
the scaffold and saw the dogs lap his blood below after the execu-
tioner had got through his ghastly work. We cannot tell ; yet we
are free to surmise that such moving incidents had their effect,
either from the actual beholding or the recital, upon the sympathetic
spirit of the embryo patriot and churchman, from the intensity of
his devotion to the cause of his country in his youthful days and his
abhorrence of the cruel system which doomed her brightest and
her best to ignominy in quiescence or torture and death if they
dared to assert the spirit of freemen. All the environment was redo-
lent of this spirit : futile resistance, imprescriptible oppression, were
written upon the very stones of the streets and the fabrics which
sprang up around. On the spikes of the Castle gates grinned the
skulls of those whom the English called traitors then as in the days
of Shane the Proud ; the Birmingham Tower, close by, showed
from whence the gallant boy-princes, O'Neill and O'Donnell, had
sought release from English thraldom at the risk of their lives.
Across the street, at Cork-hill, stood the house at which Lord Ma-
guire and the leaders of the revolt of 1641 planned their abortive
attack on the stronghold of British power in Ireland ; a few hundred
yards away, off Thomas street, was the building in which Emmet
planned his assault and piled up his munitions of war ; close by was
the spot, opposite St. Catherine's Church, where he paid with his
The Two Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 709
life the ransom of his bold attempt ; a few yards further and the pa-
triot came upon the house in which the gallant Geraldine, Lord
Edward, was trapped by the red-coated hunters and fell like a sol-
dier. The spirit of Swift and Molyneux and Lucas still hovered
over the old Council Chamber on the brow of the Castle hill ; the
burning periods of Grattan thrilled the atmosphere beyond the
walls of that legislative fabric soon to become a temple of the money-
changers. The mute memorials of a defeated but unsubdued na-
tionality were all around ; and the air was vibrant with tokens of its
returning life. Back lane, where the sturdy Catholic Committee
had voiced its vitality so often, under the leadership of John Keogh,
was within a stone's throw of the Kenrick home. The fearless
Daniel O'Connell was speaking with a Stentor's voice in denuncia-
tion of the immeasurable wrong which at once stifled the religious
liberty of his countrymen and their civil freedom.
Gloomy apprehensions had pictured the melancholy results
which must follow the Act of Union : a lowering of the moral pres-
tige of the nation must be accompanied with material losses to its
arts, its industries and its commerce. More swiftly than had been
anticipated these forebodings were borne out by the event. The
withdrawal of the nobility and Parliamentary representatives to
London had almost instantly brought ruin to many Dublin mer-
cantile firms. That city had long been enriched by the almost con-
stant presence of a rich and prodigal aristocracy, luxurious in its
tastes and full of rivalry in display of equipage and retinue. At one
blow all the arts and industries of which this proud society was the
pillar were stricken down. The great mansions of the nobles, both
in town and country, were shut up or devoted to sordid uses, while
their owners drained the country of vast sums of money in the
shape of rent, to be squandered in London or on the European
Continent. Within a few years of the passage of the Union meas-
ure a very large proportion of the mercantile houses of the metropo-
Hs, which had been in prosperous circumstances while Parliament
sat there, had filed petitions in bankruptcy. The public debt of the
country had increased in inverse ratio to the falling-off in its re-
sources. While it had stood at only a little over two million
pounds before the Union, in four years' time after that event it had
mounted up to the enormous total of more than fifty-four millions.
Imports of manufactured articles from England began at the same
time to drive those of Ireland out of the home market, by reason
of their lower price, though inferior quality. Despite this decreas-
ing exchequer, the screw of taxation succeeded in drawing greatly
enhanced sums from the pockets of the people, so that the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer was enabled to make a cynical jest about
710 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the prosperity of the country as indicated by his increased receipts,
while in the very same year he was obHged to bring in a bill for the
relief of the people whom Pitt's policy had rendered homeless and
penniless public burdens. Little wonder that the whole island was
seething with discontent when it found itself thus cajoled, deceived
and betrayed, or that the Ministry found itself unable to proceed
without recurring again and again to the time-worn panacea for
every Irish ill, a fresh Coercion Act.
All through these years of multiplying evils the religious diffi-
culty grew more and more in tension and menace to the public
peace. Far from finding relief from the United Parliament, as Pitt
and Castlereagh had promised, the Irish Catholics found only an
intensified persecution. That nefarious institution, the Orange So-
ciety, was encouraged openly in its war of aggression upon Ulster
Catholics and obstruction of every concession sought for the gen-
eral body by the liberal-minded few in Parliament. Arms were
furnished the lodges from the governmental arsenals ; agents of the
Government were sent down from Dublin to organize lodges in dis-
tricts where none had existed, and to excite animosity against the
Catholic residents. These things are vouched for by the impartial
Protestant historian, Mr. Plowden. When the Catholic Commit-
tee organized a movement for redress it was met by the odious de-
vice known as the Convention Act, a measure ostensibly directed
against revolutionary purposes, but in reality intended to extinguish
the constitutional rights of public meeting and free speech — in Ire-
land only — for no such procedure would be tolerated in any other
part of the United Kingdom. This tyrannical instrument was in-
voked at the first moment that the Catholic agitation became trou-
blesome; under its provisions the Catholic Committee was sup-
pressed and two of its leading members — Dr. Sheridan and Mr.
Kirwan — were prosecuted, tried before a packed jury, and, as a
matter of course, condemned.
Now to every one of these occurrences the active mind of young
Kenrick must have been painfully directed. They were the subject
of discussion everywhere — by the family fireside, in the public mart,
in the coffee houses, often in the pulpit. Is it matter for wonder
that a young and ardent temperament like his should have been
stirred to its depths by sympathy with the victims of so much
wrong? More sluggish spirits had been stirred to action against
it ; finer natures like his quivered under its galling provocation.
If any outside student of historical development ever imagined
that the relaxation of the more odious enforcement of the penal
laws meant justice or leniency to the Catholic population, he labored
under an egregious error. If priest-hunting had ceased, the prac-
The Tzvo Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 711
tice of ostracism, public and private, reigned in unrestricted
acerbity. But there was more than ostracism : there was no redress
for injury for a CathoHc against a non-Catholic. The statute of
Kilkenny, which declared it no crime to kill one of "the Irishry,"
had been, it is true, repealed ; but there was a law not less effective
because not on the statute-book which forbade twelve men in a jury
box from allowing a Papist the benefits of the British Constitution.
The means by which this frustration of Magna Charta was secured
is simplicity itself. It is the science of jury-packing. The Crown
claims the right of unlimited challenge in all important trials ; for
the words, "Stand aside," at the calling of any particular juror's
name it is not called upon to give any reason. On the other hand,
the right of the accused to challenge is limited to a few without any
reason assigned, and to a few more for cause shown — even in cases
of high treason and treason-felony. That system flourishes in Ire-
land to the present day, although it was held up to the odium of
the whole civilized world when it passed under the review of the
three Law Lords of the British House of Peers in the famous ap-
peal of Daniel O 'Council and his fellow- traversers against the
Crown in the year 1844. Notwithstanding the solemn ruling of
Lord Denman and his fellow peers, that O'Connell's conviction was
illegal, because the system of trial by jury in Ireland, as illustrated
in that particular case, was "a mockery, a delusion and a snare,"
that system still flourishes in all its pristine vigor, although it may
not perhaps be so frequently called into requisition for Govern-
mental purposes as it was in the days when Francis Patrick Ken-
rick began to observe the lurid phenomena of Irish politics. At
the present time the evil is even more flagrant than it was in those
days, because then no Catholic could possibly have a chance of
serving on a jury, but now religion is no longer a bar against this
class of citizen duty, and the odium of the "Stand aside" mandate,
whenever it is heard in public court, is all the more reproachful to
the shameless official who makes a bid for legal promotion or judi-
cial position by resorting to it at the behest of the Government.
Against this monstrous distortion of law the scathing invective of
O'Connell was frequently heard clamoring in the early days of the
past century. Political trials were frequent, and murder according
to legal forms was perpetrated at almost every assize. It was a
period when the power of the press was beginning to make itself
felt. It was the day especially of pamphleteering. Ireland had been
long conspicuous for successful resort to the pamphlet. Molyneux,
Lucas and Swift — especially Swift — had had resort to this political
weapon with deadly effect. While young Kenrick was in the
chrysalis state of his intellect, between boyhood and adolescence,
712 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
some memorable pamphlets were circulated, and some memora-
ble trials sprang out of their diffusion. One of these pamphlets had
its origin in the trial and execution of a farmer named Barry on a
trumped-up charge by a flagrantly packed jury. It was published
by the well-known printer and bookseller, Hugh Fitzpatrick, of
Capel street, Dublin ; and the kernel of the offense charged was that
it gave, besides the evidence establishing the complete innocence of
the murdered man, a summary of the despotic laws under which the
Irish Catholics groaned. The prosecutor in this case, as well as in
a still more exciting one, that of the Crown v. Magee, an action for
libel by the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Richmond, against the
proprietor of the Evening Post, was Saurin, descendant of a French
Huguenot refugee — an extremely rancorous partisan and Govern-
ment hack. O'Connell defended both men, but he never hoped for
a successful defense. Both were convicted and paid a monstrously
heavy penalty in fine and imprisonment. But he took such a
course as fastened the eyes of the world on the iniquity of the sys-
tem under which his clients were victimized. He assailed the At-
torney-General, the presiding Lord Chief Justice and the system of
jury-packing with a boldness that stupefied every listener. He de-
fied the jury to render a just verdict: they must be false to their
oaths as Orangemen and false to their party if they elected to be
true to the oaths they had taken as jurors to try the case without
"fear, favor or affection." Thousands listened spellbound to his
daring philippic; the crowd outside the Four Courts passed the
lacerating sentences along as they fell from the intrepid orator's
lips to the vaster crowds outside, and they were sped on the wings of
the wind over the whole city ere they found their way into the press.
O'Connell's voice was the only agency in those days by means of
which the national spirit was kept alive. That dark and melan-
choly epoch, depicted by Curran as the time when "Ireland, like a
bastinadoed elephant, knelt at the feet of its rider," presented all the
tokens of national death. The rebellion had been drowned in the
blood of the people, and hope had fled with life.
Perhaps some clue to the aversion with which Francis Patrick
Kenrick regarded O'Connell is to be found in the change which
occurred in the latter's views on the subject of a salaried Irish
clergy later on. This change estranged a good many of those who
had formerly supported the Liberator with voice and purse.
Among others it aroused in the formidable "J. K. L." the warmth
of righteous anger, as will be seen by this extract from a speech
delivered by him at a meeting in Carlow in the year 1825 : "What
my opinion was I declared in London to my right reverend breth-
ren ; I repeated it since in Dublin : that if the prelates were led to-
The Two Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 713
approve of a provision emanating from the Treasury — if the min-
isters of Christ were to be paid by the ministers of State for dis-
pensing the mysteries of God — then in that case I would not create
dissension among them ; but sooner than that my hand should be
soiled by it, I would lay down my office at the feet of him who con-
ferred it, for if my hand were to be stained with Government money
it should never grasp a crozier, or a mitre ever afterwards be fitted
to my brow. This was, and is, my fixed determination."
In Dr. Clarke's sketch of Francis Patrick Kenrick it is set forth
that he learned his lifelong lesson of firmness in upholding the lib-
erty of the Church, together with the virtue of meekness in suffer-
ing, from the example of the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius VII. Re-
leased from a long captivity in France by the event of Waterloo.,
that illustrious Pope had returned to Rome about the time when
young Kenrick was commencing his clerical studies, and there was
joy throughout the whole Catholic world, combined with pride in
the heroism with which he had resisted every effort of Bonaparte's
to bend the Papacy to his worldly ambition. But in Ireland this
feehng was tempered with disappointment that a similar firmness
had not been shown with regard to a design by no means less ne-
farious on the part of the British Government to gain the Papal
consent to a legislative measure by means of which the British
Crown would acquire the determining voice in the election of Cath-
olic bishops, by the exercise of the veto. While the Pope was a
prisoner in Bonaparte's hands his Pontifical authority was dele-
gated, for certain purposes, to Monsignor Quarantotti ; and it was
for Ireland a most unfortunate circumstance that such was the case,
inasmuch as the views of Catholic Ireland and those of the Dele-
gate were on matters of high policy diametrically opposite. The
Sovereign Pontiff was in ignorance of the real state of opinion on
the matter, so that when he emerged from durance he was easily
led by the artful whisperings of English Catholic emissaries de-
spatched by the Government to lend some sanction to what had
already been done by Monsignor Quarantotti. It would be difficult
to conceive of any course more likely to be exasperating to a people
who had fought for the faith so tenaciously as the Irish did, than
that proposed by this weak and pliable Monsignor. His language,
no less than his action, was obsequious and humiliating. In the
Rescript announcing the dishonorable proposal he surrendered
everything for which the Papacy, during many centuries, had suc-
cessfully battled with the English Crown. He said, amongst other
things : "It is better, indeed, that the prelates of our Church should
be acceptable to the King, in order that they may exercise their
ministry with his full concurrence, and also that there may be no
714 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
doubts of their integrity, even with those who are not in the bosom
of the Church. For 'it behoveth a bishop' (as the Apostle teaches,
I. Tim. iii., 7) 'even to have a good witness from those who are not
of the Church.' Upon these principles we, in virtue of the authority
intrusted to us, grant permission that those who are elected to and
proposed for bishoprics and deaneries by the clergy may be admit-
ted or rejected by the King, according to the law proposed. . . .
If the candidates be rejected, others shall be proposed who may be
acceptable to the King; but if approved of, the Metropolitan or
Vicar- Apostolic, as above, shall send the documents to the Sacred
Congregation here, the members whereof, having duly weighed the
merits of each, shall take measures for the obtainment of canonical
institution from His Holiness. . . . Another duty is assigned
to the board . . , that they are charged to inspect all letters
written by the ecclesiastical power to any of the British clergy, and
examine carefully whether they contain anything which may be
injurious to the Government, or anywise disturb the public tran-
quility. Inasmuch as communication on ecclesiastical or spiritual
affairs with the Head of the Church is not forbidden, and as the in-
spection of the board relates to political subjects only, this also must
be submitted to. It is right that the Government should not have
cause to entertain any suspicion with regard to the communication
between us. . . . Those matters only are to be kept under the
seal of silence which pertain to the jurisdiction of conscience within
us. . . . We are perfectly convinced that so wise a Govern-
ment as that of Great Britain, while it studies to provide for the
public security, does not on that account wish to compel the Cath-
olics to desert their religion, but would rather be pleased that they
should be careful observers of it. For our holy and truly divine
religion is most favorable to public authority, is the best support of
thrones and the most powerful teacher both of loyalty and patriot-
ism."
This was a project which the Irish people at large stigmatized as
an attempt to make a bishop a surpliced dragoon and a priest a
policeman in the confession box. In the long course of the coun-
try's connection with Rome nothing ever occurred that went so
dangerously near imperilling the stability of the tie. The Irish
bishops and clergy, almost to a man, declared their hostility to it.
The hierarchy held a meeting, put their sentiments on the subject
on paper, in the shape of a strongly worded remonstrance, and
despatched it, by the hands of Dr. Murray, coadjutor to the Arch-
bishop of Dublin, to lay it at the feet of the Holy Father. But the
protest was disregarded, for the English faction at Rome was then
powerful, and the Pope had not had sufficient opportunity, since
The Two Kenricks: Their Early Environment. 715
his liberation, to look into the true merits and significance of the
question. Dr. Murray (afterwards a warm friend of young Ken-
rick's) returned to Dublin with his tidings of evil, and the assembled
prelates having heard the message, again formulated their solemn
warning, this time in stronger phraseology still. They said :
"Though we sincerely venerate the venerable Pontiff as visible
head of the Church, we do not conceive that our apprehensions
ought to be removed by any determination of His Holiness adopted,
or intended to be adopted, not only without our concurrence, but in
direct opposition to our repeated resolutions and the very energetic
memorial presented on our behalf, and so ably supported by our
deputy, the Very Rev. Dr. Murray, who in that quality was more
competent to inform His Holiness of the real state and interest of
the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland than any other with whom
he is said to have consulted."
This outspoken resolution was signed by every one of the bishops,
and Dr. Murray was again despatched to Rome, this time accom-
panied by Dr. Moylan, of Cork. Meantime a vehement agitation
against the veto burst out all over the country, led at first by Daniel
O'Connell and afterwards by the fearless "J. K. L." — the Bishop of
Kildare and Leighlin, Right Rev. Dr. Doyle. The opponents of
the veto triumphed in the end, but not without a long struggle. We
may be confident that young Kenrick was fully alive to all that was
going on around him at this dangerous crisis ; and if he chose Pope
Pius Vn. as his model of constancy in after life, it would be un-
reasonable to think that over this particular episode he took it as a
safe or judicious example in dealing with questions into which he
had not had the advantage of personally informing himself.
Justice demands, ere this episode be dismissed, that Monsignor
Quarantotti should be held blameless as to the birth of the veto
idea. Both in Mr. Plowden's History and the Rev. Father Bren-
nan's "Ecclesiastical History of Ireland" the blame is laid at the
door of the English Prime Minister, William Pitt. Lord Castle-
reagh was made the medium of the negotiation. In the year 1799
ten of the Irish bishops, constituting the Board of Maynooth Col-
lege, held an official meeting in Dublin to consider a proposal from
the Government of a State endowment to all the Catholic bishops,
the quid pro quo to be acceptance of the veto rule. Besides this
tempting ofifer, Lord Castlereagh, according to Father Brennan,
gave solemn assurances that the acceptance of the Government's
proposals would immediately secure a measure of emancipation for
the Catholic population, and on the decision the fate of that great
national question depended. "Thus beset," says Father Brennan,
"by the proffers of the Minister on the one hand and by the alarm-
7i6 American Catholic Quarterly Rcznezv.
ing posture of the country on the other, the bishops already alluded
to agreed *that in the appointment of Roman Catholic prelates to
vacant sees within the Kingdom such interference of Government
as may enable it to be satisfied of the loyalty of the person appointed
is just, and ought to be agreed to.' This statement was accom-
panied with an admission 'that a provision, through Government,
for the Roman Catholic clergy of this Kingdom, competent and
secured, ought to be thankfully accepted.' " Dr. Troy, Archbishop
of Dublin, was one of those who agreed to this resolution, also the
Primate, Dr. O'Reilly, of Armagh, as well as Dr. Moylan, of Cork.
The transaction was kept secret for eleven years, and before the
disclosure was made several of the prelates who signed the resolu-
tion had put their hands to another declaring it to be inexpedient
to introduce any alteration in the canonical mode previously ob-
served in the nomination of the Irish Catholic bishops.
It is easy, therefore, to believe that Monsignor Quarantotti had
been led into a mistake about the disposition of the Irish bishops on
the one hand regarding the proposed veto, and of the Government
on the other regarding the question of Catholic emancipation. The
eminent Dr. Milner was quoted in Parliament as having sanctioned
the ofifer of the veto, but he published a letter stating that he had na
authority to sanction such an offer. It remains still unexplained
from what quarter emanated the idea that such a proposal might find
acceptance at the hands of the Irish hierarchy — possibly one of the
numerous secret agents of William Pitt.
Looking back at this whole veto incident, pregnant as it was with
evil potentialities to the whole Church, not merely in Ireland,
but throughout the world at large, it is difficult to escape the con-
clusion that its origin is to be traced to a design to rend the Church
by schism, and so destroy it, rather than to a political motive. Such
a suspicion did it certainly generate in the quick and penetrating
mind of Edmund Burke. That great thinker, who had never fal-
tered in effort for the emancipation of the Catholics, thus master-
fully portrayed the fallacies of the idea and the mischief it was likely
to develop in case it were carried into effect, in his public "Letter
to a Peer :" "Never were the members of one religious sect fit to
appoint pastors to another. Those who have no regard for their
welfare, reputation, or internal quiet will not appoint such as are
proper. The Seraglio of Constantinople is as equitable as we are,
and where their own sect is concerned, fully as religious ; but the
sport which they make of the miserable dignities of the Greek
Church, the factions of the Harem, to which they make them sub-
servient, the continual sale to which they expose and re-expose the
same dignity, and by which they squeeze all the inferior orders of
The Tzi'o Kcnricks: Their Early Environment. 717
the clergy, is nearly equal to all the other oppressions together ex-
ercised by Mussulmen over the unhappy members of the Oriental
Church. It is a great deal to suppose that the present Castle would
nominate bishops for the Roman Church of Ireland with a religious
regard for its welfare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they dare not
do it." To Dr. Hussey, Bishop of Waterford, Burke also wrote :
"I am sure that the constant meddling of your bishops and clergy
with the Castle, and the Castle with them, will infallibly set them ill
with their own body. All the weight which the clergy have hitherto
had to keep the people quiet will be wholly lost if this once should
happen. At best you will have a masked schism, and more than one
kind, and I am greatly mistaken if this is not intended, and diligently
■and systematically pursued.''
It is little wonder that clear-seeing Catholics should have op-
posed the veto proposition, when fair-minded Protestants Hke
Burke saw in it so frightful a menace to the Church and society.
Among the most strenuous and uncompromising opponents of the
proposition was Bishop England. The warmth of the relations
between this distinguished prelate and young Kenrick warrants the
assumption that amongst the views which were held in common
between them were those regarding the veto and its mischiefs. In
the vigorous attitude assumed by Bishop Kenrick in regard to the
trustee trouble in the Philadelphia Diocese we can discern his senti-
ments regarding the idea of lay control, whether by the State or the
individual, over ecclesiastical interests and action. In the trustee
system he encountered the veto practically in action, only under an-
other name. This was how Bishop Hughes regarded it, as we may
learn from the text of his vigorous denunciations of the abuse of
the system, and the measures he took to neutralize the evil. The
Bishop saw no outcome but heresy and schism if the trustee system
were not checked or modified. It differed from the veto, therefore,
only in design ; its operation was precisely that which Burke antici-
pated in the passage above italicized.
All through his life love of his native land was a marked char-
acteristic of Dr. Kenrick. Patriotism in him was inseparable from
faith and virtue ; it could have, indeed, no real existence without
the one or the other. In the priest patriotism differs from the
estimate of it formed by the layman, in very many cases. Though
it be a shining virtue, its briUiancy is derived from the supernal
light of faith and the constant communion with God which is the
exalted privilege of the priest. In the perforrnance of his sacred
duty, in whatsoever region of the globe his lot may be cast, he per-
<:€ives the first and most imperative service he is called upon to ren-
der on earth ; and it is in the fulfilment of that grateful office that he
7i8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
finds the solace and satisfaction which soften the asperity of pro-
longed exile and severance of all the ties that make home and
fatherland so cherished of all other men. Whithersoever God calls
is the true priest's land ; and it is this fact which explains the phe-
nomena so often witnessed of a dual loyalty in operation among the
Catholic priesthood in the United States — an enthusiastic devotion
to the flag and the Constitution of their adopted country, and an
undying interest in the fortunes and interests of the land of their
nativity. Hence in the exercise of his sacred office, either as priest
or bishop, Francis Patrick Kenrick saw no lines of nationality or
ethnology. All men were alike to him — brethren in Christ. Many
races marched under the banners of the Crusaders, but they forgot
not their own particular nationality. The charity of the priest must
be larger still. He recognizes no foes, even among those against
whom he is bound to fight. Mahometan and Buddhist alike appeal
to his humanity and his charity, as well as fellow-Christian.
All those who were brought into close contact with Francis Pat-
rick Kenrick, either as priest or as prelate, were profoundly struck
by one great distinguishing characteristic. It is one that may be
described as sui generis. Unquestioning faith is the inherent attri-
bute of the Irish race, as a general rule. This faith takes the form
of a childlike trust in God as well as a profound reverence for the
truths of God and the things of His ministry. That faith was pos-
sessed by this typical Irishman in a pre-eminent degree. It shone
translucently in his every act of life. There never lived a man who
more implicitly trusted in God, placed his fate in His divine hands,
or sought His guidance in the important things of life, than he.
This sublime confidence was reflected in the cheerful glance of his
eye, the turn of his speech, the kindly intonation of his voice.
Every step he took in the planting and development of Church and
seminary was marked by a sense of confidence begotten of the con-
sciousness of support from on high. God had been called upon to
light his human way, and God had not failed to answer in His own
mysterious way. He needed all the strength derivable from such a
sustaining source, for trials lay before him, and tasks were set for
his hands to accomplish as great, perhaps, as had fallen to the lot of
any individual priest or prelate since the early days of the Church.
This perfection of Christian faith was not a plant of slow growth
in the case of either of the Kenricks. It was a family heritage. It
manifested itself in the early instruction of the two children by their
devout parents and in the responsive acceptance by their youthful
minds of the truths of religion as naturally as the blessing of the
sunshine and the balmy airs of heaven. That most beautiful at-
tribute when seen in early boyhood, an ardent and unaffected
The Two Kenricks: Their Early Environment, 719
piety and a natural inclination toward the things of God and His
Church, exhibited itself in both cases in a singular degree — so
much so, indeed, that both were enrolled in a purgatorian sodality
almost from infancy, and so little difference existed between their
respective conceptions of their duty and responsibility as members
of this spiritual band, although a nine years' interval separated their
ages, that when Francis Patrick relinquished his place in the sodal-
ity on leaving for Rome, his brother was, notwithstanding his ex-
treme youth, promoted to the vacant place. At this time they were
respectively only eighteen and nine years of age ! Boys rarely
develop devotion so deep in very early years. They may be ex-
emplary and attentive to what they are taught as' articles of faith,
but as a rule their minds are not deeply impressed with the pro-
founder mysteries of the communion of saints, nor is the symmetry
of the whole sublime edifice of salvation perceptible to the mind's
eye as in a maturer period. It may be accepted as a certain token of
the higher destiny when the tender mind of youth is thus illumi-
nated by the rays of a faith which in other minds demands cultiva-
tion and a rationalizing process for the thorough comprehension of
its logical basis. Only those famihar with Irish ideals can imagine
with what joy the parents of children so blessed observe the symp-
toms of a religious vocation as they are thus gradually unfolded;
and especially keen must be the delight and gratitude when such
symptoms are not confined to one member of the family. To have
given children to God is indeed the crowning delight of an Irish
mother and the highest blessing that could be brought to any
household, high or low.
This simple, abiding, absolute faith exists nowhere stronger than
in Ireland. It has a royal virtue in it — like the glorious sun, which
shines not for itself alone, but sheds its blessings over a whole
mighty system. The faith of the Irish has made faith in many
others, by merely beholding the sincerity and completeness of it
Subtle and magical must its influence be when it could make a mind
like Montalembert's turn from its paths of cynical unbelief and con-
fess the beauty and the power of a loving reliance on God. No
agency was more decisive in bringing about Newman's conversion
than the eflfect of Catholic faith on the people who professed it.
How deeply he must have been impressed with the continuous, all-
environing proofs of that faith which he saw while he sojourned in
Ireland ! If ever a scintilla of lingering doubt floated back on the
waves of introspection, the entire abandonment of self in the wor-
ship of God which ckme under his eyes daily during his residence
in the Green Isle must have annihilated it.
In his Apologia (part vii.) he says : "People say that the doctrine
720 American Catholk Quarterly Reviezv.
of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe ; I did not believe the
doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it as
soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle
of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the
original revelation. It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant —
but how is it difficult to believe ? Yet Macaulay thought it so dif-
ficult to believe that he had need of a believer in it of talents as
eminent as Sir Thomas More before he could bring himself to con-
ceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist 'the over-
whelming force of the argument against it.' 'Sir Thomas More,'
he says, 'is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue ; and
the doctrine of Transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A
faith which stands that test will stand any test.' But for myself, I
cannot indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, 'Why
should it not be ? What's to hinder it ? What do I know of sub-
stance or matter ? Just as much as the greatest philosophers, and
that is nothing at all.' "
The Irish imagination certainly is equal to the requirement deem-
ed impossible by this great divine, although it might be impossible
to narrow down the conception or the idea to the terms of a proposi-
tion or a formula. Had Newman been an Irishman he need not
have penned the confession of such an inability.
Another denotement of vocation of the two Kenricks was the
faculty of receptivity. In the acquirement of knowledge and the
desire of learning all things necessary for the life of the priest
Francis Patrick Kenrick early displayed an aptitude and an earnest-
ness which singled him out among his schoolmates.
He was only eighteen when he received the glad news that he was
one of those selected to go to Rome to study at the far-famed
Propaganda College. Fired with the prospect of drinking in learn-
ing at the fountain-head, of studying amidst the tombs of the Apos-
tles, of imbibing from the wisdom of all nations and ages stored in
the great libraries of the Church, of treading the ground sanctified
by the footsteps of the martyrs and confessors of the early days, he
started full of the noblest ambitions and enthusiasms. ii€ came in
the days in which the Church was jubilant with the awakening from
the long nightmare of French persecution, Pius the Seventh had
been restored to his long-bereaved people and capital, and the
breath of freedom once more blew over Rome. The gentle bearing
of the much-tried Pontiff made an indelible impression on the mind
of the young Levite. The meekness and humility of the Divine
Master were reflected in the spirit in which His Vicegerent had met
persecution, and the constancy of the martyrs in the front he had
shown to all the overtures of Bonaparte to lower the Church to the
The Tzi'o Kcnricks: Their Early Environment. 721
status of a dependent portion of his civil system. These two les-
sons sank into the heart of the young student. They gave him
those ideals of conduct which in after-life were to exercise so pow-
erful an influence on his own career and the fortunes of the then
infant Church in the New World.
The years of study at the Propaganda for young Kenrick were
the span of Jacob's first service to Laban. In that span he had
made himself famous. He had won renown as a scholar ; he had
gained a reputation for sanctity never surpassed by any student.
Tried in the crucible for the sacred ministry, his assay had been
made and the purity of the metal demonstrated. But he was seen
to be the possessor of more than learning and sanctity : the discern-
ing eye of Rome had noted in him those qualities which make lead-
ers in the Church, the mind to conceive, the genius to plan, the pa-
tience to endure, and the charity to conquer. These were precisely
the qualities that were needed in the new spheres where the pros-
pects for the Church were beginning to unfold themselves before
the eyes of her holy ambition. There came, at that moment, a call
for help from the new field. Bishop Flaget, of Kentucky, was in
sore need of some help in his mission, especially in the department
of theology in his newly-established seminary. Father Kenrick
had passed brilliantly in this branch. Though he had gained high
honors in the department of science, his courses in sacred literature,
especially theology, had been uncommonly distinguished; he was
an exceptionally successful competitor, indeed, in every branch of
clerical study — philosophy, literature, languages, science — and to
these gifts of intellect he added the advantages of acumen, resolu-
tion, ready wit and that unfailing cheerfulness of disposition which
is the characteristic of the mind whose whole trust is in God and is
prepared to do whatever it recognizes as the Divine will at all times
and under all temporal conditions. There is in the texture of the
Irish mind a peculiar fitness for the study and mastery of theology
and scholastic philosophy. A proof that it is not only capable
of mastering the principles of analysis, but of the synthetical art
as well, is afiforded in the case of the famous doctor, Scotus Erigena,
whose scheme was so grand and daring as to elicit from Dr. Erd-
mann, of Halle, a comparison between the brilliant Irishman and
the Emperor Charlemagne: both created mighty empires doomed
to perish with their own lives. Though it remained for the Angelic
Doctor to blend harmoniously the principles of mediaeval philosophy
with the truths of the ancient school, the Irish doctor had grasped
the idea not less boldly, though he failed to work it out on terms
acceptable to Christian scholasticism. The Celtic spirit is indeed
by nature attuned to the inaudible and intangible pulsations of the
Vol. XXV.~Sig. 7.
722 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
realm of fancy and metaphysical suggestion ; though in speaking of
the illustration afforded by Scotus Erigena it cannot be forgotten
that he is an example rather of the Celtic intellect carried to excess
in the genius for subtlety than of the ultimate luminousness and
grasp of the elusive and cryptic truth which makes the true theo-
logian emerge from the struggling philosopher, like the butterfly
from the chrysalis.
A blending of this genius for refinement in analysis with the power
to arrange the tangled ends of argument in a symmetrical pattern,
appears in the unfolding of Father Kenrick's mind. At the same
time it is clear that this intellectual facility was incapable of forcing
mentality into channels of mere abstraction, being counterbalanced
by those more active practical elements which distinguish the man of
affairs from the man of philosophic speculation. The usual land-
marks of nature in human character, separating men into groups and
assigning each his proper function in the great plan of life and
thought, were absent in his case. His was a curious combination of
the abstract and the real. The spiritual insight of the Irish mind
blended in him with the instinctive capacity for the utilization of
means which is claimed as an ear-mark of the less dreamy Anglo-
Saxon stock.
The secret of this seems to be that to Francis Patrick Kenrick was
given the identical gifts which made Patrick and Columba and Co-
lumbanus the great moulders oi early Western civilization. They
were, by Divine decree, possessors of the dual intellect. They were
not only expounders, but creators, so to speak. It was not merely
theirs to make desert places bloom as gardens, but they possessed
the art of the gardener and the builder of the greenhouse as well.
Such wonderful duality was especially needed for the mighty work
opening up before the Church on the new continent ; and those who
follow the career of the two Kenricks cannot avoid the conviction
that the development of the Church under their guidance, in their
respective spheres of activity, was the manifestation of a principle
too high for the flight of human reason.
John J. O'Shea.
Anglo-Saxonisni and Catholic Progress. 723
ANGLO-SAXONISM AND CATHOLIC PROGRESS.
WE have seen, during the last couple of years, a curious at-
tempt of politicians to unite this Republic with the Brit-
ish Empire in an alliance against the rest of the world.
The base of this union, which is to undo the work of the American
Revolution to a large extent, is the supposed community of Anglo-
Saxon race and institutions between England and America. In
fact, the term "Anglo-Saxon," untruthful as it is historically, has
been brought into common use mainly for this purpose. The fa-
miliar "Briton" and "British" was good enough to satisfy English
ears when their superiority over other nations was to be expressed.
As it could hardly be expected that Americans could be drawn
warmly to singing "Rule Britannia." or echoing "Britons never will
be slaves," the expression Anglo-Saxon has come into favor in Eng-
land and among admirers of English ways in our own land. As a
matter of fact the Anglo-Saxons are but a fraction of the English
people itself, and a fraction, too, which had less than almost any
other in forming its institutions and character. The Norman
Frenchmen founded the English Constitution and parliamentary
institutions. Magna Charta owes its origin to the Norman Cardinal
Langton and the French De Montforet. Since the eleventh cen-
tury the rulers of England have been of almost every race but
Anglo-Saxon. There have been Norman French and Angevin
French, Welsh, Scotch and German Kings in England during the
last eight hundred years, but no Anglo-Saxon. The expression
itself wa5 practically unknown fifty years ago. British superiority
over foreigners in everything was the national faith of the English
people until the growth of the United States forced attention on
even the British mind. The vague Anglo-Saxon has since gradually
displaced the traditional Briton in English Jingo language, but the
meaning attached to both words is still the same in England.
What is stranger, a certain class among English Catholics arc
trying to bring the Anglo-Saxon myth, in a new form, within the
pale of the Church. As the United States is invited to an "Anglo-
Saxon" federation with England against the world, so a knot of
Catholics in England is trying to set up a special alliance in re-
ligious interests between the Catholics of England and America.
There is a distinct suggestion that their Catholicity is of a different
type from that of other Catholic nations, and especially from what
are called, in the true spirit of British insularity, the Latin races.
The attempt to describe the Catholic Church as merely the Latin
724 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Communion has been a favorite device with EngHsh Protestantism
since the days of Charles I. and Laud. It is significant to find a
strong echo of it to-day among Englishmen professing themselves
Catholics. The Catholic Press of London furnishes numerous illus-
trations. The Nezi' Era confidently assures its readers that *'the
broad fact has to be faced that the Latin races have done their work,
and the progress of the world, in the future, depends on the Anglo-
Saxon and Teutonic races." The Register, commenting on the re-
cent question of teaching Latin in the schools of the American
Christian Brothers, lays down as an axiom that "the Latin mind will
never understand the Anglo-Saxon." It further decides that "the
highest tribunals of the Church in Rome proceed in a manner which
no other courts in the world would consider tolerable." With genu-
ine British inconsistency it admits that the Roman Judges in ques-
tion are "absolutely free from any suspicion of wrong-doing or con-
scious unfairness," and that "the Roman bureaucracy is, in fact, a
marvel Of intellectual ability and moral rectitude," and then goes
on to dwell on the importance of its ways of action being changed on
British lines of procedure. One is reminded of the EngHsh house-
maid who condemned the blue uniforms of the German infantry
because "as every one in England knows blue is only proper for
sailors and artillerymen."
Dislike of and an ignorant contempt for the Catholic nations of
Europe, especially the French, has been a marked feature in the pop-
ular temper of Englishmen since the days of Cromwell. "I hate
the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes," is
the expression of it which the novelist Sterne, in the last century,
puts in the mouth of a crippled sailor begging his bread from charity
and appealing to popular feeling. The cripple's further illustration
of the liberties enjoyed by Englishmen at the time : "I was knocked
down one night by a press gang, who then bade me stand up and
serve His Majesty in the fleet," is significant. It is curious to find
a similar spirit find utterance in the Catholic London Register.
When a proposition was made a few months ago to bring some
Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Solesmes to form a choir in
the Westminster Cathedral, the editor loftily asked Cardinal
Vaughan if "he did not know how the reputation of French Cath-
olics stood in England," and wound up his remarks by declaring "it
will be still more galling to know that the Cathedral is a standing
reminder of the connection of Catholics with the Dreyfus case."
The attitude of a large body of English Catholics towards their
French fellow-Catholics during the Dreyfus case is a striking ex-
ample of the self-conceit and readiness to misjudge other nations
which is so characteristically English. It reminded Irishmen forci-
Anglo-Saxon ism and Catholic Progress. 725
bly of the language of the Times and other Enghsh papers during
the Parnell trial and the Land League agitation. The new feature
was the attempt to give it a character of Catholic zeal instead of
English bigotry. A little knot of English Catholics are even said
to have forwarded a memorial to the Sovereign Pontiff calling his
attention to the action of some Hungarian Catholics, including
Bishops, on an anti-Semitic question, and gravely pointed out to
Leo Xin. that his predecessors had frequently interfered to protect
Jews against persecution, and that they did not see why he should
not do the same in Hungary ! ! !
The recent writings of the late Professor Mivart are a still stronger
instance of the lengths to which Anglo-Saxon nationalism can lead
professing Catholics. In the Nineteenth Century he declared serious-
ly: "The Curia, i. c., the Papal Administration, has learned nothing
of the real conditions of mankind beyond its own surroundings. It
has learned nothing of that dominant factor in the world, our own
race. It has no glimmerings of the truth that the English-speak-
ing peoples have thrown off despotism of whatever kind, and will
never submit to the centralized tyranny which is the Curiahsts' only
notion of government."
We have been long familiar with language of this kind in the Eng-
lish Protestant Press, but it is new to find a Catholic describing the
administration of Leo XIII. and Pius IX. as a centralized tyranny.
Equally remarkable is it to find the writer claiming the body of
"English-speaking Catholics throughout the world" as his own
race and assuming to act as spokesman for them all. The Catholics
of Irish race certainly have no desire to see English methods of law
and justice such as they are only too familiar with substituted for
the methods of administration established by the wisdom of cen-
turies and of countless saints in the highest tribunals of the Catholic
Church.
Professor Mivart's utterances may be regarded as the eccentrici-
ties of an individual, but examples are not lacking to show that the
desire to change the methods of government and religious action of
the Church to English ideals is not confined to him. The London
Nezv Era recently announced that "unless the Church is to continue
to be tied to moribund nations she must make progress in England,
America and the British colonies." To assume that the whole Cath-
oHc world, outside the Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence, is moribund
is a flight of self-conceit that would be natural on the platform of a
Protestant missionary society, but that sounds like lunacy to the
ears of a Catholic. To describe the two hundred and more millions
of Catholics outside the pale of the English language — Italians,
Frenchmen, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Spaniards, Portuguese,
726 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Flemish and Slavonian — as all moribund is a stretch of calm ignor-
ance that can only be possible in the incomprehensible "Anglo-
Saxon mind" which Rome is incapable of understanding, as is plain-
tively bewailed. It need not surprise us, then, to be told further that
"humanly speaking the only field for the spread of the Church, at
the present moment, would seem to be the English-speaking coun-
tries." The Divine commission to "teach all nations" is apparently
forgotten by the writer.
But if the Church's mission is to be restricted to the English-
speaking countries another power is introduced into the missionary
field by journalistic authority.
"It is true," says the same paper, "the British Empire is pre-
dominantly Protestant. It is equally true that it makes for peace,
for liberty, for law and order and for social and intellectual progress.
A great and sacred trust has been committed by God to the British
Empire, and the spread of that Empire is preparing the way for the
spread of Christianity and a new era of Catholicity."
The assured confidence in the Divine nature of the trust commit-
ted to the rulers of Great Britain, and that its spread as an Empire
is a first step towards the conversion of the world are typical of Eng-
lish Protestant ideas. It raises serious thought to find such utter-
ances put forth as Catholic thought. One cannot help recalling that
the people of England fell away from the Faith during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries by following the principle of nationality
before religion. The growth of a similar spirit to-day would give
little prospect of the spread of Christianity. As a matter of fact,
up to the present time the growth of the British Empire has done
nothing for the conversion of the non-Christian lands that have
fallen under its power. Since England's separation from the Church
some twenty-five or thirty millions of pagans in various lands —
Japanese, Chinese, Hindoos, Malays and American natives — have
been brought to Christianity by the missioners of Spain, France,
Italy and other Catholic countries. The French Society of Foreign
Missions to-day keeps a population of a million and a quarter of
Asiatic and African converts in the practice of Catholic life. There
is scarcely a fiftieth of that number receiving instruction from Eng-
lish Catholic missioners; and the Protestant converts throughout
the British Empire do not reckon a third of the converts of the
French missioners alone. Where any indication of the likelihood of
the spread of the Empire leading to a new era of Catholicity can be
found passes our comprehension.
That the work, in a religious point, of the English Government
and polic}^ from the days of Henry VIII. to those of George HI.,
has been to take the people of England out of the Catholic Church is
Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress. 727
an undisputed historical fact. That the national spirit of the Eng-
lish people during the greater part of that time has been distinctively
and specially hostile to Catholicity is another fact. Elizabeth beg-
ged the Turkish Sultan in 1587 to send his galleys "against that
idolator, the King of Spain," and assured him if he did so that "the
proud Spaniard and the lying Pope will be struck down and God will
protect His own and punish the idolators of the earth by the arms
of England and Turkey." The Minister of Queen Victoria, at the
time of the massacres of the Syrian Catholics, in i860, declared that
the safety of the Turkish power was a greater object to Her Majes-
ty's Government than the protection of the lives of Christians. It
is hard to find in such a system any preparation for the spread of the
Faith or any warrant for the supposition that the Anglo-Saxon race
is divinely chosen to advance Catholicity. It will throw light on this
subject if we examine what is the actual number of Catholics of Eng- ■
lish race among the twenty or thirty millions of Catholics in the
British Empire and the United States at the present moment, and
to what extent those Anglo-Saxon Catholics are promoting the
growth of a new era of Catholicity. We shall find that the English-
speaking Catholics are emphatically as little Anglo-Saxon as are
the Catholics of France or Spain, either in origin, sympathies or re-
ligious thought.
The last census estimated the Catholics of this country at some-
what less than ten millions. We believe this to be an underestimate,
but it can be used as a basis to determine the number of Anglo-
Saxons in the Catholic body here. The census of Ireland gave a
population, which is certainly not Anglo-Saxon, of three and a half
millions of Catholics. The Canadian returns showed about two
million Catholics in less than five of a total population. Of these
two millions nearly a million and a half were classed as French in
language, the other half million Celtic Irish and Celtic Scotch. It
is not easy to know whether the French Canadians or the French
Catholics of the Mauritius and part of the English West Indies are
included in the "English-speaking" Catholics by the champions of
Anglo-Saxonism as a force in the Church.
A similar question needs to be answered with regard to the twelve
hundred thousand Hindoo and Ceylonese Catholics in the Indian
Empire and the two hundred thousand Maltese, not to speak of such
Catholics of the Uganda Mission as escaped butchery a few years
ago at the hands of Captain Lugard and his Maxim guns while
building up the British Empire there. Whether people who do not
use the English language can be classed as English-speaking Cath-
olics seems at least doubtful.
The Australian colonies and New Zealand have a Catholic popula-
728 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tion of about a million, somewhat under twenty-five per cent, of the
total. In South Africa fifty or sixty thousand is the highest esti-
mate of the Catholics of European race, and a still smaller number
in British Guiana. The whole Catholic population then of the Brit-
ish colonies is about five and a half millions, or about two-thirds of
the number of Malay Catholics in the Philippines. The Anglo-
Saxon element, or the body which either in race or sympathies is
connected with English ideas, does not amount to one hundredth
part of these five and a half millions.
In Great Britain, unlike other countries of Europe, no census re-
turns have been made of the religions of the population. In Scot-
land reports which give evidence of accuracy have been prepared by
the Archbishops. They give four hundred and twenty thousand
Catholics in a total of four millions, or about a tenth. A consider-
able part, a fourth, or perhaps a third, is made up of Gaelic-speaking
Highlanders who retained their Catholicity during the centuries of
persecution that followed the overthrow of the Government of
Queen Mary. The rest are all but exclusively Irish. There is a
close bond of national feeling between the Irish and the Scotch
Gaelic Catholics, but none whatever between either and the Anglo-
Saxons, or, as the name is usually written in Scotland, Sassenachs.
In England itself the Catholic Directory estimates the whole
Catholic population at a million and a half, or six per cent. The
proportion is noticeably smaller than even in Scotland. Of that
million and a half at least a million are Irish by birth or parentage,
and residence in England has developed no Anglo-Saxon sympa-
thies amongst either class. The number of Catholics of English
race who kept the Faith through the Penal Laws was less than one
hundred thousand at the end of George III.'s reign. If it has
doubled since that is the largest estimate that can be made to-day of
old English Catholics. The Oxford movement has added probably
two hundred thousand members to the Church during the reign of
Victoria. The total of Catholics who, in any sense, may be called
Anglo-Saxons, who either in race, sympathies or thought are in any
sense English, cannot be counted at over half a million among the
two hundred and fifty million Catholics of the world or the eleven
millions in the Empire. If we wish to use the term "English-speak-
ing" to describe those eleven miUions we should add "not English
race" as a matter of accurate expression.
The only settlement of Catholics of English race in the territory
now comprised in the United States was Lord Calvert's colony of
Maryland. It numbered about four hundred families, a large part
of whom, however, were Irish, not English. In every other Eng-
lish colony the first Catholic population was exclusively Irish. It
Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress. 729
was so in Pennsylvania, in New York and in New England. In
fact, before the Revolution in those countries Catholic was practi-
cally synonomous with Irish. In Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois,
Michigan and Indiana the original settlers were French Catholics,
who have formed no inconsiderable element in the subsequent popu-
lation. In Florida, Texas, California and New Mexico the first
Catholic population was Spanish. Of the mass of immigrants from
Europe that has built up the people of these United States during
the century the official records show that scarcely a tenth is of Eng-
lish origin. As Catholics in England have never been a twentieth
of the population during that time, it is accurate to state that they
cannot have given over a two-hundredth part to the existing Ameri-
can population. Counting the original English Maryland settlers,
the converts made on American soil and the arrivals from Europe,
it is impossible to reckon the Anglo-Saxon element in the Catholic
population here at two per cent., one-fiftieth of the whole. Clearly
any supposed incapacity of the "Latin mind" for understanding the
Anglo-Saxon is not a question of vital import to American more
than to Irish Catholics. There are more Spanish-American Cath-
olics than Anglo-Saxon ; there are at least five times as many of
French origin, nearly the same number of Italians and fully four
times as many Poles and Catholic Slavonians in America to-day,
without taking into reckoning the much larger elements of German
and Celtic race. However problematical the number of Anglo-
Saxons in the whole population may be, it is almost infinitesimal
among the body of American Catholics.
If the Anglo-Saxon race is thus small, numerically, among the
Catholics of America, the distinctive ideas which bear that name,
and such as are expressed by the writers in the London press whom
we have quoted are positively repugnant to the great mass among
them. The idea of England having a special mission to prepare the
world for Catholicity appears little less than idiotic to men of Irish
race. They know by experience, or have learned from their fathers,'
what is the real nature of the "peace, liberty and law and order" for
which the British Empire makes. They know that the so-called
liberty of Great Britain leaves the Irish Catholic to-day distinctively
below his Protestant fellow-countrymen in the law, in education, in
the public service and in everything connected with temporal pros-
perity. They know that whatever of liberty Catholics enjoy to-day
in the British Empire was conceded through fear, not granted by a
liberality which had any existence save in the lying proclamations
which have filled the history of Ireland since the days of Elizabeth.
They know that the principles on which the Government of this
country has been founded, the rule of the people as individuals, the
730 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
incompetency of a State to make a religion, the rejection of mil-
itary force as an instrument of government, are not only not Eng-
lish, but distinctively opposed to the prevalent ideas of the English
people.
Of the other race elements which go to make the American Cath-
olic population there is none which holds sympathy with the pecu-
liar ideas of EngHshmen, none which feels any desire for a closer
bond with English Catholics than those of other lands. The Cath-
olics of German race here certainly do not. The French, Spanish
and Italian Catholics are not worried by the supposed difficulty of
"understanding of the Anglo-Saxon mind by the Latin." Anglo-
Saxon ideas have not entered their thought in questions of religion.
They want no lessons on social or intellectual progress from Eng-
lish sources. Indeed, the Catholics of English race show as little
desire of closer association with English ideals in religion as any
other class. The book of the late Rev. Father Young, "Protestant
and Catholic Countries Compared," is one of the most effective
answers we know to the theory that Catholic nations are moribund,
or that the future of the world is in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon
and Teutonic races. Yet Father Young was himself not only of
English race, but of English birth ; but he was "Catholic first and
Englishman after," as every true Catholic must be, whatever his
nationality. The Divine claim on man's allegiance is stronger than
any human claim.
Having now examined the numerical importance of Anglo-Saxons
among the English-speaking Catholics, we shall try to find out how
far facts warrant the supposition that the spread of the British Em-
pire is a preparation of the world for Christianity and a new era of
Catholicity. At the date of the American Revolution, when the
Penal Laws of William of Orange were still in force and the Cath-
olic Churcli under an absolute ban through the dominion of the
English Crown, that dominion had a population of about fifteen mil-
lions. Three millions were in the American colonies and about
twelve millions in the British Islands. Of the twelve millions at
least two and a half were Catholics, almost entirely Irish. Those
two and a half millions had been reduced to abject poverty by the
policy of England continued during the two previous centuries.
The externals of religion — churches, schools, religious orders — had
been swept away by persecution, but the Catholic faith survived.
It survived, as it did in Japan down to our own day, under confisca-
tion and every punishment an absolute government could inflict.
The separation of the American colonies from the British dominions
brought the first step towards toleration to the oppressed Catholics,
With all their hatred of the Catholic Church, the ministers of George
Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress. 731
III. realized that the fate of England might be sealed by an Irish
counterpart of the American Revolution. They grudgingly con-
ceded a small modicum of civil rights to Catholics in 1778, followed,
after the outbreak of the French Revolution, by a larger one in 1793.
The hatred of the English people to everything Catholic continued
long afterwards. The Gordon riots in London were a striking illus-
tration of that point; and later, in the insurrection of 1798, the burn-
ing of Catholic chapels by the British troops in Ireland was an
equally strong one. The excesses of the early Revolutionary lead-
ers in France, strange as it may seem, were the first cause of a revul-
sion of feehng towards Catholics in England. The English mon-
archy found itself in a death struggle for existence with Republican
France, and it extended some favor to the victims of revolutionary
frenzy, even if they professed the Catholic Faith. It was not, how-
ever, that the old anti-Catholic spirit was dead either in the Govern-
ment or the people of England. Catholic priests were often ex-
pelled from English settlements in Australia, in Newfoundland and
elsewhere by arbitrary action of military officials. The idea of al-
lowing Catholics to take any part in public life, to find place in Par-
liament or among the officials of Government was held incompatible
with the spirit of the Constitution. In England it was unsafe even
to build a Catholic church, except in some secluded place, for many
years after the relaxation of the Penal Laws. At the same time the
liberty enjoyed by every class of English subjects was as loudly pro-
claimed as is to-day the supposed liberality of the English Govern-
ment and people to the Catholic Church.
The action of the English Catholics who had held the faith under
persecution is a curious illustration of the "new era of Catholicity"
which may be expected from the prevalence of Anglo-Saxon senti-
ments in religious ideas. The first relaxation of the Penal Code,
in 1778, was followed by the formation of a committee of prominent
English Catholics to obtain further concessions of elementary liber-
ties, and also to suggest appropriate action to their co-religionists.
This body suggested as the most suitable mode of conciliating the
good feeling of the Protestant majority that English Catholics
should elect their bishops without any reference to the Head of the
Church, or, as they styled him themselves, "the Bishop of Rome."
They urged that statues should not be used in Catholic churches,
lest Protestant prejudices might thereby be shocked. They also ob-
jected to the introduction of religious orders as unnecessary and dan-
gerous. They declared that not only did they not recognize the
deposing power, which in the Middle Ages had been exercised by
the Popes with the approval of Christendom, but that the claim to
such a power at any time was contrary to Catholic doctrine and
y2^2 American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
heretical. The majority of the committee was prepared to embody
this outrageous theory, which virtually condemned the whole medi-
aeval Catholic Church as heretical in an oath of allegiance to George
III. They styled themselves by the new name of "Protesting Cath-
olic Dissenters" to emphasize their specially English character in
the Catholic communion. It was only the zeal and energy of
Bishop Milner that prevented this extraordinary concession of prin-
ciples being carried into law as the English idea of Catholicity.
The line of conduct of the Irish Catholics at the same time brings
out clearly the difference of national character in matters of religion
between the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic races. The hostihty of suces-
sive English Governments had borne equally on the Catholics of
both races. The Irish "Recusants" had suffered, in a material point,
far worse than the English. They had been deprived almost wholly
of their own land, and might only live on it as laborers or tenants, at
the absolute mercy of landlords of alien race and creed. The pres-
sure of famine was as common among them in the eighteenth cen-
tury as it has been in the nineteenth. The violence of the Gordon
anti-Catholic riots in London was repeated a hundred times among
the Catholic Irish peasantry in "ninety-eight." They had no men
of wealth or British nobility among them, as the English Catholics
had, yet, all through the half century that followed the first measure
of toleration, the Irish emphasized their devotion to their faith in all
its integrity, while their English co-religionists were trying to hide
the very name of Catholic among themselves. The popular out-
burst of 1814 against the proposition to allowthe Protestant Govern-
ment a veto on the appointment of Catholic bishops shows how radi-
cal was the difference between the sentiments of the English and the
Irish Catholics. Not less so was their rejection of salaries from the
State to the Catholic priesthood, offered in 1829 by the Duke of
Wellington. They submitted to the disfranchisement of the whole
body of small freeholders among themselves as the price of freedom
for their religion, but they refused to accept any aid from a non-
Catholic source which might endanger the independence of their re-
ligious guides. They had kept their hierarchy unchanged all
through the dreary centuries of persecution by that spirit of indepen-
dence, while the episcopate of Catholic England had been swept out
of existence, and that spirit remained as vigorous in the days of
O'Connell as it had been in those of Hugh O'Neill, when he de-
manded freedom of religion from Elizabeth.
This contrast between the English and Irish races in religious
sentiment is one which deserves serious consideration in America
to-day. Some among Catholics, both here and in England, seem
to think that the special characteristics of the Catholics of this coun-
Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress. 733
try and the British Empire, especially the disinclination to allow in-
terference, in religious matters, of political authorities, and the equal
right of rich and poor in the ministrations and teaching of the
Church, are in some way due to English character and the
influence of English institutions. To this supposition history
gives absolute denial. The Celtic Irish, who had no part in
forming the institutions of England and who were more for-
eign indeed to everything English than almost any nation of Eu-
rope, have in simple fact given to the Church whatever special char-
acter it has in English-speaking countries. The Anglo-Saxons
have, indeed, strongly marked characteristics of their own, and those
characteristics show themselves among some English Catholics.
The writers quoted in this article are typical specimens, but de-
cidedly not of the great Catholic body which uses the English lan-
guage as its speech. The voice may be English, but the soul is un-
mistakably Celtic among this body.
During the American Revolution the Irish statesman, Edmund
Burke, declared that he was not equal to the task of drawing an in-
dictment against a nation. We acknowledge a similar weakness,
though we confess it appears not to be felt at all by the average
champions of Anglo-Saxon claims. The London writer who
brands the French Catholics with complicity in the Dreyfus case is
a good example. We would not, and in truth we could not,
affix sweeping charges of any kind on the English Catholics or the
English people. We believe the great majority of English Catho-
lics to-day are as sincerely devoted to their faith as are the Maltese
or the French Canadians. We honor noble names among them.
Cardinal Newman, Father Faber, Lingard, Bishop Milner and a host
of other English Catholics are as dear to us as Archbishop Carroll,
Oliver Plunkett, Dom Bosco, Lacordaire or other distinguished men
in the Church. When, however, we have to consider the question,
how far facts warrant assertions that the Church's future is in
the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race, or that the spread of the
British Empire is a preparation for Catholic progress, we feel it
a matter of justice to ask how far such assumptions are justified
by facts.
The English people — Saxon, Danish and Norman — was a part of
the Catholic Church during a thousand years before Henry VIII.
separated from its communion. During all those years its faith and
practice were the same as those of the Catholic peoples of Ireland,
France, Spain, Germany or Italy. At the rise of Protestantism the
new doctrines found no more favor among the English people than
among the French. They appear to have been sincerely attached
to the Church and the Holy See as their religious guides. Men like
734 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
More and Fisher and Warham show that high and enHghtened per-
sonal sanctity existed among EngHsh CathoHcs. The pecuHar
events which separated England from the Church show, however,
certain national characteristics which cannot command admiration,
and which are very different from the ideas of independence and
sturdy courage that are popularly supposed to be typically Anglo-
Saxon. The King, after years of life as a devout and zealous Cath-
olic, and after receiving the title of "Defender of the Faith" from
the Sovereign Pontiff, suddenly threw off that faith and ordered
his people, through a packed Parliament, to follow his example.
His motives were public and generally reprobated. They were to
contract a marriage regarded by the morality of the Catholic world
as adulterous, and to enrich himself by seizing the property of the
monasteries, which was also the public provision for relief of the
poor and education. The men of highest character in England, Sir
Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, were executed for refusing to
sanction the King's new religion. The people rose in arms, in a
large part of England, and obtained a promise of change in the royal
action, but as soon as troops were let loose on them the nation, how-
ever reluctantly, conformed outwardly to the new system of religion,
opposed as it was to their belief and sympathies. When Mary came
to the throne the great majority of the English people welcomed the
restoration of the Church. Five years later they permitted her sister
Elizabeth to proscribe the Catholic Faith again. The only explana-
tion of this course is that political interests held a higher power over
the minds of the English people than spiritual interests. They be-
lieved in the Catholic doctrines, but they were not ready to make
sacrifice of their temporal interests for the things of the unseen
world. It can hardly have been a love of freedom which made a
nation take its religion from the orders of its sovereign. Yet such
was the course of the English people. It was the same spirit which,
two hundred years later, made the English Catholic Committee call
their Catholic forefathers heretics for the sake of political privileges.
Elizabeth herself, while establishing a Protestant State Church and
sending her Catholic subjects to death for refusing to accept its doc-
trines, appears to have sacrificed her own belief to political interests.
While describing the Catholic world as idolators to the Turkish
Sultan she retained the crucifix in her own chapel, and she freely
expressed her dislike of a married clergy while sanctioning its es-
tablishment. Such was the English spirit in religion as shown by
the history of three hundred years. That it has nothing in common
with the spirit of the Catholics who kept the Faith all through in
Ireland, or who planted it in the United States, in Canada, in Aus-
tralia and wherever the English tongue is spoken will not be claimed
Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress. 735
by any thinking man. This should never be forgotten when there is
mention of EngHsh-speaking Catholics.
In view of these facts, let us see how far the spread of the British
Empire, or the nature of its policy, can be regarded as favorable to
the progress of Catholicity. Its government is often contrasted
with those of Catholic countries, such as France or Italy, where a
faction in control shows hostility to the Church. The fact is that
the anti-Catholic spirit displayed in such cases is but a temporary
and modified copy of the policy which has ruled the English Gov-
ernment for over three hundred years. We feel sorrow that the
French people should allow its rulers to proscribe Catholic religious
orders in schools and hospitals or that the Catholics of Italy should
permit the spoliation of churches and monasteries, but their apathy
is far less than that of the English Catholics who allowed Henry and
Elizabeth to change the whole religious practice of the nation at
will. When the French Revolutionists treated the Church as Henry
had- treated it in England a few years ended their persecution, while
in England it continued unremitted till Catholics were almost wiped
out of existence. What the grounds are for attributing any special
favor for Catholicity to the present British Government passes our
comprehension, yet such seems to be the serious belief of some Eng-
lish writers. Professor Mivart complained, in apparent seriousness,
of ''the extraordinary hostility of the Vatican to England and our
Empire, throughout which the Catholic Church enjoys such signal
advantages and favors." It may clear up this point if we examine
the real nature of the progress of the Church in the British Empire
during the reign of the present Queen.
At the accession of Victoria, the British Government was more
directly hostile to the Catholic Church than any other in Europe.
Intercourse with the Pope, in any form, was forbidden by law. The
profession of Protestantism was absolutely required as a condition
for ascending the throne, and even marriage with a Catholic was
forbidden to members of the royal family. The mother of the
Queen had abjured her religion before marrying the Duke of Kent.
She was received back to the Church shortly before her death, a fact
which speaks strangely for the religious principles prevailing in the
court. The highest offices of State, such as the Viceroyalty of Ire-
land, were barred against Catholics. So were the English universi-
ties, and in Ireland, though Catholic students might attend the lec-
tures of Trinity College, they were allowed no share in its scholar-
ships, and formal profession of Protestantism was required of all the
professors and fellows. The oath taken by the Queen at her corona-
tion and also the oath required of all non-Catholic members of Par-
liament not only bound them to maintain the Protestant Establish-
736 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
ment in Church and State, but even included an express denial of sev-
eral Catholic doctrines, including Transubstantiation. Though Cath-
olics had been allowed seats in Parliament since the Catholic emanci-
pation act, the whole administration of the law, of local government
and education, even in Catholic Ireland, was confined to Protestants.
Such were the "signal favors" which Catholics were receiving from
the British Government at the beginning of the present Queen's
reign.
While such was the attitude of the British Empire towards the
Catholic Church, the Catholics of Prussia and other German non-
Catholic States, such as Hanover, and of Holland were on a footing
of equality before the law with all other subjects. The King of
Prussia or Wurtemburg or the Russian Czar had no scruple about
maintaining embassies in Rome or visiting as friends the Head of
the Catholic Church. It was only in "free" England that all inter-
course was forbidden with the Sovereign Pontiff, only there that the
Sovereign had to swear to personal disbelief in Catholic doctrines.
The public schools and universities, both classes and chairs, were
open to the Prussian and Dutch Catholics freely, while even entrance
to the lecture halls of Cambridge or Oxford was only to be obtained
by formal profession of Protestantism. It is dif^cult to see how
special favor to the Church can be attributed to English institutions
or Government at Victoria's accession. England was then pre-
eminently the most anti-CathoHc government in Europe.
If the Government was anti-Catholic the public opinon of the
English people and press was even more bigoted. During thirty
years after Catholic emancipation no Catholic was elected to Parlia-
ment in England except one. This was the brother of the Duke of
Norfolk, who represented the small town of Arundel, a pocket bor-
ough of the Norfolk estate. In any other British constituency a
Catholic candidate would be pelted from the hustings. In many
towns a priest could hardly appear on the streets without danger of
insult or assault. Burning the Pope in effigy was a favorite amuse-
ment of the English populace up to forty years ago. How far all
this indicated any specially favorable field for CathoHc progress in
England is hard to see. It is true that priests were not subject to
banishment as such, as they had been seventy years before, that
schoolmasters might teach, churches be built and that fines were no
longer imposed on Catholics for non-attendance at Protestant ser-
vice. These were gains indeed, but they were not of a nature to
warrant any special credit to English institutions, when nearly every
other civilized land recognized the rights of Catholics to hold their
faith and at the same time all the rights of citizens or subjects.
As to the progress that the Faith has made since in the British
Anglo-Saxonism and Catholic Progress. 737
Empire, it is hardly such as to justify the assertion that its govern-
ment or social conditions are favorable above others to Catholic
life. There has been a remarkable movement towards Catholic doc-
trines, once hated by a large section of Englishmen, since the Trac-
tarian movement. Many converts, perhaps as high in numbers as
one per cent, of the population and equal to the whole of the old
English Catholics, have returned to the Catholic Church. There
has been a notable decline in the bigotry which was so marked a
feature of English character at the beginning of Victoria's reign,
but there has also been a large growth of infidelity and hostility to
Christianity in any form throughout England. The old dislike of
Catholics still exists, but it prefers to justify itself on supposed race
superiority rather than religious grounds. The attitude of the Eng-
lish Ptcss towards the French people on the occasion of the Dreyfus
case, or towards the Irish people during the Land League move-
ment, is a typical example. Anglo-Saxonism has to some extent
replaced Protestantism as the national creed of Englishmen. We
can hardly see how the change makes for the growth of the Catholic
Church.
We may judge the value of the "signal advantages and favors"
which the Church enjoys in the British Empire, according to Mr.
Mivart, and how far the spread of that Empire is making for Cath-
olic progress by comparing the actual number of Catholics under its
rule to-day with what they were sixty years ago. It is a fact that
the Catholic population of the British Islands is now hardly two-
thirds what it was at the beginning of Victoria's reign. England,
Ireland and Scotland then had eight millions of Catholics in a total
of twenty-five millions. To-day they have five and a half in a popu-
lation of thirty-three millions. Catholics were then a third of Vic-
toria's subjects in Europe. To-day they are hardly a sixth. Add-
ing in the whole Catholic English-speaking population of Canada,
AustraHa and all other British colonies, there are now a million
fewer Catholics in the Empire than there were when Victoria came
to the throne. The Catholics of the German Empire have increased
from eleven to fourteen millions since 1875 ; those of Holland nearly
three-quarters of a million since 1840. In every other country of
the world — in Austria, in Switzerland, in Belgium, in France, Italy
and Spain — there has been a notable increase in the number of
Catholics. In the British Empire alone there has been a steady
decrease. This fact is not altered in its nature because it is due to
the disappearance of Irishmen mainly. Then, as now, they formed
the one large Catholic population within the Empire, and if its
policy dooms that population to destruction or expatriation its policy
is distinctly hostile to Catholic progress. The building of churches
Vol. XXV.— Sig. 8.
738 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
and schools and the increase in the clergy and hierarchies of Eng-
land and Scotland are poor compensation indeed for the extermina-
tion of the Catholic people of Ireland.
It is with no feeling of national jealousy that we have shown how
false is the assertion that the spread of the British Empire is a pre-
paration for Catholic progress. So far it has been the one power
which has absolutely made the number of Catholics among its sub-
jects decrease, while Catholics are growing in numbers in every
other land. Its action on the Irish Catholics to-day is similar to its
action on the English Catholic body from the days of Elizabeth to
those of George III. Year by year they are diminishing, as if struck
by some fatal disease, wherever the English flag flies. The remedy
will come in God's time, but it will not come from any benignant
influence of English ideas or unfounded assertions of Catholic pro-
gress under English institutions. The facts speak for themselves.
Bryan J. Clinch.
San Francisco, Cal.
THE STORY OF THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION.
III. SALVAGE FROM THE WRECK.
IT cannot be denied that the downfall of the Catholic religion in
Scotland dates from the Parliament of 1560. Not that the
change from Catholicism to Protestantism was immediately
effected, for it was the work of years ; but the Reformers and their
supporters by their high-handed measures made sure of the ultimate
success of their cause. When the rites of religion had been pro-
scribed by law, monasteries cast down and their property confiscated
and heretical teachers thrust into the places of the orthodox clergy,
the nation was rendered powerless to resist the total overthrow of
the Church. Individuals might oppose the new creed forced upon
them, but isolated efforts were ineffectual against the united strength
of powerful nobles and prelates.
The attitude of the people as a body towards the Reformation is
a question full of interest to the Catholic student of history ; it is one,
nevertheless, upon which little can be learned from Protestant his-
torians. These latter, being full of sympathy for the movement,
though frequently disapproving of the means used to bring it about,
have little interest in studying the dispositions of the nation towards
the new doctrines. Indeed, some would seem to consider the
staunch Catholics of those days as unworthy of notice, so priceless
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 739
the gifts offered to them by the despised Reformers! Thus one
writer speaks of the latter as men ''who earnestly desired to see a
purer faith and a more primitive worship established in Scotland ;"
who "were led to the study of the Scriptures by their love of the
truth ;" who when "dragged before ecclesiastical tribunals refused
to purchase their lives at the price of a recantation."^ Another and
more recent writer seems to regret the troubles brought upon the
country by the Reformation, while he has no word of condemnation
for the movement in itself. "If James (V.)," he says — he is alluding
to Henry VIII. 's attempts to convert that monarch — "could only
have come under conviction, and been the subject of a gracious
awakening to the truth, it would have been happy for Scotland."^
The irony of the first part of the sentence does not contradict the
wish expressed, as the context shows. It is, however, only fair to
quote the words of the same writer with regard to the Reformation.
"This is not a topic," he says, "on which it is easy to be impartial.
Protestant historians have seldom handled it with impartiality, and
their suppressions, glosses and want of historical balance naturally
turn into opposition the judgment of a modern reader."^ Mr. Lang
has striven to be impartial, as every unprejudiced reader of his inter-
esting volume must allow, and has succeeded, as far as it is possible
for one who is not a Catholic, in giving an unbiased account of this
confessedly difficult period of history.
How then did the nation receive the changes in religion brought
about by the legislation of 1560? In the opinion of one historian
they embraced them eagerly. Speaking of the difficulties Mary
Stuart had to encounter, Mr. Hill Burton has no hesitation in
affirming that "she, a thorough member of the Church of Rome,
had come among a people of whom the greater portion, including all
the ruling men, had become Protestants."* The words here empha-
sized by italics seem scarcely borne out by the evidence which will
be brought forward presently. We know from Knox and other
contemporary writers that many of the common people joined the
reforming party ; for the "rascal multitude" that played a prominent
part in violating sacred places could only have belonged to the low-
est class. It is scarcely worth while lingering here to discuss the
"conviction" and "gracious awakening" — to use Mr. Lang's sar-
castic terms — of such converts. Again, several of the nobles joined
the ranks of the Reformers, but we have already seen Mr. Hill Bur-
ton's estimate of their too apparent motives,^ while Mr. Lang enu-
merates among the factors of the Reformation "the passions of the
exemplary nobles, whose disinterested conduct," he says with bitter
1 Fraser Tytler : " History of Scotland," Vol. III., p. 40. 2 Andrew L,ang : " History of Scot-
land" (190c), Vol. I., p. 432. 3 Ibid, p. 421 * " History of Scotland," Vol. IV., p. 178. ^ yide,
American Catholic Quarterly, April, 1899, p. 60.
740 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
irony, "shines on almost every page of this book."*' As to the bulk
of the nation, it cannot be maintained that they readily acquiesced in
the changes. It has been already shown in a former article^ that
the clergy had woefully neglected their duty of regular and syste-
matic teaching, and that would account for the falling away of some.
That "the greater portion" had already become Protestants when
Queen Mary arrived in Scotland, one year only after the Parliament
had formally declared Catholicity illegal, can scarcely be granted.
Had it been the case, the disaffection of the people for the old re-
ligion would have been more evident than it was, and their attach-
ment to the new doctrines would have been witnessed to by the
leaders of the movement. The examination of this disaffection to^
wards the one and attachment to the other will help us to arrive at
a more satisfactory solution of the temper of the nation at that
period as regards religion.
Had the people as a whole been disaffected towards the Catholic
Church we could scarcely expect to meet with the abundant evi-
dence which exists of the interest taken by them in all that con-
cerned its welfare and the carrying out of its worship during the
period that immediately preceded the Reformation. Such evidence
is found in the many and substantial benefactions bestowed upon the
Church by people belonging to almost every class of the community.
A free gift of one's substance is an evident proof of one's apprecia-
tion of the object of the donation, and if this principle be applied
to the benefactions in question we are able to arrive at some idea of
the appreciation which Scottish men and women living in the early
part of the sixteenth century had for the Catholic Church, its min-
isters and its ordinances.
It is a striking fact that many of the Collegiate churches of Scot-
land were founded only a few years before the downfall of religion.
This alone speaks strongly in favor of the hold which the Church
still had upon the wealthier portion of the people. The Collegiate
churches partook of a conventual nature without being monastic.
They were served by a certain number of secular canons under the
rule of a provost, and in them the Divine Office of the Church was
daily and regularly chanted. Sometimes they served as parish
churches, at other times they often had a school or hospital attached
to them, but upon all rested the obligation of regular and orderly
divine service. Their foundation dated from the end of the four-
teenth century to the period of the Reformation, and their number
and importance afford a striking proof of the faith and piety of many
Scottish hearts in an age which has been stigmatized as godless and
selfish where it was not puritanical.
6 I<ang : " History of ScoUand," Vol. I., p. 433. ^ April, 1899.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation, 741
In selecting examples it will be well to restrict our investigations
to the sixteenth century alone ; sufficient will be found during that
period to bear out the assertion that love for the Church and her
rites was still strong in ^Scotland.
The royal foundation of St. Mary and St. Michael in the Castle of
Stirling, although it scarcely comes within the scope of our enquiry,
may be allowed to head the list. It was made by James V. in 1501,
and provided for a dean, sub-dean, cantor, sacristan, treasurer,
chancellor, archpriest, succentor, sixteen chaplains, six singing boys
and a master of choristers. It was richly endowed by its royal
patron with the revenues of some ten parish churches. In 1505
John, Lord Sempill, founded the Church of St. Mary at Loch Win-
noch, in Renfrewshire, for a provost, vicar, sacristan, six chaplains
and two singing boys. The chaplains included a schoolmaster,
organist and master of the '*song school." The clergy, it may be
noted, wore scarlet hoods lined with lamb's wool. Sir William
Myreton, in conjunction with the Prioress of Haddington, founded
in 1 5 17 the Collegiate Church of Crail in the Diocese of St. Andrews.
It was served by a provost, sacristan and ten prebendaries. The
church was of considerable size, being 135 feet in length. The
Church of St. Mary and St. Anne was founded in 1528 at St.
Thenew's Gate, Glasgow, by James Houston, sub-dean of the
Cathedral and rector of the University of Glasgow. The founda-
tion provided a provost, to be appointed by the Abbot of Kilwin-
ning for the time being, eight canons and three choristers. This
church received rich endowments from various sources; Bishop
Elphinstone, of Aberdeen; Canon Muirhead and Sir Martin Reed,
chaplain of the Castle, being among its benefactors. Four public
Masses were celebrated daily, two of them at least being sung to
note. On the founder's anniversary each year thirty poor men and
matrons received doles of money after assisting at the requiem, and
twenty-eight scholars received bounties. This church was spoken
of colloquially as "Laigh" or Low Church, to distinguish it from the
High Church or cathedral.
To come still nearer to the Reformation period, the Magistrates
of Peebles, with the assistance of Lord Hay of Yester, founded a
collegiate body at St. Andrew's Church, Peebles, as late as 1542.
There were nine prebendaries attached to the institution. A year
later the church of Cullen, in Banffshire, was made collegiate by the
generosity of Alexander Ogilvie of Deskford. Its stafY comprised a
provost, six prebendary clergy and two choristers. The last to be
mentioned, and one of the latest ecclesiastical foundations before
the Reformation, was the Collegiate church of Biggar, in Lanark-
shire. It was founded in 1545 by Malcolm, Lord Fleming, for a
742 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
provost, eight prebendaries, "four boys having children's voyces'*
and six poor bedesmen ; the duty of the latter was to say certain
prayers for the founder and his family in return for the charity af-
forded them. The fine church built in 1545, it may be remarked,
is still used as a parish church. Its spire was never completed,
owing to Reformation troubles. Horrible to relate, some portions
of the building were wantonly pulled down less than a century ago,
and the materials sold for a few pounds to defray certain parish ex-
penses. Other alterations have been made in the interior to suit
the more severe taste of Presbyterians. "The richly carved and gilt
oaken ceiling of the chancel," for instance, has been "taken down
and replaced with another of lath and plaster !"^
The ecclesiastical foundations of the sixteenth century were not
limited to Collegiate churches, for there is an instance as late as
1526 of the establishment of a Carmelite Friary in Edinburgh. The
Provost and Baillies of the city granted for that purpose the lands
of Greenside, at the foot of the Calton Hill, together with the chapel
of the Ploly Cross there. This is probably the last religious house
founded in Scotland during the middle ages, and it is a significant
fact that it owed its existence to the chief magistrate of the city.
No reference has been made to the foundation at Aberdeen in
1505 and St. Andrew's in 1512 of Collegiate churches in connection
with the universities established in those cities ; but although these
can scarcely be regarded as private institutions, they are additional
evidence to the prestige of the Church at that period, and to the
absence of any idea of its speedy overthrow.
As to lesser benefactions, records which have escaped the almost
universal wreck at the Reformation give numerous instances of the
piety and charity of clergy and laity, displayed in generous gifts to
the Church. The Burgesses of Newburgh, a town which owed its
origin to the Benedictine Abbey of Lindores, in Fifeshire, were
liberal in their donations both to the abbey and to the Chapel of St.
Katharine which had been erected in their town by Abbot Cavers in
1508. Many of them burdened their properties with annual pay-
ments for the maintenance of chaplains for saying Mass. Thus
James Chawmere resigned two roods of land in favor of Sir John
Malcomson,* one of the chaplains of St. Katharine's, in 1508.
Michael Anderson and John Kawe, Baillies of Newburgh, bestowed a
further endowment three years later. Archibald Carno, in 15 13,
gave funds "for perpetual prayers for himself, his father and
mother,"^*' and for the late Abbot of Lindores. In 1522 Isabella
Hadingtone left a rood of land to the same chapel, and a yearly sum
8 "New Statistical Account of Scotland," Vol. VI., p. 361 9 It may be remarked here
that the ordinary titles given to priests in the middle ages were " master," if he had taken,
his university degree ; "sir," if he had not. 10 L,aing : " Abbey of Lindores," p. iga.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 743
to St. John's altar in the abbey. AHson Tod, in Hke manner, during
the following year, gave land "for the weal of her own soul and the
souls of her forbears,"^^ and James Tode did the same, "for the wel-
fare of his own soul and the souls of his father and mother."^^ As
late as 1542 Michael Tod, a burgess, conveyed a rood of land to the
same chapel for the souls of the founders of the monastery, of the
then abbot and his successors, of the donor's father and mother,
ancestors and descendants and "for the souls of all the faithful de-
funct forever.""
The Carthusian monastery at Perth was enriched in the same way
by the inhabitants of the city. Thus John Paull, in 1500, grants
a tenement in South street to the Prior and Convent ; James Drum-
mond, burgess, assigns an annual payment of forty shillings for
seven years ; Robert Ramsay, another burgess, grants the Prior, in
1 5 17, "a pound of wax yearly" out of the rent of his garden in
Speygate; Sir John Lovel, a priest, grants an endowment in 1526;
William Trippis, burgess, bestows on the Convent a tenement near
the Turret Bridge, in 1527; Christian Cromby, wife of Andrew
Bunch, resigns, in 1530, her right to certain property, in South
street, in favour of the same monastery.^*
A gift made in 1525 by Elizabeth Gray, Countess Dowager of
Huntly, to the Black Friars of the same city, exhibits a special love
for the offices of the Church. The Countess endows the Convent
with half her lands of Littleton "for the salvation of her own soul and
the soul of the late Alexander, Earl of Huntly, . . . her most
beloved husband, who conferred many benefits upon her."^^ In
return she binds the Friars, as she says, "to chant and celebrate
solemnly, with a memorial, in their purple vestments, with deacon,
sub-deacon and assisting servants, in their choir between the hours
of 7 and 9 daily, one Mass of repose for the comfortable rest of my
soul, and of the soul of the late Alexander, my husband."^® The
same generous lady had already contributed towards the restoration
of the buildings of the convent, and required in return a special
daily prayer from the Friars after their midnight office at her own
tomb and that of her husband.
The Carmelites also of the same city were the recipients of
numerous benefactions from the citizens. Thus Robert Esson, John
Simpson and Finlay Reid, in 1500, each bestowed one of their tene-
ments on the Friary; in 15 14 John Mathison, burgess, renewed a
previous annual grant of twenty shillings,^^ and in 15 19 the Friars
became possessed of a tenement in North street.^^
" "Abbey of Liudores," p. 192. >2 ibid, " Ibid, p. 196. " Vide, i,awson : "Book of Perth,"
p. 50-52. ^5 Ibid, p. 24. 1' Ibid, p, 25. ^^ In estimating the value of this and other similar
donations, it must be borne in mind that taking into account the difference between Scot-
tish and English money, it would represent about three or four times the value of money
at the present day. ^8 " Book of Perth," pp. 38-39.
744 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The "Necrology" of the Friars Minor of Aberdeen recounts many-
instances of a like generosity. In 1520 is recorded the death of
Master John Flescher, Chancellor of Aberdeen. Besides a large
sum of annual revenue, he is said to have contributed twenty pounds
towards the buildings. In 1552 Master Duncan Burnet, rector of
Methlick, is extolled for his annual payment to the convent of ten
marks, and for the gift of "a vestment of scarlet for the high altar,"^*
besides another vestment. Among other benefactors mentioned in
the same record are Dame Margaret Chalmer, in 1532, Dame Jonete
Patersone, relict of Sir Alexander Lauder, knight, in 1534, and
Lady "Egidia Blair, in 1537, all of whom contributed liberally to-
wards the buildings.-*^
As examples of the devotion of parishioners towards their parish
church may be instanced the various benefactions made during the
sixteenth century to the famous Church of St. John the Baptist at
Perth. Robert Clark, burgess of the city, for example, founded and
endowed an altar in honor of St. Severus in 1504. Alexander Tyrie,
Provost of Perth, founded the chaplaincy in honor of St. Chris-
topher at St. Clement's altar in the church in 151 1. Patrick Wallis,
burgess, bestowed a tenement in 15 13 on the altar of the Annuncia-
tion, previously founded by him. In 15 18 Sir John Tyrie, Provost
of the Collegiate Church of Methven, founded from the revenues of
the Confraternity of the Name of Jesus, of which he was dean, the
altar of the Holy Name, bestowing upon it a yearly revenue. In
like manner the dean of the Confraternity of the Holy Trinity,
Master John Ireland, founded the Trinity altar in the same year. In
1523 Finlay Anderson, burgess of Perth, founded and endowed the
altar of St. Fith or Fithie the Virgin. ^^ In the same year Master
James Fenton, Precentor of Dunkeld, founded the altars of St.
Mungo and St. Bridget, bestowing on each an annual revenue. In
1525 Sir John Tyrie founded the altar of St. Michael, and Sir Simon
Young, another priest, that of St. Barbara. The latter benefactor
added in 1529 another foundation — the chaplaincy of St. Gregory
and St. Augustine. These and the other altars of that glorious
church were continually receiving minor benefactions from the
generous citizens.^-
Sir John Tyrie, whose liberality has been more than once alluded
to, was also founder in 1523 of St. Katharine's Chapel in Perth.
Besides endowments for the perpetual support of a chaplain to say
Mass and of "one poor man to minister in the Masses daily to be
celebrated in the same chapel," there was provision for the lodging
^* " Vestimentum de scarleto pro summo altari." "Spalding Club Miscellany," Vol. I.
p. 65. so Ibid, pp. 68-77. ^ The writer has been unable to identify this saint. The name
may possibly be a corruption of that of St. Faith, virgin and martyr. ^ " Book of Perth,"
pp. 66-70.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 745
and entertainment of poor travelers. The foundation charter is
worth quoting. It begins thus : "Whereas, by pious prayers and
celebrations of Masses wherewith the Son is offered for sins, we
believe that sins are remitted, the pains of Purgatory mitigated and
the souls of the deceased frequently liberated and placed in the joys
of Paradise," etc., etc.^'* This unequivocal expression of Catholic
belief is a witness not only to the sound faith of the donor, but also
to the general acceptance at the time of the doctrines referred to in
the charter. There may, even then, have been sympathizers with
Protestantism in Perth — a city which in less than forty years was to
become notorious from its connection with the leaders of the Re-
formation— but, as a whole, it must have been still sound in the
Faith to have counted amongst its citizens so many generous donors
to the Church and her ministers.
The last group of benefactions which will help to serve as proof
of Scotland's Catholicity just before the Reformation is that con-
nected with the Collegiate Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh — a build-
ing destined to become later on the centre of reform. In 1502
Richard Hopper, burgess, bestows an annual rental upon the altar
of Our Lady and St. Roch ; Robert Vaus, three years later, makes
a like donation to the high altar; Jonete Elphynston, in 1508, gives
to the chaplain of the altars of All Saints, St. Thomas and St. Apol-
lonia a portion of her lands for an annual endowment ; Alexander
Rynde in 15 12 similarly benefits the altar of Our Saviour; Sir Alex-
ander Lauder de Blith, Provost of the burgh, makes in 15 13 a new
bequest to the altar already founded by him in honor of Our Lady
and St. Gabriel ; while Walter Chepman bestows an annual rental, in
1 5 13, upon the altar of St. John, whose chapel he has recently
founded.
These are comparatively early bequests, but later ones are not
wanting. Thus in 1523 John Patersoun, burgess, and his daughter
Jonete become benefactors of St. Sebastian's altar ; Sir Robert Hop-
pare, a priest, gives in 1527 to the altar of St. Roch some of his
property ; John Quhite, another priest, benefits the altar of the Holy
Blood in the same year; Walter Chepman endows, in 1528, the altar
of Jesus in the chapel below the cemetery ; Adam Ottirburne, of
Reidhall, bequeathes various rents to Our Lady's altar in 1536 ; John
Chepman endows a chaplain for St. John's altar in the following
year; while Sir Thomas Ewing, the chaplain, bestows an annual
revenue upon the altar of the Holy Blood in 1542.
Lest these examples should seem to belong exclusively to the
wealthier citizens, a few more must be added, at the risk of wearying
the reader, to illustrate the Catholicity of another class of society.
23 •' Book of Perth " p. 80.
746 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The trade guilds of the middle ages bore a very important part in
the social and religious life of the period. They were intended for
mutual encouragement and assistance in the carrying out of their
respective crafts by the members of such societies, and for affording
aid in poverty and sickness. Each guild had, moreover, its specified
religious and charitable obligations which the members bound them-
selves to fulfil. The various associations of the kind in the city of
Edinburgh seem to have been connected with the Church of St.
Giles. Each one as it was formed claimed a special altar in that
church, and the brethren became bound to provide for its decent
maintenance and the support of its chaplain. The Guild of Surgeons
and Barbers, who were responsible for the altar of St. Mungo, were
legally bound over in 1505 to demand from each burgess an entrance
fee of five pounds, to augment the necessary funds, and a weekly
payment of one penny from a master or a halfpenny from a work-
man. The Cordwainers, who supported the altar of St. Crispin and
St. Crispinian, were bound to exact from each servant his weekly
halfpenny, from each master his weekly penny, to provide orna-
ments for the altar and "to sustain the priest's meit."^* In 151^
the Merchants were granted the Holy Blood Aisle, "to haif the
octave of Corpus Christi to be thair procuration day."^^ In 152a
the Walkers,^^ Shearers and Bonnet-makers had the altar of St.
Mark allotted to them. The Candle-makers obtained in 1522 the
altar of Our Lady of Pity. The Tailors received that of St. Anne
in 1531.
Besides these examples of the Catholic life which was bound up
with the great Edinburgh church, its records illustrate that apparent
sense of the security of Catholicity to which allusion has already
been made. Additions, improvements, restorations of the fabric of
St. Giles' seem to have been constantly in progress up to the very
epoch of the Reformation. In 15 13 a new aisle was built by the
Provost of the burgh, Lauder de Blith; in 15 18 the Holy Blood
Chapel was erected; in 1530 mention is made of a "Chalmer nev/
biggit"-' in connection with the churchyard; in 1543 Thomas Wat-
son is appointed by the Provost to take charge of the windows of the
"Kirk of Sanct Gele Yearlie ;" in the following year the Dean of
Guild is instructed to repair the "sang scule ;" and "Andro Mansoun,
wricht," has a pension awarded him for ten years for his work on the
stalls of the choir. The most striking instance, however, is the
restoration of the Lady altar, for which various benefactors pro-
vided the requisite adornments and were allowed to have their
arms engraven upon their respective gifts. Among these were sev-
21 Cameron Lees : "St. Giles, Edinburgh," p. 79. 25 jbid, p. 80. 26 j. g., the Fullers of
Cloth, rjff^ Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. 27 >'\ chamber new-built."
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 747
eral costly pillars of brass. The work was finished just three years
before the Reformation, at which period the aforesaid pillars were
carried off and. made into cannon.^®
These instances of the generosity of Catholics towards the Church
and its services are merely a few culled from sources which were
easy of access to the writer. They by no means exhaust the supply.
They refer to benefactions from nobles, commoners, clergy and laity
to a Benedictine Abbey, a Carthusian house, Dominican, Carmelite
and Franciscan Friaries, a parish church and a collegiate institution
situated in the widely distant regions of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Perth
and Fife, and may therefore serve as typical instances. We have
every reason to suppose that the records of other religious houses,
collegiate and parish churches, hospitals and nunneries would have
furnished us with similar examples; it is impossible to prove the
fact, for those records in most cases have perished. The hundreds
of such churches and institutions scattered over the country must
have been able to point to examples quite as edifying and probably
even more striking than those which are here adduced.
Another fact to be borne in mind is this: Some of these gifts
were made at a period posterior to the English Reformation — after
Henry of England had practically made himself Pope for that coun-
try. But what is still more striking, the Lady Chapel in the Church
of St. Giles was actually undergoing restoration just one year before
the Earl of Argyll demolished the altars of the collegiate churches of
Holy Trinity and St. Mary's in the same city in 1558. From all
this it is evident that Protestantism was not unknown to these gen-
erous benefactors of the Church ; yet they had no fear of its ever be-
coming an enemy to be dreaded. We may well suppose that in
the security of their own steadfast faith they regarded the upholders
of the new religion as mere raving fanatics, unworthy of considera-
tion.
With so great a weight of presumptive evidence in favor of the
thoroughly Catholic spirit of at least a considerable number of the
people, and especially of the middle classes — always the staple
strength of a nation — it would seem only reasonable to conclude that
the Scottish people had not become in 1561 so demorahzed that the
"greater portion . . . had become Protestants."
It is time to turn our attention now to the other side of the ques-
tion, and to examine to what extent the people of Scotland, in the
early part of the Reformation movement, became attached to the
religion forced upon them as a substitute for their ancient Faith.
Many there were, of course, who were ready to embrace the new
doctrines from conviction, led astray as they were by the vehement
28 " St. Giles, Edinburgh," passim.
748 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
denunciations of Catholicity made by the reforming preachers, and
possessing Httle soHd rehgious instruction in the doctrines of the
true Church. Others would, doubtless, be influenced by the exam-
ple of the nobles and gentry who had joined themselves to the
Reformers. Many more, we may well believe, would conform to
escape the inconveniences of Presbyterian persecution. Yet it is
evident from various proofs that the Protestant party, even after the
Reformation had become a fait accompli, were much dissatisfied with
the general result of their persistent efforts to spread the new re-
ligion. In 1581, more than twenty years after the Reformation had
been effected, it was complained "that the 'dregs of idolatry' existed
in sundry parts of the realm 'by using of pilgrimage to some chapels,
wells, crosses ... as also by observing of the festival days of
the sancts,' " etc."^ An Act of Parliament was therefore passed, con-
demning such practices and punishing them severely by fines and
imprisonment. In 1583 the Assembly complained to James VI.
that converts were actually being made to Catholicity: "Many,"
they said, ''who from their youth were nourished in the Kirk of God,
had become maintainers of Popery and the Man of Sin."^** In 1586
the same body lament the fact that "Papistry abounds in the north
for the want of qualified ministers. "^^
The fact was that the unhappy state of Scotland had already begun
to attract zealous missionaries from the continent to sustain the
faith of those who had kept staunch to Catholicity and to bring back
those who had wandered away from it. The Catholic gentry kept in
their houses Jesuits and other missionaries, who said Mass for the
people and administered the sacraments. In some cases the ruined
churches were made use of. Thus at Christmas, 1585, Mass was
sung openly in the old collegiate church of Lincluden, near Dum-
fries, at the instigation of Lord Maxwell, and so eager were the peo-
ple to take part that to escape the guards posted on the bridge to
prevent them, they waded through the Nith, and wet through up to
the waist, took part in the sacred oflices.
The favorable disposition of a large body of the people to the
Catholic religion and their hatred of the Reformed Church had at-
tracted the serious attention of the Protestant authorities previous
to the meeting of the General Assembly of the Kirk in 1588, and
by means of circulars which had been addressed to the various
Synods with the object of gaining accurate information on the sub-
ject, a statement was drawn up and presented to the Assembly in
question. From the statistics then produced we are able to form
a true estimate of the state of religion at that period — nearly thirty
29 Chambers : " Domestic Annals of Scotland," Vol. I., p. 147. ^ " Booke of the Universal
Kirk of Scotland,", Part II,, p. 631. 3i ibid, p. 659.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 749
years after the Reformation had been brought about by Parliament.
The report still exists in the "Booke of the Universall Kirk of Scot-
land,"^^ the official collection of the acts of the General Assembly.
A summary of it will give an unbiased picture of the power which
the Catholic Church still possessed over the minds and consciences
of a large section of the community in many different districts of the
country.
In the neighbourhood of Dumfries ''Mr. Johne Durie, lesuite," is
said to be "corrupting, seduceing and practiseing to and fro under
the name of Mr. William Leing," and saying Mass in the town of
Dumfries. Lord and Lady Hefries, with several other persons of
rank and position, are denounced by name as open followers of the
Jesuit. Protestant Kirks are not properly established there, and
the people refuse to hear the Word of God.^^
In the districts of Buchan, the Garioch, Mar and Aberdeen six
Jesuits are incessantly at work, corrupting the people. The Laird
of Leslie has "public Mes" in his chapel where there are "two idoles
above the altar." The aforesaid Jesuits assemble the Papists in
Aberdeen and distribute books and Agnus Dei to whom they will.
The destitution of the chief Kirks and the want of pastors and pro-
vision form "a special common greiiTe through all the country."^*
In Ross, where John Leslie had been made bishop, there had been
"great coldness amongst all gentleman and commons since the
Jesuits had liberty to pass through the country under the Earl of
Huntly's lieutenantrie."^^ The Kirks are said to have been demol-
ished and left in a ruinous state.
In Caithness the Earl of Sutherland and his lady and friends are
staunch Papists, the ministers being few and destitute of provisions.
In the west of Angus are many Papists, of whom a long list is
given. They are denounced as constant receivers of lesuits and
Seminary Priests. William Douglas, son of the Laird of Glen-
bervie, in another part of the same county, is accused of lying in wait
for the ministers with a band of armed men in order to drive them
from their duty.
In Fifeshire there is "superstitious keeping of Yoole (Christmas)
Pasche, etc." The Earl of Huntly, to whom has been granted the
abbacy of Dunfermline, brings thither "flocks of Papists, lesuits,
etc." There is no resorting to the Kirks, and in many parts these
are destitute of pastors. ^^
In Lothian "sundrie Papists and Seminary Priests" have con-
fessed that they have said Mass and preached the Faith, and when
imprisoned for the same have been released without punishment — a,
32 Published by the Maitland Club (1839-45.) 33 " Universall Kirk," Part II., p. 716. « Ibid,
p. 717. 36 Ibid, p. 718. »6 Ibid, p. 719.
750 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
striking proof of the feeling of the majority, especially of those in
high places. The destitution lamented in other districts is empha-
sized here by the fact that Papists make use of the neglected Kirks
for their own worship.
In the Merse and Teviotdale the "haill peiple are readie to revolt
from the Evangell, because they see the Prince careles therof, as
they say."^^ This covert rebuke to James VI. for his leanings to-
wards episcopacy was probably inserted with the hope of rousing
him to assert his staunch Protestantism in punishing offenders.
There is no minister in the town of Lanark ; for no residence can
be obtained for even one. In the presbytery of Stirling scarcely
three Kirks have ministers. "Walter Buchanan, son of the Good-
man of Auchinpryour, and a Flemis woman his wyfe" are denounced
as "indurat Papists." The people are said to be given to "super-
stitious ceremonies, pilgrimages to Chrysts well, fasting, festives,
etc."^* In the presbytery of Dunblane the Catholic bishop, "who
latelie came home," has brought with him a foreign priest, either a
Frenchman or an Italian, who "draweth all with him to the old
dance." The ministers are despised and the Kirks left ruined and
desolate. In Glasgow "the whole ministers" are said to be "dissa-
pointed of their livings." There are many who receive and enter-
tain lesuits.^^
In the presbytery of Dumbarton the people despise the ministers,
"menace them and boast in their faces." The common people have
been led away by popish ceremonies. "The Ladie Marr intertaineth
in the place of Arsken an excommunicated priest, Sir Andrew Nes-
mith." Of this priest it is related that his "messe cloathes (vest-
ments) were once apprehended, but (he) is sincesyne of new well
provided therein and in messe books (i. e., missals).^*' In the dis-
trict of Lennox, although there are twenty-four Kirks, there are not
four ministers to serve them. In Ayr there are many Papists, and a
long list of them is furnished for the information of the Assembly.
Surely, no better proof could be adduced of the loyalty of a con-
siderable portion of the people of Scotland to their ancient Faith
than this open confession of the failure of the Reformers to force
upon their countrymen a newly manufactured religion. From the
reports of their own agents scattered throughout the country it is
manifest that the Scottish people as a body were not taking kindly
to the changes which had been imposed upon them. It is striking
that not even one of the districts reported upon can furnish proof of
even moderate success. This is a fact worthy of notice; for the
Reformers would only have been too glad to produce any evidence
in their own favor. Nothing of the kind is attempted. On all sides
3' " Universall Kirk," Part II., p. 720. ^ Ibid, p. 731. 39 ibid, p 721. « Ibid, p. 722.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 751
the same lamentation rises up. Empty and ruined churches, min-
isters despised by the people and in some parts contemptuously re-
sisted and driven away, the doctrines of the Reformation openly re-
jected : such are the results of nearly thirty years of persistent perse-
cution. On the other hand, Catholicity is gaining new adherents,
priests are boldly ministering to their flocks, supported and de-
fended by rich and poor alike.
This, however, is not the last confession of failure made by the
reforming party. The same lamentation continually resounds in
their reports of the state of religion all through the century. In
1593 the Reformers complained that 'Topery" was still on the in-
crease.*^ In the following year the Kirk was declared to be in
danger on account of "the erection of the Mass in divers quarters of
the land, and among others in the Earl of Huntly's houses at Straith-
bogie and Aberdeen, and the Earl of Errol's houses at Logyamount
and Slaines."*^ In 1596 further complaints arose because "the
wives of Papists" were "coming home again to Scotland."*^ Again
in 1601 the Privy Council Record relates that "sundry Jesuits, sem-
inary priests and trafficking papists, enemies to God's truth and all
Christian government," were "daily creeping within the country
(seeking) by their godless practices, not only to disturb the estate of
the true religion, but also his hieness' awn estate, and the common
quietness of the realm."**
One more proof of the strength of the Catholic party, whose re-
ligion had already nearly thirty years before been declared illegal,
is to be found in a paper in the handwriting of Lord Burghley,
drawn up for the guidance of James VI. It is still preserved in the
State Paper Office. From this document we gather that in 1589 all
the northern part of Scotland, including the counties of Inverness,
Caithness, Sutherland, Aberdeen and Moray, together with the
sheriffdoms of Buchan, Angus, Wigton and Nithsdale, were either
wholly or for the greater part in the Catholic interest ; Perth, Stir-
ling, Fife, Lanark, Dumbarton and Renfrew*^ were chiefly Protest-
ant ; Ayr and Linlithgow were doubtful.**^ From this it would ap-
pear that the followers of Catholicity and Protestantism were at
that time nearly equally divided.
Sufficient evidence has been adduced to show that up to the end
of the sixteenth century a considerable portion of the nation, far
from being attached to Protestantism, had never given up the old
Faith, and that the increase in their numbers gave constant alarm to
the reforming party. But it may be asked how it came to pass that
« " Booke of the Universall Kirk," Part III., p. 798. *2 ibid, p. 830. ^ Ibid, p. 873. « Cham-
bers : " Domestic Annals," Vol. I., p. 349. *^ An exception, as will be seen later on, must be
made for the city of Paisley, which was still intensely Catholic. ^ Fraser Tytler : " History
of Scotland," Vol. IV., p. 175.
752 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the Reformation triumphed in the end. A Protestant historian shall
give the answer. Mr. Andrew Lang, alluding to the ill success of
the Catholic persecution of heretics under James V., gives as a
reason its half-heartedness — the king himself and even some of the
clergy being anxious for an excuse to avoid exacting the extreme
penalty. "A cruel punishment like burning," he says, "can only be
effective if practised on a very large scale, and with mechanical ruth-
lessness. Effective persecution, like that instituted by the Reform-
ers as soon as the yoke was off their own necks, must work evenly,
universally and, as it were, mechanically. Imprisonment, confisca-
tion, exile, death denounced and inflicted in successive grades on all
practising Catholics almost stamped out CathoHcism in Scotland
after 1560. Sporadic burnings and confiscations under James V.
could not put down the nascent Protestantism."*^ This, then, was
the secret of the eventual success of the Scottish Reformation. Per-
secution, ruthless and systematic, became the lot of all who, having
dared to brave the prohibitions of Protestant bigotry, fell into the
hands of the Reformers and their agents. History gives abundant
examples, a few of which shall be here recorded.
The laws against Catholic worship were promptly acted upon.
In 1562 Sir James Arthure, a priest, was apprehended for "breking
of ye Quenis grace Act and ordinance, made in hir last Parliament
. . . and for Baptissing of ye fassion of ye Papistry lohne Mil-
leris barne . . . ane barne, callit Williarn Lichbody . . .
ane barne callit William Boid," and three other "barnes" and for
marrying lohn Thomson and Margaret Whitlaw, ''in ye aide and
abhominabill Papist maner."*^ In May, 1563, no less than forty-
eight persons were brought to trial for "attempting to restore
Popery.'^ Among them were more than thirty priests, together
with Archbishop Hamilton, of St. Andrews, the Prior of Whithern,
the Succentor of Glasgow and other clerics of importance. The sole
charge brought against them was "the controventioune of our
Soverane ladies Act and Proclamatioune" against making "ony
alteratioun or innovation of the Stait of Religione;" this they had
been guilty of by saying or hearing Mass and administering the
sacraments in the old Catholic manner. The Archbishop and sev-
eral of the priests were specially charged with hearing confessions —
"in ye moneth of Apryill last by past, in ye towne of Paslay, Kirk,
Kirk-yard, and Abbay Place thairof (they) openlie, publiclie, and
plainly tuke auricular Confessioun of ye saidis personis."*® The
Archbishop and several of the clergy and more important layfolk
were imprisoned in different towns ; others, who bound themselves
« "History of Scotland," Vol. I., p. 431. <8 Pitcairn :" Criminal Trials," Vol. I., p. 420.*
« Ibid, p. 429.*
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 753
not to offend again were discharged. The irony of charging the
accused in the name of the CathoHc queen shows the height of power
to which the Reformers had attained.
Knox, in an account which he gives of the treatment dealt to a
priest illustrates the spirit of bigotry which was abroad. The
incident occurred in Edinburgh at Easter, 1565. "As some of the
brethren," says the Reformer, "were diligent to search such things,
they having with them one of the Bayliffs, took out Sir James Carvet
riding hard, as he had now ended the saying of the Masse, and con-
veyed him, together with the Master of the house, and one or two
more of the assistants, to the Tolbuith, and immediately revested
him with all his Garments upon him, and so carried him to the Mar-
ket-Crosse, w^here they set him on high, binding the Chalice in his
hand, and himself fast tyed to the said Crosse, where he tarried the
space of one hour ; During which time, the boyes served him with
his Easter egges."^*^ On the following day the priest and his assist-
ants were brought to court and tried and convicted of the offense
against the Act of 1560. "And albeit," says Knox spitefully, "for
the same offence he deserved death, yet for all punishment, he was
set upon the Market-Crosse for the space of three or four hours, the
hang-man standing by, and keeping him, the boyes and others
were busie with egges casting."^^
This affair may have suggested to the Regent Moray, a few years
after, the commutation of the capital sentence with regard to four
priests of Dunblane, condemned to be hanged at Stirling for the
sole crime of saying Mass in 1569. By command of the Regent
they were banished the realm after undergoing the like ignominious
and disgraceful treatment. They were "bund to the mercat-croce,
with thair vestmentis and challices in derisioun, quhair the people
caist eggis and uther villany at their faces be the space of an hor,
and thairefter thair vestmentis and challices were brunt to ashes."'^^
All the priests seized for similar offenses against the law did not
escape so easily. Allusion has already been made to Archbishop
Hamilton. ""^^ In 1573 Thomas Robison, a priest, formerly master
of Paisley School, suffered death for saying Mass, having been twice
previously accused of the same breach of law.^* In the following
year another, whose name is not recorded, suffered a like fate :
"Upoun the fourt day of May (1574) there was ane priest hangit in
Glasgow callit — for saying of Mes."^^ Other priests at about the
same period escaped punishment by flight to the continent.
The unwearying zeal of the Protestant party against any person
who might give the slightest cause for suspicion is illustrated in
60 Knox : " History of Reformation," lib 5. ^1 Ibid. 52 " Historic of King James the Sext,"-
p. 66. 53 Vide, Atnerican Catholic Quarterly, July, igoo. ^4 Buchanan :" Hist. Rerum Sco-
tic," f. 242. 55 "Diurnal of Occurrents," p. 341.
Vol. XXV— Sig. 9.
754 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the case of John Lowrie, a tavern keeper, accused in 1588 of treason-
ably maintaining, intercommuning with and supplying with meat
and drink Mr. Robert Bruce, "confessit and avowed Papist and
seminarie Priest, commoun enemie to Goddis truth and Cristiane
government." The accused declared in defense that the person in
question had merely taken food in his house and had paid for the
same, he himself '*nocht knawing him to be ane Priest."^®
The laity were often made to suffer for their opinions. Thus Mr.
William Murdo was accused in Aberdeen, in 1592, of being "an open
railer against the ministry and truth preached."^^ He was banished
from the burgh and threatened with having his cheeks branded and
ears cropped should he return. One David Calderwood, of Glas-
gow, having in his possession a copy of Archbishop Hamilton's
"Catechism," came under the notice of the Kirk authorities as a
suspected Papist. Another Glasgow citizen was severely taken to
task for having in the exercise of his profession as a painter depicted
crucifixes in the houses of some of the citizens. Even those who
merely associated with Catholics were punished. Thus, in 1595,
Gabriel Mercer was accused of entertaining for three days one
Elphinstone, "an excommunicated Papist," and was ordered to
make a public acknowledgment of his offense from his seat in
church.^® Alexander Crighton of Perth received a similar punish-
ment in 1610, being "convicted by his own confession of haunting
and frequenting the company of Robert Crighton, excommunicate
Papist, eating and drinking with him in taverns, and walking on the
streets."^® As Alexander, a month later, had not obeyed the in-
junction, he was ordered to be imprisoned.^"
It might be thought that such vigilant persecution must have
relaxed in course of time ; such, however, was not the case. Not
only in the century which saw the Reformation set up, but during
the course of the two that followed, the laws against Catholics were
persistently upheld, and continually enforced with more or less
rigor. If at times there seemed to be a lull, some more than usually
flagrant example of Papist boldness would rouse anew a tempest of
bigotry. Thus in 1601 Protestant zeal was stirred afresh and many
gentlemen connected with Dumfries and its neighborhood — a dis-
trict always troublesome to the Kirk — were denounced for hearing
Mass and entertaining priests; some were imprisoned and others
who failed to answer the summons proclaimed as rebels. In 1605
Gilbert Brown, Abbot of Sweetheart, who had for many years
escaped them, fell into the clutches of the Protestants, "not without
peril from the country people, who rose to rescue him."^^ He was
66pitcairn: "Criminal Trials," Vol. I., p. I167. 57 Chambers: "Domestic Annals," Vol.
I-.P-343- ^^ Ibid, p. 337. 59 "Perth Kirk-Session Records," 1610. s^ Ibid, ^i Chambers:
*' Domestic Annals," Vol. I., p. 390.
The Story of the Scottish Reformation. 755
imprisoned and banished. About two years later a priest was
brought from his prison in Edinburgh and subjected for ten or
twelve hours to the same brutal treatment at the Market-Cross as
that meted out to the Dunblane priests. His vestments and chalice
were afterwards burnt, and he himself led back to prison.^^
James VI. 's efforts to introduce bishops into the Scottish Kirk
stirred up anew the persecuting spirit of the Presbyterians against
Catholics. The successful capture by Archbishop Spottiswood in
161 5 of the illustrious Jesuit, Father John Ogilvie, and his subse-
quent execution, was an opportunity to that prelate of proving that
Episcopalians had no sympathy with Papists. The dauntless cour-
age of that glorious champion of the Faith, who under the most
inhuman torture refused to incriminate any of the Catholics to
whom he had been ministering, and met death with positive gaiety,
only tended to spread Catholicity among the laity and strengthen
the resolution of the clergy.
In 1620 two other priests were apprehended. Father Patrick
Anderson and Father Edmund Cana. Two years later Father Mor-
timer, a Jesuit, barely escaped capital punishment and was ban-
ished. In 1628 so strong had Catholicity become in the north that
severe measures were taken to repress it. A long list of "excom-
municated" persons was drawn up, together with an enumeration
of the various priests known to be in the country, and a proclama-
tion forbade any person to "supply or furnish meat, drink, house or
harboury" to either Catholic priests or laymen. ^^ Paisley, which
up to Archbishop Hamilton's death had "steyked" its doors against
the ministers and continued to uphold the Mass and Catholic rites
generally, is described about this period as a very nest of papists.®*
It is remarkable that James VI. was in the latter part of his reign
inclined to be more lenient in his treatment of Catholics ; hence at
that period many priests were merely banished the realm. It is said
that he would have been glad to have spared the life of Father
Ogilvie had he been left to follow his own inclinations, and as a mat-
ter of fact he did not suffer another priest to be put to death. It is
not unnatural to suppose that the conversion of his queen, Anne
of Denmark, by Father Abercromby, about the year 1600, had some-
thing to do with this leniency. The fact of the queen's conversion
is proved beyond a doubt by contemporary evidence.®*^ It may be
noted here that at the solemn coronation of the king and queen as
sovereigns of Great Britain, in 1603, Queen Anne gave great offense
to the AngHcan bishops by refusing to partake of the Protestant
62 Chambers : "Domestic Annals," Vol. I., p. 390. *^ Ibid, Vol. II., p. 22. " Cameron-I^es :
" Paisley Abbey," pp. 239-247. ^ Forbes-I^eith : " Narratives of Scottish Catholics," p. 272
et seq.
756 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Sacrament.®* In the light of Catholic evidence it is easy to under-
stand the reason of the refusal.
Under Charles I. and Charles II., the old bigotry was again stirred
up at intervals. Under the Catholic King James VII. (or II.) a
Catholic chapel was fitted up at Holyrood Palace, and the event
caused some rioting and tumult. At his abdication a mob plun-
dered the chapel and burned the books and furniture in the court-
yard. Some of the more zealous were minded ''to go to all the
popish houses and destroy their monuments of idolatry, with their
priests' robes, and put in prison [the priests] themselves."®^ This
was accordingly done in the case of Traquair, where altars, relics,
crucifixes and sacred objects generally were wantonly desecrated
and destroyed; many of the articles were carried to Peebles and
"solemnly burned at the cross."®® About the same time a like scene
was enacted at Dumfries with the spoils of the chapel of the Maxwell
family.
When Queen Anne came to the throne, the Assembly awoke to
fresh vigor; for a royal proclamation called for more strenuous
efforts. A census of all the Catholics in the kingdom was taken,
with the intention of putting the laws in full force. From the lists
then made, and from Catholic reports to the Holy See, it appears
that there were in Scotland in 1703 thirty-one priests ; the laity, scat-
tered about the south of the country, according to Protestant re-
ports numbered about a thousand, but the Highlands are stigma-
tized as thoroughly "Papist." The people of almost all the Western
Isles were Catholic to a man, and in the northern counties many
faithful Catholics still clung to their religion and practised it publicly
under the protection of the Gordons, the Huntlys and other ortho-
dox believers. In spite of renewed search for priests and occasional
banishments and confiscations, the Protestant authorities were un-
able to make much way against the Faith in the districts where it was
most firmly established. This state of things lasted till the passing
of the Catholic Relief Bill in 1793, when systematic persecution
ceased.
In so slight a sketch as this many important events have neces-
sarily been passed over — such as the brutal treatment measured out
to Highland Catholics and the like ; enough, however, has been said
to show that the Scottish people were from the first reluctant to give
up their Faith, that in spite of severe and continued persecution, a
great number still clung to it, and that in certain districts — notably
of the Highlands and the Hebrides — no other kind of Christianity
ever gained a hearing. All honor to the heroic souls whose glory
66 Strickland;: " Queens of England," Vol, VII., p. 409. 6^ Chambers : " Domestic Annals,"
Vol. II., p. 499. 68 Ibid, p. 500.
Proposed Reformation of the Calendar. 757
it was to preserve intact and hand down through many generations
the Faith which had rescued their fathers from paganism, and to
which they themselves clung tenaciously in face of persecution,
spoliation and exile — a Faith which even death itself would have
been powerless to wrench from its stronghold in their loving hearts !
Such is the story of the Scottish Reformation. It but repeats
with variations the tale of the Church's overthrow in every land in
which heresy has seemed to men to triumph — a tale of man's fickle-
ness, avarice and lust of power pitted against an adversary undying
and invincible. For a time the human opponent may appear vic-
torious, but sooner or later the words of Eternal Wisdom must
needs be fulfilled: "Whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be
broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to
powder."
DoM Michael Barrett, O. S. B.
Fort Augustus, Scotland.
PROPOSED REFORMATION OF THE CALENDAR BY
THE RUSSIAN ASTRONOMERS.
IN a late issue of the Russian Orthodox American Messenger we
find the following :
"The revision of the Julian Calendar. (A report by Pro-
fessor Glasenapp, published in the 'Novoye Vremia'.)"
The Russian Astronomical Society appointed a special commis-
sion, containing representatives of the different state departments
and scientific societies, to examine into the question of the revision
of the Julian calendar. This commission appointed Professor
Glasenapp to make a report of the results of their conferences. The
professor in his report gives the following reasons for a reformation :
First. "The Julian calendar in use in Russia is a heathen one.
The light of Christianity never touched it at all."
Second. That its intercalation is incorrect to the extent of one day
in 128 years.
Third. That the Gregorian calendar is also imperfect in allowing
three days in 400 years for the accumulated error in the Julian, in-
stead of three days in 384 years (3 x 128).
Fourth. That the dates of the calendar should be so changed as
to have the date of the vernal equinox conform to the date on which
it fell at the birth of Christ, namely, the 23d of March.
Fifth. That the names of the months should be changed because
they are of pagan origin.
As the Russian Church refused to acknowledge the Pope's su-
758 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
premacy after the completion of the Greek schism, under Michael
Cerularius, in the middle of the eleventh century, Russia did not
fall into line like the other Christian States in adopting the Gre-
gorian calendar ; consequently their calendar (the Julian) is still in
vogue in all those countries adhering to the Greek Church (Russia,
Greece, Servia, Bulgaria, etc.), and their vernal equinox is thirteen
days ahead of ours, 1900 being a leap year according to the Julian
calendar.
Before examining the claims put forward by the Russian astrono-
mers for a revision of the calendar it is necessary to give a brief his-
tory of this calendar with reference to chronology, showing the gross
errors made by those ancient "time keepers."
The eminent astronomer, Herschell, in speaking of chronology,
or the calculation of ancient observation, says that "it may be com-
pared to that of a clock, going regularly when left to itself, but
sometimes forgotten to be wound up ; and when wound, sometimes
set forward, sometimes backward, either to serve particular pur-
poses and private interests, or to rectify blunders in setting."
If the Russians adopted the Gregorian calendar now, on the eve
of a new century, as had been recommended in 1830 by their Acad-
emy of Sciences (it is actually in use to-day by her scientific men),
all this difficulty of revision and confusion of dates could be avoided,
as the Gregorian clock will be correct to a day until the year 4905 —
thirty centuries hence. May we not hope that long before that re-
mote period is reached the true skin underneath the hardened Rus-
sian cuticle (alluded to by Napoleon) will become Roman, not
Tartar ?
The most savage and barbarous nations in the earliest periods of
the world's history could not fail to see, from mere observation, that
the natural units of time were the day, the month and the year.
Neither could they fail to observe the regular return of the seasons,
and the necessity of providing against the inclemency of winter or
the burning heat of summer. This knowledge, which might be
called "observational astronomy," must have compelled them, in a
manner however rude, to ascertain the length of the year.
The period at which each season began was at first measured by
the motions of the moon, and hence we find that all the nations of
antiquity adopted a year of twelve lunations, or twelve monthly
revolutions of the moon about the earth.
We find that Romulus, to whom the Roman calendar owes its
origin, divided the year into ten months, the year beginning on
March i. Romulus conceived that the sun completed his course
through all the seasons in 304 days, six of the months having thirty
days (April, June, Sextilis, September, November, December), and
Proposed Reformation of the Calendar. 759
the other four thirty-one days (March, May, Quintilis, October),
making in all 304 days. The year of Romulus was evidently not
lunar.
This calendar of Romulus was reformed by his successor, Numa
Pompilius, who at first intended to make a complete lunar year of
354 days (29^^ X 12). The length of the year, according to the cal-
culations of Numa, was fifty days longer than the year of Romulus,
equal to twelve lunations of twenty-nine and one-half days each.
From each of six of the months of thirty days, according to Ro-
mulus, Numa borrowed one day each. These six days were added
to the fifty already mentioned, and from these fifty-six days he com-
posed two months — ^January and February — of twenty-eight days
each, and transferred the beginning of the year from March i to
January i. He afterwards added one day to January, making the
year to consist of 355 days, and adjusted, as well as he knew how,
the months to the seasons. The sequence of the months as given
by Numa has never been disturbed.
The calendar of Numa was a purely lunar calendar, the seasons
being either disregarded or kept roughly in place by the occasional
intercalation of a month or the dropping of a month. The Jews and
the Mohammedans still use a lunar calendar, the Mohammedans
having a year of twelve months, containing alternately 354 and 355
days. From the time of Numa no revision of the calendar was at-
tempted for more than six centuries.
Julius Caesar, finding that the seasons and months did not coin-
cide as they had been adjusted by Numa, undertook to rectify the
calendar. He was assisted by Socigenes, a celebrated Alexandrian
mathematician. He fixed the length of the tropical year at 365 days
six hours, which was ten and one-quarter days longer than the year
of Numa. The seasons therefore were ten and one-quarter days
ahead of the month every year, and in thirty-five years would run
the round of the whole year. Julius added those ten days to the
year, one each to April, June, September and November and two
days each to January, August and December, and decreed that an
intercalary day should be added every fourth year to the 23d of Feb-
ruary— that is, the 24th of February (6th of the calends) should be
reckoned twice, hence bissextile (his sexta dies). To the great
Julius, therefore, we owe the contrivance of two years of 365 and 366
days and the insertion of one bissextile after three common years.
This change took place 45 B. C, which he ordered to commence on
the 1st of January, being the day of the new moon immediately fol-
lowing the winter solstice of the year before ; and this was the first
day of the first year of the Julian calendar. The 25th of December
of his 45th year is the date of Christ's nativity ; and the 46th year
760 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
of the Julian calendar is counted the first of the Christian era. The
year preceding the birth of our Saviour is called by chronologists
B. C. I, and in historical dating of events there is no year A. D. o.
In order to do this he enacted that the previous year, B. C. 46,
should consist of 445 days, which was called the "year of confusion."
The year was so thoroughly out of joint that Cicero speaks of being
delayed on a journey by an equinoctial storm in October ; thus show-
ing the deplorable state into which the reckoning of time had fallen.
The Julian year, however admirably adapted to common use, was
still imperfect ; because the time in which the sun performs his an-
nual revolution (from equinox to equinox) is not 36534 days, but
365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds ; the civil year therefore
must have exceeded the solar by 11 minutes 14 seconds, which in the
space of 128 years would amount to a whole day, and consequently
in 46,720 years (365 x 128) the beginning of the year would have ad-
vanced forward through all the seasons, and in one-half that interval
of time the summer solstice would have fallen in the middle of winter,
and the earth would have been covered with frost when the bloom of
vegetation was expected.
When the Julian calendar was introduced the equinox fell on the
25th of March, in the following year it occurred 11 minutes 14 sec-
onds earlier, and so on. In the year A. D. 325 the Council of Nice
decreed that the festival of Easter should henceforth be kept on the
first Sunday after the first full moon next following the vernal
equinox, which in that year feh on the 21st of March. The Council
fixed that date (21 March) as the date of the vernal equinox. In
the year A. D. 1582 the equinox had retrograded to the nth of
March.
Among the first to discover the imperfections of the Julian cal-
endar was the Venerable Bede, about the year A. D. 730. He ob-
served that the true equinox preceded the civil by about a day in 130
years. This constant anticipation of the equinox having become
too considerable not to be noticed, was first formally represented to
the Councils of Constance and Lateran by two Cardinals, Petrus ab
Alliaco and Cusa, who showed the cause of the error and the means
of correcting it.
In the year 1474 Pope Sixtus IV., being convinced of the neces-
sity of a reformation, sent for Regiomontanus, a celebrated mathe-
matician of that period, in order to engage him in the undertaking.
The premature death of Regiomontanus prevented his assistance,
and no one being thought worthy to be his successor, the project
was suspended. Nearly 100 years elapsed, when Gregory XIII.
had the high honor of accomplishing what several preceding Pontififs
and Councils had attempted in vain.
Proposed Reformation of the Calendar. 761
Pope Gregory invited to Rome a considerable number of mathe-
maticians and astronomers for the rectification of the calendar. He
employed ten years in the examination of their several formulae, and
finally gave the preference to the plan proposed by two brothers of
Verona — Antonius and Aloysius Lilius. He also sent for Clavius, of
the Society of Jesus, a celebrated astronomer, to supervise the work.
The first object of the reformers was to correct the errors of the
Julian method of reckoning and to make the length of the year
agree more exactly with the course of the sun. For this purpose it
was agreed that the ten days which had been gained by the old
account should be taken from October of the current year, and the
vernal equinox brought back from the nth of March to the 21st (as
it had been fixed by the Council of Nice). This was done on the
4th of October, 1 582, by eliminating ten days ; calling the day after
the 4th of October the 15th and making January i "New Year's
Day." And as the error of the Julian intercalation was found to
amount to about three days in 400 years, it was ordered that the
intercalations should be omitted in all the centurial years, excepting
those that are multiples of 400.
According, therefore, to the Gregorian rule of intercalation every
year whose number is divisible by 4 without a remainder is a leap
year, with the exception of the centurial years, which are only leap
years when divisible by 400. Thus 1700, 1800, 1900 are common
years, whilst 2000, 2400, 2800, etc., are leap years.
A council of the most learned prelates was convened by the Pope,
and the subject having been finally settled, a brief was published in
March, 1582, by which the use of the Julian calendar was abrogated
and the new one substituted in its stead, called from the Pope's name
the Gregorian calendar, or New Style.
Immediately after the promulgation of the new calendar nearly
all of the Christian States adopted it, with the exception of the fol-
lowers of the Greek Schism, and those Protestant nations who re-
fused to be "dictated" to by Rome. England adhered to the "Old
Style" until 1752, when an act of Parliament was passed adopting
the new calendar. There was then a difference of eleven days be-
tween the old and new style, and so the day after the 2d of Septem-
ber, 1752, was called the 14th of September. The people could not
understand the change, and there was considerable disturbance in
London, where mobs paraded the streets shouting : "Give us back
our eleven days," and complaining that their lives had been short-
ened by that time. The beginning of their year was changed from
March 25 to January i, to comply with the "New Style." The year
1752 was a short year of 270 days, from March 25 to December 31,
less eleven days.
^62 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Notwithstanding the confusion of dates, as exemplified in this
short sketch of the calendar, it is wrong to suppose that any time has
been lost or gained in chronology. One cannot annihilate time.
The length of the solar day and solar year has hardly undergone any
change during recorded time. These may be regarded as constants.
The solar year, according to astronomers, loses 6-10 of a second in a
century; the earth keeping schedule time to the fraction of a sec-
ond in her diurnal and annual revolution. Consequently it is only a
question of mathematics to find the exact date of any well-marked
phenomenon. For example, the eminent Greek astronomer, Thales,
calculated, many years before its occurrence, the total solar eclipse
which put an end to the battle between the Kings of Media and
Lydia, B. C. 610, May 28, and the late Mr. Baily made a similar cal-
culation of that eclipse, reckoned backwards, and found the dates to
correspond.
Sir Robert Ball, late Irish Astronomer Royal (now of Cam-
bridge University, England), is responsible for destroying our faith
in the poet Wolfe's vivid picture, in the following beautiful and
familiar lines, on the death of Sir John Moore :
" We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning ;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning."
Ball, it seems, made a calculation which resulted in the discovery
that the moon on that particular hour and night could not be shin-
ing, either strongly or mistily ; and was, in fact, below the horizon
at the time of Sir John's hurried interment.
The vernal equinox, or First of Aries (21st March), fixed by the
Council of Nice, is the point on the celestial equator crossed by the
sun's pathway (the ecliptic), and is made the starting point for many
celestial measurements. It is sometimes called the "Greenwich"
of the celestial sphere. This point is not fixed, but moves westward
on the ecliptic about 50.2 seconds every year, as if advancing to meet
the sun at each annual return. Hipparchus, in the second century
B. C. called this westward motion of the equinoxes "The Precession
of the Equinoxes," and this vernal equinoctial point makes a com-
plete circuit of the heavens in about 25,000 years (|f.V°). Now,
since the tropical year is the time included between two successive
passages of the vernal equinox by the sun, and since this equinoctial
point moves westward 50.2 seconds every year, corresponding to
about 20 minutes of time, it follows that the tropical year (the year
of the seasons) is about 20 minutes shorter than a sidereal year — or
the year of a complete revolution of the sun from any fixed star to
the same star asrain.
Proposed Reformation of the Calendar. 763
The length of this tropical year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes,
46 seconds,^ and this is the year used by all astronomers in determin-
ing the number of intercalations to be made so as to make civil time
correspond to solar or tropical time. It is called the year of chron-
ology and civil reckoning.
Let us now find the mean leangth of a Gregorian year. By the
Gregorian rule there are 97 leap years in 400 years. Take for illus-
tration the 400 years included between January i, 1601, and January
I, 2001. In these 400 years there are 100 leap years, less the three
centurial years 1700, 1800, 1900; those years not being divisible by
400 are common years. This would leave in every 400 years 97 leap
years (100 minus 3) and 303 common years.
^97^366 I' =146097 days in 400 years,
Which, being divided by 400, gives the average length of a Gre-
gorian years as 365.2425 days, equal to 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes,
12 seconds. This Gregorian year exceeds the length of a tropical year
by 26 seconds (365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 12 seconds less 365
days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds), an error which will amount
to a day in 3,323 years,(||. ^'•s,^J^ so that civil reckoning will know
no change until the year 4,905. (1582 plus 3323.) Up to that date
the equinoxes and solstices will fall on days similarly situated ; the
seasons will always correspond to the same months, and the vernal
equinox (used by the Church in calculating the time for the cele-
bration of Easter) will fall for the next thirty centuries on the 21st
of March, as the Council of Nice fixed it nearly sixteen centuries
ago ; which is surely more than sufficient for all human purposes.
Yet again, the slight error of one day in 3,323 years may be still
further reduced by making the year 4000 and its multiples — 8000,
12000, etc., common years; and this extension, we have no doubt,
was intended by Clavius, as it agrees with his rule of 4's. By adopt-
ing the last correction the commencement of the present year would
not vary a day in 100,000 years. Clavius successfully defended the
plan of the Gregorian calendar against Scaliger and Vieta, the most
profound scholars of their time.
In order to discover whether the coincidence of the civil and
1 For extremely exact mathematical work, the length of the mean tropical year as given
by Harkness is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46.067 seconds in terms of the mean solar day.
This day is slightly variable in length, on account of the action of the tides, the slow shrink-
age of the earth by loss of heat, its growth by deposit of meteoric matter and the disturb-
ance of its form and the distribution of matter on its surfaee by earthquakes, rivers, ocean-
currents, etc. Some of these causes tend to lengthen the day, and others to shorten it ; an
exact balance is infinitely improbable. Copernicus, the father of modem astronomy, deter"
mined the length of the tropical year to consist of 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 6 seconds^
Since his time more accurate determinations have been made, as the following, in which we
give only the excess above 365 days, 5 hours. 48 minutes : Ticho Brahe (A. D. 1602), 45^^ sec-
onds ; Kepler, 57.6 seconds ; Flamsteed, 57.5 seconds ; Halley, 54.8 seconds ; Delambre, 51. g
seconds : La Place, 49.7 seconds ; Bessel,47.8 ; Hansen and Olufsen, 46.15 seconds ; Le Verrier
46.5 seconds.
764 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
tropical year could not be restored by a different method of inter-
calation, we proceed as follows :
The difference between the tropical year (365 days, 5 hours, 48
minutes, 46 seconds) and the common year (365 days) is 5 hours, 48
minutes, 46 seconds, equal to 20,926 seconds. The number of sec-
onds in a day is 86,400. Therefore the difference between the trop-
ical year and the common year is=|f f|| part of a day. This fraction
of a day, if reduced to a continued or chain fraction will be repre-
sented by the following approximations : \, -Jq, ^%, jVg-j irh iiiii^
h, m. s. d. h, m. s.
(I) \ of a day ^=6. o. o 365. 6. o. o =Lgth. of civil yr.
(H) ^V " =5- 47- 35 A 365- 5. 47- 35 A = ''
(III) A " =5. 49. 5A 365. 5- 49. 5-A- = "
(IV) AV " =5.48.45 365-5. 48-45 = ''
(V) in '' -5. 48.466^3 365- 5. 48. 46^h= ''
(VI) mu " =5. 48. 46 365- 5. 48. 46 = ''
In the (I.) approximation (the Julian) the difference between the
tropical year and 365 days amounts to less than one day every four
years. In the (II.) to a little more than seven days in twenty-nine
years. In the (III.) to a little less than eight days in thirty-three
years. (It is an interesting fact that the addition of eight days every
thirty-three years of 365 days each was proposed by the Persian as-
tronomers nearly seven centuries ago.) In the (IV.) approximation
to a little more than thirty-one days in 128 years, and so on; each
approximation alternately greater and less, and each closer to the
value of the fraction than the preceding one, until the difference be-
tween the last approximation and the length of the tropical year
becomes smaller than any assignable quantity.
The (IV.) approximation of thirty-one intercalations in 128 years
is evidently the one the Russian reformers have now proposed to
adopt. According to the Julian calendar there are thirty-two leap
years in 128 years (^J^) ; the Julian calendar has therefore one leap
year in 128 years more than the (IV.) approximation, and agrees
with the proposed Russian revision, namely : "Every year divisible
by 4 is a leap year, except such years as are divisible by 128, which are
normal years" (365 days). This intercalation makes the length of the
Russian civil year 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds, about
one second less than the tropical year ; and this difference amounts
to a day in about 86,000 years ; whereas, by the Gregorian rule ex-
tended, the error would not amount to a day in 100,000 years. This
being the chief point of assault of the astronomical Cossacks against
the entrenched Gregorian calendar, plainly shows its pitifulness, its
absurdity, and that the change was conceived in a spirit of bigotry
inconsistent with the erudition of its framers.
Proposed Reformation of the Calendar. 765
If the reformers required mathematical exactness, why not adopt
the (V.) or (VI.) approximation, which will bring the civil year still
nearer the length of the tropical year ?
What a confusion of dates this reformation will bring. Instead
of Russian dates being thirteen days behind ours, as they- are now,
they will be two days ahead. Christmas Day will be celebrated on
the 27th of December, and so on.
And what an amount of annoyance and inconvenience to the Rus-
sians themselves this change will entail. "Letters to foreign coun-
tries, orders for shipments, times of departure of steamers and sail-
ing vessels, news from abroad, etc., etc., must have two dates. The
mariner cannot read the nautical almanac nor the merchant accept a
draft from abroad, nor the broker determine foreign exchange with-
out having two dates at hand. Advices cannot be understood, bills
of lading cannot be made effective, telegrams cannot be compre-
hended without an extra labor, small in each instance, but large in
the aggregate, which this revision will not impose." "Does he
mean the Gregorian or the revised style?" is a question that will be
asked in St. Petersburg and Moscow thousands of times a day.
The Russian astronomers must know (as we have shown) that
their revision is an undertaking not admitting of perfection. Even
at present in the Russian dominions Sunday at Moscow is Monday
in Kamschatka, and the Russian children in the Klondike call it
Saturday ; and it is a well-known fact that when Alaska was annexed
to the United States the official dates had to be changed by only
eleven days, one day being provided for by the alteration from the
Asiatic date to the American. At present the difference between the
two calendars is thirteen days. Thus in Russia the 15th of August
is reckoned the 2d, and their scientific men write it August -f-^.
Another objection is that the names of the months are of pagan
origin. True, but are not the names of the days of the week named
after Woden, Thor, Saturn, etc. (Roman and Scandinavian gods)?
Are not the words earth and calendar as pagan as Nero or Domitian ;
and are not the astronomical terms zenith, alucantar, azimuth,
nadir, etc., etc., derived from the language of the congeners of the
"unspeakable Turk," the polished and scholarly Moslem of Bagdad
and Cordova ?
Astronomy and religious knowledge from the earliest ages went
hand in hand. The pagan priests of India, China, Egypt and Chal-
dea were the keepers of all astronomical knowledge, and used the
flat roofs of their temples as observatories ; and in the higher dis-
pensation of Christian civilization we find the Church, the supreme
teacher, from its first general Council of Nice, where it fixed the
starting point for the celebration of Easter, down through the cen-
766 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
turies, keeping a watchful eye that month and season should not slip
their moorings.
And when the vocal Memnon, awakened by the morning beams of
the ever-constant sun, moans out to the gray desert, complainingly
it will tell of how little man, with his petty jealousies would change
the horology of time, because he failed to observe the finger of the
Church, which like the gnomon on the dial keeps an unerring record.
D. O'SULLIVAN.
Philadelphia.
VIRGINS CONSECRATED TO GOD IN ROME DURING
THE FIRST CENTURIES.
WHEN the Gospel was first announced in Rome the Empire
was at the summit of its power, and its rule extended
over many nationalities, of every degree of civilization
and culture. As in the present day we look upon the expanding
dominion of the great civilizing powers over barbarous or decayed
populations in distant continents, which were unknown to Rome,
as a means under Providence for bringing them to a knowledge of
Christian Truth, so the destination of Rome, when it was the capital
of the world, to be the seat of the earliest activities of the new teach-
ing and the centre from which numberless influences were to radiate
for its propagation, is to be regarded as a particular disposition of
the same Providence. Rome at that time was rich in intelligence,
practical ability, personal courage and endurance, transmitted as an
inheritance down a long line of famous ancestors: politics, com-
merce, industry, literature and the arts drew to Rome the most en-
terprising and intelligent from the subject provinces. The teach-
ings of the new faith appealed to the better instincts of man's spir-
itual nature, and it was fitting that they should be presented without
delay to those whose higher instincts and development prepared
them to accept them. Natural virtues are the substratum of the
supernatural ; the formation of a perfect Christian follows the bent of
individual character, which is not obliterated, but purified by re-
ligion and elevated to a sphere which is not nature alone, but nature
and grace. The uprightness, the fortitude, the high spirit of a
Scipio, a Fabius, a Camillus or a Regulus, and the dignified grace
and nobility of a Cornelia were the foundation of the virtue of a
Lawrence, a Sebastian, a Csecilia and a Marcella, examples of the
highest forms of Christian heroism. It was the proud boast of the
Virgins Consecrated to God. ^6^
Roman bravely to do and to bear : becoming a convert to the new
faith he was not required to lower his motto.
But the Roman suffered from a great want. He had no religion,
if by religion we understand a belief in the being and perfections of
God, in man's obligations and responsibilities and in the practical
acknowledgment of these in his conduct, regulated by a moral code
furnished with sufficient sanction. The moral perceptions of the
Romans could only be debased and obscured by their conception
of the Divinity as represented in their mythology. Their religious
and moral instruction, if we can give it the name, was chiefly influ-
enced by schools of philosophy. Of these the Stoics, and particu-
larly the Epicureans, were the most influential. The Stoics were
pantheists, admitting no spiritual as distinguished from material
substance. God and Nature they considered to be the same. Man's
chief good is to live in harmony with the whole of which he is a
part. The Epicureans held that happiness was the supreme good,
and consisted in pleasure, the wise man taking care to seek pleasure
that endures, not what is transient and may afterwards entail sor-
row. The highest expression which these philosophies could give
to their ethical principles was the motto, "Sustine et abstine," "Bear
and forbear." It is apparent that no efficacious system of morality
could be drawn from such abstractions. Although they exercised
considerable influence on a certain class of cultivated men, they met
with little sympathy in the mass of the people. The popular belief
was rooted in polytheism, and no moral code by any ingenuity
could ever be extracted from that. In all the fabulous hierarchy of
the pagan divinities there is not one who ventures to pose as a
teacher of morality, by word or example.
The absence of fixed and recognized principles of right and wrong
could only have one result, a degradation of the moral sense. It
would, however, be a mistake to judge of the condition of Roman
society from the accounts given by ancient writers of the profligacy
and licentiousness of individuals in high places. Nor are we to take
too literally the highly colored pictures of the satirists, when they
discourse of the follies and depravity of the women of their day.
But it must be admitted that a great degeneracy of morals began to
be noted soon after the first century of the Empire. The evils of a
long period of peace and the great increase of wealth produced idle-
ness and luxury and many vices in their train, which prepared the
decrepitude of the State, masked for some time under a fallacious
ostentation of temporal prosperity, to be rudely shattered in the first
invasion of the Goths.
All through this process of decay the integrity of ancient man-
ners was still preserved in many Roman houses. Examples of
768 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
vicious lives are on the surface of every community, and in their
notoriety are perpetuated in history ; while virtuous lives, passed in
obscurity, are seldom recorded. When the first messengers of
Christianity came to announce it in the City, they found hospitality
and ready audience in this remnant of ancient Roman virtue, eager
not only to accept its teachings and conform their lives to its pre-
cepts, but capable, too, of appreciating the higher perfection of the
Gospel counsels, and brave enough, if the call which does not come
to every one, came to them, to obey at once, and generously sacrific-
ing ease and possessions, detach themselves from family and friends,
and literally leave father and mother to follow Christ.
The Divine Founder of the Church sets before us two types of
venerable womanhood : one modelled in the person of His Virgin
Mother, the other in the faithful matrons who followed Him to the
last. Imitators of one class and of the other have never failed in
the history of the Church. In two parallel lines of uninterrupted
descent we have, on one hand bands of sacred virgins, consecrating
their hearts and affections and whole being to the service of God,
choosing with Mary the better part, and shedding a halo of purity
over each succeeding age; and on the other hand matrons like
Monica, and Helen, and Clotilda, and Margaret, who in every rank
of society, in the retirement and seclusion of their own homes, or
amid the activity and splendor of a throne, displayed the perfection
of womanhood elevated by Christian virtue. There never was a
gap in the succession of the two types ; and wherever the Gospel
came to be preached, young maidens bore with honor the virginal
wreath, and virtuous matrons spread the edification of their example
in a holy widowhood. It is of the earliest manifestations of the
former type, maidens consecrated to God, in the city of Rome, that
we shall now treat. We shall seek these chiefly in the epitaphs, in-
scriptions and pictorial representations found in the catacombs,
illustrated by the contemporary language of ecclesiastical writers
of the first three centuries, and later monuments of equal authority,
which bring us into the period when monastic life began to take
regular organized form in the West. In prosecuting any inquiry
among epigraphic and monumental remains of Christian antiquity
there is only one field of research, the results of the labors of the
Commendatore De Rossi for more than half a century, contained
in the volumes of his ''Roma Sotterranea," his "Christian Inscrip-.
tions," the "Bullettino of Christian Archaeology," edited by himself
unaided for more than thirty years, and his numberless dissertations
published separately, or enriching the Proceedings of Learned So-
cieties in Rome and elsewhere. The mine he explored is doubtless
not exhausted, but the present generation cannot hope to see
Virgins Consecrated to God. 769
another explorer with his talent, experience and untiring energy,
assisted by an unerring instinct always pointing the way to new dis-
coveries, a sure judgment, and a vast, universal erudition. From
these sources much of the first part of the present article is sub-
stantially drawn. It is also indebted to the valuable study of this
particular subject by Monsignor Wilpert/ a distinguished scholar
of De Rossi, well known for his critical observations on the ceme-
terial paintings and for several independent discoveries of consider-
able importance.
In the very incunabula of the patristic writings, fragmentary as
they mostly are, allusions are incidentally made to the class of
sacred virgins set apart and watched over with special care. St.
Ignatius of Antioch salutes them in his epistles to the churches of
Smyrna and Philippi.^ Pseudo-Ignatius tells Hero to guard them
"as the Sacrament of Christ."^ Later we have a succession of ap-
propriate exhortations addressed particularly to them. Tertullian
devoted two books to their instruction, one of which is now lost.
St. Cyprian wrote for them De Habitu Virginum, St. Chrysostom an
eloquent treatise. No less than five works of St. Ambrose were
composed for them ; and St. Jerome found time, in the busy activity
of his engagements in Rome and in the engrossing study of the
Holy Scriptures in Palestine, to occupy himself in their training
and instruction, by word of mouth or by letter : among his Epistles
nearly forty are addressed to them.
We need not, therefore, be surprised, when we examine the col-
lections of inscriptions discovered in the subterranean cemeteries of
Rome, to find epitaphs to maidens with appellations indicating that
they were in a special way vowed and devoted to God. "Virgines
sacrae, sanctae, venerabiles," Sacred, holy, venerable virgins; "Vir-
gines Dei, Christi," Virgins of God, of Christ; "Sponsae Christi,
Domini," Brides of Christ, of the Lord; "Famulae, Ancillse Dei,
Christi," Servants, Handmaids of God, of Christ ; "Templum Dei,"
God's Temple; "Puella Dei, Grata Deo puella, Puella Deo placita,
Virgo sublimis," Maiden pleasing to God, Maiden sublime. These
epitaphs all belong to the first four centuries of our era, and as is
to be expected, are in perfect harmony with the expressions of ven-
eration and esteem used by contemporary Fathers when they speak
of the class of consecrated women. St. Cyprian calls them the
flower of the Church's garden, the noblest portion of Christ's flock.*
St. Athanasius calls them Brides of Christ, and the Empress Helen
was proud to serve them at table with her own hands. St. Jerome
in a letter to Eustochium addresses her by the style of Lady, for, he
says, "that title is due to the Spouse of our Lord."^
1 " Die Gottgeweihten Jungfrauen in den ersten Jahrhunderten der Kirche." - " Ep. ad
SmyrnaeoK," xiii. Ad Philipp. v. ^ " Ad Heronen," v. ' De habitu virginum. » Ep. xxii.
Vol. XXV.— Sig. 10. .
770 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
It can be easily understood that it was impossible for Christian
maidens in time of persecution to live openly in community, under
a uniform rule and wearing a distinctive habit. It was in the
privacy of their own homes, in the protection of their family, that
they passed their lives. Their devotion might be unknown outside
this circle ; they mingled in the society of their friends, preserving
a modest demeanor, without betraying the secret of the King. We
may still read the instructions given to them in such difficult cir-
cumstances, and the words of warning of St. Cyprian and St. Am-
brose, or going farther back, the sterner reproofs of Tertullian.
It sometimes happened that they were asked in marriage, and their
refusal was the first clue to suspect their religion ; and we have his-
toric instances, like those of St. Agnes, St. Agatha and St. Lucy,
when pagan suitors resenting their rejection, revenged themselves
by denouncing them to the tribunals, which condemned them to
death, doubly martyrs, "in una hostia duplex martyrium, pudoris et
religionis."
The state of celibacy alone did not give the name and privileges
of a sacred virgin. Tertullian distinguishes the "virgines homi-
num" who are free to marry, from the 'Virgines Dei" who resolve to
consecrate themselves for ever to their heavenly Spouse. As soon
as circumstances permitted, a separation into two classes was ob-
served : those who continued to live in their own homes and those
who lived in common apart. But for admission to either rank the
essential condition was a voluntary act which vowed the maiden to>
her chosen state. Naturally this promise was contained in a for-
mula, although not always pronounced in public, and Tertullian
praises the reserve of the unostentatious virgin, whose consecration
is "sibi soli et Deo nota," known to herself alone and to God."*"
There were also two forms of consecration in use, beginning from
the earliest times, and continued under one name or another down
to the present day: one by simple vow and change of habit, the
other by the imposition of the hands of the Bishop and the veil.
So early as the second century a public ceremony is mentioned by
Tertullian, who with his usual rigor sees danger to the humility of
the candidate in the pomp and publicity of the function, and the
friendly congratulations that followed. When the act of dedication
was private, the virgin was her own consecrator, but the public con-
secration of virgins was always reserved to the Bishop, although
simple priests were allowed to consecrate widows. The solemn
profession only took place on great festivals, particularly Easter,
when the newly baptized were introduced to the church for the first
time. A decree of Pope Gelasius (492-496) appointed the Epiphany,
* De virg. velandis, xv.
Virgins Consecrated to God. 771
Easter, Pentecost and the feasts of the Apostles for the pubHc cere-
mony, but permitted vows to be made at any other time in case of
dangerous illness, lest those who aspired to this gift should depart
without it, ''ne sine hoc munere de saeculo exeant."
Before candidates were admitted to this solemn profession, they
were obliged to pass a term of probation. Their dispositions were
tested by the Bishop, and their acceptance depended on his decision.
Previous to the fourth century no particular limit of age was pre-
scribed. This was determined by local custom and the discretion of
the Bishop. St. Basil requires the age of sixteen or seventeen. St.
Ambrose, while he admits the necessity of caution, is strongly in
favor of early vows in the freshness of innocent childhood, and con-
cludes : "Nolite, ergo, a Christo arcere infantes. Vocat eos Dom-
inus, et tu prohibes?" St. Jerome says that at the age of seven the
youthful virgin should begin to learn the psalter by heart. At that
age, of course, she had received only the first consecration. For
the second consecration a council of Carthage prescribed the age of
twenty. Other early particular councils fixed it at twenty-five, and
subsequent canons raised it to forty. To trace later fluctuations
would carry us beyond the period under review. Examples of con-
secration at ten, twelve, fourteen and sixteen years are attested by
epitaphs in the catacombs. St. Agnes and St. Soteris, St. Eusto-
chium and Demetrias were dedicated when ten years old. Even
tender children were sometimes promised to God in their infancy,
subject to their own ratification when they came to years of discre-
tion. Among inscriptions to children dedicated and dying in their
infancy, we have one to Severa, a child of nine, one to Olympia,
"Ancilla Dei," handmaid of God, a child of five, and another to an
infant three years old, a victim offered to God, "Hostia dicata Deo."
Dedications at this tender age must not have been rare, for we read
in the writings of several of the Fathers instructions to parents for
the education of children so set apart. From a variety of provident
dispositions ordained by the Church on this important subject we
glean that while parental authority was respected, and its consent
usually required before solemn profession, care was also taken to
prevent a child being forced to embrace the state against her inclina-
tion. On the other hand, examples are not wanting of maidens,
who, then as now, had to wait long to obtain the consent of their pa-
rents or guardians. We are told that they were often threatened with
the loss of their inheritance, and St. Jerome, who let nothing escape
him, says that in his day mothers could be found ready enough to
part with ungainly daughters, but bitterly opposed to letting their
better favored children enter the cloister. A touching story is re-
lated by St. Ambrose of a young lady, *'once noble before the world,
772 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
now nobler before God," who was pressed by her parents and
friends to marry, and was at last driven to take refuge from their
importunity at the foot of the altar. "What place," says the holy
Bishop, "more fit for a virgin than where the virgin sacrifice is
offered? She dared yet more; for she first seized the hand of the
priest and pressed it on her own head, to invoke the blessing of his
prayers, then she hid her head under the sacred table anl cried:
"What can protect me better than my veil, except the altar itself,
which sanctifies the veil ?"'^
The veil was the chief distinction of a virgin. It was called
"Velum, velamen, flammeus, mitra, mitella," and the expressions
"Velare, velum accipere" described the ceremony which accom-
panied the act of profession. It was given to the candidate when
she pronounced her vow, with the solemn words of the Bishop:
"Receive, daughter, the sacred veil, and carry it without spot before
the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom every knee
doth bow." The veil was sometimes ornamented, usually with two
purple bands or links of calliculce, or embroidered circles, from end
to end along its length. Many representations of virgins veiled in
this manner are to be seen in the catacombs, some painted on the
walls, others carved on the tombstones ; and frequent mention of the
veil itself is made in the epitaphs. There is a very touching one on
the grave of a certain Juliana, who was admitted to her vows on her
death-bed :
Hanc dum corporei premerent vicinia leti,
Sponsa diu nubit sacra vela Deo.
The veil was worn by those who made their vows in private as
well as by those who made them in the Bishop's hands. Both were
under the same obligations, but while infraction of a simple vow was
visited by severe canonical penalties, infidelity after receiving the
consecration of a Bishop was punished by perpetual excommunica-
tion, only relaxed at the hour of death.
Besides the veil, which was of wool, the Christian virgin wore
nothing distinctive before the middle of the fourth century. About
the year 350 the ordinary dress was exchanged on profession for the
sacred habit, "Habitus Deo dicatus." This consisted in a tunic or
stola of coarse material unadorned, of a dark grey color, "pulla
tunica," with a dusky cloak, "furvo pallio," to be thrown over it
when necessary. It was the dress of the lower orders, in striking
contrast with the bright garments of purple and gold worn by
ladies. The habit was presented to the virgin at her consecration
with these words, as we find them in St. Ambrose : "Take this gar-
ment and put on Christ ; and be renewed in His understanding. Do
7 De Virg. xi.
Virgins Consecrated to God. 773
thou, therefore, as Christ's chosen one, put on mercy, sweetness,
humility, modesty, charity, which is the bond of unity."
Beneath the veil the virgin wore her hair unshorn, "intonsos
capillos." The custom of cutting off the hair was long unknown in
the West, although it was occasionally practised in the spirit of
penance, and was not introduced into the ceremonial of profession
until long after the time of St. Jerome and the first regular monaste-
ries of Rome. That saint tells us in one of his letters that in Syria
and Egypt it was the custom for virgins at their profession to ofifer
their tresses to be cut of¥ by the mother of the monastery.
No ring was given to the bride at her consecration. Martene can
find no ancient testimony for this rite, now inseparable in our minds
from the solemn and final profession of a nun. There is no trace
of it in any of the ancient sacramentaries. St. Germanus of Aux-
erre forbade St. Genevieve to wear any sort of ornament either hang-
ing from the neck or on the hand. The oldest reference to such a
rite is an account of the consecration of some nuns by St. Bernward
of Hildesheim (ob. 1022), who placed crowns upon their heads and
rings on their fingers."*
The consecration took place in presence of the faithful in full
assembly during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. After the
Collect, or after the Lesson, the Archdeacon led the candidates to
the altar and presented them to the Bishop, who addressed to them
a suitable discourse.^ After a prayer made by the Bishop, the vir-
gin pronounced the formula of her vow, the Bishop laid his hands
on her head with another prayer and placed the veil over her, the
whole congregation as witnesses of the solemn act responding
Amen. Mass was then resumed and the virgin received Holy Com-
munion ; at the end the Bishop consigned all who had received the
veil to the care of their parents or guardians, if they were to live at
home, or to the superior, the *'mater monasterii," if they were to live
with others in common. The Bishop accompanied this act with a
solemn admonition to the guardians on the sacred charge com-
mitted to them over the newly consecrated, of whom an account
would have to be rendered at the tribunal of Christ, the Judge, their
Spouse.
In the cemetery of Priscilla we have a pictorial representation of
the veiling of a virgin. In one of the most ancient chambers of that
cemetery, which itself dates from the end of the first century, in a
lunette over a tomb a venerable grey-haired man is seated on a chair
of state. In front of him a youthful female figure stands erect,
holding in her hand what looks like a white linen veil. Somewhat
* Martene, De antiq. Eccl. ritib. Vol. II., 1. ii., c. vi. ^ Saint Ambrose has preserved !foi
us the discourse delivered by Pope Liberius in St. Peter's at the midnight Mass of Christ-
mas, when St, Marcellina received the veil. (De Virg. ad Marcellinam sororem, 1. i., c.iii.)
774 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
behind, in attendance on the seated personage, a man is holding a
tunic. We have here a Bishop, with his deacon, and a maiden about
to receive the sacred veil. On the opposite side of the lunette the
Virgin Mother is seated with the Divine Infant in her arms. To-
wards this group the Bishop is pointing, as if saying to the candi-
date : "My child, there is your model." In the centre, between the
two groups, is a solitary figure of the now consecrated virgin, veiled,
and vested in a gorgeous robe, the virginal tunic, richly embroid-
ered, with hands stretched out in the attitude of prayer ; a veiled nun,
"Virgo velata," in the splendor of her immortal reward.
In the Ostrian cemetery there is a fresco allusive to the parable of
the virgins. In the lunette of an arcosolium, divided into three
compartments, we are shown in the centre an orante, the virgin oc-
cupant of the tomb ; in the compartment to her left, the five wise
virgins bearing lighted torches; in the compartment to her right,
the five virgins seated at the marriage feast.
A more remarkable fresco introducing the same parable was dis-
covered in 1863. Unfortunately it no longer exists. The Campo
Santo or modern graveyard of Rome extends over the site of the
ancient cemetery of Cyriaca, in agro Verano, which surrounds the
extra mural basilica of St. Lawrence. During operations for en-
larging the burial ground, in the hill behind the basilica, the work-
men came upon many galleries and sepulchral chambers of the an-
cient catacomb, which were ruthlessly destroyed. Among the fres-
coes which perished was one that adorned the grave of a sacred vir-
gin. In the arcosolium of the tomb our Lord was placed between
two groups, on the right five virgins, on the left other five. They
are ranged symmetrically in two rows on either side. All are youth-
ful and clothed alike, in a long flowing tunic reaching to the feet,
with short but ample sleeves. The virgins on our Lord's right hold
torches in their right hands, the others in their left. The torches
of the first group are burning and rest on their shoulders ; the
torches of the others are extinguished and turned towards the
ground. We cannot doubt the meaning of the fresco : it is again the
parable of the wise and foolish virgins, with our Lord in the midst :
"Behold the Bridegroom cometh." Lower down, on the face of the
wall enclosing the tomb, another scene was painted. From side to
side a rod is stretched on which a curtain hangs, divided in the mid-
dle and held apart by two youths, one on each side. In the opening
of the curtain a maiden is standing, robed in a rich tunic and wearing
a veil.' Her hands are stretched out as an orante. This was cer-
tainly the grave of a sacred virgin ; the parable has already indicated
it, and in this second scene the virgin is admitted into the heavenly
court. In ancient records and in the Acts of the Martvrs mention
Virgins Consecrated to God. 775
is often made of the velum or curtain which separated the body of
the judgment hall from the inner tribunal, secretarium, where the
judges sat. In courts there was sometimes an inner besides an
outer veil, and so also in the audience chambers of princes and mag-
istrates : it was the custom for the judge to retire within the veil to
dictate the sentence. To stand within the veil was therefore to be
in the immediate presence of the supreme judge, and accordingly the
maiden introduced by the two youths represents a soul which has
been judged, and is now by the favor of her heavenly advocates re-
ceived into the dwelling and into the company of God.
The same cemetery is singularly associated with the rise of re-
ligious life in Rome. During the restoration of the neighboring
basilica under Pope Pius IX. many interesting remains and frag-
ments of important inscriptions were brought to light, and still
further illustrated by the discoveries that continued to be made as
the extension of the Campo Santo proceeded. About fifty epitaphs
originally taken from the ancient catacomb and from the Christian
cemetery which in the fourth and fifth century superseded the sub-
terranean galleries gradually disused, were recovered. What at
once struck those directing the work was the extraordinary number
of epitaphs to sacred virgins found among the rest. Out of fifty in-
scriptions excavated five belong to that class, ten per cent, of the
whole, a proportion far exceeding anything found in similar collec-
tions of epitaphs. In a situation almost identical around the basilica
of St. Paul, out of a thousand epitaphs only six belonged to graves
of sacred virgins, a proportion of little more than half per cent.
There must have been some special reason for the interment of so
many in this particular cemetery near St. Lawrence's, and the most
probable explanation is that there existed in the immediate vicinity
of the basilica, at the date of these inscriptions, a community of re-
ligious women, one of the "monasteria suburbana" that we read of in
the correspondence of St. Jerome. The dated inscriptions found
at this spot are all of the fourth and fifth centuries, a time, as we
shall see later, when regular community life for women had come to
be fully recognized in Rome.
The oldest of the inscriptions found in this group of Cyriaca, and
bearing a consular date, is of the year 381. It is to Rufina, who
lived twenty-one years. The next is to Lavinia, "Virgo Dei inimita-
bilis." Without date, but belonging to the same period, is an epi-
taph to Nigella, another to Victoria and the following, which is re-
markable for its diction :
ADEODAT^ DIGN^ ET MERITS VIRGINI
ET QUIESCIT HIC IN PACE JUBENTE CHRISTO EJUS."
The original is in the Lateran museum. In the centre of the slab
yyd American Catholic Quarterly Review.
is a crux hastata, a cross encircled by a wreath, supported on a fluted
column, under a canopy, with the inscription carved on two small
tablets right and left of the cross. It marked the grave of the virgin
Adeodata, who departed this life "at the call of Christ her Spouse."
In digging the foundations of the entrance to the Campo Santo an
epitaph of 434 was found, and in the same place the following in-
scription :
QUIESCIT IN PACE PR^TEXTATA
VIRGO SACRA DEPOSITA D. VII
ID. AUG. CONS. RUSTICI ET OLYBRI.
The consulate fixes the date in 464. The Praetextata to whom it
is inscribed is mentioned in another epitaph of unknown origin,
which long lay at Santa Sabina on the Aventine, and is now in the
Lateran museum. She was in all probability a daughter or near
relation of Praetextatus, who was Prefect of the Palace in 472. The
absence of the epithet clarissima is no difficulty, for it was considered
unbecoming to give titles of nobility on their epitaphs to those who
had relinquished for God their honors and position in the world.
"Neminem Christianum decet, et maxime virginem non decet clari-
tatem ullam computare carnis et honorum." It is unbecoming for
a Christian, and especially a virgin, a nun, to parade her descent and
rank.^^ We know that the Prefect was a Christian and died in 472,
and that a daughter of his, also a Christian, died in 486. About a
hundred years before there was a Vettius Agorius Praetextatus,
prominent among the last champions of expiring paganism, and a
determined enemy of Pope Damasus.^^ The prestige of the pontifi-
cate was already beginning to overshadow the representatives of
imperial authority in the city, and in one of his altercations with the
Pope, who was pressing him to embrace the Christian faith, the
Prefect exclaimed: "Make 'me Bishop of Rome, and I will become
a Christian." Another Praetextata, a member of the same family
and a contemporary of St. Damasus, wife of Festus Julius Hymetius,
pro-consul in Africa, distinguished herself by her opposition to the
celebrated virgin Eustochium when she wished to take the veil. To
find a hundred years later a Praetextata, a sacred virgin, among the
descendants of these bitter enemies of Christianity, need not surprise
us ; it is a proof of the sincerity of the conversions wrought in those
noble houses, for nothing could be more repugnant to the tradi-
tional notions of that class than the humility and renunciation of a
Christian life of sacrifice.
Another inscription from the cemetery of Cyriaca suggests a very
interesting inquiry. It is in verse :
CLAUDIA NOBILIUM PRODIS GENEROSA PARENTUM
HIC JACET HINC ANIMA IN CARNE REDEUNTE RESURGET
^TERNIS CHRISTI MUNERE DIGNA BONIS."
lODeRossi, BuUetino, 1863, p. 77. " S. Cyprian. De Habitu virg. 6. 12 S. Hieron. Contra
Joan. Hierosol, 8.
Virgins Consecrated to God. yy'j
The Commendatore De Rossi at once associated the Claudia of
this epitaph with a vestal of the same name, who became a Christian
and retired to an asceteriiim or monastery near the basilica of St.
Lawrence. Prudentius alludes to her in the lines :
Vittatus olim pontifex
Ascitur in signum crucis,
^demque, lyRurenti, tuam
Vestalis intrat ClaudiaJ^
The epitaph and the verses seem to throw light on a discovery
made in 1883 in the heart of the Forum. In the atrium or court of
the House of the Vestals a series of pedestals may still be seen,
mostly denuded of the statues which they once supported, but re-
taining inscriptions recording the merits and virtues of the most
distinguished high-priestesses in the succession. One of these
pedestals attracts attention by the evidently deliberate abrasion of
the name of the dignitary to whom it had been inscribed. The
epitaph reads :
OB MERITUM CASTITATIS
PUDICITI^ ADQ. IN SACRIS
REI^IGIONIBUSQUE
DOCTRINE MIRABILIS
E V.V. MAX,
PONTIFICES VV. CC.
PROMAG. MACRINIO
ROSSIANO V. C. P. M.
On the base of the pedestal is the date of the dedication : V.
IDUS JUNTAS DIVO JOVIANO ET VARRONIANO CONSS.
That is A. D. 364. In that year therefore the College of Pontiffs
dedicated a statue in honor of a priestess, whose memory for some
reason came to be execrated and her name cancelled from the in-
scription, in conformity with the law De tnemoricc damnatione. Quite
recently a further discovery was made at a short distance from the
pedestal, under the pavement of the atrium, of a buried statue evi-
dently placed there for concealment, similar in every respect to the
other statues of vestals, but decapitated, in all probability the maimed
effigy of the condemned priestess. Professor Marucchi was the
first to suggest the opinion, now commonly accepted, that the vestal
was condemned on account of her conversion to Christianity. What-
ever her offense was it must have been committed after 364, the date
of the inscription which records the esteem in which she was held
for her virtues and for her faithful service of the goddess. In that
year Rome was on the eve of the final struggle between paganism
and Christianity. As is well known, the ancient superstition and
idolatrous w^orship did not at once cease when Constantine emanci-
pated the Church from the penal legislation of his predecessors, and
13 De Rossi. Inscript. II. BuUettino, 1881, p. 19. ^* Peristeph, II., vt. 525 sqq.
'j'j^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Rome itself became the chief centre of resistance to the encroach-
ments of the new rehgion. Its numerous temples, in the magnifi-
cence of their structure, and rich abundance of memories of the
glorious past connected with their history, were made to appeal to
the gratitude of the Romans to keep them loyal to the gods. The
last defenders of paganism strove to exalt in the popular mind its
political importance and identify its preservation with the continued
prosperity of the State. Among all the heathen sanctuaries of the
city, no one more aptly and visibly represented this sentiment than
the shrine and temple of "V^'esta. There, in the keeping of the six
vestal virgins, themselves under the jurisdiction of the College of
Pontififs, presided over by the Pontifex Maximus, the Palladium,
symbol of the safety and prosperity of the Eternal City, was guarded.
This explains how it happened that the worship of Vesta was pub-
licly maintained down to the latest years of the fourth century, and
how even the title of Pontifex Maximus was retained by Constantine
and his successors till Gratian indignantly refused its insignia. It
may be said with perfect truth that it was only after the last spark
of the sacred fire was extinguished on the altar in the Forum that
paganism confessed itself overthrown.
When paganism was passing through this crisis, many of its
priests made their submission to the Church, and the frequency of
conversions from their ranks is evident from the lines of Prudentius
quoted above. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the poet's
allusion to a vestal who became an inmate of a community of Chris-
tian virgins, living in the neighborhood of St. Lawrence's basilica,
should receive confirmation both from inscriptions found close to
the church and from the ruins of the Vestals' court in the Roman
Forum. For the defaced statue and mutilated inscription — evi-
dence of a mcmorice damnatio, attaching infamy to the name of a
high priestess of Vesta, in the period of religious change — and the
contemporary record of the poet, all point to a conversion from
paganism to the faith, as the offense visited by the execration of the
vestal's name. Supposing this to have been the offense, it was
natural for the Pontififs, ardent supporters of idolatry, to mark their
protest against this latest victory of the new religion in the only
way now in their power ; they could not punish her defection in her
person, but they did all they could to obliterate her memory or ren-
der it infamous to the surviving votaries of paganism by cancelling
her name from the monumental roll of Vesta's high priestesses.^^
If the Vestal, whose memory after such high encomium on her
modesty and integrity of life and religious observance of her duties
in the temple of a pagan worship, was so utterly anathematized by
J5 The college of Vestals was finally abolished by Theodosius the Great, at the end of the
fourth century.
Virgins Consecrated to God. 779
the Pontiffs, is not to be identified with the Claudia celebrated by
Prudentius, at all events we have the evidence of the poet that one,
at least, of the Vestal Sisterhood exchanged a life of noble self-
sacrifice to a false ideal for a life dedicated to the service of the
Divine Spouse of virgin souls in the end of the fourth century of
our era.
Our retrospect has brought us down from Apostolic times through
the stormy period of persecution into the first century of the
Church's freedom. Before the third decade of the era of peace had
closed the institution of sacred virgins, associated together under a
common roof, with a common discipline, obeying a superior, the
"Mater monasterii," was already established and began to spread,
not in Rome alone, but over all the provinces of the Empire. It is
to be remarked, however, that the marvelous development of mo-
nastic life after the peace was not a simple outgrowth of fervor born
of the happier conditions of the Church, but likewise a protest of
earnest souls against threatening relaxation. For the Church issu-
ing from persecution found herself exposed to a new danger.
Paganism, practically overcome, sought to avenge itself by every
means in its power. Its spirit was still strong in a variety of insti-
tutions, customs and laws. The upper classes, degenerate, selfish
and servile, sought satisfaction in unbridled luxury. All this must
have had a pernicious effect on Christian society, numbers were
contaminated and the Church had to bewail many scandals. This
deplorable condition was not that of Rome only, but of every prov-
ince where the officials, civil and military, had introduced the man-
ners and vices of the capital.
Against the deterioration that menaced the Christian community
a reaction first began in the East. The great monastic creations of
Egypt and Palestine opposed to the invading corruption an exhibi-
tion of self-denial and marvels of penitential austerity. The revival
was taken up in Rome, and in a most unexpected quarter, the homes
of the aristocracy ; and the signal was given by women. Interest
in the religious movement of the East was first roused by St.
Athanasius, three times exiled from Alexandria and three times a
fugitive in Rome. He had spent seven years in the Thebaid, where
he had intimately known the great pioneers of the cenobitic life,
Antony, Pachomius and Hilarion. Full of what he had witnessed
in the desert, he gave glowing accounts of St. Antony, which seized
the imagination of his friends and spread over the West the fame of
monasticism. During one of his visits to Rome he was the guest
of Albina, sister of the pagan Pontiff Albinus, but herself a Chris-
tian. She had a daughter Marcella, an ardent enthusiastic char-
acter, on whom the conversation of Athanasius made a deep impres-
780 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
sion. She wished at once to devote herself to a Hfe after the exam-
ples he described, but having been previously engaged, out of defer-
ence to her mother, she consented to marry. In seven months she
was a widow. Many suitors sought her hand, and in particular the
Senator Cerealis, one of the foremost men in the State, allied to the
family of Constantine ; but she firmly declined every offer. She
cut herself ofif from society and lived retired in her house on the
Aventine, which she made her solitude and never left unless to visit
the poor or pray in the churches, accompanied by her mother. She
laid aside her jewels and accustomed dress, and was the first patri-
cian lady to give the example of publicly wearing the despised
plebeian garb of the monastic profession. For a time her singularity
was decried, but soon she had a crowd of imitators. A stimulus was
given to the movement by the example of Melania, another noble
lady, daughter of Marcellus, Consul in 341, who losing her husband
and two of her children in one year, made provision for her surviv-
ing son and started for the East. She saw St. Athanasius in Alex-
andria, visited many of the monasteries of Egypt, went to Palestine
and built a monastery on the Mount of Olives, where with other
devout companions she led a life of great austerity. Of her imi-
tators in Rome some continued to live in their own houses, like the
widows and virgins of the first centuries, others preferred compan-
ionship and began a sort of community life without as yet any fixed
rule. The centre of these religious establishments, the first convents
of Rome, was the house of Marcella.
The history of the primitive community on the Aventine can be
clearly traced from its first inspiration in 341 for nearly seventy
years to 410, when Marcella, in extreme old age, was called to her
reward. That this first foundress possessed in a singular degree all
the gifts that qualify for direction, St. Jerome's letters leave us in no
doubt. Brilliant mental power, coupled with energy and untiring
devotion, alone do not explain her success ; she had from God also
the grace of an irresistible attraction. Her penetration perceived
the dispositions and bent of each of her children ; she quickly won
their confidence ; her prudent counsel, now used to restrain, now to
urge on, moulded them to her will, and always with the gentle per-
suasive hand of a mother, setting the model in the community of the
Aventine of that religious family spirit which in the not distant
future was to be the bond of union and the mainspring of all their
power in the monastic communities that arose and spread under the
legislation of St. Benedict.
The rule followed was an application of the observance in the
monasteries of the Desert. The occupations of the inmates were
prayer, study and labor. The foundations of the life were obedi-
Virgins Consecrated to God. 781
ence, poverty and chastity. The order of their day may be gathered
from what St. Jerome tells us in his life of St. Paula. They were
called in the morning by the chant of Alleluia, and an immediate
response was expected from all ; the first arrivals hastening to the
ofiice which was to begin the day, waiting for the others, and
modestly challenging by their example the promptness of the rest.
At early morning, at tierce, at sext, at none, in the evening and in
the middle of the night they sang the psalms in order. Every Sister
had to know the Psalter and learn a portion of Scripture each day.
Only on Sundays they went to church, and then processionally. It
was close at hand, and a separate portion was reserved for their use.
Each group was accompanied by its own Mother, and when they
returned, in the same order, they resumed the work assigned to each.
No one was allowed to have an attendant ; all wore the same garb.
If any one came late for the psalms or was remiss in her work she
was corrected. Besides food and raiment nothing was allowed to
any one. The Mother composed their little differences, imposed a
rigorous fast on the unmortified, rebuked any rising vanity. Those
who gave trouble with their tongue, the forward and quarrelsome
she admonished once and again ; the incorrigible were put last
among the Sisters, made to kneel in penance at the door of the
refectory and take their food alone.^®
Among the companions of Marcella in this work was Marcellina,
daughter of a former Governor of Gaul and sister of two famous
brothers, Ambrose, the youthful Prefect of Liguria, chosen to be
Archbishop of Milan, and Satyrus, immortalized by his brother's elo-
quent affection. The mother of these three children came to estab-
lish herself in Rome on the death of her husband. Marcellina, at-
tracted to the religious life by the dominant spirit, received the veil
from the hands of Pope Liberius on Christmas night in the basilica
of St. Peter, in the year 352. She lived in her mother's hou^e, and
under her care the two holy brothers grew up. An ancient tradi-
tion fixes the site of the family mansion at the monastery and Church
of St. Ambrose, in Massima. On the death of her mother Mar-
cellina began to frequent the Aventine, taking part with Marcella's
children in the religious exercises and studies of Holy Scripture
which busily occupied them, and when St. Ambrose, in the See of
Milan, became the eloquent apologist of the virginal life which his
sister followed, she persuaded him to send a transcript of his dis-
courses to Rome for the edification of her companions in religion.
It is to the pious importunity of Marcellina that the Church owes
the admirable treatise of the great Doctor on the high state of holy
virginity. So persuasive were these discourses that the mothers of
16 Hieron, In vita Paulse, 19.
782 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Milan were afraid to let their daughters assist at their delivery.
Marcellina afterwards joined her brother at Milan, continuing her
life of retirement and prayer under his direction, and surviving him
barely a year, followed him to her reward in 398.
Another imitator of these holy examples was Asella. She was ten
years old at the time of St. Athanasius' last visit to Rome, and was
drawn under the spell of his influence to emulate the heroines he
described. Her parents would not allow her to put on the sombre
garb of her choice, but one day she contrived to sell a gold necklace
which had been given her to wear, and with the price purchased a
dark habit, which she put on and presented herself in the midst of
her family. She was made to wait two years for her consecration.
"Then," as St. Jerome tells us, "this child of twelve, nurtured in
luxury and accustomed to every delicate attention, began to shut
herself up in her chamber away from the eyes of all, only going out
in the strictest privacy to visit the martyrs' tombs, making a desert
for herself in her seclusion. Her bed was the bare ground, her days
were spent in prayer, psalms and manual work. Fasting was a
pleasure to her ; bread and salt, with water, was all her food. She
fasted all the year, at times for two or three days together, and in
Lent for a week. Yet she reached the age of fifty without an ail-
ment, sound in body and spirit, bright and joyous, grave at once and
amiable, simple without aflfectation. Her silence was speech, her
speech silence ; she was always even-tempered, neat, but disdaining
elegance, refined without study. Such was Asella, a pearl prized by
Rome for its worth, the ornament and veneration of her sex ; maid-
ens, widows and women of the world vied with each other in their
demonstrations of respect."^^
Space will not now permit more than an allusion to the many
other companions of Marcella who pass before us in the pages of St.
Jerome. Most of them joined her in the freshness and innocence of
youth, some after disappointment and sorrow. Lea, a noble widow,
after a life of distraction, renounced the world, surrounded herself
with a band of kindred souls and founded a community on the lines
traced by Marcella, who took it under her care after her death and
established it in one of her suburban villas converted into a mon-
astery. Fabiola, another matron of the highest rank, to expiate a
fault of inexperience, conquered the repugnance of her proud Fabian
blood and humbled herself prostrate on the pavement of the Lateran
basilica, in sight of the full assembly, to implore the absolution of
Pope Damasus, and then withdrew to spend the rest of her days
among the Sisters of the Aventine and rival with them in austerity
and good works.
" Ep. xxiv. De laiidibus Asellse.
■ Virgins Consecrated to God. 783
Highest of all in the esteem of St. Jerome were Paula and her
daughter Eustochium. He can find no words to praise Paula as she
deserves. Born in 347 of an ancient Christian family, she was care-
fully brought up under the combined influence of the old Roman
spirit and the primitive Christian tradition. At fifteen years of age
she was given in marriage, but her real history begins with her
widowhood, in her thirtieth year. She accepted that state in its
Christian sense, understood God's call and put herself in the hands
of Marcella. She, stricken herself in her youth by the same calam-
ity, found without efifort words to rouse the spark of Paula's inspira-
tion into a flame. The transformation of her life was sudden and
complete. She assumed the insignia of widowhood, never more to
put them aside. She prolonged her prayer far into the night ; her
happiness was to chant psalms with Marcella's virgins in the oratory
of the Aventine. Accustomed as she had been to be borne in a
litter by attendant slaves, who never allowed her feet to touch the
dust of the streets, she now went out alone or in the company of a
fellow-worker in charity to visit the slums of the Esquiline and the
Suburra and alleviate the misery of the poor. We have learned to
feel no surprise at a heroism with which the lives of the saints has
familiarized us, and the daily self-sacrifice of delicately nurtured
women, voluntarily devoted to the meanest oflices in the various
forms of religious vocation, keeps it constantly before our eyes ; but
it was a new and a strange example in the selfish, hard and disdain-
ful society of aristocratic Rome.
Paula did not neglect her duties as mother of five orphan chil-
dren. Marcella took into her house one of the younger daughters,
Eustochium, already drawn to a life of consecration. The eldest,
Blesilla, for a time gave her considerable anxiety, but her mother's
prayers and patience were rewarded in the end. Her other chil-
dren, a son and two daughters, she saw safely settled in life. Eusto-
chium, sweetness and candor itself, a pearl of innocence and piety,
bound to her mother by a most affectionate love, let herself be
moulded by her. When Marcella received her from her mother she
kept her in her own chamber, and when she was fully mature for the
important step, she was presented to Pope Damasus to receive the
veil at his hands. She was then about fourteeen years old. After
she received the veil she was consigned again to the care of her
mother. A conspiracy among her pagan relations was now formed
to thwart her vocation. Under some pretext she was conducted to
the house of her aunt Praetextata, heaped with attentions, supplied
with slaves, fine garments and other allurements and presented to
the assembled guests. Eustochium bore all without remonstrance
till evening, when she quietly changed her dress, putting on again
784 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
her black habit, and went home to her mother. Although she lived
outside the community, she was in daily intercourse with Marcella
and assiduously followed the instructions of her children.
About this time, A. D. 382, St. Jerome arrived in Rome in the
company of two Oriental Bishops, who were entertained in the
house of Paula. He had heard of Marcella, but he kept aloof, and
in his somewhat unsocial reserve never visited the ladies on the
Aventine. There was nothing they desired so much as to benefit
by the learning of the austere monk who bore the desert in his
countenance and whose experience in the life they had undertaken
would be so helpful for their training. It fell to Marcella to ap-
proach St. Jerome. He excused himself. Marcella redoubled her
entreaties and prevailed on Pope Damasus to interpose his author-
ity. Jerome was vanquished and agreed to begin his lectures on
Holy Scripture. The joy of the community was great, and virgins
who lived in their own houses in the city crowded to hear his les-
sons.
The instructions of the saint bore directly on the chief occupation
of those lives. This work was prayer, which drew its inspiration
from Scripture, as the liturgical prayer of the Church did from the
beginning, uttering its canticles of joy and praise in the accents of
the Holy Spirit. Such prayer, to be perfect, must be coupled with
an intelligence of the words in their source, and accordingly St.
Jerome exhorted his pupils to a profound study of Scripture, espe-
cially of the Psalter. He taught them not to be satisfied with a
superficial glance, but critically to analyze all they read. "Intelligas
Scripturse in omnibus sacramentum: margarita quippe est sermo
Dei, et exomni parte forari potest."^® "Totum quod legimus in
divinis libris nitet et fulget quidem in cortice, sed dulcius in medulla
est. Qui edere vult nucleum, frangat nucem."^^ From the letters of
the holy Doctor we are enabled almost to assist at these memorable
lessons. He read a text, then commented on its literal sense; on
that he built his interpretations ; and then, putting together literal
and allegorical meanings, drew his applications in unexpected and
beautiful surprises. He put in evidence the parallel relztion of the
two Testaments, and showed how our Lord Jesus Christ was por-
trayed in both. From the figures he gathered practical truths and
practical applications for the life of every day. His auditory was
ravished. Jerome discoursed with fire; but newly arrived as he
was from the East and for ten years away from his studies, he ex-
cused his uncouth accent and his rusty Latin, putting part of the
blame on the troublesome Hebrew sounds over which he had labored
so long. But all this rather added to the charm of the speaker, with
If Hieron. Ad. Eustoch i' Id. Ep. xlix. Ad. Paulin.
Virgins Consecrated to God. 785
his ready tempestuous eloquence and his very exterior and habit of
a monk, his austere aspect worn by penance and bronzed by the
sun of Asia. As the fame of these lectures came to spread abroad
they were attended by many of the most distinguished priests of
Rome, as Domnian and Oceanus, and even fervent laymen like
Pammachius the Senator, who had been a schoolfellow of Jerome.
But the lectures were addressed to Marcella's nuns, and to them
his attention was devoted. Nothing is more touching than the
glimpses his letters afford of the familiarity, full of confidence and
respect, the pure friendship, the ardor and docility of his audience
and the industry and devoted care of the austere monk to assist them
in their study.
They were not content with his simple statement or to stop at
his first explanations. They asked for his reasons and pressed him
with new questions. St. Jerome had sometimes to confess that he
was not ready with his answer, but they gave him no peace till he
had satisfied them. After finding a reason he would sometimes
only give half an answer to stimulate their curiosity, and let them
find out the rest for themselves. A messenger would arrive at St.
Jerome's lodging next morning from Marcella, bringing a fresh list
of queries requiring an immediate answer. It happened more than
once that the saint, busy with his revision of Holy Scripture or in his
refutations of heresy or in official work for St. Damasus, could not
spare a moment to reply till, finding that the messenger had been
kept waiting all day, he stole an hour from his sleep and dictated
his answer by the light of his lamp. At other times, after* an oral
explanation, they would insist on having it in writing; and more
than one of the little treatises that were composed on these occa-
sions have been preserved. These tracts were passed from one to
another; St. Jerome intended them for all. One day he wrote to
Marcella : "Here are two letters which I am sending to Paula and
Eustochium. What I say to them is for you all." In a letter to
Paula he tells her to be sure she shows it to Marcella. Marcella was
indeed indefatigable in her application ; she seemed never to be sat-
isfied. Commenting one day on the psalm Qui habitat in adjutorio
Altissimi, in proteciione Dei coeli commorabitur, St. Jerome had re-
marked that the expression "Dei coeli," translated from the Hebrew
Chaddai, was one of the ten names which God gives to Himself in
Scripture. Marcella immediately asked what were those ten names
and what the};f signified, and the saint next day sent her the explana-
tion which we now have in treatise De decern nominibus Dei. An-
other time he was commenting a passage where there were some
Hebrew words which the Seventy Interpreters had left in their
original. Marcella requested an explanation. St. Jerome gave it,
Vol. XXV.— Sig. .11
786 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
but not so complete as Marcella desired. He was busy at the time
over the Greek text of Aquila, and neglected the two words Ephod
and Theraphim, because he did not want to be drawn into a long
description of the priestly vestments. Marcella attacked him when
he next came to the Aventine, and got her explanation. Still next
day she wrote again to St. Jerome, sending her note by a messenger
with instructions not to come back without an answer. In reply he
wrote a letter beginning in a bantering way by complaining that
Marcella, deep in her own studies, could not write a line to him that
did not give him plenty of work and force to read once more his
Bible. He then proceeds to give a complete explanation of the
mysterious signification of each vestment of the High Priest.
The most ardent of his pupils, nwre penetrating even than Mar-
cella, was Paula. She found in Holy Scripture all that could con-
sole, strengthen and enlighten her, and plunged into it with all her
native energy. She was delighted at her own discoveries ; hidden
meanings came to surprise her in a passage which she had read
twenty times before without discovering them. The exegesis of St.
Jerome charmed her, and she pressed him more and more with her
questions. *Tn vain," he says, *T tried to resist. I had to yield and
resign myself to teach her what I had learned from the great
masters of the Church. When sometimes I hesitated and professed
my ignorance, that did not save me. Paula required me to say at
least what other commentators thought, and tell her what interpreta-
tion satisfied me best." Comprehending that the key to the in-
terpretation of Scripture is the language in which it is written, Paula
did not shrink from the study of Hebrew. "I confess," St. Jerome
says, "that the Hebrew language, which cost me so much labor in
my youth and which I am still compelled to study every day not to
forget what I have learned, was mastered by Paula with such suc-
cess that she spoke it with purity, and could recite all the psalms in
Hebrew, as did also her daughter Eustochium."
What was of chief importance to his pupils was the Psalter, those
hymns into which David poured all his joys, his tears, his aspira-
tions, his enthusiasm, and which lend themselves to express every
emotion of the human heart, becoming the everlasting poetry, the
eternal voice of the soul's prayer. St. Jerome made Marcella and
her daughters give to them a special study, in their literal, spiritual
and prophetic sense. He taught them to chant the psalms in alter-
nate verses from, opposite sides, a custom he had learrv^d in the East.
He introduced the frequent use of Alleluia, which the Roman Church
reserved for Easter. In a letter to Lseta. daughter-in-law of Paula,
he lays down the order in which he desires the sacred books to be
taken. "First let them learn well the Psalms, then draw lessons
Virgins Consecrated to God. 787
of life from the Proverbs of Solomon. Let them learn patience from
Job, then take up the Gospels, which are never to be laid aside.
After these the Epistles of the Apostles, then the Prophets and his-
torical books of the Old Testament. Last of all they may read the
Canticle." The saint was most particular about the reading he al-
lowed to the nuns. Only authors generally approved were per-
mitted. He recommended the works of Origen, Ambrose, Atha-
nasius, Tertullian, Cyprian and Hilary. But when Marcella wanted
to read a commentary of Rheticus, Bishop of Autun, which con-
tained some doubtful matter, for the sake of certain brilliant pas-
sages, he forbade her: ''Non necesse habes aurum in luto
quserere."^^
From this remarkable programme we see that the piety which
St. Jerome recommended to religious was not narrow and unin-
telligent, but broad and enlightened. He had no patience for the
dull rusticity that in his time some mistook for holy simplicity.
"Sancta rusticitas sibi soli prodest." Holy rusticity only profits
itself. His mission in Rome for the three years of his stay was to
make the movement begun by Marcella and her companions an
engine to oppose the corruption and excess of pagan degradation
and to direct and defend the chosen souls who had started in pur-
suit of the Christian ideal. He had all the necessary qualities for
the work. Besides being a master in the Scriptures, the Doctor
Maximus, he was a still greater master in the spiritual life, a director
of souls. He was one of those great minds that are filled with sad-
ness at the sight of human miseries, with disgust at everything
perishable and aspirations after the infinite and eternal. The times
in which he lived brought into strong relief all that can strengthen
such impressions. The Roman world was perishing before his
eyes, the barbarians' were at the gates. "Romanus orbis ruit."^^
What he had seized with his powerful intellect was not so much the
dogma and metaphysics of the Christian faith as its practical appli-
cations in the moral life. He had seen its force in the victories over
sense that he admired in the solitaries of the East and that cost
himself so much; and he came to Rome an impassioned propa-
gator of the sublime virtues which are commanded to no one, but
yet are the natural outcome of the highest tendencies of Christianity
and the perfection of its spirit.
A movement of this kind naturally met with opposition. It came
from all enemies of religious life and was not confined to the pagan
faction. Its bitterest opponents were to be found iti the ranks of a
portion of the Roman clergy. St. Jerome had provoked their
venom by his vigorous denunciations of the irregular lives of worldly
20 Ad Fiirian. ^ Ad Heliodorum, xxxv.
788 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
priests and false monks who disgraced the habit they wore.^^ Those
who recognized themselves in his scathing portraits turned upon
him and attacked him in chorus, posing as martyrs of his defama-
tion and heaping back on him accusations of the basest kind. They
did not dare directly to attack the institution on the Aventine, they
contented themselves with vilifying its director. A personality like
St. Jerome's is never safe from the envy and hatred of mediocrity.
If it possessed every talent of genius and every gift of holiness it
would not escape the conspiracy of mean implacable rivalries.
These were held somewhat in check during the pontificate of St.
Damasus, a true friend of the religious movement and a staunch
supporter of St. Jerome. But after his death in 384 the band of
intriguers became more audacious and their slanders more odious.
The saint, whose absence from his beloved solitude had only been
prolonged in deference to the Pope, thought that the time was now
come for him to return to the East. Still he would not leave Rome
like a guilty fugitive, but as a tired victor who has earned his repose.
He penned one of his masterpieces of indignant sarcasm and un-
masked without pity the hypocrisy and falsehood of his detractors.
This parting manifesto he embodied in a letter to Asella, one of the
nuns of the Aventine, concluding with a touching farewell to his
spiritual children.
A few months later Paula and Eustochium followed his example
and set out for the East. On their arrival in Jerusalem they joined
themselves to Melania, the pioneer pilgrim from Rome who had
preceded them, and founded the monastery at Bethlehem, where
St. Jerome continued the course of instruction he had begun on the
Aventine. Marcella herself could never be induced to leave her
charge. Paula and Eustochium pressed her with repeated invita-
tions to abandon the "city of confusion" and seek the promised
land. They put before her all the attractions of the Holy Places,
and dwelt with rapture on the marvelous development of monastic
life in Jerusalem, surpassing anything known in the West, and
described the variety and order of the many monasteries, already
peopled by monks and nuns from Gaul, and Britain, and Egypt,
Macedonia and all the East, speaking different tongues, but prais-
ing God with one heart. St. Jerome, too, added his entreaties, ap-
pealing to her love for the sacred studies, which she could pursue
with greater advantage in the land where the Scriptures were written
and their language spoken. All these reasons failed to persuade
Marcella, and she continued to govern her monastery on the Aven-
tine till her eightieth year. Meantime all her first companions had
passed away, a new generation of sacred virgins had taken their
22 Ep. xviii.
Virgins Consecrated to God. 789
place, emulating like the younger Paula and Principia the virtues of
the novices of fifty years before ; and so powerful was the effect of
her holy example and direction that monasteries came to be multi-
plied in the city and in the suburbs to such an extent that St.
Jerome himself had to confess that from the accounts he had in the
East Rome had become another Jerusalem.
This was all quite true, but there was another side to the picture,
known both to Jerome and Marcella. Perhaps a presentiment of
coming danger, an intuition of St. John's prophetic vision of the
fall of Babylon, had a part in determining Marcella not to abandon
her flock. Lactantius brought down to his own day the chronicle
of God's visible judgments on the persecuting Emperors,^^ and
closed it with the overthrow of Maxentius and the triumph of Con-
stantine; but it was not the guilt of rulers only that cried for
vengeance. Rome itself, living throbbing Rome, whose millions
had revelled in every license and made itself drunk with the blood
of the saints, had filled up the measure of its iniquity. A vast num-
ber, probably the great majority, were still impenitent idolaters and
hated Christianity with a deadly hatred, cursing it in their hearts as
the cause of every reverse that happened to the State and ready to
recommence persecution by fire and sword, if they had not been
held in awe by the Christian Emperors. On these the justice of
God was about to fall.
In 408 Alaric, with his Goths, appeared before the walls of Rome,
which was only saved from pillage by the payment of an enormous
ransom ; but two years later, irritated by the bad faith of the Romans,
he again laid siege to the city. Reduced by famine it could oppose no
effectual resistance, and the barbarians forced an entrance on August
24, 410. They spread devastation as they advanced, marking their
path by smoking ruins and heaps of slain. They plundered the
palaces and heathen temples of everything valuable. It was Alaric's
command to respect the churches, and this order was in part obeyed.
He enforced the inviolability of asylum, particularly in the basilicas
of the Apostles. It is related that in their search for treasure a
sacred virgin, advanced in years, was found guarding the sacred
vessels in her habitation near a church. The soldiers demanded the
deposit; she refused to surrender it, and dared them to touch it.
Alaric was consulted. He ordered the vessels, with their aged cus-
todian, to be taken to St. Peter's, escorted through the tumult of the
streets between a double line of guards.
Marcella had taken precautions for the security of her children.
She dispersed the community, distributing them in the houses of
devoted Christian families. She remained in her palace alone with
23 De mort. Persecutorum.
790 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Principia, the youngest, and the child of her predilection, who would
not be parted from her, trusting for protection to the power of her
mother's love. With blood-stained hands some soldiers invaded
the house.^* Incapable of fear, Marcella stood intrepid. They re-
quired her to deliver up her treasures. In vain she told them she
had none ; her gold and silver had been given to the poor, and she
pointed to her coarse tunic, the sign of her poverty. In their dis-
appointment and rage they brutally fell upon her and beat her with
scourges. Mindful even then only of her charge, she cast herself on
her knees at their feet, imploring them not to separate her from
Principia. Her courage and her dignity overawed the barbarians,
their fury gave way to respect and admiration, and, as St. Jerome
says : "Compassion was found with dripping swords."-^ Marcella
and Principia were honorably conducted under the protection of an
armed escort to the basilica of St. Paul, where they were left in safety.
Marcella did not long survive the catastrophe of Rome, and her eyes
were closed by Principia.
St. Jerome received in Palestine in quick succession the news of
the sack of Rome and the death of Marcella. In the desolation of so
many sad memories of vanished friends and fallen greatness his
grief was long too great for words. He kept silence for two years,
and at length, in the inspiration of a night of watching, he gave ut-
terance to his feelings in the magnificent eulogium of Marcella
which he dedicated to Principia.^^ To her was left the continuation
of the foundress's work. In Rome it suffered for a time from the
efTects of the invasion, the slaughter of so many patrician families
and the voluntary exile of others. But the dispersion of so many
who had learned the principles of religious life at the feet of Mar-
cella, or were fired by her example, carried their knowledge and
practice into distant regions in East and West. Albina and Melania
the younger went to the monastery of Bethlehem, Demetrias to
Africa, and the seed carried by other exiles, become missionaries of
monasticism, spread it in Gaul, and Spain, and Italy, preparing the
way for its further development in the fifth century, first under the
rule of St. Augustine, then under the rule of St. Benedict. Every-
where the monastic movement was active after the death of Mar-
cella, the monasteries of Rome long outlived her successor, Prin-
cipia, and the spiritual race of these parents was not unworthy of its
beginnings. "By the prayers and mortified lives of the nuns of
Rome, Italy was saved from the sword of the Lombards. "^^
J. A. Campbell.
Rome.
'* S. Hieron. Kp. Ad Principiam. 2S ibid. 2« Marcellee Epitaphium ad Principiam. ^ S..
Gregorii, De Virg.
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 791
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ITS RELATION TO
MATERIAL PROGRESS.
A RECENT writer of considerable erudition and undoubted
ability, whose writings have a wide circulation in England,
and I imagine are not unknown in America, has recently-
published a volume^ in which he challenges the claims of the Cath-
olic Church on the ground that everywhere it is the enemy of ma-
terial civilization and material progress. He seems to think, as we
shall see presently, that he has satisfactorily disposed of its claims
by showing that the Protestant countries of Europe are more pro-
gressive and more enterprising than the Catholic ; that they are able
to show a more brilliant array of men of genius ; that they have been
less troubled with revolutions; that they are more successful in
colonization ; more wealthy and more free ; superior alike in war and
in the arts of peace. The argument is not a new one, and it is one
to which it is important that Catholics should have a ready answer ;
and it is for this reason that I propose in the present article to make
one or two suggestions as to the direction in which I believe the true
answer lies.
But first of all, I should like to accentuate one fact which is too
often left out of sight by Catholic writers, and that is that in all
things human, whether ecclesiastical or civil, there is no such thing
as absolute perfection. There is always something to be said on
both sides of the question. There are advantages; there are also
disadvantages. The gain is not all on one side, but everywhere it
is a matter of balance between gain and loss. This is the case not
merely with every institution looked at in its entirety, but with
almost every detail of its administration. Those of my readers who
are familiar with Sir George Cornewall Lewis' "Dialogue on the
Best Form of Government" will remember the perplexity into which
it is liable to throw the unprejudiced enquirer who is seeking to
form his judgment as to what the ideal form of constitution really
is. The fact is that there is no ideal in the matter at all ; it is
merely a question as to the form of government, which in any given
instance combines the most solid benefits to the nation with the least
number of countervailing evils. It is just the same in the case of
every institution connected with religion, when regarded in its con-
crete form as a working institution, conducted by fallible and imper-
fect men. Every law and enactment of the Catholic Church has its
pros and cons, its drawbacks as well as its advantages. Even the
code of laws which have relation to natural right and wrong have
1 " Catholicism, Roman and Anglican." By A. M. Fairbairn, D. D., I..I.. D., principal of
Mansfield College, Oxford. London : Hodder & Stoughton.
792 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
something to be urged against them. The very worst vices have a
certain attractiveness. They confer a passing and transitory benefit
on those who are guilty of them, and though these benefits are in-
finitesimal in comparison with the after evils that they entail, yet they
must exist, else there would be no such thing as temptation. And
if this is the case with the vices that are condemned by the con-
sensus of mankind, and are in direct opposition to the law of nature,
how much more must it be the case where there is no immediate
question of natural right and wrong at all, but only of the preponder-
ance on one side or the other of certain indirect and perhaps rather
remote consequences, some of them tending ultimately to good and
others to evil ? Take, for example, the question of the marriage of
the clergy. The celibacy of the Catholic clergy is a purely ecclesi-
astical institution. It was not ordained by our Lord or His Apos-
tles. It is not universal in the Catholic Church ; the priests of the
Uniate Greek Church are allowed to marry. The Pope forbade the
marriage of the Latin clergy, and the Pope could, if he pleased, per-
mit priests to marry. When we come to weigh the arguments on
both sides, we shall find that there is a great deal to be said in favor
of their being married. God has said that "It is not good for man
to be alone." The celibate is exposed to many temptations and
dangers, from which the married are comparatively free. He is ex-
posed to the danger of selfishness and of a self-centralization which
is practically impossible for one who has a wife and children to
think of as well as himself. The paternal instinct which becomes
strong in a man as life advances, and the natural affections, the out-
flow of which has a great influence in softening character, lack the
opportunity of coming into full play. A celibate, living by himself,
is prone to a painful sense of loneliness, especially if, as is often the
case with a Catholic priest, he is stationed in some country place,
where society of his equals he has none. Add to this that a clergy-
man's wife is often quite invaluable in her husband's parish. She
is almoner, nurse, adviser and district visitor all in one, and exercises
a moral influence in all the country round, to say nothing of the
social and material benefits that she is able to bestow. Yet with full
consciousness of all this, the Church has decreed the celibacy of her
clergy, and every fair-judging man who has had a sufficient oppor-
tunity of comparing the two systems in their practical working is
compelled to confess the superiority of the work done by a celibate
clergy, especially in the mission field. A married clergy, taken as
a body, sink to a lower spiritual level. St. Paul has settled the
question, once for all. "He that is not married is solicitous for the
things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord ; but he that is mar-
ried is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 793
wife, and he is divided." (I. Cor. vii., 32, 33.) Ask the Indian,
officer or civiHan, who are the most successful and devoted mission-
ers, and he will tell you that the Protestant missioner, cumbered with
wife and children, is at a very considerable disadvantage. Too often
he is simply despised by the natives, as comparing unfavorably with
their own celibate Buddhist priests.
In America and England the disadvantages that beset a married
man who works among the poor are scarcely less marked. It is
almost unreasonable to expect him to run the risk of infection and
contagion, when he has to think, not of himself only, but of the peril
to the lives of his wife and children, and though there are numbers
of married clergymen who incur the risk in full confidence that God
will keep safe the dear ones at home, yet such a course of conduct
would scarcely be regarded as prudent by the generality of men.
Besides this, there are other priestly duties which, if they are not
absolutely incompatible with the married state, are at all events dif-
ficult for a married man to perform as he ought. For these reasons
the Catholic Church, with a full cognizance of both sides of the ques-
tion, has wisely decreed that there is an enormous balance of ad-
vantage in favor of a celibate clergy.
Or, to take a very different and a more fundamental question, and
one that brings us directly on to the field of topics treated of by Dr.
Fairbairn, the principle of authority in matters of religion is one in
which there is certainly much to be said on both sides of the ques-
tion ; I mean, of course, by authority ecclesiastical and human au-
thority having Divine sanction, and investing some individual man
or some body of men with the right to be absolutely obeyed, not
only in matters of practice, but also in regard to beliefs which are
to be accepted as true. I mean that supreme authority which has a
right to give a command which is binding in matters that concern
human action, and the infallible authority which has a right to pro-
nounce an infallible sentence in matters of human belief. Whether
final decision rests with an individual or with some central tribunal
consisting of a body of men does not matter to my present purpose.
It is of the principle of authority of which I am speaking, and thia
principle is, and always has been, an essential element in the consti-
tution of the Catholic Church.
Now the principle of authority and the necessity of submission to
it is not an unmixed good. In matters of practice it may possibly
expose the individual Catholic to the danger of having to submit to
a sentence which is wrongful and unjust. For while obedience
really strengthens the will, and when wisely exercised does not at all
diminish, but only safeguards the initiative of the well-ordered mind,
it is quite possible so unwisely to enforce obedience and to multiply
794 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
unnecessary commands as to impair that most desirable element of
human character which prompts a man to elaborate for himself and
to carry into execution the course of action which right reason leads
him to adopt. This is especially the case when civil rulers encroach
on the ecclesiastical order and exercise an all-pervading despotism.
It has been said (though I should be sorry myself to endorse the
saying) that if it had not been for the Catholic doctrine of submission
to authority, the French people would never have tolerated the long
years of "privilege,'' oppression and tyranny which culminated in
the revolt from all authority in the French Revolution. Be this as
it may, we must allow that the principle of spiritual authority, though
it does not in any way hinder, yet does not of itself promote even a
legitimate craving after national independence. It does not stimu-
late mere material progress or the desire for a wider empire or more
extensive schemes of colonization. We are sometimes told that
the Protestant cantons of Switzerland enjoy a greater material pros-
perity than the Catholic. Even if this is so, the argument would
prove too much, for there is, I believe, no community in the world
so materially prosperous as the Mormons of Utah. We are also
told that the Northern and Protestant nations of Europe enjoy a
greater degree of material prosperity than the Southern and Catholic
nations. I do not believe that this is true, unless we take the words
material prosperity to be identical with the accumulation of wealth.
The accumulation of wealth in Protestant England is greater than
that which exists in Catholic Belgium, or in the Tyrol. But if we
take the expression in a wider and truer sense, and explain material
prosperity as identical with material well-being, the enjoyment by
the people at large of the good things of this life, the scale would
certainly turn in favor of the two Catholic countries that I have just
mentioned. "Godliness has promise of the life that now is, as well
as of that which is to come."
I think we may also make a further concession, and allow that the
throwing off of the spiritual yoke gives a certain temporary and
ephemeral stimulus to individual enterprise and to mere worldly
activity. I remember many years ago asking a dear and valued
friend of my youth, who had lately thrown off the yoke of religion,
whether the change had not left him discontented and unsatisfied.
"No," he answered; "on the contrary, I rejoice continually in my
new found liberty." Now, indeed, in his old age, after many years
of bitter suffering and fruitless search after his false and imaginary
ideal, he sings a very dift'erent song, and confesses that he has
learned to envy those who live content in the fold of the Catholic
Church, but at first I am sure that he spoke truly in expressing his
satisfaction at his emancipation from all control in matters of re-
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 795
ligion. And what is true of the individual is often true of the nation
also, and there follow on its emancipation from the Church's yoke
conquests abroad and increased wealth at home, an advance in all
that seems to one who takes but a superficial view to tend to the
material pr6sperity and even what is regarded as the ''greatness" of
a nation — more men of genius, more poets, more great writers, more
philosophers (if we can call those philosophers who put forward false
and plausible hypotheses in the place of the eternal truths of Cath-
olic philosophy), more brilliant statesmen, more successful specu-
lators, more gilded princes of the commercial world, more of all that
dazzles the eyes of men and rouses in them a foolish and short-
sighted envy. All this I would freely confess, and I see in it an ex-
act fulfilment of the words of our Lord that "the children of this
world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." Yes,
in their generation and not in view of any life to come ; in their gen-
eration and not in the generations that shall come after them, which
will sooner or later reap the bitter fruit of the showy upas tree that
their forefathers have planted.
But in making this comparison between Protestant and Catholic
nations three important points have to be borne in mind. The first
is that whatever material prosperity and worldly advantage may
accrue to a nation from the fact of its having substituted religious
independence for submission to the yoke of the Church will, in the
course of time, be followed by misfortune and decay. This follows
from the very nature of things. The natural virtues are bound, as
time goes on, to fade away if they are not supported by the super-
natural. The temporary stimulus given by the abandonment of
Catholicity will bring about a reaction, or perhaps will induce a
prosperity which however brilliant for a time, and even apparently
solid, will gradually bring about the ruin of the nation where it is
found. It has for -its foundation the sand, and not the rock, or if
not wholly sand, yet has mingled with whatever is solid in it an ele-
ment of sand that will in time cause its destruction. Look at
Mahometan civilization. At first it carried all before it. It was
almost everywhere victorious. It conquered Christian Spain and
made inroads on the whole of Southern Europe. It was dominant
for some hundreds of years, and for nearly a thousand was the for-
midable rival of Christian civilization. It is only since the battle of
Lepanto that it has ceased to threaten the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean. But after all it has proved itself utterly weak and
rotten to the core. And what is true of the Moslem must in God's
good time prove true of every religion that is in revolt against the
reHgion established by Jesus Christ. In the case of Protestant coun-
tries the process of decadence is a slower one on account of the
79^ American Catholic Quarterly Reviezv.
Christianity which they still nominally retain and the Christian prin-
ciples which they have inherited, in spite of themselves, from the
Catholicity that they have displaced. The end must come sooner
or later. The struggle may be a long one, far longer than the
struggle between the early Christian Church and the power of im-
perial and pagan Rome. But in the end come it must, even in this
world, since the nation, unlike the individual, exists only for time,
and not for eternity, and therefore in time it must receive the due
reward of its deeds.
The second point to be borne in mind is that all this undeniable
prosperity and this brilliant material civilization which exists in na-
tions which have shaken off the yoke of the Church is not a true
prosperity or a true civilization. It is but a counterfeit, and not the
genuine article. Under the surface, as we shall presently see Dr.
Fairbairn himself confessing, there lurk "depravity, destitution,
utter and shameless godlessness." Nowhere, save in the Christian
and Catholic State, where the Church occupies her proper place,
will true civilization be found.
Pope Leo XIII., in his Encyclical "Immortale Dei" (November i,
1885) enumerates a number of the advantages that belong to States
of which the organization is Catholic Christian, and to these only.
He reminds us how in these alone the sanctity of family life is se-
cured by the indissolubility of marriage and by the rights and duties
of husband and wife being equitably and justly defined ; how in the
Christian state alone the laws are directed by the strict principles of
truth and justice, and are not subject to party interests or the ca-
prices of the fickle mob ; how in it only the authority of those in
power is recognized as having a sanction higher than human, and
at the same time is kept within due bounds, and how party spirit is
tempered by mutual charity, good will and generosity; how, in a
word, "the abundant benefits with which the Christian religion, from
its very nature, endows even this mortal life of man upon earth are
acquired for the whole of the community and for civil society. And,
finally, he quotes the challenge which St. Augustine throws down
before the advocates of godless states : "Let those who say that the
teaching of Christ is hurtful to the State produce armies in which
the soldiers have such a spirit as Christian teaching has produced ;
such Governors of provinces ; such husbands and wives ; such par-
ents and children ;- such masters and servants ; such rulers ; such
Judges; such collectors, and such payers of the very taxes of the
State as the Christian doctrine commands them to be, and then let
them dare to say that such teaching is hurtful to the State; nay,
rather will they not openly acknowledge that obedience to Christ is a
mighty source of safety to the State. "^
2 St. Aug. ep. 138 ad Marcellinum 2, i.
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 797
For we must never forget that material civilization, however bril-
liant, has, unless it is founded on Christian principles, a germ within
it which must work by slow degrees utter moral deterioration, social
degradation, and as the ultimate consequence of its internal dis-
orders a final ruin which must, as we have said, in the end cause the
destruction of its showy greatness and its imposing splendor. But
here there intervenes a third principle which must not be forgotten.
Although the life of the State differs from that of the individual
in that the latter is only commenced in this world and finds its
consummation in the next, while the former begins and ends here
below, yet the two have this in common, that even when they are
both preparing themselves for final destruction, the one in the next
world and the other sooner or later in this, yet God in His justice and
liberality never fails to richly reward both the one and the other for
whatever good is to be found intermingled with the prevailing and
predominant evil. This is, of course, still more the case with na-
tions in this life than with individuals on account of their existence
being confined to this life. To quote the words of Pope Leo XIII.
in another Encyclical ("Exeunte jam anno," December 30, 1888) :
'The impartial and unchangeable justice of God reserves due
rewards for good deeds and fitting punishment for sin. But since
the life of peoples and nations does not outlast this world, these
necessarily receive their retribution on this earth. Indeed, it is not
a strange thing that prosperity should be the lot of a sinful nation ;
and this by the just designs of God, who rewards with benefits of
this kind actions worthy of praise, since there is no nation alto-
gether destitute of worth. This St. Augustine considers to have
been the case with the Roman people."
Hence when we see long prosperity accompanying a rebellion from
the yoke of the Church we may reasonably conclude that there still
remains within it a large element of natural and perhaps also of super-
natural virtue. The rebel nation may cast off the central principle of
the Church, but at the same time may retain a great amount of Cath-
olic doctrine, and even of the Catholic spirit. It is impossible to
cast off all at once the traditions of a thousand years, and when a
nation revolts from the Church there lingers on a great deal that is
Catholic, which has become engrained in its institutions and in its
laws. It of necessity retains certain virtues which were an inherit-
ance from its Catholic days and which at the same time had the ad-
vantage of being more in accordance with the temper of the nation
than the virtues which were discarded. In the northern nations the
active virtues remain, the passive disappear. Justice, truthfulness,
courage remain, while submission, reverence, obedience fade away.
God rewards them for the former bv a career of prosperity, in which
79^ American Catholic Quarterly Review.
they have played an important part, even though the corruption
resulting from the absence of the latter is slowly working its way.
I do not hesitate to say that the absence of the passive virtues has
even given a temporary stimulus to national greatness in the ma-
terial order, inasmuch as the active virtues, taking to themselves a
serviceable ally in the newly gained independence which was the
result of rebellion, were able to act more freely, though at the same
time they lost their supernatural character and their chief value in
the sight of Almighty God. They became effective means of a
highly developed though transitory degree of national greatness in
the material order.
But if you ask me whether all this undeniable stimulus given by
rebellion to worldly greatness and material prosperity in any way
weakens the firmness of my adherence to the principle of ecclesiasti-
cal authority, I answer that so far from weakening it they confirm
my conviction of its supernatural origin and of its being the means
appointed by our Lord for the salvation of souls. If all this were
not true, the contrast that our Lord draws between the kingdom of
this world and the kingdom of heaven as realized on earth would
have no point or significance. I find in the Catholic Church an
exact realization of all that He and His Apostles laid down respect-
ing the "kingdom of heaven" which He came to found among men.
I find in her a number of characteristics fatal to immediate worldly
success, all of which are predicted or foreshadowed in the New
Testament. Those who live her life most perfectly are to be poor
in spirit, meek, despised and hated and misunderstood by those out-
side the pale; they are to have a contempt and even hatred for
riches and material prosperity; they are to be subject to continual
persecution even from wTll-meaning and God-fearing men. Those
who are to tread in the footsteps of the Apostles are to be men
living separate from the world and at variance with her spirit, and
for this reason to draw down upon themselves its contempt and dis-
like. At the same time there was to arise in the Church that Christ
founded, in spite of its ideal and perfect beauty, an element of weak-
ness by reason of the continual presence in its midst of those who
while they were nominal members of it had nevertheless lost its
spirit and taken to themselves the spirit of the world instead. As
an object lesson in this respect, one of the Apostles was possessed by
a spirit of criticism, by love of money and private judgment, the last
mentioned leading him to what would be called in the present day
honest doubts. This spirit was to spread as time went on ; faith was
to become feeble and charity to become cold. The net was to con-
tain bad as well as good fish, the servants of the family were to
neglect their duty and to seek their own private advantage instead
The CatJwlic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 799
of their Master's interest. Iniquity was to abound and intellectual
scepticism to go hand in hand with moral depravity. Men were to
arise who were to walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, to
be daring and self-willed, to despise authority and to sew the hidden
seed of sects and heresies. The spirit of the world was to make its
way into the Church of Christ, and the result would be that large
iiuiribers would throw off the yoke. Yet there will always be some
who will remain faithful to the sweet yoke established by Christ on
earth, but they would find themselves in direct antagonism with the
world. On the other hand, the world would applaud those who,
under pretence of asserting their rights to independence of thought
and action, had emancipated themselves from the dominion of the
Church. They were to be recognized by the fact that they would
not accept from those whom our Lord had left to be His repre-
sentatives on earth the faith as taught by them, of whom He had
said : "He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you
despiseth Me." They would insist on their own interpretation and
their own views of what had been laid down by Christ and His
Apostles. They would boldly assert their liberty of judgment in
matters of religion and would regard as a sort of slavery the sub-
mission of the intellect to the authority of the Church.
Now these men are in the very nature of things far more pro-
gressive and therefore more likely to succeed in worldly and ma-
terial things than the children of the Church. The very essence of
submission consists in a passive and receptive attitude to all in whom
any sort of authority is recognized, whereas it is of the essence of
resistance to be active. Boldness in action and a sort of audacious
self-reliance is one of the qualities most valuable as means of at-
taining worldly success. The passive temper and the spirit of de-
pendence, the acceptance of one's opinions ready made, instead of a
gradt!al process carving them out for oneself, does not promote en-
terprise or that love of speculation which is one of the most attrac-
tive, and at the same time one of the most dangerous forms of in-
tellectual activity. The consciousness of being liable to be checked
at any moment by the voice of an authority which must be obeyed
is rather discouraging to a venturesome boldness, whether in mat-
ters of theory or of practice. Hence arises that stimulus to activity
of speculation, those brilliant achievements in the field of literature,
that sudden development of individual as well as of national enter-
prise of which Dr. Fairbairn speaks in the following paragraph,
and trom which he draws a plausible, but at the same time an utterly
fallacious argument in favor of Protestantism and of Protestant
civilization :
"The centuries that have elapsed since the fifteenth ended have
8oo American Catholic Quarterly Review.
brcn without doubt the most eventful, fruitful, momentous in the
history of man, and their history has been the history of Christian
peoples. The record of their material progress has been a record
of marvels. America has been discovered, colonized, peopled ; Asia
has been opened up, almost conquered and annexed; Africa has
been explored, and is being pierced and penetrated on all sides, and
in the Australasian continent and islands the seeds of new States have
been plentifully sown. The European States, with certain signifi-
cant exceptions, are mightier than they were four centuries ago,
better ordered, more moral, more populous, freer, wealthier ; and the
poorest of the countries has become rich and full of comforts as
compared with Europe at the time of the Black Death. But what
part has Christianity had in the making of modern civilization?
Not much, if it and the Catholic Church be identical. The con-
quests and colonizations effected by Catholic States have, so far as
order, progress and human well-being are concerned, been chapters
of disaster and failure. The progressive peoples have been the non-
Catholic. From them have proceeded the noblest of the ameliora-
tive principles and actions of the period. They have been the least
troubled with revolution; have had the most happy, well-ordered
commonwealths; have enjoyed the most freedom; have most suc-
cessfully labored to temper justice with mercy, to make judgment
remedial, to enlarge the area of rights and to raise the ideal of duty.
And the same peoples have been preeminent in the realms of
thought and of spirit, been most deeply and devoutly exercised by
the problems concerning man and his destiny. God has not been
sparing of His gifts of great men to those who sit outside Catho-
licism. The Elizabethan dramatists, greatest of moderns in their
own order, were the poets of the English people in the heroic
moment of their reaction against Rome. Milton was the poet of a
still more radical revolution. Cowper and Burns, Wordsworth and
Coleridge, Tennyson and Browning, Scott and Carlyle represent the
inspiration and aspiration of the same people. Herder and Lessing,
Schiller and Goethe were not products of Catholicism. The most
splendid cycle of thinkers since the Platonic age in Greece was that
which began with Kant and ended with Hegel, sons of. Protestant
Germany." (Pp. 195-7.)
This is forcibly and skilfully put, and Catholics will do well to look
it boldly in the face. They need not shrink before it, for it is just
what will be expected by those who have penetrated to the inner
spirit of the religion of Jesus Christ. It tells of earthly glories, and
He said : "My kingdom is not of this world." It sings the praises
of certain natural virtues, and He esteemed the most brilliant of the
natural virtues as of no value whatever in comparison with the
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 80 1
supernatural. The beatitudes have no place in the praises of Dr.
Fairbairn so long as they remain purely natural and are not raised
to the supernatural order. The showy exploits that he extols may
have increased the riches, the power, the comfort, the external
decorum of Protestant nations, but they have gone hand in hand
with the gradual waning of Faith, the corruption of social morality,
and, above all, with the continuous growth of self-assertive pride
and with an ever-diminishing sense of our continual dependence on
God. What place is there in Dr. Fairbairn's list of the choicest
virtues for those which the Apostle describes as the "fruits of the
Holy Spirit," and therefore to be esteemed before and above all else?
"The fruit of the Spirit," says St. Paul (and I suppose that Dr. Fair-
bairn would accept him as representing the mind of Christ Himself),
"is love, peace, joy, benignity, long-suffering, meekness, faith, mod-
esty, continency." (Gal. v., 23.) Are these the virtues of the con-
queror and the explorer ; of the man whose ambition is to bring
under his country's sway large tracts of far off lands, and to spread
modern civilization, with its vices as well as its virtues, among tribes
that before lived in barbarism ? Are these the virtues which render
a nation great and glorious, as the world esteems greatness and
glory? The catalogue strangely omits all mention of the active
virtues dear to the heart of the ordinary Englishman of the present
day. There is not a word about self-reliance, or the spirit of enter-
prise, or a desire of renown, or of p3itnotism,magn3immity{!^evaXo(l>uxta.)
Why are these latter ignored? Simply because, in spite of their
intrinsic excellence, they are primarily natural, not supernatural,
virtues. They are virtues which are to be found in a high degree in
those who have flung off the yoke of Christianity altogether. They
are virtues, many of them most beautiful virtues, but they are not
distinctively Christian virtues. Some of them are liable, if they are
exclusively cultivated, to overshadow and obscure the beauty of the
supernatural virtues, and even to thrust them aside altogether. They
are, moreover, liable to degenerate into vices where the Christian
spirit of submission and humility is absent. They lead to the spread
of a civilization which is not a distinctly Christian civilization. Those
who glory in them above all others are prone to share the old Roman
tactics which adapted the civilization they introduced to whatever
religion was prevalent in the country annexed or subdued. What
has been the policy of Protestant England in India, in Egypt, in
Africa itself ? It has been everywhere to introduce civilization with-
out Christianity. I know that I am liable to the retort that if this
is so it amounts to a condemnation of the Christian virtues. So it
does, if a passing worldly greatness and worldly success is the chief
end of life for the individual or the nation. The retort is a per-
Vol. XXV.— Sig. 12.
8o2 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
fectly successful refutation of my argument in the mouth of the Ag-
nostic or Deist. But in the mouth of a Christian it is a virtual
denial of the fundamental principles of Christianity. It proclaims
in contradiction to the words of Christ Himself that His kingdom is
of the world. It declares the temporal to be of more value than
the eternal. It sacrifices the kingdom of heaven to worldly domin-
ion. It is true that men who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ
do not assert this in so many words. But the fact that they urge the
various successes of non-Catholic nations in the temporal order as
an argument against Catholic Christianity proves that they regard
worldly prosperity and greatness as valuable in itself, whereas Chris-
tianity proclaims that it, like all else, is valuable only in so far as it
spreads the kingdom of Christ on earth and opens the door of heaven
to those who otherwise would still sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death. And this, I maintain, modern conquest and modern civil-
ization does not do. Perhaps I shall be told that modern conquest
opens the door to the Christian missionary. This is perfectly true,
but it is due partly to the spirit of toleration, not to say indifference,
which is of the essence of Protestant civilization, partly to the sense
of justice which is, thank God, a characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon
race, and to its appreciation of the self-denying charity of the Cath-
olic missioner. But at the s?.me time I cannot help thinking that
the most brilliant triumphs of the Cross have been for the most part
separate from and independent of conquests by the State. The
Christianity of England was not introduced by the Roman con-
queror, and though Roman missionaries carried the Gospel into all
parts of the earth, and thus made Roman sovereignty indirectly help
on the spread of Christianity, yet Roman prefects and Roman gov-
ernors were the bitterest enemies of the faith in almost every coun-
try in Europe. The State may civilize, and a Christian State may,
but very seldom does, smooth the way for the preachers of the
Gospel. But it is the missioner who, carrying his life in his hand,
enters on the field of his labors alone and with no human power to
back him, who has been the most effective agent in evangelizing the
dark places of the earth and of spreading the only Christian civiliza-
tion that deserves the nam-".
But if the modern spirit and the Protestant form of Christianity
that has been dominant in America and England and Germany dur-
ing the last three hundred years has been powerless to bring under
the dominion of Christ the foreign lands that have come under the
sway of Protestant countries, much more has it been a complete
failure in really doing the work of Christ at home. When Dr.
Fairbairn says in the passage I have quoted above that the modern
Protestant States are "more well-ordered, freer, more populous, more
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 803
moral, more full of comforts than they were four centuries ago," I
am willing to concede the material and social improvements of which
he speaks ; but he must be strangely ignorant of the true state of the
masses in Protestant countries if he asserts for them a higher moral-
ity and a more Christian spirit than that which prevails in countries
which have remained faithful to the See of Rome. Take any coun-
try town (to say nothing of the modern Babylon) in England or
Protestant America and compare it with one of the same size in
Catholic Ireland, or Belgium, or Westphalia, or the Tyrol. In the
one you will find good order, I allow, great external respectability,
at least in the upper and middle classes. But beneath the surface
you will find a seething mass of destitution and pauperism, of degra-
dation and godlessness among the old and of corruption and im-
morality, especially among the young ; an utter godlessness ; an al-
most entire absence of all the virtues that are distinctively Christian,
no faith, scarcely any realization of the world unseen, a sad neglect of
prayer, very little humility, very little purity, a state of things
heathen rather than Christian ; the .world and worldly success and
worldly riches and worldly comforts the end and object of human
life ; paganism instead of Christianity. Indeed, Dr. Fairbairn him-
self confesses this to be the case in the early pages of his book.
After speaking of the various benevolent agencies at work in Eng-
land, he continues :
"Grant the facts and the inference to be alike true, ought they to
satisfy the Christian conscience, or ought not that conscience — in
the face of the destitution, depravity, utter and shameless godless-
ness which exist in spite of all the expenditure and efforts of the
churches — to be filled with deep dissatisfaction ? For what do these
evils mean? That our society is to the degree that they exist not
only imperfectly Christian, but really un-Christian." (P. 5.)
Now what will you find in a similar town — say in Ireland ? You
will find a firm faith, a solid piety, a purity which seems almost in-
credible to those who are only acquainted with corrupt England.
You will find prayers said regularly every night and morning, regu^
lar and devout frequentation of the sacraments, almost every in-
habitant of the town present at Mass every Sunday morning. You
will find a sweet simplicity and innocence among the young, an hon-
esty and uprightness, based on supernatural motives and on a heart-
felt loyalty to their religion, that can scarcely be overstated. "Why,
I could leave my portmanteau in the middle of the street, and no one
would touch it," was the testimony of an English officer who had
been stationed in a town in the west of Ireland to the honesty of its
inhabitants. Froude also has a testimony like this. [See Young's
"Protestant and Catholic Countries Compared."] A still more satis-
8o4 American Catholic Quarterly Review. ,
factory witness to the morality of the people was that of a priest who
had just been giving a mission in some Irish country town, who
assured me that a large majority of those who lived there never com-
mitted a mortal sin from one year's end to another. I do not say
that the same high standard prevails everywhere, even in Ireland,
but I am quite certain, both from my own experience of the country
and the testimony of others, that the standard of piety, obedience
to the laws of God and of the Church, of honesty, mutual charity
and, above all, of purity, is a thousand times higher in Catholic Ire-
land than in Protestant England.
I daresay that Dr. Fairbairn would not find much to admire in
such simple and honest Catholics. He would pronounce them ig-
norant, unprogressive, priest-ridden, uncivilized. But he would
nevertheless find them modeled after the likeness of Christ, full of
love to Christ and very dear to His Sacred Heart, and an utter con-
trast to the godless and too often degraded inhabitants of the towns
and villages of Protestant England.
There is another charge brought by Dr. Fairbairn against the
Catholic Church which at first sight seems rather remote from the
one that I have been challenging, but which is really very closely
connected with it. He is not able to find in the religion of the New
Testament any trace either of "sacerdotalism" or of "politico-mon-
archical organization." If this were true, it would follow as a matter
of course that the Catholic organization which has inaugurated the
Catholic State would be a departure from the intention of Christ,
and that it would be necessary to organize society on some such
natural principles as are the basis of the civilization of distinctively
Protestant countries, without any formal unity, without any cor-
porate existence, without any sort of hierarchy on the part of the
religion which is to be the recognized creed of the citizens. Dr.
Fairbairn says, and says with perfect truth, that all development in
religion must be a gradual development from an original "germ,"
but that there must be found from the very beginning an unmistak-
able trace of the existence of this germ, else the development will
be a corruption, and not a true development. Now his position is
that in the religion of Christ and His Apostles, as laid down in Holy
Scripture, we find no trace either of sacerdotalism or of any sort of
"politico-monarchical organization." But I had better quote his
own words :
"Measured by the standard of a sacerdotal religion, Jesus was not
a pious person ; He spoke no word, did no act that imphed a priest-
hood for His people. He enforced no sacerdotal observance, insti-
tuted no sacerdotal order, promulgated no sacerdotal law ; but sim-
ply required that His people should be perfect as their Father in
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 805
heaven was perfect. ... But Catholicism is here the precise
opposite of this aboriginal religion, this Christianity of Christ and
His Apostles. The priesthood is essential to it; without the priest-
hood it could have no existence, no Saviour present in its services,
no Mass, no sacraments, no confessional ; in a word, no worship for
God, no comfort or command for man." (Pp. 168, 170.)
And again :
"There is no evidence that Jesus ever created, or thought of cre-
ating, an organized society. There is no idea He so little empha-
sizes as the idea of the Church. The use of the term is attributed
to Him but twice— once it occurs in the local or congregational
sense, and once in the universal, but only to define His own sole
activity and supremacy ; His familiar idea is the kingdom of God or
of heaven ; but this kingdom is without organization and incapable
of being organized. Indeed, though the ideas may here and there
coincide, it is essentially the contrary and contrast of what is now
understood as the Catholic Church, whether Roman or Anglican.
Further, in the Church of the New Testament the politico-mon-
archical idea does not exist ; there is no shadow or anticipation or
prophecy of it. The Churches are not organized, do not constitute
a formal unity, have a fraternal, but no corporate relation ; have no
common or even local hierarchy; they are divided by differences
that preclude the very idea of an official or infallible head. Su-
premacy belongs to no man ; there is no bishop in the modern sense,
over any church, or over the whole Church ; no recognition of Rome
as the seat of authority, the only holy or preeminent city being
Jerusalem. The question as to Peter is very significant. He may
be the rock on which the Church is to be built ; the promises made
to him may be taken in the highest possible sense ; but what then ?
There is no evidence that what was promised to him was assured to
his successors, no evidence that he had any successors, least of all
that his successors, if he had any, were the Bishops of Rome, or that
Rome in any way entered into the thought of Jesus." (Pp. 176-7.)
All this is good, straightforward argument, and would be a very
telling argument if only its premises were founded on fact. But the
complete ignoring of facts which underlies Dr. Fairbairn's various
contentions is really scarcely credible. We will begin with the ex-
traordinary assertion that our Lord never thought of creating an
organized society. Why, the very idea of a society without organ-
ism is a contradiction in terms. It would be about as reasonable to
talk of a living body that had no organism. Organism is just as
necessary to life in the social as in the material order. We suppose
that Dr. Fairbairn belongs to some religious body, and we should
like to ask him whether it does not possess some kind of organism.
8o6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
It must have certain conditions of membership and some form of
government. It must contain those who teach and those who are
taught, those who hold some sort of office and those who are simply
members of it, and nothing more. Without this it would be no
society at all, or else a mere home of anarchy and disorder. More-
over our Lord constantly applies to the society He founded the
name of kingdom, and a kingdom implies not merely a King, who
rules it, but Ministers and officials who carry out the King's com-
mands and have a delegated authority from Him. It implies a
corporate and duly organized society. Beside this, He calls it "the
kingdom of heaven," which implies that the society He founded on
earth is the earthly counterpart of the kingdom over which He rules
in heaven. Now the kingdom of heaven is essentially an organ-
ized society. It contains all the Nine Choirs of Angels enumerated
in Holy Scripture. It contains archangels as well as angels. It
contains Princes, who rule over countries and kingdoms (Dan. x.,
14), as well as the ministering spirits to whose guardianship are com-
mitted individual men. Dr. Fairbairn's ideal, whether on earth or
in heaven, seems to be one of chaos instead of order. But our Lord
employs other metaphors to describe His kingdom on earth, which
imply that it is to be a corporate, external organized body. It is to
be a household, a city, a family, a flock. It is to contain stewards,
rulers, servants. It is to contain the evil as well as the good. And
as soon as our Lord had ascended into heaven the work of organiza-
tion commenced under the Apostles. They, if any, must have
known their Master's mind. Deacons are appointed to work under
the Apostles as sub-officials of the Church. The Apostles assemble
in Jerusalem and lay down certain rules for the conduct of those
who are received into the Church. St. Paul bears witness that
Christ appointed Apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors and doctors
for the work of the ministry. He himself passes a judicial sentence
on the incestuous Corinthian and orders the local assembly of the
faithful to carry out the sentence. Bishops are appointed to rule
the Church of God, and are to reprove, rebuke, exhort. They are
to reject heretics (Tit. iii., 10) and to hold to the form of sound words
committed to them. (II. Tim. i., 12.) All this implies organiza-
tion, an organization, it is true, which is in its infancy, but yet suffi-
cient to show that from the first the Catholic Church was an organ-
ized body, and that its Founder intended it to be such.
The mistake which Dr. Fairbairn makes is that he overlooks in
the Church as it appears in the writings of the Apostles the unde-
veloped embryo which contains in germinal condition the elements
of it? subsequent organization. He is not satisfied because he does
not find in the early stages of its growth all the fully developed char-
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 807
acteristics of its maturity. He forgets that the Church, though in
one sense Divine, inasmuch as it had a Divine Founder, was never-
theless a human institution, which according to the ordinary course
of the Providence of God was to grow with a human growth and
with the aid of its human environment. Our Lord Himself points
this out in the parable of the corn : "First the blade, then the ear, then
the full corn in the ear." Dr. Fairbairn expects to find in the ear all
that is found in the ripened corn. It is true that our Lord entrusted
to His Apostles a complete body of Christian doctrine. But a com-
plete body of Christian doctrine is something very different from a
completely organized Christian society. The Christian doctrine was
entrusted to a select few. It took years and even centuries before it
permeated the mass of the faithful. Some portions of it lay dormant
for hundreds of years after the death of those to whom it was
originally entrusted. Even the central doctrine of Peter's suprem-
acy, though from the very first it was an essential element of Chris-
tian teaching, was at the beginning an implicit rather than an ex-
plicit part of the Faith as preached by St. Paul, St. James, St. John
the Divine and the other Apostles. The personal infallibility which
was bestowed on each and all of our Lord's Apostles rendered the
prerogatives of Peter less immediately indispensable than they after-
wards became; and the exercise of his supremacy was practically
almost in abeyance as long as the Christian communities were only
in their infancy, founded by those who had their commission directly
from Jesus Christ Himself, and as long as persecution made it neces-
sary for the leaders of the Church, and above all for St. Peter him-
self, to live in disguise and concealment hidden away from those
who were determined to root out the very name of Christian from
the face of the earth. Dr. Fairbairn wants the Christian Church to
spring into being at once as a perfectly organized body ; he wants
it to have a regular system of government exercised in its full perfec-
tion when it was struggling into being in the face of the most de-
termined and relentless opposition ; he does not recognize the fact
that God makes use of human agencies and human methods in car-
rying out his supernatural designs. The Church worked into its
system elements which already existed ready-made in previously
existing systems. She inherited from the Jewish system what we
may call the priestly idea ; from the imperial system of Rome she
adopted the title and to some extent the idea of the Pope as Pontifex
Maximus, the High Priest, as well as the supreme ruler of the
Church. For though in the Christian Church as established by
Jesus Christ there was contained from the first the Pope with all his
prerogatives as the Vicar of Christ, yet the temporal and spiritual
powers which were united in the Roman Emperors facilitated and
8o8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
paved the way for the position that was gradually developed and
finally recognized as the fulfilment of the idea that was sketched by
our Lord Himself, but only came into its complete reahzation when
under Constantine the Church became free an^ the Pope was able
to take his proper place as the inheritor of all the spiritual and some
of the temporal prerogatives of the Emperor. Dr. Fairbairn seems
to think that this fact is fatal to the claims of the Catholic Church.
'The Catholic Church," he says (p. 183), "owes its distinctive organ-
ization to Roman Imperialism," and he thence concludes that it is in
this respect human and transitory, not Divine and eternal. He gives
the history of the genesis of the Catholic system in a paragraph
which is very much to the point :
'The principle of development, analytically applied to the Cath-
olic system, proves that the parent form or aboriginal germ — the
ideal and society of Jesus — was by its environments modified in a
two-fold direction. First, from the ancient religions, Jewish and
pagan, it received the notion of the priesthood, with all its acces-
sories, and so became sacerdotal. And secondly, from the Roman
empire, working on the material of its primitive Judseo-Hellenic
policy, it received the dream and function of Roman supremacy,
and so became Catholic, Papal and infallible." (P. 189.)
This paragraph, though it contains an element of truth, makes the
fundamental mistake of supposing that what Dr. Fairbairn calls im-
perialism and sacerdotalism were introduced into the religion of
Jesus Christ as something which was not found in the primitive
germ ; that is to say, in the religion as founded by Christ Himself.
To imagine this to be possible is almost an insult to the wisdom and
foresight of the Divine Founder of the Catholic Church. It sup-
poses Him to have started an institution which was destined to be
perverted and disfigured from the very first. We do not know
whether Dr. Fairbairn would venture to assert that the realization of
Christ's ideal was to be held in abeyance until He should proclaim
to the world what it really was, and should correct the mistaken view
that has prevailed among all the saints and doctors of the Catholic
Church during the last 1,900 years. If this is so, we can only say
that he is a very presumptuous, as well as a very misguided man.
At the same time it is perfectly true that Christianity assimilated to
itself the previously existing ideas of a priesthood and a monarchy
from the systems that preceded and accompanied it. But it assim-
ilated them because they were already in it, at least in embryo, and
in something more than embryo. The theory of the Church, or, to
speak more correctly, the law that was to be gradually developed in
the Church's system, was laid down by our Lord Himself. When
He said to His Apostles : "As My Father hath sent me, even so I
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 809
send you; he that hears you hears me," He decreed that sacer-
dotalism (in its true sense, not in Dr. Fairbairn's sense) should be
the law of the Church that He came to found, that those whom He
appointed His delegates and representatives should inherit His
sacerdotal powers as the great High Priest after the order of Mel-
chisedech; when He entrusted to them the consecration of the
Blessed Eucharist, as He had consecrated it, and the forgiveness of
sins, which God alone can forgive, He explicitly committed to them
the two most important functions of the sacerdotal office and of its
supernatural power. So again when He declared Peter to be the
foundation on which the Church was built; when He gave to him
the keys which designate the ruling power in house or city or castle ;
when He gave to him individually the command to feed His flock,
He made him sole monarch of the Church in His place. And not
Peter only, but his successors also, for how was the house to endure
unless its foundation should endure also ? How was the flock to be
fed unless the ^rst shepherd was to have a line of successors who
should in their turn rule the Church of God?
I have said that Dr. Fairbairn's idea of sacerdotalism is an incor-
rect one. No one could have penned the following passage who had
any real acquaintance with the practical relations of the Catholic
priest to the faithful in general :
"The greater the emphasis laid on the priesthood and mediation,
with their associated ideas and instruments, the less general became
His (God's) influence and the less immediate intercourse with Him ;
and as He lost, the intermediaries gained in reality to faith. The
very notion of religion was revolutionized, ceased to have the spir-
itual immediacy, the ethical breadth and intensity, the filial love and
peace, the human purity and gentleness of Jesus ; and became more
akin to the ancient sacerdotal and ceremonial worships. The great
enemy of God is the idea of the Church and its priesthood. Noth-
ing has so estranged men from Him as the claim to be alone able to
reconcile Him and them." (P. 203.)
This passage, which, as every Catholic knows, is absolutely at
variance with fact, can only be excused (if this can be called an ex-
cuse) by Dr. Fairbairn's complete ignorance of the matter about
which he writes. He develops it out of his own consciousness, out
of what he imagines to be the case, not what is the case. It is the
old, and I must say, the stupid Protestant argument : "It must be
so, therefore it is so." In the first place, it is false that the priest
claims to be alone able to reconcile God and man. On the contrary,
he declares that any sinner who makes a genuine act of contrition
and of love of God, will be at once reconciled to God without the
intervention of any priest or other human intermediary. In the
8 10 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
second place, to say that the priesthood destroyed the spiritual im-
mediacy of religion, which I suppose means that it interferes with
the immediate intercourse between God and man (the soul), is about
as true as to say that the postman destroys the moral immediacy of
our correspondence with our friends and interferes with our free in-
tercourse with them. So far is there from being any strength in
this monstrous statement that the very reverse of it is true. The
one aim and object with which the priesthood exists is to bring the
individual soul into a closer and more immediate personal relation
to God, to bring man nearer to God, to establish a more intimate
friendship between the soul and God, to break down the obstacles
that separate them. And as to what he says about religion ceasing
by reason of the priesthood to have the ethical breadth and intensity,
the filial love and peace, the human purity and gentleness of Jesus,
I do not think that there is anything that needs to be said about it
except that it is a perfectly arbitrary and empty statement that has
no foundation whatever in fact.
Last of all, to say that the idea of the Church and its priesthood is
the great enemy of God is in such open contradiction with the oft
repeated words of Holy Scripture that we wonder that even Dr.
Fairbairn does not see that he is strangely misled by his own wild
theories. What can be clearer in the New Testament than the in-
tensity of the love that Christ bears for His immaculate spouse, the
Church ? What can be more plainly set forth in the Epistle to the
Hebrews than the doctrine of the Christian priesthood and the Chris-
tian altar ? And if there is a continuous tradition handed down from
earliest days, it is that of the Christian Church, the Christian priest-
hood and the Christian altar.
One other remark occurs to me regarding Dr. Fairbairn's book.
In his case, as in the case of almost all the assailants of the Churchy
the real cause of their dislike to the Catholic Church, and to what
he calls sacerdotalism, is a very imperfect belief, if there is any belief
at all, that Jesus Christ, who died on the altar of Calvary, is really
consubstantial and co-equal with the Father. With such a belief
the following passage seems to me quite inconsistent :
"The affirmation of a new rehgious ideal was of the essence of
Christ's life. Of this ideal the prophets had dreamed, but He made
it an articulate reality. God was to Him what He had never yet
been to man — a living Father, loving, loved, in whom He was en-
bosomed, through whom and to whom He lived. He knew no
moment without His presence ; suffered no grief that the Father did
not share, tasted no joy He did not send, spoke no word that was not
of Him, did no act that was not obedience to His will. Where
the relation was so immediately filial and beautiful the mediation of
The Catholic Church in Its Relation to Material Progress. 8i i
a priest would have been an impertinence, the use of his sacrifices
and forms an estrangement — the coming of a cold dark cloud be-
tween the radiant soul of the Son and the gracious face of the Father.
. . . What God is among His worlds Jesus was among men.
He is the mind and heart of God personalized for humanity ; His
universal ideal realized." (Pp. 26-8.)
Again :
"To Christian men Christ is the normal and normative religious
person, i. e., the person whose living is their law, who made the
standard to which they ought to conform and who distributes the
influences creative of conformity. Now in Him religion was a per-
fect relation to God expressed in speech and action creative of a
perfect humanity, a humanity made through knowledge of God
obedient to Him. As embodied in Him, religion was in the pres-
ence of sin and sorrow a holy passion, a suffering unto sacrifice due
to a love that identified the sinless seeker with the sinner that He
sought." (P. 32.)
Now these passages seem to me to have a distinctly Arian ring
about them, and I cannot conceive it possible that they should have
been written by one who truly realized and believed in the Godhead
of Jesus Christ. From such a faulty conception of the central doc-
trine of Christianity a faulty conception of the Church He founded
and of all that pertains to her is a necessary consequence. This is
the true source of all Dr. Fairbairn's vagaries, and there is no hope
of his understanding the true character of the Church that Jesus
Christ founded on earth until he attains to a true conception of its
Divine Founder.
R. F. Clarke, S. J.
Oxford, England.
8 12 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Scientific Cbronlcle.
MALARIA AND THE MOSQUITO.
Many theories have been advanced to explain the spread of ma-
laria. One theory held it was a specific poison generated in the soil,
and search has been made to discover this poison in the gases gen-
erated in swamps or in the vegetable organisms of malarial districts,
but without success. The sudden and excessive abstraction of heat
from the body under the influence of cold and damp has also been
advanced as an explanation. Now, however, the prevalent opinion
among scientific men is that malaria is contracted only through
inoculation by the mosquito. To prove practically the truth of this
theory, Drs. Sambon and Low will live imtil October in the most
malarious part of the Roman Campagna. The observers and their
servants will live in a mosquito-proof hut. During the day they are
free to go where they wish and they intend to mix freely with the
inhabitants. From an hour before sunset to an hour after sunrise
they must remain in the hut. The rays of the sun are carefully
excluded from the building, which is practically an air tank, de-
signed to collect the cool damp air from the marsh. They will sleep
in this atmosphere, but they will be protected from the mosquito,
for the parts of the building not made of tongued and grooved
boards are carefully protected by walls of very fine wire gauze,
through which the mosquitoes cannot pass. The physicians do not
intend to take quinine or any other precaution against malaria ex-
cept avoiding being inoculated by the mosquito. They hope thus
to show practically that the latter is the true method by which ma-
laria is propagated.
While it is true that the mosquito exists in malarial regions, it is
not yet established that the mosquito acquires the parasite from any
other source than from men who, while suffering from malaria, visit
these regions. The malaria spreader is not the ordinary or culex,
but the anopheles mosquito. The culex, while much more abundant,
do not seem capable of transmitting the malaria germ. An interest-
ing description of these two genera is given by Mr. L. O. Howard,
Ph. D., in the Scientific American for July 7, 1900, from which we
select the following points of comparison between the two :
In the adult anopheles the palpi are nearly as long as the sucking
beak, but in the culex they are very short. The anopheles has as a
rule spotted wings, the culex has not. The males of both genera
are readily distinguished from the females by the fact that the
antennae and palpi are feathery. The resting position seems to af-
Scientific Chronicle. 813
ford a means of distinguishing the two genera. The anopheles holds
its body nearly at right angles to the surface upon which it rests,
while the culex keeps the body parallel with the surface. The hum
of the female is also different in the two genera. In the culex the
note is higher than in the anopheles. The eggs of the culex are placed
endwise on the surface of the water and joined together in a raft-
like mass. The eggs of the anopheles are loosely placed sidewise on
the surface and are not joined together. The eggs hatch in from
three to four days in May.
The larvae of the two genera also differ. That of the culex comes
to the surface every minute or two to breathe and descends to the
bottom to feed. It has to make an effort to rise. The larva of the
anopheles, on the contrary, until full grown habitually remains on the
surface of the water. Its breathing tube is much shorter and is held
parallel to and just below the surface film of water. It works the
mouth constantly and directs small solid particles floating on the
water to the alimentary canal. The pupa of both genera do not
differ so widely.
The activity of the larva and pupa of mosquitoes preserves them
from the predatory animal life of the stagnant pools in which they
live. The life of an anopheles is thus summed up from the account
of Mr. Howard : Egg stage, three days ; larval stage, sixteen days ;
pupal stage, five days. The adult stage cannot be definitely stated,
beyond the fact that in the latitude of Washington they hibernate
from November to April.
It has been stated that in Italy alone two million people have ma-
laria every year, and that of that number fifteen thousand die. The
extent of the injurous effects of malaria on the human body renders
any attempt at solving the mystery of its origin most valuable.
THE PARIS TELESCOPE.
The large telescope of the Paris Exhibition is without doubt one
of the greatest attractions in that world of wonders. Sir Norman
Lockyer in Nature for December 21 last gives a detailed descrip-
tion of this wonderful instrument. At first it was thought possible
to construct the telescope on the reflecting principle with a reflector
ten feet in diameter. This had to be abandoned when it was found
that the glass manufacturers could not furnish the glass for such a
reflector. The telescope is therefore a refracting telescope with
object glasses 1.25 meters in diameter.
The instrument is mounted in front of a siderostat which has a
mirror two meters in diameter. This method of mounting secures
8 14 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
greater stability, avoids the expense of a dome and renders the ob-
server's work less fatiguing. The chief feature of this method of
mounting is, of course, the siderostat. This apparatus, according to
the description of Mr. Lockyer, ''comprises a pedestal of cast iron,
the north part of which supports the polar axis and the south part
the mirror with its frame. The cast iron pedestal, eight meters long
by eight meters high, is furnished with six screws which fit in
sockets fixed to the stone base 1.70 meters high. The north part of
the pedestal supports the polar axis with its divided and driving
circles. This axis is driven by a clockwork movement by means of
a tangent screw. At the lower end of the polar axis a fork is fixed,
to which are adjusted the pivots of the declination circle. The
toothed declination wheel is set in motion at the foot of the instru-
ment by a handle placed beside the one which produces movement
in right ascension ; both of these are near the two telescopes which
serve for the reading of the two circles. The mirror with its cell
has a total weight of 6,700 kilogrammes. This cell of cast steel is
furnished with two pivots ; to the back is fixed the directing rod.
The interior of the cell is covered entirely with felt in such a way
that the mirror has no point of contact with the metal. Being sup-
ported by as great a surface as possible, all deformations are avoided.
The mirror and its cell are kept in equilibrium by a system of levers
and counterpoises ; the pivots rest on rollers adjusted at the top of
the frame, which permits a circular movement by a vertical shaft and
a system of independent rollers between two rails. The base of this
frame floats in a cavity two meters in diameter on the south side of
the pedestal, containing sufficient mercury to float nine-tenths of the
total weight of the movable part, which weighs 15,000 kilogrammes.
The clockwork movement is set in action by a weight of 100 kilo-
grammes. The total weight of the siderostat is 45,000 kilo-
grammes."
To produce the plane mirror for the siderostat a special furnace
capable of holding twenty tons of glass had to be constructed at the
Jeumont Works. The cooling of the glass in the annealing furnace
after the mould had been filled took a whole month. The difficulty
of the whole operation may be gathered from the fact that out of
twelve discs only two were successful. The discs for the object
glass were cast by M. Mantois and the figuring, polishing and
mounting was the work of M. Gautier.
The telescopic tube is made of twenty-four pieces of sheet steel
two millimeters thick. The tube has cast-iron supports which can
move on rails fastened to stone pillars. Each lens of the object
glass is set in a separate cell and they are so mounted on a carriage
that moves on rails that they can readily be brought to the end of the
Scientific Chronicle. 815
tube. The eyepiece end can carry a micrometer, photographic plate
or a projecting lens.
The great power of the telescope is clear from the fact that the
moon viewed through it will appear to the observer as if it was only
6y kilometers away. At such a distance calculation shows that an
object one metre square on the moon should be visible.
THE ENTRANCE TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
The basm drained by the Mississippi river has an area of 1,244,000
square miles. The annual amount of sediment removed by erosion
from this area, according to the experiments of Humphrey and Ab-
bot, is 7,471,411,200 cubic feet. This mass of matter is sufficient to
cover an area of one square mile 268 feet deep. If spread out over
the whole area drained by the Mississippi it would cover it to the
depth of 1-4640 of a foot or a depth of one foot is eroded from the
surface of the basin every 4,640 years. These figures serve to give
some idea of the amount of material carried yearly to the Gulf of
Mexico by the Mississippi river.
As long as the velocity of the river is high the material is trans-
ported, but the moment this velocity is checked or reduced ma-
terial is deposited. When the waters of the Mississippi mingle with
the waters of the Gulf or meet the incoming tide they either loose
their identity or have their velocity greatly reduced, and therefore
deposit this material, forming bars across the entrance to the river.
From the time of the Louisiana purchase in 1803 many attempts
were made to render the harbor navigable for large draught vessels,
but it was not until May, 1875, that anything satisfactory was begun.
At that time the Government awarded a contract to Captain James
B. Eads for the deepening of what is known as the South Pass. In
the face of many difficulties he secured a channel 26 feet deep and
700 feet wide which has been since maintained. This contract has
now expired, and as the draught of vessels has increased new facili-
ties are at present required.
Captain Eads secured the channel by means of jetties or parallel
straight walls. The outflowing water confined in this narrow chan-
nel moved with greater velocity and hence had its power of carry-
ing material so increased that the material was borne out beyond the
channel. There it was deposited, and this necessitated the exten-
sion and maintenance of the jetties.
In January, 1899, a Board of Engineers reported that a channel
of 35 feet depth could be secured by the plan of two parallel straight
8i6 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
jetties placed 2,400 feet apart. This channel would run through the
Southwest Pass. These jetties would be seven miles long, making
in all fourteen miles of construction, at an estimated cost of $13,000,-
000. The same amount would be necessary for extension and main-
tenance, or the latter item would cost the interest on that amount
annually.
This report was referred by Congress to another board of four
engineers, who reported a different plan. They suggested coffm-
shaped jetties to run from the land through shallow water and at a
considerable distance from the channel. On account of their great
distance apart they would not be effective in making the channel,
as in the case of the Eads jetties, but dredging would have to be re-
sorted to for that purpose. The jetties would simply catch the silt
and prevent its return after it was pumped out of the channel.
Nothing has been done in the matter yet, and the plan suggested
in the Scientific American Supplement for August 8, 1900, by Pro-
fessor Lewis M. Haupt, member of the Franklin Institute, deserves
attention. The construction here suggested is called a reaction
breakwater. The plan is based on observations made of the natural
formation of bars and channels in the beds of rivers. Mr. Haupt
points out that whenever a stream passes from a tangent to a curve
there is at once a deepening of the channel along the concave side
of the curve. The silt is thrown on the convex bank, which shallows
gradually from the point of greatest depth. The plan he suggests
is the reproduction of this natural action in the Southwest Pass.
This he would do by building a single jetty with a curve of proper
radius.
"A single, concave, curved jetty so placed as to encroach gradu-
ally upon the path of the stream produces a compression which
causes deflection of the water and deep erosion of the sand, thereby
creating a channel parallel to the axis of the jetty and also building
a natural levee by the lateral transportation of displaced material."
It is estimated that a depth of 40 feet would be secured by such a
reaction jetty. Such a plan is worthy of trial because it is cheaper
than either of the other plans, and nothing stands in ^-^ve way of its
extension to the double jetty later should it prove inadequate.
SOLIDIFICATION OF HYDROGEN.
In 1898 Professor Dewar attempted the solidification of liquid
hydrogen under reduced pressure. The liquid hydrogen was placed
in a vacuum tube enclosed in a larger vessel of the same kind. The
space between the two tubes was filled with hydrogen. The excess
of evaporation was mainly from the hydrogen in this space. The
Scientific Chronicle. 817
inside tube was maintained at the same temperature both inside and
outside so as to prevent influx of heat. The hydrogen was evapo-
rated under 10 min. pressure, but the experiment failed.
During the past year Professor Dewar while investigating the
reduction of temperature brought about by exhaustion noticed that
there was a leakage of air which became apparent by being frozen
in an "air-snow" inside the vessel when it met the cold vapor of
hydrogen coming ofif. He first thought that this body was a sponge
of solid air containing the hydrogen. But the fact that this solid
evaporated at the low pressure without having any solid air led him
to conclude that the body must be solid hydrogen. This was con-
firmed by the fact that if the pressure and temperature of the hydro-
gen were raised the solid melted when the pressure reached 58 min.
The failure of the first experiments was due to the supercooling of
the liquid. The solidification of hydrogen is interesting, inasmuch
as it seems to many to settle the question which has long been a
matter of doubt, viz., whether hydrogen should be classed as a me-
tallic or a non-metallic element. Up to the present it was most fre-
quently classed among the former ; now, however, it must be placed
among the latter.
FROST FIGHTING.
Under the above title the United States Weather Bureau has pub-
lished Bulletin No. 29, prepared by A. G. McAdie, local forecast
ofiicial at San Francisco. The citrus fruit crop of California, espe-
cially of the section south of the Tehachapi, has frequently suffered
considerably from frost, and the loss has been considered unavoid-
able. For the past four years the Weather Bureau office at San
Francisco has given much attention to this matter, and the experi-
ence gathered, according to Mr. McAdie, warrants the statement
that unless extreme conditions — that is, unless lower temperatures
by 5 degrees than have ever yet been experienced — occur, the loss
can be prevented. Every effort has been made, and successfully, to
forecast coming frosts and also to investigate the best methods of
protection.
It has been found that the formation of frost is largely a matter of
air drainage. When a wave of falling pressure passes southwest-
ward into the citrus belt and is followed by a rise in pressure, it is
the forerunner of much colder weather. The warm lower air strata
are vigorously displaced by cold dry air, and the cold air settling in
a period of quiet, after the drainage has ceased, forms frost. What
is true on a large scale for frost belts is also true on a small scale for
areas of stagnant cold air. On almost every ranch there are certain
Vol. XXV— Sig. 13.
8i8 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
cold spots which almost invariably correspond with depressions in
the ground. Three conclusions are well estabHshed from the study-
that has been made: First, when the air is in brisk motion the
damage from frost is generally light ; secondly, stagnant air in de-
pressions favors frost ; thirdly, since the coldest air is generally near
the ground it is sometimes advisable to drain downwards warm air
from above. The ranch owners are advised not only to keep in com-
munication with the nearest weather bureau, but to make a careful
study of their own ranches. Whenever frost warnings are sent out
they should carefully determine the temperature and dew-point dur-
ing the late afternoon and night according to the instructions issued
to them. Thus will they be prepared to take precautionary meas-
ures.
Various methods of protection have been employed, some with
considerable success. These methods include those based on mix-
ing the air, warming the air, cloud or fog formation, irrigation,
spraying and screening.
The method of mixing the air consists in keeping up a circulation
of the air. In this method wind-breaks are often employed. If not
so constructed as to prevent a natural circulation or to facilitate be-
hind them areas of stagnant air, they are of benefit.
The method of warming the air usually adopted and considered
effective is either to scatter over the ground or suspend a few feet
above the ground about forty wire baskets to the acre and to start
charcoal fires in them when the conditions indicate frost. By this
method the temperature can be certainly raised 3 or 4 degrees. Oil
pots have been used for the same purpose, but the deposit of lamp-
black upon the fruit is objectionable.
The cloud or fog formation is secured by burning damp straw,
old wood, manure, etc. When burning briskly it makes a good
smoke, and if doused with water, a steamy smoke is formed which
serves as a screen to prevent the radiation of heat from the land.
It also prevents the too rapid heating of the chilled fruit at sunrise.
Water on account of its high specific heat is an excellent agency
for the storage of heat. Hot water pumped into flumes and runs
through furrows made in different directions through the ranch.
This method and the basket method have given the best results so
far obtained in the way of raising the temperature and are in most
favor.
The method of spraying is employed chiefly after a frost or just
before the frost has ended. Its efficiency consists in preventing a
too rapid heating of the chilled fruit.
Canvas, muslin or Hght wood work have been used as screens to
protect the fruit. These screens are, of course, only modified hot-
Scientific Chronicle. 819
houses, and are undoubtedly effective. Their cost, however, is so
great as to prohibit their extensive use.
When we recall that the value of the citrus fruits of the district in
question amounted in 1899 to $7,000,000, we can realize the import-
ance of the work undertaken by the United States Weather Bureau.
THE REBUILDING OF GALVESTON.
Were geology consulted it would be adverse to the rebuilding of
the ruined city of Galveston on the old site. In common with the
whole Atlantic seaboard, the location is continually subsiding.
The evidence of subsidence all along the Atlantic coast is to be
found in the advance of the sea even in historic times. Submerged
forests and meadows, drowned rivers, half-flooded islands and out-
lying keys point to recent submergence or a present gradual sink-
ing.
The sinking of the shore on which Galveston stands is a serious
matter. The city was built on a sand bank, the highest point of
which was only twelve feet above low tide. A subsidence of from
one to two feet in a century is fatal to a city so situated. Each suc-
ceeding heavy wind and wave storm is bound to work more and
more havoc.
The nature of the formation on which the city rose shows how
poor the site is for anything like firm and permanent building.
The formation underlying Galveston is simply a pile of loose sand,
with that compactness only which comes from the occasional beat-
ing of a high sea and that which results from the compression due
to its own weight. There were no coral formations to hold the mass
of loose sand together, as the roots of trees bind and hold the loose
surface soil. There was no calcareous or silicious matter to cement
the loose granules into a compact stone. To the depth of half a
mile there is no such thing as solid rock, nothing but loose mechan-
ical deposit. Therefore it was impossible to secure firm founda-
tions, except at enormous expense, to withstand severe storms. To
rebuild on the same site is to expose the new city to another calam-
ity.
It has been suggested to use the old site for a port and connect
it by means of a canal about ten miles long with a new city built at
the head of Galveston Bay. The number required at the docks and
storehouses of the port would be comparatively few, and should
such a storm ever again visit Galveston, the loss of human life would
be reduced to a minimum.
D. T. O'SULLIVAN, S. J.
Boston, Mass.
820 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
The Eve of the Reformation : Studies in the Religious Life and Thought of the Eng-
lish People in the period preceding the rejection of the Roman Jurisdiction by Henry
VIII." By Francis Aidan Gasquet, O. S. B., D. D. [London : J. C. Nimmo, 1900.]
In the second of the "Lectures on tlje Present State of Catholics
in England," Newman treats of the Protestant Tradition which
has Fable for its basis. Writing in 185 1 he says: "Trace up,
then, the Tradition to its very first startings, its roots and its sources
if you are to form a judgment whether it is more than a Tradition. It
may be a good Tradition and yet after all good for nothing. What
profit though ninety-nine links of a chain be sound if the topmost is
broken ? Now, I do not hesitate to say that this Protestant Tradi-
tion on which English faith hangs is wanting in the first link."^
Few statements have been so confidently made or so thoroughly
believed as that the cause of the Reformation in England was the
low state of religion resulting from an ignorant clergy and a super-
stitious laity. According to the prevailing Tradition, the light of
the Gospel was practically unknown: the whole country was im-
mersed in a gross darkness. So surely was this state of affairs im-
pressed on Englishmen that even Catholics accepted the story, with
a sigh, indeed, and regrets that the salt had lost its savor. But
when the new historical spirit arose and writers were no longer
content to copy one another, but saw the necessity of testing every
statement and of hunting down assertions to their sources, enough
was speedily found to give them pause and excite their wonder that
facts could have been so neglected for fancies. The State papers
were opened to the public; and students who spend their days
handling old parchments and deciphering, sometimes with the aid
of a magnifying glass, faded manuscripts, begin to see that quite
another story was told by the Actors who had taken part in the
Drama of the Past. Among those compelled, by exact knowledge,
to form an opinion is the late Mr. Brewer, who calendared the State
papers of the early years of Henry VIII. He warns the student
that he will miss the meaning of many things if he starts his inquiry
by regarding the Reformation as the creation of Light to illumin-
ate a previous period of darkness, or the evolution of practical
morality out of a state of antecedent chaotic corruption. "In fact,"
says he, "the sixteenth century was not a mass of moral corruption
out of which life emerged by some process unknown to art or na-
ture ; it was not an addled egg cradling a living bird ; quite the re-
1 Ed. 1851, p. 84.
Book Reviews. 821
verse." And in another passage he says: "There is no reason to
suppose that the nation as a body was discontented with the old reU-
gion. Facts point to the opposite conclusion. . . . Nor, con-
sidering the temper of the English people, is it possible that im-
morality could have existed among the ancient clergy to the degree
which poets, preachers and satirists might lead us to suppose. The
existence of such corruptions is not justified by authentic documents
or by an impartial and broad estimate of the character and conduct
of the nation before the Reformation."^
The inquiry has been now carried a step farther. Dom Gasquet,
the English Benedictine, whose work is a credit to his order, his
country and to the Church at large, recently published a profound
study on "The Eve of the Reformation." His purpose is a simple
one. He does not in any way pretend to write a history of the
Reformation or to furnish "an adequate account of the causes which
led up to it ;" for, at the present moment, the work of the historian
is that of analysis, of clearing the ground, of making the crooked
straight and the rough places plain. To this solid and most essen-
tial work Dom Gasquet, with the true Benedictine instinct of thor-
oughness, is devoting himself. He has realized that before any one
can undertake to discourse to any real purpose upon the history of
this period, it is necessary "to ascertain, if possible, what really was
the position of the Church in the eyes of the nation at large on the
eve of the Reformation, to understand the attitude of men's minds
to the system as they knew it, and to discover, as far as may be, what
in regard to religion they were doing and saying and thinking
about when the change came upon them" (p. 3). We do not hesi-
tate to say that Dom Gasquet, in this new book, has given us a
more vitally important work than in any of his previous volumes.
If in his "Henry VHI. and the English Monasteries" he freed the
monks of England from the Protestant Tradition, in "The Eve of
the Reformation" he restores the character not only of the Church
in England, but of the nation at large.
We do not propose to give a detailed review of this noteworthy
book ; we will content ourselves with setting before our readers cer-
tain conclusions we have arrived at after a due weighing of the
evidence Dom Gasquet sets before us. We are the more ready to
pursue this course as, among all the notices and reviews, most of
them written by prominent men and specialists and all bearing wit-
ness to the great value of Dom Gasquet's work, no one, as far as
we know, has grasped what we think is the real and useful lesson
the book contains. The author, it is true, does not draw any con-
2 " The Reign of Henry VIII.;" II., 469-70.
822 American Catholic Quarterly Revieiv.
elusion from the facts he so skilfully sets before his reader. This
would have been beyond the scope of his work, and he is too expe-
rienced an artist to overcrowd his canvas. But facts speak for
themselves; and he who runs through these pages may listen to
them if he have wit enough. We have therefore selected two of
the main features of the period and shall confine our remarks to
these, passing by much else that is of interest in the volume before
us. It will be noted that the points we have selected have a bearing
on questions of present-day interest.
A common Protestant Tradition is that one of the causes of the
Reformation in England was the Revival of Letters or, as writers
are pleased to call it, 'The New Learning." This phrase, "The
New Learning," is very dear to them; it is such a convenient
weapon of offense : and moreover the very phrase is sixteenth cen-
tury and can be found in the writings of the most zealous opponents
of the Reformation. There can be no doubt that the orthodox
champions were opponents of the New Learning. What further
proof do we need, cry the Protestant writers, to show that the
Catholic Church is an enemy to learning and battens on Ignorance ?
But softly! Facts knock the bottom out of the Protestant Tradi-
tion. In the sixteenth century the phrase "The New Learning'*
had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the Revival of Letters.
It was simply and solely in the Reformation days "a well recognized
expression used to denote the novel religious teaching of Luther
and his followers. Uncompromising hostility to such novelties, no
doubt, marked the religious attitude of many who were at the same
time the most strenuous advocates of the renaissance of letters.
This is so obvious in the works of the period that were it not for
the common misuse of the expression at the present day, and for
the fact that opposition to the 'New Learning' is assumed on all
hands to represent hostility to letters rather than to novel teachings
in re ligious matters, there would be no need to furnish examples
of its real use in the period in question" (p. i6). Dom Gasquet
proceeds to give from the abundant literature of the day examples
of the only sense in which the phrase was used.^ We will take only
one of his witnesses. The preacher Robert Edgeworth praises the
simple-hearted faith that was accepted by all "before this wicked
'New Learning' arose in Saxony and came over into England
amongst us." If we regard the mere facts of the case, we shall have
to agree with our author that : "It would seem, moreover, that the
3 A moment's thought will show that New Learning applied to a revival of the Old Learn-
ing would be altogether a misnomer ; whereas, applied to new doctrines, it is a very fit and
proper term. Controversialists, sometimes in their hurry, in excessu suo, as the Psalmist
would say, forget the obvious.
Book Reviews. 823
religious position of many ecclesiastics and laymen has been com-
pletely misunderstood by the meaning now so commonly assigned
to the expression. Men Hke Erasmus, Colet and, to a recent ex-
tent. More himself, have been regarded, to say the least, as, at heart,
very lukewarm adherents of the Church, precisely because of their
strong advocacy of the movement known to us as the Literary Re-
vival, which, identified by modern writers with the 'New Learning/
was, it is wrongfully assumed, condemned by orthodox churchmen.
The Reformers are thus made the champions of learning; Catho-
lics, the upholders of ignorance and the hereditary and bitter foes
of all intellectual improvements" (p. 20). There is no difficulty in
showing that it was precisely such enlightened churchmen, orthodox
and zealous, as Colet, Fisher, Wareham, Wolsey, Erasmus and,
above all, the Benedictine monks of the primatial Church of Can-
terbury that were the foremost and most enthusiastic upholders of
the Revival of Letters. The very introduction of Greek is due to
Benedictines. Two Canterbury monks, Selling and Hadley, in
1464, with the leave of prior Thomas Goldstone of Christ Church,
went to study in Italy at Padua, Bologna and Rome. Selling, who
in 1472 became Prior of Canterbury, made his claustral school a
centre for the study of Greek. The famous Linacre was one of his
pupils; and in i486 Prior Selling took him "to Italy in order to
profit by the teaching of the great humanist masters at the universi-
ties there" (p. 28), Grocyn, who taught both More and Erasmus
Greek, was a sharer with Linacre in "the benefits of the training in
literature then to be obtained only in Italy." A Venetian traveler,
who visited England in 1500, puts on record what he had noticed
as regards the attitude of the clergy as a body towards learning.
He says : "Few, excepting the clergy, are addicted to the study of
letters, and this is the reason why any one who has any learning,
though he be a layman, is called a clerkJ''^ As a matter of fact
Churchmen had everything to hope from the Revival of Letters.
The greatest enemy superstition can have is Learning; and no
greater foe is there to true Religion than Superstition.^ Far from
the Reformation being a friend to Learning, the immediate effect
in England was its practical extinction. The official Registers of
* In English law members of the three learned professions, the Church, the Law and
Medicine, are to-day technically clerks. ° That there were cases of superstition in England
More witnesses. There are such cases now here and everywhere else. Newman pertinently
remarks : " The religion of the multitude is ever vulgar and abnormal ; it ever will be tinc-
tured with fanaticism and superstition while men are what they are. A people's religion is
ever a corrupt religion, in spite of the provisions of Holy Church." (" Difficulties of An-
glicans," II., p. 81.) It would, of course, be illogical to accuse the Church because men
abuse that which is good. Her battle has ever been two-fold, against unbelief from without
and against superstition from within.
824 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge bring their silent testi-
mony to this fact. At Oxford, from 1449 to 1459, the average
number of degrees taken by all students was 91.5. From 1506 to
1535 the average was 127. In the year 1506 it had risen to 216.
When the attack on the monasteries had begun by Henry VIIL,
the degrees, which in 1535 were 108, fell in the next year to 44, and
for the rest of the reign the average was less than 57. From 1548
to 1553, during which period [Edward VI.] the Reformers had a
free hand, the average of graduates was barely 33 ; but as soon as
Mary was on the throne it rose to 70. Cambridge tells the same
story. In 1545 the university had fallen to such a depth that the
scholars petitioned the King *'for an extension of privileges, as
they feared the total destruction of Learning." In the year 1550
there was apparently no degree of any kind taken at the university.
So once more the veil is torn away that for three hundred years
has hidden the features of Truth. But it will take a long time for
the light to permeate the prejudices which the Protestant Tradition
has brought on men's minds. For instance, in the Church of Eng-
land newspaper, The Guardian, a journal of high literary repute, a
recent critic still clings to his use of the term "New Learning" as
meaning the Revival of Letters ; and in spite of the absolute evidence
to the contrary refuses to change his mumpsimus for our sumpsimus.
In three important chapters Dom Gasquet studies the relation
of the Church to the State : and the first of these chapters goes to
the whole root of the matter. Indeed, we consider it the most im-
portant part of this most important book. Our author more suo is
simply investigating facts. While showing that England was most
thoroughly tmited to the Pope in all his spiritual attributes and
fully and amply acknowledged his primacy, there were "a number
of questions mainly in the broad borderland of debatable ground
between the two (jurisdictions, the spiritual and the temporal) . . .
constantly being discussed and not infrequently (giving) cause for
disagreements and misunderstanding. As in the history of earlier
times, so in the sixteenth century, ecclesiastics clung, perhaps not
unnaturally, to what they regarded as their sacred rights and looked
on resistance to encroachments as a sacred duty. Laymen, on the
other part, even when their absolute loyalty to the Church was
undoubted, were found in the ranks of those who claimed for the
State power to decide in matters not strictly pertaining to the spir-
itual prerogatives, but which chiefly by custom had come to be re-
garded as belonging to ecclesiastical domain. It is the more im-
portant that attention should be directed in a special manner to
these questions, inasmuch as it will be found, speaking broadly, that
Book Reviews. 825
the ultimate success or ill success of the strictly doctrinal changes
raised in the sixteenth century was determined by the issue of the
•discussions raised on the question of mixed jurisdiction. This may
not seem very philosophical, but in the event it proved to be roughly
correct. The reason is not far to seek. In great measure at least
questions of money and property, even of national interest and
prosperity, were intimately concerned in the matters in dispute.
They touched the people's pocket ; and whether rightly or wrongly,
those who found the money wished to have a say in its disposal.
One thing cannot fail to strike an inquirer into the literature of
this period — the very small number of people who were enthusiasts
in the doctrinal matters with which the more ardent reformers occu-
pied themselves" (pp. 51, 52).
As Dom Gasquet in examining the question at issue between the
two jurisdictions says his purpose is "to record rather than to criti-
cize," our readers will allow us to take up the threads of the dis-
course and weave them into a plain and straightforward account of
what, as a matter of fact, did cause the Reformation. At least we
shall set down the conclusions at which we have arrived after a
study of the general state of Europe at that period.
Good and zealous Catholics can make a sharp and clear distinc-
tion between the spiritual powers of the Pope and his temporal
claims. Taking a broad view of history we find England always
acted most generously with him in the matter of these temporal
claims. The question of justice was not closely looked into by
either side. The Pope had in England a freer hand than anywhere
else. Other Catholic nations meanwhile had settled their own difB-
culties with the Temporal claims of Rome, each in its own way;
and each one, be it noted, to its own advantage. England alone
never exploited the Papacy in its own interests. "History has
shown," says Dom Gasquet, "that most of these claims have in prac-
tice been disallowed, not only without detriment to the spiritual
work of the Church, but in some instances, at least, it was the frank
recognition of the State rights, which, under Providence, saved
nations from the general defection which seemed to threaten the
old Ecclesiastical system. Most of the difficulties which were, as
we have seen, experienced and debated in England were unfelt in
Spain, where the Sovereign from the first made his position as to
the temporalities of the Church clearly understood by all. In
Naples in like manner the right of State Patronage, however objec-
tionable to the ecclesiastical legists, was strictly maintained. In
France the danger which at one time threatened an overthrow of
religion similar to that which had fallen on Germany and which, at
826 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the time, was looming dark over England, was averted by the cele-
brated Concordat between Leo X. and Francis I. . . . It is to
this settlement of outstanding difficulties, the constant causes of
friction — a settlement of difficulties which must be regarded as eco-
nomic and administrative rather than religious — that so good a
judge as M. Hanotaux, the statesman and historian, attributes noth-
ing less than the maintenance of the old religion in France" (pp.
76-7).
But in England we are brought face to face with another state
of affairs. As we have said, the nation dealt generously with Rome
in the matter of these disputable claims. There was in England a
special filial love which on the whole refused to scrutinize too closely
the actions of the parent. If some doings of the Curia caused laws
of Praemuniri to be passed in self-defense, yet in practice these regu-
lations were not enforced. In spite of the letter of the Civil Law
the Pope was allowed to have his own way, though this was often
to the spiritual as well as the temporal detriment of the country.
The saying of Innocent IV., which Matthew Paris chronicles, shows
the view in which the country was regarded at Rome : 'Truly Eng-
land is our storehouse of delights, a very inexhaustible well: and
where much abounds much more can be extorted from many." It
was the old story of the Goose that laid the golden eggs. Rome
acted towards England in a way unknown elsewhere. The cession
John Lackland had made of his crown was treated as a very serious
reality by Roman Legists, who, despite the constant refusal of the
English people to sanction it, looked upon the country as a mere
temporal appendage or vassal of the Holy See. This will account
in measure for the attitude adopted by the Curia towards England
and the manifest disinclination to treat her in the same way as other
nations. The Curia in one way or another clung to these temporal
claims long after the Reformation. The upsetting of Pole's work
of conciliation, the refusal to acknowledge Elizabeth, the bull of
Pius v., the Armada, the sad and bloody history of the Deposing
Power, are all links in the same chain. What was tolerated, say
in France, was not allowed in England despite the cruel persecu-
tions such denials implied. So marked had this difference been
that when Conn asked Cardinal Barberini why what was lawful in
France could not be tolerated in England, the only reply was : "The
French do not trouble themselves to consult Rome about such
questions; but the English and the Irish do; and Rome, if asked,
can only answer according to what fits in with her laws." It seems
to us a conclusion based on facts that had England been treated as
other countries, and had claims which do not touch vitally the spir-
Bock Rt-jiczvs. 827
itual prerogatives of the Primacy given way to the higher good,
there was no reason in the course of things why England, putting
aside the question of the Divorce, should not have retained the faith
as France and Spain did.
And this conclusion is strengthened by a further consideration.
Dom Gasquet shows that the spiritual state of England was good.
The Pope's real authority was cordially acknowledged; the clergy,
as a body, vfere neither ignorant nor immoral ; the mutual relations
of priests and people were normal ; the Church was bound up with
the national life in a way we can in these days but little realize ; the
laity had an interest and a right in their parish church which in tem-
poral matters they, along with the clergy, managed and provided
for, and with which were connected their guilds and other social
undertakings ; they were well instructed in the simple and necessary
truths of a religion they loved and practised ; there was no dogmatic
quarrel except under the stress of the Lutheran invasion ; there was
not even any difficulty [oh, poor Protestant Tradition!] about hav-
ing the Bible in English provided that it was the Word of God
and not that of Wycklif¥e or Tyndale. In other words, there was
nothing from the spiritual standpoint which needed reformation
in the sense which Protestants have attached to that term. And yet
England was allowed to drift away. We have noticed the cases of
France and Spain ; and as to Germany, Jansen, in his "History of
the German People," tells us that the religious state of that country
was by no means bad.
But if we look to Italy we find a state of spiritual debasement
which was the shame of Europe. It was avowed. Paul III. in
1538 appointed a commission of four Cardinals, Contarini, CarafTa
(afterwards Paul IV.), Sadoletus and the Englishman Pole, with
five others to report upon the state of the Church, that is to say, of
the Church in Italy. Their report, known as the Consilium de emen-
danda Ecdesia, is a very frank but painful document. After thank-
ing God, who had inspired the Pope "to put forward his hands to
support the ruins of the tottering and almost fallen Church of Christ
and to raise it again to its pristine height," the Commission refer
to the Pope's orders that they should lay bare to him "those most
grave abuses, that is diseases, by which the Church of God and this
Roman Curia especially is afflicted and which has brought about
the state of ruin now so evident." They say boldly that the pri-
mary cause has been that the Popes have surrounded themselves
with those only who spoke what they thought would be pleasing
and who had neither the honesty nor the loyalty to speak the truth.
This flattery had deceived the Pope about many things. "To get
828 American Catholic Quarterly Rcviezv.
the truth to their ears was always most difficult. Teachers sprung
up who were ready to declare that the Pope was master of all bene-
fices, and as master might by right sell them as his own." Con-
sequently he could not be guilty of sinning. The Pope's will was
the highest law and could override all law. ''Hence, Holy Father,
as from the horse of Troy have so many abuses and most grievous
dangers grown up in God's Church," so that it has become a bye-
word of reproach even to pagans. The commissioners call upon
the Pope to begin the cure whence sprung the disease. "Follow
the teaching of the holy Apostle Paul : Be a dispenser and not a
lord.'' They then sum up under twenty-two heads the abuses which
were disgracing the Church in Italy.^ One thing is now clear. We
are brought face to face with the fact that the temporal claims ad-
vanced by the flatterers in the Curia and the lust of domination had
resulted in the spiritual misery of Italy. Four centuries before
had St. Bernard warned Eugenius against the lust of domination,
libidinem dominandi, as being what he feared the most for him.''
Alas that the warnings had not been heeded !
To turn back to the history of England, do we not see the same
result from the same cause, i. e.. Religion allowed to suffer as long
as Canonists could sustain the doctrine that the Pope's will was the
highest law? We may fairly ask the question: Why was it that
the Reformation did not succeed where Religion was at its lowest
and did succeed where it was in a good state? Are we to say that
in Italy, while the Temporal claims were actively in force, the spir-
itual state of the people was left to shift for itself, but in England
this was sacrificed in a vain attempt to enforce the other ? This may
not be, as Dom Gasquet would have said, "very philosophical."
We may even be accused of putting the question with somewhat
of brutal plainness. But is it true ?
The Benedictine has some pregnant words at the end of his vol-
ume; and they are to our purpose. "It is already evident that the
corruptions or the virtues prevailing in one quarter must not
straightway be credited to the account of another; that the reason
why one country has become Protestant or another remained Cath-
olic has to be sought for in each case, and that it may be safely
asserted that the maintenance of Catholicity or the adoption of
Protestantism in different regions had comparatively little to do
with prevalence or absence of abuses or as little depended on the
question whether these were more or less grievous" (pp. 446-7)-
« The whole document can be, seen in L,e Plat's " Monumenta Concilii Tridentini," Vol.
II., pp. 596-605. It is said that the document was drawn up by Caraffa. ^ Migne P. ly., Vol.
182, p. 759.
. Book Reviews. 829
We on our own part have deliberately gone beyond the Hmits of
his book ; for we believe the time has come when we should inquire
closely what it was that lost England and Germany to the Church
and what it was that saved France and Spain. We are concerned
more with causes than with results ; for we hold there is a present-
day significance in the Past and there are lessons, important and
vital, to be learnt on both sides.
We must not let this occasion pass without offering our con-
gratulations to Dom Gasquet for this contribution to English his-
tory. It is a work of essential importance, which will have to be
studied by all who wish to know the Reformation Period. While
the impartial student will welcome gladly these results of the Bene-
dictine method of historical research, there are we think two classes
of readers who may not like it, as they will feel its power, viz, :
Those who, stopping their ears, call out "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians ;" and those who only care for history as a controversial
weapon. And methinks these two classes are wondrously akin.
Ethelred L. Taunton.
Father Anthony: A Romance of To-Day. By Robert Buchanan. i2mo, pp. 261. New
York : G. W. Dillingham Company.
The scene is laid in Ireland at the present day. Father Anthony
is a young Catholic. priest who was in love with the heroine until he
learned that his younger and only brother Michael loved her, when
he gave her up and studied for the priesthood. He told his parish
priest of this love shortly before his ordination, and he was advised
not to go on, but he did not follow the advice. He was ordained,
and he loved the girl to the end, which, fortunately for him, came
soon.
In the meantime his brother was accused of murdering the girl's
father, and the real murderer confessed to Father Anthony. The
story is taken up principally with clearing the innocent and bring-
ing the guilt home to the proper person. An English doctor, who is
visiting the town, undertakes to play the detective, and he does it so
clumsily that he is not worthy of a place even in fiction. The only
other priest that appears is Father John, the pastor of the village,
who is a disgrace to the cloth. He is seen oftenest in taverns, she-
beens or in the house of some bibulous friend. On all these occa-
sions he is drinking freely with laymen and in the presence of
drunken members of his own parish. On more than one occasion
the author plainly hints that he was drunk, and yet he expresses
admiration for him.
830 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
Tlie writer's ignorance of Catholic terms and practice ought to
debar him from this field of literature. We imagine that the Cath-
olic priests of Ireland, and especially those of the district where the
scene of the story is laid, will not thank the author for these two
pictures of brother priests. They are types that will hardly in-
crease the respect of the public, either Catholic or Protestant, for the
Roman Catholic clergy.
The History of the Devil and the Idea of Bvil from thb Earliest Time to the
Present Day. By Dr. Paul Cams. Large 8 vo., pp. 496. Profusely illxistrated. Chicago:
The Open Court Publishing Company.
We have the introduction to this strange book, and it contains
some remarkable statements. For instance : . . . *'The idea of
a personal God is a mere simile. . . . When we speak of God as
a person we ought to be conscious of the fact that we use an allegory
which, if it were taken literally, can only belittle Him. The God of
the future will not be personal, but superpersonal. But how shall
we reach this knowledge of the superpersonal God ? Our answer is,
with the help of science. Let us pursue in religion the same path
that science travels, and the narrowness of sectarianism will develop
into a broad cosmical religion which shall be as wide and truly Cath-
olic as is science itself." Again he tells us that God is not an in-
dividual being, but that He is the prototype of personality. In this
spirit he approaches the study of the devil, and speaks of him as the
counterpart of the idea of God. He thinks that the devil has been
much neglected by philosophers and progressive theologians, and
tlierefore he devotes his attention to him.
It is a curious book, very nicely made. We do not believe that it
possesses any real value, because we do not believe that Dr. Carus
is fitted to handle such a subject. We do not see what good can
come from it except to amuse the curious. The doctor has a pecu-
liar way of quoting text after text and disposing of them in a line,
although some of them have puzzled Biblical scholars of deep learn-
ing. It is very easy to dispose of difficulties in this superficial man-
ner, and to build up conclusions on such hastily constructed prem-
ises, but they are houses erected on sand. We cannot advise our
readers to buy this book. It is very expensive and of no practical
use.
St. Peter in Rome, and His Tomb on the Vatican Hill. By /?ev. Arthur Stapylton Barnes,
M.A., Priest of the Diocese of Westminster. With thirty full-page illustrations and seve-
ral textillustrations. I^arge 8vo, pp. 395. London : Swan Sonnenscheim & Co.
A very important contribution to a long controverted question.
But the reverend author does not admit that it is any longer an open
Book Reviews. 831
question. He claims that it has long ago been removed from the
region of doubt, and in that frame of mind he treats it. He con-
fines himself principally to the line of evidence which is drawn from
archaeology. He does not ignore the evidence of the Sacred Scrip-
tures and of ancient writers, but he passes over them briefly, because
they have been treated at length by other writers on more than one
occasion, and dwells on the archaeological evidence which has been
almost entirely neglected hitherto by English writers.
In this field Professor Lanciani, who is by common consent the
leading living authority on Roman antiquities, furnishes the safest
guide. Our author follows him. The work is very interesting and
very valuable. It is really a history of the tomb of St. Peter from
the moment of his burial down to the rebuilding of Rome's greatest
temple. In the development of this history the archaeological proofs
of St. Peter's presence and death in Rome are clearly set forth.
Without St. Peter in Rome the great church that bears his name
loses its significance.
The book furnishes one more link in the chain of evidence which
was always complete in itself, but not always known to the general
reader. It will be welcomed by all thoughtful persons who are in-
terested in so important an historical truth.
The lyiFE OF St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi. Compiled by Rev. Placido Fabrini.
Translated and published by Rev. Antonio Isoleri, Miss. Ap. Rector of the Italian Church
of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, Philadelphia, niustrated. 8vo., pp. 470. Philadelphia:
710 Montrose street.
The reverend translator of this best life of the Seraphic Saint was
moved to undertake the work because no adequate life in English
was to be found, and because of the great value of such a work. She
was indeed a wonderful saint, whose life seems almost incredible.
The wonderful ecstasies and the private revelations that were vouch-
safed to her, in addition to her extradinary virtues, stamp her as pre-
eminent even in so distinguished a school. The preservation of her
body throughout the centuries is another feature of her case that
appeals to all devout souls and draws them towards her. There,
indeed, is much to edify, much to instruct the respectful reader of
any faith. The book is divided into two parts : the first contains the
life of the saint, and the second contains her letters and other works.
Father Isoleri merits the respect and gratitude of all by this excellent
work.
Geschichte der Weltliteratur. Von Alexander Baumgartner, S.J. Vol. III. Frei-
burg and St. Louis : B. Herder, 1900.
In the third volume of his "History of the Literature of the
World" Father Baumgartner deals with the interesting subject of
832 American Catholic Quarterly Review.
the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. He divides his treatise
into three books, in the first of which, occupying' three hundred and
thirty- three pages, or considerably more than one-half the whole
volume, he treats of the classical literature of the Greeks. In the
second book he gives a survey of classical Roman literature. The
third book deals succinctly with Grecian literature in the period of
the Roman Empire. We do not hesitate to pronounce, this work the
most perfect handbook of classical literature which has appeared in
any tongue. It is a mine of information on all subjects connected
with the literature of Greece and Rome, and will be an invaluable
aid to all engaged in the teaching of the classical writers.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
Sermons on the Blessed Sacrament. From the German of Rev. J. B. Scheurer, D. D.
Eldited by Rev. F. X. Lasance. 8vo, pp. 351. New York : Benziger Brothers.
A Month's Meditations. By Cardinal IViseman. lamo, pp. 222. I,ondon : Burns &
Gates. New York : Benziger Brothers.
I,ECTtJRES FOR BoYS. By the Very Rev. Francis Cuthbert Doyle, O- S. B. 8vo, Vols. 2 and
3, pp. 414 and 509. London : Washburne & Co. New York : Benziger Brothers.
The Perfect Religious. For the Use of Confessors in Convents, the Inmates of Convents
and those who aspire to the Religious L,ife. Instructions of Monseigneur d' Orleans de la
Motte, Bishop of Amiens. i6mo, pp. 242. Price $1.00. New York : Benziger Brothers.
The Four I,ast Things : Death, Judgment.^Iell, Heaven. By Father Martin von
Cochem; O. S. F. C. i6mo, pp. 223. Price 75 cents. New York : Benziger Brothers.
Oxford Conferences, Summer Term, 1899. On Grace. By Rev. Raphael M. Moss, O. P.
i2mo, pp. 109. Price 60 cents in paper. Received from Benziger Brothers.
A Daughter of France, 1464-1505. Being Records of Blessed Jane,Foundress of the Order
of the Annunciation. i2mo, pp. 145. Price 60 cents. I,ondon : Burns & Gates. New
York : Benziger Brothers.
IvES Fnfants de Nazareth. Par I'Abb} E. Le Camus. Paris :'6o rue Madame.
Characteristics of the Farly Church. By Rev. J. J. Burke. i2mo, pp. 148. Balti-
more : John Murphy.
The True Story of Master Geralt). "^y Anna T. Sadlier. i2mo, pp.321. New York :
Benziger Brothers.
lyOT Leslie's Folks. By Eleanor C. Donnelly.
'TwAS TO Be. By Henri Ar del. Translated Irom the French by Francis T. Furey.
L,iTTLE Arlette. By Henri Ar del. Translated from the French by Francis T. Furey
Philadelphia : H. L. Kilner & Co.
A Series of Ten Sermons for a Jubilee Retreat. By Rev. Francis X. McGowan,
O. S. A. i2mo, paper, pp. 155. New York : Fr. Pnstet & Co.
The Church, the Jesuit Order and English Catholic literature
have sustained a grievous loss in the demise of the Rev. Richard F.
Clarke, of Clarke'* Hall, Oxford. One of the brightest, boldest and
most erudite of the famous Oxford school, Father Clarke, ever since
his reception into the true fold, had done marvels as a champion of
the advanced Catholic school. The Month, which he edited with rare
ability for several years, will particularly miss his trenchant and
masterful hand, and our heartfelt condolences are therefore extended
to our esteemed contemporary.
-fM