his sarcastic smile, make his remarks doubly interesting.

On matters connected with the Catholic press, there are no authorities
more reliable than Zander and Jörg, of Munich, Sausen, of Mayence, and
Sebastian Brunner, of Vienna.

J. B. von Pfeilschifter, of Darmstadt, is older than the gentlemen
above mentioned; in fact, he is the oldest Catholic journalist in
Germany.

Pfeilschifter, says Maurice Brühl, combines varied learning and
extensive reading with the experience of many years.

Since 1815 he has been actively engaged as a journalist, and for a
long time he was the only champion of lawful authority and political
order, and for this reason he was continually scoffed at and slandered
by his revolutionary colleagues. Zander has a worthy rival in Bachem,
of Cologne. Properly speaking, Bachem is a publisher, but he is
likewise a very able editor. At the conventions he is the most
business-like representative of the press, and seems to know more
about journalism than the editors. In 1865 Bachem's paper will
probably number 6,000 subscribers, which is a very respectable
circulation. His journal is one of the most influential Rhenish
papers, and very ably edited. If papers of equal merit were published
at Mayence, Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbruck, Vienna,
Prague, Breslau, and Münster, our political press would satisfy every
reasonable demand.

Francis Hülskamp, of Münster, is one of the youngest among our German
journalists, but he has outstripped many older men, for he was the
first to give a decisive impetus to the Catholic press. Three years
ago Hülskamp and his friend, Hermann Rump, founded the "Literary
Index." Now, in December, 1864, the "Index" can boast of 6,000
subscribers and 30,000 readers. All the other German literary papers
together, Protestant as well as Catholic, do not equal the "Index" in
circulation. Success like this is unheard of in Germany, and proves
that for the Catholics the time of inaction is past. Hülskamp is not
only a critic, but also well-versed in philology, exegesis, and
ecclesiastical history. In poetry, too, he has made some creditable
essays, and at Frankfort, in 1863, he proved conclusively that he is a
promising {347} speaker. Long may this energetic son of Westphalia's
red soil live and flourish!

Among the most regular members of the Catholic conventions is Dr.
Louis Lang, of Munich, who has distinguished himself by his ability as
secretary. The Catholic press also owes him a debt of gratitude. He
has greatly enlarged and improved the Munich "Sonntagsblatt" and
secured for it the services of the best writers in Germany,
succeeding, by these means, in making it rival the "Heimgarten" and
the "Sonntagsfreude." The "Josephsblatt," a monthly published by Lang,
has already a circulation of 40,000 subscribers, and bids fair to
number 100,000 by the end of 1865. Our illustrated papers, too, have
improved wonderfully since 1862; therefore let us not despair, but
trust in God.

At our Catholic conventions there were no meetings of journalists
exclusively. But there were many complaints of the inefficiency of the
press, and the journalists were severely blamed. Nor is the press so
numerously represented as at Malines, and the journalists present are
not so independent as the members of the Belgian, English, and French
press, who are fully conscious of the importance of their position.

Among the journalists whose acquaintance I formed at the Catholic
conventions, the most distinguished are Dr. Max Huttler, of Augsburg,
a man who has the welfare of the Catholic press deeply at heart;
Hoyssack, of Vienna, Dr. Krebs, of Cologne, Dr. Stumpf, of Coblentz,
Hermann Kuhn, of Berlin, Daumer, of Würzburg, Planer, of Landshut, Dr.
Frankl, of Gran in Hungary, Dr. von Mayer, of Hungary, Aichinger, of
Pondorf, Riedinger and Hällmayer, of Spires, Stamminger, the
enterprising editor of the "Chilianeum" at Würzburg, Thüren, of
Cologne, and a number of others.

It is but proper to give at least a passing notice to the latest
offspring of the Catholic conventions, the "Society for the
Publication of Catholic Pamphlets." It was founded at Würzburg, but
the seat of the executive committee is at Frankfort. On motion of
Heinrich and Thissen, of Frankfort, it was recommend by the Catholic
convention at Würzburg. Previous to the Würzburg convention, Thissen
had already made some attempts at Frankfort.

The scheme was well received in Germany. Already the number of
subscribers amounts to 2,000 and at the end of 1865 it will probably
reach 25,000. Canon Thissen has been one of the leading spirits at
every convention which he attended. He has an artful way of suggesting
ideas and gaining for them the favor of the assembly; to carry them
out, however, he needs the help of others. A thorough master of
parliamentary tactics, he is a capital manager, and in debate he may
safely trust to the inspiration of the moment. His brother, A.
Thissen, of Aix-la-Chapelle, is well suited to be the secretary of our
conventions.

{348}

From The Month.

FALLING STARS.

(FROM THE GERMAN.)

  Oh, know'st thou what betideth
    When from the heavens afar.
  Like fiery arrow, glideth
    An earthward-falling star?

  Yon glorious myriads, streaming
    Their quiet influence down,
  Are little angels gleaming
    Like jewels in a crown.

  Untiring, never sleeping,
    God's sentinels they stand;
  Where sounds of joy and weeping
    Rise up on every hand.

  If darkling here and dreary,
    One patient cheek grow pale;
  If in the conflict weary
    One trusting spirit fail;

  If to the throne ascendeth
    One supplicating cry,--
 Then heavenly mercy sendeth
    An angel from on high.

  Soft to the chamber stealing,
    It beams in radiance mild.
  And rocks each troubled feeling
    To slumber like a child.

  This, this is what betideth
    When from the heavens afar.
  Like fiery arrow, glideth
    An earthward-falling star.

--------

{349}

From Once a Week.

A BUNDLE OF CHRISTMAS CAROLS.

Carols, as the name implies, are joyous songs for festive occasions,
at one period accompanied with dancing. In an old vocabulary of A.D.
1440, _Caral_ is defined as _A Songe;_ in John Palsgrave's work of
A.D. 1530, as _Chanson de Noël;_whilst in Anglo-Saxon times the word
appears to have been rendered _Kyrriole,_ a chanting at the Nativity.
The earliest carol in English, known under that name, is the
production of Dame Berners, prioress of St Alban's in the fourteenth
century, entitled _A Carolle of Huntynge_. This is printed on the last
leaf of Wynkyn de Worde's collection of Christmas carols, A.D. 1521,
and the first verse modernized runs thus:

  "As I came by a green forest side,
  I met with a forester that bade me abide,
  Whey go bet, hey go bet, hey go how.
  We shall have sport and game enow."

Milton uses the word carol to express a devotional hymn:

              "A quire
  Of squadron'd angels hear his carol sang."

And that distinguished light of the English Church, Bishop Jeremy
Taylor, speaks of the angels' song on the morning of the Nativity as
the first Christmas carol: "As soon as these blessed choristers had
sung their Christmas carol, and taught the Church a hymn to put into
her offices for ever," etc.

According to Durandus, it was customary in early days for bishops to
sing with their clergy in the episcopal houses on the feast of the
Nativity. _"In Natali praelati cum suis clericis ludant, vel in
domibus episcopalibus."_ These merry ecclesiastics sung undoubtedly
Christmas carols.

But carols, like everything else, must be divided into two sorts,
religious and secular--the carols "in prayse of Christe" and the merry
songs for the festive board or fireside. These may be broken up into
further varieties, thus:

RELIGIOUS
  Scriptural,
  Legendary,
  Lullaby.

SECULAR
  Convivial or festive.
  Wassail,
  Boar's head,
  In praise of holly and ivy.

Of the variety called _Legendary_, I propose now to speak. These are,
as a rule, the most popular of all carols, deriving mainly, as I said
before, their origin, and many of their expressions, from the ancient
mysteries. In the old plays songs are frequently introduced which
resemble, in a very striking manner, what are commonly called carols.
The following song of the shepherds occurs in one of the Coventry
pageants:

  "As I rode out this endenes  [Footnote 50] night,
  Of three Jolly shepherds I saw a sight,'
  And all about their fold a star shone bright;
      They sang terli, terlow,
  So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow."

  [Footnote 50: Last]

The last lines actually form the chorus of one of the carols in the
fifteenth-century manuscript formerly in the possession of Mr. Wright:

  "About the field they piped full right,
  Even about the midst of the night;
  Adown from heaven they saw come a light,
  Tyrle, tyrle,
  So merrily the shepherds began to blow."

Again, in _Ludus Coventriae_:

  "Joy to God that sitteth in heaven,
    And peace to man on earth ground;
  A child is born beneath the levyn,
    Through him many folk should be unbound."

A sixteenth-century carol commences:

  "Salvation overflows the land.
  Wherefore all faithful thus may sing,
      Glory to God most high
      And peace on the earth continually,
      And onto men rejoicing."

{350}

In the Coventry Plays again we find:

  "Of a maid a child should be born,
  On a tree he should be torn,
  Deliver folks that are forlorn."

A genuine carol of the sixteenth century supplies us with the
following:

  "Jesu, of a maid thou wouldst be born.
  To save mankind that was forlorn,
      And all for our sins."

And one of the reign of Henry VI.:

  "Thy sweet Son that thou hast borne,
  To save mankind that was forlorn.
  His head is wreathed in a thorn.
  His blissful body is all to-torn."

The "Cherry-Tree Carol," formerly a great favorite throughout England,
recollections of which yet linger amongst the country-folk, is in many
instances a literal copy from the Coventry Mysteries. I give the
popular version of the "Cherry-Tree Carol:"

  "Joseph was an old man.
    And an old man was he.
  When he wedded Mary
    In the laud of Galilee.

  "Joseph and Mary
   Walked through an orchard good.
  Where were cherries and berries
    As red as any blood.

  "O then bespake Mary
    With words both meek and mild,
  'Gather me some cherries, Joseph,
    They ran so in my mind.'"

St. Joseph refuses "with words most unkind" to grant her request,
apparently unaware that his spouse is about to become the mother of
the Son of God. The unborn Saviour, however, directs the Blessed
Virgin to

 "'Go to the tree, Mary,
    And it shall bow to thee,
  And the highest branch of all
    Shall bow down to Mary's knee.'

  "Then bowed down the highest tree
    Unto his mother's hand:
  Then she cried. 'See, Joseph.
    I have cherries at command.'

  "O eat your cherries, Mary,
    O eat your cherries now,
  O eat your cherries, Mary,
    That grow upon the bough.'"

Another version gives the following reply of S. Joseph:

  "O then bespake Joseph.
    'I have done Mary wrong.
  But cheer up, my dearest.
    And be not cast down.'"

I give a portion of the rest of the carol, some of the verses being
remarkably touching and beautiful:

  "As Joseph was a-walking,
    He heard an angel sing,
  'This night shall be born
    Our Heavenly King.

  "He neither shall be born
     In honsen nor in hall,
  Nor in the place of paradise.
     But in an ox's stall.

  "He neither shall be clothed
    In purple nor in pall,
  But all in fair linen
    As were babies all.

  "He neither shall be rocked
    In silver nor in gold,
  But in a wooden cradle.
    That rocks on the mould.

  "He neither shall be christened
    In white wine nor in red.
  But with the spring water
    With which we were christened.'"

In the fifteenth pageant of the Coventry Mysteries the following lines
occur:

  "_Mary_, Ah, my sweet husband, would you tell to me
  What tree is yon, standing on yon hill?

  "_Joseph_, Forsooth. Mary, it is yclept a cherry tree.
  In time of year you might feed you thereon your fill.

  "_Mar._ Turn again, husband, and behold yon tree.
  How that it bloometh now so sweetly.

  "_Jos._ Come on, Mary, that we were a yon city.
  Or else we may be blamed, I tell you lightly.

  "_Mar._ Now, my spouse, I pray you to behold
   How the cherries (are) grown upon yon tree;
   For to have thereof right fain I would.
   And it please you to labor so much for me.

  "_Jos._ Your desire to fulfil I shall assay sekerly,
   How to pluck you of these cherries, it is a work wild.
   For the tree is so high, It would not be lightly (easy).

  "_Mar._ Now, good Lord, I pray thee, grant me this boon,
  To have of these cherries, and it be your will;
  Now I thank God this tree boweiht to me down,
  I may now gather enow, and eat my fill.

{351}

  "_Jos._ Now I know well, I have offended my God in trinity.
  Speaking to my spouse these unkind words.
  For now I believe well it may none other be,
  But that my spouse beareth the King's Son of Bliss."

It is interesting to note the way in which the more modern composition
retains all the incidents and traditions of the mediaeval mystery. Our
popular carol speaks of St. Joseph as _an old man, and an old man was
he,_ while the mystery represents him as saying (p. x.), _I am an old
man, and I am so aged and so old._The tree is the same, there is the
same desire of the Virgin Mother to taste the fruit, the same refusal
and bitter retort of her husband, the bowing-down of the tree, and the
regret of St. Joseph for his unkindness. Mr. Hone was not ashamed to
say of the "Cherry-Tree Carol:" "The admiration of my earliest days
for some lines in it still remains, nor can I help thinking that the
reader will see somewhat of cause for it."

The following example is still given on almost every broadside
annually printed: it is called "The Three Ships." I ought perhaps
first to state that the Three Ships are supposed to signify the
mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation being, as the _Speculum
Vitae Christi_ hath it, "the high work of all the Holy Trinity, though
it be that only the Person of the Son was incarnate and became man:"

  "I saw three ships come sailing in,
    On Christmas day, on Christmas day:
  I saw three ships come sailing in
    On Christmas day in the morning.

  "And what was in those ships all three,
    On Christmas day? etc.,
  And what was in, etc.,
    On Christmas day in the morning?

  "Our Saviour Christ and our Lady, etc..
    On Christmas day in the morning.
  Pray whither sailed those ships all three? etc.,
    On Christmas day in the morning.

  "O, they sailed into Bethlehem, etc..
    On Christmas day in the morning;
  And all the bells on earth shall ring, etc.,
    On Christmas day in the morning.

  "And all the angels in heaven shall sing, etc,
    On Christmas day In the morning.
  And all the souls on earth shall sing, etc.,
    On Christmas day in the morning.

  "Then let us all rejoice amain, etc..
    On Christmas day in the morning."

Another rude and rather amusing version is sometimes given of this
carol, called "The Sunny Bank:"

  "As I sat on a sunny bank,
    A sunny bank, a sunny bank.
  As I sat on a sunny bank,
    On Christmas day in the morning,

  "I spied three ships come sailing by, etc..
    On Christmas day, etc.;

  "And who should be with those three ships?
    On Christmas day, etc.,

  "But Joseph and his fair lady, etc.,
    On Christmas day, etc.

  "Oh, he did whistle, and she did sing,
    And all the bells on earth did ring.
  For joy that our Saviour they did bring
    On Christmas day in the morning."

An old Dutch carol, given by Hoffman, commences:

  "There comes a vessel laden.
  And on its highest gunwale
  Mary holds the rudder,
  The angel steers it on."

And thus explains the mission of the ship:

  "In one unbroken course
  There comes that ship to land:
  It brings to us rich gifts,
  Forgiveness is sent to us."

This translation is taken from Mr. Sandys' book on "Christmas-tide."
About the sixteenth century a similar carol was sung at Yule, which is
given by Ritson:

  "There comes a ship far sailing then,
  Saint Michael was the steersman;
    Saint John sat in the horn:
  Our Lord harped, our Lady sang,
  And all the bells of heaven they rang
   On Christ's Sunday at morn."

Another specimen I take from a Birmingham collection; it is called
"The Seven Virgins." This is given also by Mr. Sylvester from "the
original old broadside." It is singular, however, that his old copy
should include a line which he confesses to be a "modern
interpolation!"

  "All under the leaves, and the leaves of life,
  I met with virgins seven.
  And one of them was Mary mild.
    Our Lord's mother in heaven.
  O, what are you seeking, you seven pretty maids.
    All under the leaves of life?"

{352}

  'We're seeking for no leaves, Thomas,
    But for a friend of thine.
  We're seeking for sweet Jesus Christ,
    To be our heavenly guide.'
  'Go down, go down to yonder town,
    And sit in the gallery,
  And there you'll see sweet Jesus Christ
    Nailed to a yew tree.'
  And they went down to yonder town
    As fast as foot could fall,
  And many a bitter and grievous tear
    From our Lady's eyes did fall.
  'O, peace, mother, O, peace, mother,
    Your weeping doth me grieve,
  I must suffer this, he said.
    For Adam and for Eve.

  'O mother, take you John Evangelist
    To be your favorite son,
  And he will comfort you sometimes.
    Mother, as I have done.'

  "Then he laid his head on his right shoulder.
      Seeing death it struck him nigh,
  'The Holy Ghost be with your soul,
    I die, mother. I die.'"

Many of my readers will recollect the famous carol of "The Seven
Joys," still croaked out in the streets of London and elsewhere about
Christmas time. Very similar carols to this exist of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, one of which I select from Mr. Wright's
manuscript. I have, as in all other cases, modernized the orthography:

OF THE FIVE JOYS OF OUR LADY.

  "The first Joy that came to thee
   Was when the angel greeted thee.
   And said, 'Mary, full of charity,
             Ave, plena gratia.'
   The second joy that was full good
   When God's Son took flesh and blood.
   Without sorrow and changing of mood,
           'Enixa es puerpera.'
   The third joy was full of might,
   When God's Son on rood was put.
   Dead and buried, and laid in sight,
           'Surrexit die tertia.'
   The fourth joy was on Holy Thursday,
   When God to heaven took his way,
   God and man withouten nay.
            'Ascendit supra sidera.'
   The fifth joy is for to come.
   At the dreadful day of doom,
   When he shall deem us all and some
            'Ad coeli palatia.'"

The following carol for St. Stephen's day is from a manuscript of the
time of King Henry VI. The reader will be amused to find the great
proto-martyr here introduced as a servant of King Herod, and intrusted
with the task of bringing in the boar's head, a famous dish, and "the
first mess" at Christmas and other high festivals. There was evidently
some honor attached to this office, for Holinshed tells us that King
Henry II., in 1170, on the day of his son's coronation, served him as
sewer, bringing up the boar's head, _according to the manner_; and in
1607, at St. John's College, Oxford, the "first mess was carried by
the tallest and lustiest of all the guard."

  "Saint Stephen was a clerk in King Herod's hall.
  And served him of bread and doth as ever king befall.

  "Stephen out of kitchen came, with boar's head in hand.
  He saw a star was fair and bright, over Bethlem stand.

  "He cast adown the boar's head, and went into the hall,
_S. Stephen._ I forsake thee, King Herod, and thy works all,

  "I forsake thee, King Herod, and thy works all,
  There is a child in Bethlehem born, is better than we all.

"_Herod._ What aileth thee, Stephen? What is thee befall?
  Lacketh thee either meat or drink in King Herod's hall?

"_S. Stephen_. Lacketh me neither meat nor drink in King Herod's hall.
  There is a child in Bethlehem born, is better than we all.

"_Herod_. That is all so sooth, Stephen, all so sooth, I wit,
  As this capon crow shall lyeth here in my dish.

  "That word was no soon said, that word in that hall.
  The capon crew _Christus natus est_ among the lords all."

This brings us to the more modern legendary carol of "The Carnal [a
bird] and the Crane," in which the same incident occurs of the bird
crowing in the dish:

  "As I passed by a river side.
    And there as I did rein [run],
  In argument I chanced to near
    A carnal and a crane.

  "The carnal said unto the crane,
    'If all the world should turn,
  Before we had the Father,
    But now we have the Son.'

  "'From whence does the Son come?
    From where and from what place?
  He said, 'In a manger,
    Between an ox and ass.'

  "'Where is the golden cradle
    That Christ was rocked in?
  Where are the silken sheets
    That Jesus was wrapt in?'

  "'A manger was the cradle
    That Christ was rocked in;
  The provender the asses left
    So sweetly he slept on.'

{353}

  "There was a star in the west land,
    SO bright it did appear
  Into King Herod's chamber.
    And where King Herod were.

  "The wise men soon espied it,
    And told the king on high,
  'A princely babe was born that night,
    No king could e'er destroy.'

  "'If this be true,' King Herod said,
    'As thou tellest unto me.
  This roasted cock that lies in the dish,
    Shall crow full fences three.'

  "The cock soon freshly feathered was,
    By the work of God's own hand,
  And then three fences crowed he
    In the dish where he did stand."

Herod then gives orders for the general massacre of the young
children, and the Saviour, with Joseph and his mother, travel into
Egypt amongst the "fierce wild beasts." The blessed Virgin being
weary, "must needs sit down to rest," and her son desires her to "see
how the wild beasts come and worship him:"

  "First came the lovely lion,
    Which Jesu's grace did spring.
  And of the wild beasts in the field
    The lion shall be the king."

The Holy Family continuing their flight, pass by a husbandman "just
while his seed was sown:"

  "The husbandman fell on his knees,
    Even before his face;
  'Long time thou hast been look'd for,
    But now thou'rt come at last.'

  "'The truth, man, thou hast spoken,
    Of it thou mayst be sure.
  For I most lose my precious blood
    For thee and thousands more.

  "'If any one should come this way,
    And inquire for me alone.
  Tell them that Jesus passed by,
    As thou thy seed did sow.'"

King Herod comes afterward with his train, and furiously asks of the
husbandman whether our Saviour has passed by; the husbandman replies
that

  "'Jesus passed by this way
    When my seed was sown.

  "But now I have it reapen,
    And some laid on my wain.
  Ready to fetch and carry
    Into my barn again.'"

Herod, supposing that it must be "full three quarters of a year since
the seed was sown," turned back, and "further he proceeded into the
Holy Land." A manuscript of the fifteenth century, preserved in the
British Museum, contains a representation of the flight into Egypt, in
which the above legend is introduced. The city of Bethlehem stands in
the background, and on the right, in the distance, a field of corn and
a reaper, who is in conversation with a soldier by his side. A curious
Scotch tradition states that when Herod and his soldiers made their
inquiry of the husbandman, "a little black beetle lifted up his head,
and exclaimed, _The Son of Man passed here last night_." Black beetles
are probably not more popular here than in Scotland, but Highlanders,
whenever they find the dastardly insect, kill it, repeating the words,
"_Beetle, beetle, last night_."

"The Holy Well" is a very favorite carol with the broadside printers;
I have seen it side by side with a very lively "legendary" production,
"Flyaway Carol:"

  "There good old Wesley, and a throng
      Of saints and martyrs too,
  Unite and praise their Saviour's name.
      And there I long to goo.
             Fly away! Fly away!
             While yet it's called to-day!"

The Magi or three Kings of Cologne form the subject of many an old
carol. The names of these "famous men" are supposed to have been,
Kasper or Gaspar, King of Tarsus, young and beardless; Melchior, King
of Nubia, old, with long beard and grey hair; and Balthazar, King of
Saba, a negro. Their offerings were, as is well known, symbolical; to
use the words of the Anglo-Saxon Hymnary, translated by the recorder
of Sarum:

  "Incense to God, and myrrh to grace his tomb,
  For tribute to their King, a golden store;
  One they revere, three with three offerings come,
          And three adore."

From an old commentary on the gospel of St. Matthew, we gather some
curious matter relating to the history of the Three Wise Men. A
certain nation dwelling close to the ocean, in the extreme east,
possessed a writing, inscribed with the name of Seth, concerning the
star which was to appear:

{354}

"Twelve of the more learned men of that country * * * has disposed
themselves to watch for that star; and when any of them died, his son
or one of his kindred * * was appointed in his place. These,
therefore, year by year, after the threshing out of the corn, ascended
into a certain high mountain, called _Mons victorialis_, having in it
a certain cave in the rock, most grateful and pleasant, with fountains
and choice trees, into which, ascending and bathing themselves, they
prayed and praised God in silence three days. And thus they did,
generation after generation, watching ever, lest peradventure that
star of beatitude should arise upon themselves, until it appeared
descending on the mountain, having within itself, as it were, the form
of a man-child, and above it the similitude of a cross; and it spake
to them, and taught them, and commanded them that they should go into
Judaea. And journeying thither for the space of two years, neither
food nor drink failed in their vessels."

Other old accounts state that their journey occupied twelve days only:
"they took neither rest nor refreshment; it seemed to them indeed as
one day; the nearer they approached to Christ's dwelling, the brighter
the star shone."   [Footnote 51]

  [Footnote 51: Early Christian Legends.]

  [Illustration: Drawing described below. ]

There appears to have been no decided opinion or tradition as to the
form of the star; it is shown thus by Albert Durer, in an old book
which I have by me of 1519: it is drawn with eight points, the lowest
one being much longer than the others; in another book, 1596, I find
it represented as a star of six points; in some old pictures it is
shown as a sort of comet, and it is described to have been "as an
eagle flying and beating the air with his wings," having within the
form and likeness of the Holy Child.

In "Dives and Pauper," printed in 1496, we gather the following
account of it:

  "_Dives_. What manner of star was it then?

  "_Pauper_. Some clerks tell that it was an angel in the likeness of
  a star, for the kings had no knowledge of angels, but took all heed
  to the star. Some say that it was the same child that lay in the
  ox-stall which appeared to the kings in the likeness of a star, and
  so drew them and led them to himself in Bethlehem."

I wish it were possible to give here a quaint illustration of the
journey of the Three Wise Men, from a sheet of carols printed in 1820,
which forms one of the wood-cuts procured with no little difficulty
from the publisher by Mr. Hone, and is but little known.

The history of the Magi is even traced further; after their return to
their own country they were baptized by St. Thomas the Apostle, became
missionaries with him, and were, it is said by some, martyred.

Their journeyings did not, however, end with their deaths--their
bodies were translated to Constantinople, thence to Milan, and
afterward to Cologne, where they are still preserved in the cathedral,
and their history recorded in a series of frescoes. Their shrine at
Cologne was once exceedingly rich and magnificent, but during the
excitement of the first French revolution many of the jewels which
adorned the monument were sold and replaced by paste or glass
counterfeits. The following description of their tomb I gather from
Mr. Fyfe's book on "Christmas:"

  "The coffin is stated to have two partitions, the lower having a
  half, and the upper a whole, roofing. The former compartment
  contains the bones of the three kings, whose separate heads appear
  aloft through the aperture in the half-roofing; and on this roofing
  are inscribed the names _Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar_, encrusted in
  rubies. {355} The heads are adorned with crowns weighing six pounds
  apiece, of gold, diamonds, and pearls. It is asserted (but doubted)
  that the tomb and its contents are of the value of £240,000."

From the offerings of the three kings arose the practice of Christmas
gifts, and the festival of the Epiphany has always been observed in
remembrance of their visit to Bethlehem; it has also been the custom
from earliest times for our sovereigns to offer the three mystic gifts
of gold, myrrh, and incense at the altar on the day of the Epiphany,
which custom is still observed at the Chapel Royal, the royal
oblations being received by the dean or his deputy in a bag of crimson
and gold. The Epiphany is also a "scarlet day" at the universities.
After this long roundabout discourse, I am almost afraid to weary my
readers with a second edition of the wanderings of the Wise Men, but I
must rely upon their generous forbearance; the accompanying carol is
from a manuscript of the time of King Henry VII.:

  "Now is Christmas i-come,
  Father and Son together in One,
  Holy Ghost, as Ye be One,
                         In fere-a:
  God send us all a good new year-a.

  "There came iij kings from Galilee
  Into Bethlehem that fair city
  To seek him that ever should be,
                         By right-a,
  Lord, and King, and Knight-a.

  "At they came forth with their offering,
  They met with Herod that moody king,
                          This tide-a,
  And this to them he said-a.

"_Her_. Of whence be ye, you kings iij?
"_Mag_. Of the East, as ye may see,
  To seek him that ever should be,
                          By right-a.
  Lord, and King, and Knight-a.

"_Her_. When you at this child have been,
  Come home again by me,
  Tell me the sights that you have seen,
                          I pray you,
  Go no other way-a.

* * * *

  "The Father of heaven an angel down sent,
  To these iij kings that made present
                         This tide-a.
  And this to them he said-a,
  My Lord hath warned you every one
  By Herod King you go not home
  For an you do, he will you slay,
                         And strew-a,
  And hurt you wonderly-a.

  "Forth then went these kings iij
  Till they came home to their countree.
  Glad and blithe they were all iij,
  Of the sights that they had seen.
                         By dene-a.
  The company was clean-a."

* * * *

I will conclude with a modern specimen of a legendary carol written by
the Rev. Dr. Neale, and published in Novello's shilling collection.
The story of St. Wenceslaus, the good King of Bohemia, is given by
Bishop Jeremy Taylor in his "Life of Christ:"

'"One winter night, going to his devotions in a remote church,
barefooted in the snow, * * his servant Podavius, who waited on his
master's piety, and endeavored to imitate his affections, began to
faint through the violence of the snow and cold, till the king
commanded him to follow him, and set his feet in the same footsteps
which his feet should mark for him; the servant did so, and either
fancied a cure, or found one, for he followed his prince, helped
forward with shame and zeal to his imitation, and by the forming
footsteps for him in the snow."

  "Good King Wenceslaus look'd out.
    On the Feast of Stephen;
  When the snow lay round about.
    Deep and crisp and even:
  Brightly shone the moon that night,
    Though the frost was cruel,
  When a poor man came in sight,
    Gath'ring winter fuel.

  "'Hither, page, and stand by me.
    While thou know'st it telling,
  Yonder peasant who is he?
    Where and what his dwelling?
  "'Sire, he lives a good league hence
    Underneath the mountain;
  Right against the forest fence,
    By Saint Agnes' fountain.'

  "'Bring me flesh and bring me wine.
    Bring me pine logs hither;
  Thou and I will see him dine,
    When we bear them thither.'
  Page and monarch forth they went.
    Forth they went together:
  Through the rude wind's wild lament,
    And the bitter weather.

  "'Sire, the night is darker now.
    And the wind blows stronger.
  Fails my heart, I know not how,
    I can go no longer.'
  "'Mark my footsteps, good my page;
    Tread thou in them boldly;
  Thou shalt find the winter's rage
    Freeze thy blood less coldly.'

  "In his master's steps he trod.
    Where the snow lay dinted;
  Heat was in the very sod
    Which the saint had printed.
  Therefore, Christian men--be sure--
    Wealth or rank possessing,
  Ye who now will bless the poor,
    Shall yourselves find blessing."

{356}

From The Dublin Review.

THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM.

_The Formation of Christendom_. Part First.
By T. W. ALLIES. London: Longmans.

It is somewhat paradoxical, but strictly true, to say that the
greatest and most important revolution which ever took place upon
earth is that to which least attention has hitherto been paid, and
concerning which least is known--the substitution of "Christendom" for
the heathen world. Before our own day no historian, no philosopher of
modern times has felt any interest in this vast theme, and whatever
information with regard to it is attainable must be sought in the
fragmentary remains of ancient writers, or in works very recently
published on the continent. In the volume before us Mr. Allies has
taken ground not yet occupied by any English author. He has availed
himself of two works--Döllinger's "Christenthum und Kirche" and
Champagny's Histories--and he acknowledges in the most liberal and
loyal manner his obligation to them; but, in the main, he has been
left to find his way for himself, and no man could well be more highly
qualified for the task, whether by the gifts of nature or by the
acquirements of many years. We infer from the work itself that his
attention was immediately turned to the subject by his appointment as
professor of the "Philosophy of History" in the Catholic university of
Dublin, under the rectorship of Dr. Newman. The duties of his post
obliged him to weigh the question, "what is the philosophy of
history?" and the inaugural lecture with which the volume before us
commences, although it gives no formal definition of the phrase (which
is to be regretted), supplies abundant considerations by the aid of
which we may arrive at it. History, in its origin, was far more akin
to poetry than to philosophy, and even when it passes into prose it is
in the half-legendary form, which makes the narrative of Herodotus and
of the annalists of the middle ages so charming to all readers. They
are ballads without metre. Next came that style of which Thucydides is
the model, and which Mr. Allies calls "political history." "Its limit
is the nation, and it deals with all that interests the nation."
"Great, indeed, is the charm where the writer can describe with the
pencil of a poet and analyze with the mental grasp of a philosopher.
Such is the double merit of Thucydides. And so it has happened that
the deepest students of human nature have searched for two thousand
years the records of a war wherein the territory of the chief
belligerents was not larger than a modern English or Irish county.
What should we say if a quarrel between Kent and Essex, between Cork
and Kerry, had kept the world at gaze ever since? Yet Attica and
Laconia were no larger."

And yet it needed something more than territorial greatness in the
states of which he wrote to enable even Thucydides himself to realize
the idea of a philosophical history. For the five hundred years which
followed the Peloponnesian war brought to maturity the greatest empire
which has ever existed among men, and although, at the close of that
period, one of the ablest and most thoughtful of writers devoted
himself especially to its history, yet, says our author, "I do not
know that in reading the pages of Polybius, of Livy, or even of
Tacitus, we are conscious of a wider grasp of thought, a more enlarged
experience of political interests, a higher idea of {357} man, and of
all that concerns his personal and public life, than in those of
Thucydides." Great, indeed, was the genius of those ancient
historians, magnificent were the two languages which they made their
instruments--languages "very different in their capacity, but both of
them superior in originality, beauty, and expressiveness to any which
have fallen to the lot of modern nations. It may be that the marbles
of Pentelicus and Carrara insure good sculptors." "In the
narrative--that is, the poetic and pictorial part of history--they
have equal merit. Their history is a drama in which the actors and the
events speak for themselves. What was wanting was the bearing of
events on each other, the apprehension of great first principles--the
generalization of facts." And this no mere lapse of time could give.
It is wanting in the works of the greatest ancient masters. It is
found in moderns in all other respects immeasurably their inferiors.
"What, then, had happened in the interval?" Christianity had
happened--Christendom had been formed. '"There was a voice in the
world greater, more potent, thrilling, and universal, than the last
cry of the old society, _Civis sum Romanus_, and this voice was _Sum
Christianus_. From the time of the great sacrifice it was impossible
to sever the history of man's temporal destiny from that of his
eternal; and when the virtue of that sacrifice had thoroughly leavened
the nations, history is found to assume a larger basis, to have lost
its partial and national cast, to have grown with the growth of man,
and to demand for its completeness a perfect alliance with
philosophy."

Thus, then, the "philosophy of history" is the comparison and
arrangement of its great events by one whose mind is stored with the
facts which it records, and who at the same time possesses the great
first principles which qualify him to judge of it. We may, therefore,
lay it down as an absolute rule, that without Christianity no really
philosophical history could have been written.

Not unnaturally, then, the first example of the philosophy of history
was given by a man whose mind, if not the greatest ever informed by
Christianity, was at least among a very few in the first class, was
moreover so thoroughly penetrated by Christian principles, that to
review the events of the world in any other aspect, or through any
other medium, would have been to him as impossible as to examine in
detail without the light of the sun the expanse of plains and hills,
rivers and forests, which lay under him as he stood on some
predominant mountain peak. God, the Almighty Creator--God incarnate,
who had once lived and suffered on earth, and now reigned on high
until he should put all enemies under his feet, and who was coming
again to judge the world which he had redeemed--the Church founded by
him to enlighten and govern all generations throughout all nations,
and in which dwelt the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost--the
evil spirits, powerless against the divine presence in the Church, but
irresistible by mere human power--the saints, no longer seen by man,
but whose intercession influenced and moulded all the events of his
life,--all these were ever before the mind of St. Augustine, not
merely as articles of faith which he confessed, but as practical
realities. To trace the events of the world without continually
referring to all these, would have been to him not merely irreligious,
but as unreal, unmeaning, and fallacious as it would be to a natural
philosopher of our own day to investigate the phenomena of the
material world without taking into consideration the attraction of the
earth and the resistance of the air. This should be noticed, because
we have all met men who, while professing to believe most, if not all,
of these things, would consider it bad taste to introduce such
considerations into any practical affair. They are, in short, part of
that very {358} remarkable phenomenon, the "Sunday religion" of a
respectable English gentleman, which he holds as an inseparable part
of his respectability, but which is well understood to have no bearing
at all upon the business of the week. Living as St. Augustine did at
the crisis at which the civilization of the ancient world was finally
breaking up, his eye was cast back in review over the whole gorgeous
line of ancient history, which swept by him like a Roman triumph.
Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, each had its day; the last and greatest
of them all he saw tottering to its fall. But far more important than
this comprehensive survey, which the circumstances of his times made
natural to so great an intellect, was his possession of fixed and
certain principles, the truth of which he knew beyond the possibility
of doubt, and which were wide enough to solve every question which the
history of the world brought before him. Great men there had been
before him, but the deeper their thoughts, the more had they found
that the world itself and their own position in it were but a hopeless
enigma without an answer, a cypher without a key. A flood of light had
been poured upon the piercing mental eye of St. Augustine when the
waters of baptism fell from the hand of the holy Ambrose upon his
outward frame. Every part of the Old Testament history glowed before
him, as when from behind a cloud which covers all the earth the light
of the sun falls concentrated upon some mountain-peak; and the man who
reverences and ponders as divine that inspired history has learned to
read the inner meaning of the whole history of the world as no one
else can. In every age, no doubt, Almighty God rules and directs in
justice and mercy the world which he has created; but in general he
hides himself behind an impenetrable veil. "Clouds and darkness are
round about him, justice and judgment the establishment of his
throne." To many an ordinary spectator, the world seems only the
theatre of man's labor and suffering. He passes through it as he might
through one of the arsenals of ancient Greece or Rome, where indeed
great works were wrought, but where the hand of the workman was always
as visible as the result produced. A more thoughtful man might see
proofs of some unknown power, just as in an arsenal of our day works,
compared to which the fabled labors of giants and cyclops were as
child's play, are hourly performed by the stroke of huge hammers
welding vast masses of glowing metal, while nothing is seen to cause
or explain their motion. All this is understood by one who has once
been allowed to see at work the engine itself which sets all in
motion. So does the Old Testament history unveil to the eye of faith
the hidden causes, not only of the Jewish history, but of the great
events of secular history. All that seemed before only results without
cause, is seen to be fully accounted for; not that we can always
understand the ends which the Almighty Worker designs to accomplish,
or the means by which he is accomplishing them, but everywhere faith
sees the operation of Almighty power directed by infinite wisdom and
love, and, while able to understand much, it is willing to await in
reverent adoration the development of that which as yet is beyond its
comprehension. It sees that the history of other nations is
distinguished from that of the children of Israel, not so much by the
character of the events which it records (for the extraordinary
manifestations of divine power were chiefly confined to a few special
periods), as to the principle and spirit in which it has been written,
and that secular history viewed by eyes supernaturally enlightened
assumes the same appearance.

In fact, it is not difficult to write a history of the reigns of David
and Solomon and their successors down to the fall of the Hebrew
monarchy which sounds very much like that of any other Oriental
kingdom. The {359} thing has been done of late years, both in Germany
and in England. It was by this that Dean Milman, many years ago, so
greatly shocked the more religious portion of English readers. Nor
were they shocked without cause; for his was a history of the Jews
from which, as far as possible, Almighty God was left out, while the
characteristic of the inspired narrative is, that it is a record not
so much of the doings of men as of the great acts of God by man and
among men. Only Dean Milman was more consistent than those who
condemned him. He was right in perceiving that the greater part of the
history of the Jews is not materially different from that of other
nations. But he went on to infer that, therefore, we may leave God out
of sight in judging of Jewish history, as we do in that of other
nations, instead of learning from the example of the Jews that in
every age God is as certainly working among every nation. That by
which he offended religious Protestants was the application of their
own ordinary principles to the one history in which they had been
taught from childhood to see and acknowledge with exceptional
reverence the working of Almighty God in the affairs of the world.

This it is which gives its peculiar character to many of the
chronicles of the middle ages. It is impossible not to feel that the
writers see no broad distinction between the history of the nations
and times of which they are writing and that of the ancient people of
God. And hence in their annals we have far more of the philosophy of
history, in the true sense of the word, than was possible to any
ancient author. For with all their ignorance of physical causes, which
led them into many mistakes, their main principles were both true and
vitally important, and were wholly unknown to Thucydides and Tacitus.
But the circumstances of their times made it impossible that they
should survey the extensive range of facts which lies before a modern
historian. In many instances, also, they were led by the imperfect
state of physical science to attribute to a supernatural interference
of God in the world things which we are now able to refer to natural
causes. That God has before now interfered with the course of nature
which he has established in the world, and may whenever he pleases so
interfere again, these were to them first principles. And so far they
reasoned truly and justly, although their imperfect acquaintance with
other branches of human knowledge sometimes led them to apply amiss
their true principle. Their minds were so much accustomed to dwell
upon the thought of God, and upon his acts in the world, that they
were always prepared to see and hear him everywhere, and in every
event. When they heard of any event supposed to be supernatural, they
might be awestruck and impressed, but could not be said to be
surprised; and hence, no doubt, they sometimes accepted as
supernatural events which, if examined by a shrewd man who starts with
the first principle that nothing supernatural can really have taken
place, could have been otherwise explained. Beside, their comparative
unacquaintance with physical science led them into errors in
accounting for and even in observing those which they themselves did
not imagine to be supernatural. But their first principles were true.
And the modern who assumes, whether explicitly or implicitly, that the
course of the world is modified and governed only by the passions and
deeds of man, is in his first principles fundamentally wrong. They
fell into accidental error; he cannot be more than accidentally right.

Our author says:

   "In the middle ages, and notably in the thirteenth century, there
   were minds which have left us imperishable memorials of themselves,
   and which would have taken the largest and most philosophical view
   of history had the materials existed ready to their hand. {360}
   Conceive, for instance, a history from the luminous mind of St.
   Thomas with the stores of modern knowledge at his command. But the
   invention of printing, one of the turning points of the human race,
   was first to take place, and then on that soil of the middle ages,
   so long prepared and fertilized by so patient a toil, a mighty
   harvest was to spring up. Among the first-fruits of labors so often
   depreciated by those who have profited by them, and in the land of
   children who despise their sires, we find the proper alliance of
   philosophy with history. Then at length the province of the
   historian is seen to consist, not merely in the just, accurate, and
   lively narrative of facts, but in the exhibition of cause and
   effect. 'What do we now expect in history?' says M. de Barante; and
   he replies, 'Solid instruction and complete knowledge of things;
   moral lessons, political counsels; comparison with the present, and
   the general knowledge of facts.' Even in the age of Tacitus, the
   most philosophic of ancient historians, no individual ability could
   secure all such powers" (p. 12).

Thus philosophical history is one of the results of Christianity.
Professor Max Müller makes a similar remark with regard to his own
favorite study of ethnology. Before the day of Pentecost, he says, no
man, not even the greatest minds, ever thought of tracing the
genealogy of nations by their languages, because they did not know the
unity of the human race. The unity of mankind is naturally connected
in the order of ideas with the unity of God. Those who worshipped many
gods, and believed that each race and nation had its own tutelary
divinity, not unnaturally regarded each nation as a separate race. So
far was this feeling carried by the most civilized races of the old
world, that they thought it a profanation that the worship of the gods
of one race should be offered by a priest not sprung from that race.
The most moderate and popular of the Roman patricians rejected the
demand of the _plebs_ to be admitted to the highest offices of the
state, not as politically dangerous, but as profane. The Roman consul,
in virtue of his office, was the priest of the Capitoline Jove, to
whom, on certain solemn occasions, he had to offer sacrifice. It would
be a pollution that a plebeian, not sprung from any of the tribes of
Romulus, should presume to offer that sacrifice. In fact, the
consulship would hardly have been thrown open to the _plebs_ until the
long continued habit of intermarriage had welded the two portions of
the Roman people so completely into one that the plebeian began, at
last, to be regarded as of the same blood with the Furii, the
Cornelii, and the Julii. The first measure by which the tribunes
commenced their attack upon the exclusive privilege of the great
houses was wisely chosen; it was the Canuleian law, by which marriages
between the two orders were made legal and valid. Before that,
patricians and plebeians were two nations living in one city, and,
according to the universal opinion of the ancient world, this implied
that they had different gods, different priests, a different ritual,
and different temples. But the day of Pentecost blended all nations
into a new unity--the unity of the body of Christ; and its first
effect was, that the preachers of the new law proclaimed everywhere,
that "God had made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell upon the
face of the whole earth." The professor points out what curiously
completes the analogy between the two cases, that while Christianity,
by collecting into one church all the nations of the world, and by
teaching their original unity, naturally suggested the idea that all
their different languages had some common origin, any satisfactory
investigation of the subject was long delayed by the unfounded notion
that the Hebrew must needs be the root from which they all sprang.
Thus, in both cases, the germ of studies, whose development was
delayed for ages by the {361} imperfection of human knowledge, appears
to have been contained in the revelation of the gospel of Christ.

It is important to bring these considerations into prominence, because
the knowledge which would never have existed without Christianity, is,
in many cases, retained by men who forget or deny the faith to which
they are indebted for it. Our author draws comparison between Tacitus
and Gibbon (page 14):

   "The world of thought in which we live is, after all, formed by
   Christianity. Modern Europe is a relic of Christendom, the virtue
   of which is not gone out of it. Gregory VII. and Innocent III. have
   ruled over generations which have ignored them; have given breadth
   to minds which condemned their benefactors as guilty of narrow
   priestcraft, and derided the work of those benefactors as an
   exploded theory. Let us take an example in what is, morally,
   perhaps the worst and most shocking period of the last three
   centuries--the thirty years preceding the great French revolution.
   We shall see that at this time even minds which had rejected, with
   all the firmness of a reprobate will, the regenerating influence of
   Christianity, could not emancipate themselves from the virtue of
   the atmosphere which they had breathed. They are immeasurably
   greater than they would have been in pagan times, by the force of
   that faith which they misrepresented and repudiated. To prove the
   truth of my words, compare for a moment the great artist who drew
   Tiberius and Domitian and the Roman empire in the first century
   with him who wrote of its decline and fall in the second and
   succeeding centuries. How far wider a grasp of thought, how far
   more manifold an experience, combined with philosophic purposes, in
   Gibbon than in Tacitus. He has a standard within him by which he
   can measure the nations as they come in long procession before him.
   In that vast and wondrous drama of the Antonines and Constantine
   Athanasius and Leo, Justinian and Charlemagne, Mahomet, Zenghis
   Khan, and Timour, Jerusalem and Mecca, Rome and Constantinople,
   what stores of thought are laid up--what a train of philosophic
   induction exhibited! How much larger is this world become than that
   which trembled at Caesar! The very apostate profits by the light
   which has shone on Thabor, and the blood which has flowed on
   Calvary. He is a greater historian than his heathen predecessor
   because he lives in a society to which the God whom he has
   abandoned has disclosed the depth of its being, the laws of its
   course, the importance of its present, the price of its futurity."

A very little thought will show that, constituted as man's nature is,
this could not have been otherwise. Man differs from the inferior
animals in that he is richly endowed with faculties which, until they
have been developed by education, he can never use, and appreciates
and embraces truths, when they have been set before him, which he
could never have discovered unassisted. This is the most obvious
distinction between reason and instinct. The caterpillar, hatched from
an egg dropped by a parent whom it never saw, knows at once what food
and what habits are necessary for its new life. Weeks pass away, and
its first skin begins to die; but (as if it had been fully instructed
in what has to be done) it draws its body out of it as from a glove,
and comes forth in a new one. A few weeks later it forsakes the food
which has hitherto been necessary for its life, and buries itself in
the earth, which up to that very day would have been certain death.
There a mysterious change passes upon it, and it lies as if dead till
the time for another change approaches. It then gradually works its
way to the surface, and comes out a butterfly or a moth. It is now
indifferent to the plants which in its former state were necessary to
its existence, but yet it chooses those plants on which to deposit its
eggs. {362} We are so apt to delude ourselves with the notion that we
understand everything to which we give a name, that ninety-nine people
out of a hundred seem to think they account for this marvelous power
of the inferior animals to act exactly right under circumstances so
strangely changed, by calling it "instinct." But, in truth, why or how
the creature does what it does, we no more know when we have called it
"instinct" than we did before. All we can suppose is that as the
Creator has left none of his creatures destitute of the kind and
degree of knowledge necessary to enable it to discharge its appointed
office in creation, the appetites and desires of the insect are
modified from time to time in the different stages of its existence so
that they impel it exactly to the course necessary for it to take,
with much greater certainty than if it understood what the result was
to be. How different is the case of man. Not only is he a free agent,
and therefore to be guided by reason, not by mere propensity, but
neither reason nor speech, nor indeed life itself, could be preserved
or made of any use except by means of training and education received
from others. A man left to shift for himself like the animal whose
changes we have been tracing, would die at each state of his existence
for want of some one to teach him what must be done for his
preservation. This same training is equally necessary for his
physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. But he is so
constituted that the different things needful for him to know for each
of these purposes approve themselves to him as soon as they are
presented to his mind from without, and the things which thus approve
themselves, although he could never have discovered them, we truly
call natural to man, because no external teaching would have made him
capable of learning them unless the faculty had been as much a part of
his original constitution as the unreasoning desires which we call
instinct are part of the constitution of brutes. And therefore, when
once developed by education, they remain a part of the man, even when
he casts away from him those teachers by whom they were developed.
Nero would never have learnt the use of speech if he had not caught it
from his mother; yet when he used it to order her murder he did not
lose what she had taught him, because it was a part of his nature. And
so of higher powers, the result of a superior training. Principles
which men would never have known without Christian training are
retained when Christianity itself is rejected, because they are a part
of the spiritual endowment given to man by his Creator, although
without training he would never have been able to develop them. His
rejection of Christianity results from an evil will. The parts of
Christian teaching against which that will does not rebel he calls and
believes to be the lessons of his natural reason, although the
experience of the greatest and wisest heathen shows that his
unassisted natural faculties never would have discovered them.

Nor is this true only of individuals. Nations trained for many
generations in Christian faith have before now fallen away from
Christianity. But it does not seem that they are able to reduce
themselves to the level of heathen nations in their moral standard,
their perception and appreciation of good and evil, justice and wrong,
or of the nature and destinies of the human race. In some respects
they are morally much worse than heathen. But it does not appear that
in these points they can sink so low, because their nature, fallen
though it be, approves and accepts some of the truths taught it by
Christianity. Hence, in order to judge what man can or cannot do
without the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, we must examine him in
nations to which the faith has never been given, rather than in those
which have rejected it. Unhappily, there are at this moment parts of
Europe in which the belief in the supernatural {363} seems wanting. An
intelligent correspondent of the _Times_ a year ago described such a
state of things as existing in parts of northern Germany and
Scandinavia. The population believes nothing, and practises no
religion. Public worship is deserted, not because the people have
devised any new heresy of their own as to the manner in which man
should approach God, but because they have ceased to trouble
themselves about the matter at all. Lutheranism is dead and gone; but
nothing has been substituted for it. The intelligent Protestant writer
was surprised to find a population thus wholly without religion
orderly and well-behaved, hard-working, and by no means forgetful of
social duties. The phenomenon is, no doubt, remarkable; but it is by
no means without example. Many parishes (we fear considerable
districts) in France are substantially in the same state. The
peasantry are sober, industrious, and orderly to a degree unknown in
England. They reap the temporal fruits of these good qualities in a
general prosperity equally unknown here. They are saving to a degree
almost incredible, so that it is a matter of ordinary experience that
a peasant who began life with nothing except his bodily strength,
leaves behind him several hundreds, not unfrequently some thousands,
of pounds sterling. But in this same district whole villages are so
absolutely without religion, that, although there is not one person
for many miles who calls himself a Protestant, the churches are almost
absolutely deserted, and the _curés_ (generally good and zealous men)
are reduced almost to inactivity by absolute despair. Some give
themselves up to prayer, seeing nothing else that they can do; some
will say that they are not wholly without encouragement, because,
after fifteen or twenty years of labor, they have succeeded in
bringing four or five persons to seek the benefit of the sacraments
out of a population of as many hundreds, among whom when they came
there was not one such person to be found.  [Footnote 52]

  [Footnote 52: It should be observed that the morality said to exist
  in those parts of France which have so nearly lost the faith is not
  Catholic morality: in fact, the population in those districts is
  decreasing, and that (it is universally admitted) from immorality.
  It should also be remember that there is a most marked contrast
  between these districts and those Lutheran districts of which the
  _Times_ spoke: In the latter, Lutheranism has died out of itself. In
  the worst districts of France, the Catholic religion has not died
  out, but has been displaced by a systematic infidel education
  inflicted on the people by a godless government. Lastly, even where
  things are the worst, there are a few in each generation who, in the
  midst of a godless population, turn out saints, really worthy of
  that name. It is seldom that a mission is preached in any village
  without some such being rescued from the corrupt mass around them.
  Nothing, in fact, can more strongly mark the contrast between the
  Catholic religion and Lutheranism. The subject is far too large to
  be discussed here, but we have suggested these considerations to
  avoid misconceptions of our meaning.]

Appalling as is this state of things, the natural virtues (such as
they are) of populations which have thus lost faith are themselves the
remains of Christianity. History gives us no trace of any people in
such a state except those who have once been Christians. For instance,
in all others, however civilized, slavery has been established both by
law and practice; no one of them has been without divorce; infanticide
has been allowed and practised. Nowhere has the unity of man's nature
been acknowledged, and, what follows from that, the duties owing to
him as man, not merely as fellow countryman. And hence, nowhere has
there existed what we call the law of nations, a rule which limits the
conduct of men, not only toward those of other nations, but, what is
much more, toward those with whom they are in a state of war, or whom
they have conquered. In the most civilized times of ancient Greece and
Rome no rights were recognized in such foreigners. All these things
are the legitimate progeny of Christianity, and of Christianity alone,
although they are now accepted as natural principles by nations by
whom, but for the gospel of Christ, they would never have been heard
of.

{364}

We have enlarged upon this point because, not only in what he says of
Gibbon, but in many parts of his subsequent chapters, Mr. Allies
attributes to the influence of Christianity things which a superficial
observer may attribute rather to some general progress in the world
toward a higher civilization. We shall see instances of this as we
proceed. We are satisfied that the objection is utterly unfounded. We
see no reason to believe that without Christianity any higher or
better civilization than that of Rome under Augustus and Athens under
Pericles would ever have been attained. That those who lived under
that state, so far from expecting any "progress," believed that the
world was getting worse and worse, and that there remained no hope of
improvement, nor any principles from which it could possibly arise, is
most certain. Nor do we believe that those who thus judged of the
natural tendency of the world were mistaken, although by a stupendous
interference of the Creator with the course of nature an improvement
actually took place.

The philosophy of history then sifts and arranges the facts which it
records, and judges of them by fixed and eternal principles of right
and wrong; drawing from the past lessons of wisdom and virtue for the
future. It will approach nearer and nearer to perfection as the range
of facts investigated becomes wider, and as the principles by which
they are judged are more absolutely true, and applied more correctly,
more practically, and more universally. Hence, it would never have
existed without Christianity, and although in Christian nations it is
found in men partially or wholly unworthy of the Christian name, but
who retain many ideas and principles derived from Christianity alone,
yet even in them it is exercised imperfectly in proportion as they are
less and less Christian.

Mr. Allies thus compares Tacitus and St. Augustine:

  "The atmosphere of Tacitus and the lurid glare of his Rome compared
  with St. Augustine's world are like the shades in which Achilles
  deplored the loss of life contrasted with a landscape bathed in the
  morning light of a southern sun. Yet how much more of material
  misery was there in the time of St. Augustine than in the time of
  Tacitus! In spite of the excesses in which the emperors might
  indulge within the walls of their palace or of Rome, the fair fabric
  of civilization filled the whole Roman world, the great empire was
  in peace, and its multitude of nations were brethren. Countries
  which now form great kingdoms of themselves, were then tranquil
  members of one body politic. Men could travel the coasts of Italy,
  Gaul, Spain, Africa, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, round to Italy
  again, and find a rich smiling land covered by prosperous cities,
  enjoying the same laws and institutions, and possessed in peace by
  its children. In St. Augustine's time all had been changed; on many
  of these coasts a ruthless, uncivilized, unbelieving, or
  misbelieving enemy had descended. Through the whole empire there was
  a feeling of insecurity, a cry of helplessness, and a trembling at
  what was to come. Yet in the pages of the two writers the contrast
  is in the inverse ratio. In the pagan, everything seems borne on by
  an iron fate, which tramples upon the free will of man, and
  overwhelms the virtuous before the wicked. In the Christian, order
  shines in the midst of destruction, and mercy dispenses the severest
  humiliations. It was the symbol of the coming age. And so that great
  picture of the doctor, saint, and philosopher laid hold of the minds
  of men during those centuries of violence which followed, and in
  which peace and justice, so far from embracing each other, seemed to
  have deserted the earth. And in modern times a great genius has
  seized upon it, and developed it in the discourse on universal
  history. Bossuet is worthy to receive the torch from St. Augustine.
  Scarcely could a more majestic voice, or a more {365} philosophic
  spirit, set forth the double succession of empire and of religion,
  or exhibit the tissue wrought by Divine Providence, human free will,
  and the permitted power of evil."

After this estimate of St. Augustine, he speaks of

  "A living author--at once statesman, orator, philosopher, and
  historian of the higest rank--who has given us, on a less extensive
  scale, a philosophy of history in its most finished and amiable
  form. The very attempt on the part of M. Guizot to draw out a
  picture of civilization during fourteen hundred years, and to
  depict, amongst that immense and ever-changing period, the course of
  society in so many countries, indicates no ordinary power; and the
  partial fulfilment of the design may be said to have elevated the
  philosophy of history into a science. In this work may be found the
  moat important rules of the science accurately stated; but the work
  itself is the best example of philosophic method and artistic
  execution, united to illustrate a complex subject. A careful study
  of original authorities, a patient induction of facts, a cautious
  generalization, the philosophic eye to detect analogies, the
  painter's power to group results, and, above all, a unity of
  conception which no multiplicity of details can embarrass; these are
  some of the main qualifications for a philosophy of history which I
  should deduce from these works. Yet, while the action of Providence
  and that of human free will are carefully and beautifully brought
  out, while both may be said to be points of predilection with the
  author, he has not alluded, so far as I am aware, to the great evil
  spirit and his personal operation. Strong as he is, he has been
  apparently too weak to bear the scoff of modern infidelity--"he
  believes in the devil"--unless, indeed, the cause of this lies
  deeper, and belongs to his philosophy; for if there be one subject
  out of which eclecticism can pick nothing to its taste, it would be
  the permitted operation of the great fallen spirit. Nor will the
  warmest admiration of his genius be mistaken for a concurrence in
  all his judgments. I presume not to say how far such an author is
  sometimes, in spite of himself, unjust, from the point of view at
  which he draws his picture. Whether, and how far, he be an eclectic
  philosopher, let others decide. It would be grievous to feel it true
  of such a mind; for it is the original sin of that philosophy to
  make the universe rotate round itself. Great is its complacency in
  its own conclusions, but there runs through them one mistake--to
  fancy itself in the place of God" (p. 31).

Those who have ever made the attempt to analyze in a few lines the
genius of a great writer will best be able to estimate the combination
of keen intellect, patient thought, and scrupulous candor in this
criticism. We must not deny ourselves one more quotation:

  "St. Augustine, Bossuet, Guizot, Balmez, Schlegel: I have taken
  these names not to exhaust but to illustrate the subject. Here we
  have the ancient and the modern society, Africa and France, Spain
  and Germany, and the Christian mind in each, thrown upon the facts
  of history. They point out, I think, sufficiently a common result.
  But amid the founders of a new science, who shall represent our own
  country? Can I hesitate, or can I venture, in this place and company
  [_i.e._, before the Catholic University of Dublin, in the chair of
  which this lecture was delivered], to mention the hand which has
  directed the scattered rays of light from so many sources on the
  wild children of Central Asia, and produced the Turk before us in
  his untameable ferocity--the outcast of the human race, before whom
  earth herself ceases to be a mother--by whom man's blood has ever
  been shed like water, woman's honor counted as the vilest of things,
  nature's most sacred laws publicly and avowedly outraged,--has
  produced him before us for the abhorrence of mankind, the infamy of
  nations? To sketch the intrinsic {366} character of barbarism and
  civilization, and out of common historical details, travel, and
  observation to show the ineffaceable stamp of race and tribe,
  reproducing itself through the long series of ages, surely expresses
  the idea which we mean by the philosophy of history" (p. 38).

We have given a disproportionate space to this inaugural lecture, both
for its intrinsic importance and because it gives a shadow of the
whole plan of Mr. Allies's work, both that part which lies before us
and that which remains to be published; for the volume before us is
"only a portion, perhaps about a fourth, of the author's design." In
the six lectures which it contains, he gives us an estimate, first, of
the physical and political condition of the Roman empire in its palmy
days; then, of the force by which it pleased God to constitute the new
creation in the midst of it. In the last four lectures he compares the
vital principles of these two vast social organizations--the heathen
and the Christian--first in a representative man of each class, then
in the effects produced upon society at large by the influence of
each; then in the primary relation of man to woman in marriage; and,
lastly, in the virginal state; although under this last head there can
hardly be said to be a comparison, as heathen society has simply
nothing to set against that wonderful creation of Christianity--holy
virginity.

We know not where we have met any painting of the Roman empire so
striking as that contained in the first lecture. Of the multitude of
Englishmen who read more or less of the classical Latin authors, a
very small proportion have ever paid any attention to the Roman
empire, as it is displayed by Tacitus and Juvenal. This is the natural
result of the grace and eloquence of Livy and Cicero, much rather than
of any strong preference for republican institutions. Indeed it is
impossible not to be struck with the vast influence which Roman
republicanism exercises in France compared with England. Nor is it
difficult to account for this. France, except to a limited degree
under the monarchy of July, has never enjoyed constitutional liberty.
The Frenchman, therefore, who dreams of liberty at all, places his
dreamland in a Roman republic. Boys who in England would rant about
John Hampden are found in France ranting about Junius Brutus. For what
the Englishman means when he talks about liberty is "English liberty;"
the Frenchman means the Roman republic. So much has this been the
case, that even in America the war of independence began, not in any
aspiration after a republic, but for the rights of English subjects.
The sword had been drawn for a year before the colonies claimed
independence, and very shortly before Washington had declared that
"there was no thought of separation, only of English liberty." What
proves that these were not mere words was, that even after
independence had been achieved, the leaders, who met in congress,
agreed almost to a man in expressing their preference for "an English
constitution," if circumstances had placed it within their reach. All
the world knows that France became a republic chiefly because Rome in
her palmy days had been so called; nay, to this hour all the terms
adopted by the revolutionary party have been borrowed from classical
times. Such was the term "citizen," so appropriate to a people whose
boast was that they were free of a city which had conquered the world,
so absurd as denoting the members of a great nation in which not even
centuries of extreme centralization have prevented political rights
from being exercised by each man in his own province. Such, again, was
that inundation of pagan names which the revolutionary times
substituted for those of the saints, and which are still
characteristic of France--Camille, Emile, Antonine, and even Brute and
Timoleon. This we take to be one great reason why many sensible {367}
persons in France are so greatly afraid of classical studies in
schools and colleges. They say that they turn the heads of boys,
especially French boys. It is highly characteristic of the man, that
the officers of the House of Commons, who made forcible entry into the
house of Sir Francis Burdett when he was committed by order of the
House, found him reading with his little son, not Plutarch's life of
Brutus or Cato, as would assuredly have been the case with a
Frenchman, but "Magna Charta." He was not less theatrical, but he was
a thoroughly English actor.

And yet we strongly suspect that out of a hundred boys who leave a
classical school more than ninety believe that Roman history ends with
Augustus. The university no doubt, gives a somewhat more extended
view. But even there Tacitus is usually about the limit. We wonder how
far this feeling was carried before Gibbon published the "Decline and
Fall."

Hence we especially value the wonderful picture of the empire painted
by our author.

It was in fact a federation of civilized states under an absolute
monarch; the municipal liberties were left so entire that Niebuhr
mentions Italian cities, in the immediate neighborhood of Rome itself,
which retained all through the times of the empire and the middle
ages, down to the wars of the French revolution, the same municipal
institutions under which Rome had found them. They were swept away by
that faithful lover of despotism, Napoleon I., to make way for the
uniform system of a _préfet_ and _souspréfet_ in each district. It is
more important to bear this in mind because, as the revolutionists
aped the manners and names of the Roman republic without understanding
them, the imperialists of France are apt to assume that they
faithfully represent the Roman empire. Now the one striking
characteristic of the French empire is that it raises yearly 100,000
military conscripts, beside the naval conscription, the police, and
the very firemen, all of whom are carefully drilled as soldiers. How
was it under Augustus?

"It is hard to conceive adequately what a spectator called 'the
immense majesty of the Roman peace' (Pliny, 'Nat. Hist,' xxvii. 1).
Where now in Europe, impatient and uneasy, a group of half-friendly
nations jealously watches each other's progress and power, and the
acquisition of a province threatens a general war, Rome maintained,
from generation to generation, in tranquil sway, an empire of which
Gaul, Spain, Britain, and North Africa, Switzerland, and the greater
part of Austria, Turkey in Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt formed
but single limbs, members of her mighty body. Her roads, which spread
like a network over this immense territory, from their common centre,
the golden milestone of the Forum, under the palace of her emperors,
did but express the unity of that spirit with which she ruled the
earth her subject, levelling the mountains and filling up the valleys
for the march of her armies, the caravans of her merchandise, and the
even sweep of her legislation. A moderate fleet of 6,000 sailors at
Misenum, and another at Ravenna, a flotilla at Forum Julii, and
another in the Black sea, of half that force, preserved the whole
Mediterranean from piracy; and every nation bordering on its shores
could freely interchange the productions of their industry. Two
smaller armaments of twenty-four vessels each on the Rhine and the
Danube secured the empire from northern incursion. In the time of
Tiberius a force of twenty-five legions and fourteen cohorts, making
171,500 men, with about an equal number of auxiliary troops, that is,
in all, an army of 340,000, sufficed, not so much to preserve internal
order, which rested upon other and surer ground, but to guard the
frontiers of a vast population, amounting, as is calculated, {368} to
120,000,000, and inhabiting the very fairest regions of the earth, of
which the great Mediterranean sea was a sort of central and domestic
lake. But this army itself, thus moderate in number, was not, as a
rule, stationed in cities, but in fixed quarters on the frontiers, as
a guard against external foes. Thus, for instance, the whole interior
of Gaul possessed a garrison of but 1,200 men--that Gaul which, in the
year 1860, in a time of peace, thought necessary for internal
tranquillity and external rank and security to have 626,000 men in
arms.  [Footnote 53] Again, Asia Minor had no military force; that
most beautiful region of the earth teemed with princely cities,
enjoying the civilization of a thousand years, and all the treasures
of art and industry, in undisturbed repose. And within its
unquestioned boundaries, the spirit, moreover, of Roman rule was far
other than that of a military despotism, or of a bureaucracy and a
police pressing with ever watchful suspicion on every spring of civil
life. The principle of its government was not that no population could
be faithful which was not kept in leading-strings, but rather to leave
cities and corporations to manage their own affairs themselves. Thus
its march was firm and strong, but for this very reason devoid alike
of fickleness and haste."

  [Footnote 53: Surely the author should have added the Belgian army
  (fixed by the laws of 1853 at 100,000), and that part of the
  Prussian, etc., which is raised west of the Rhine, in comparing the
  military force of ancient Gaul with that of the same district in our day.]

It might have been added, that, as a general rule, the army which
guarded each portion was composed of the natives of the country in
which they were stationed. Roman citizens they were, no doubt, but
citizens of provincial extraction, and posted to guard on behalf of
Rome the very country which their fathers, sometimes but a very few
generations back, had defended against her.  [Footnote 54] This is a
policy the generosity of which France dares not at this day imitate,
even in her oldest provinces. To say nothing of the British army in
Ireland, the Breton conscripts are still sent to serve at Lyons and
Paris.

  [Footnote 54: Champagny, Rome, and Judea.]

The extracts we have given will doubtless lead every reader to study
for himself Mr. Allies's descriptions of Rome, and the life of the
Thermae, and of the colonies, everywhere reproducing the life of Rome.
Every page breathes with the matured thought of a mind of remarkable
natural acuteness, and stored with refined scholarship. There is
nothing of beauty or majesty in that magnificent old world which he
does not seem to have witnessed and mused over.

It is hardly possible to realize all this greatness without being
tempted to repine in the remembrance whither it was all
hastening--that the peace of the Roman world was but "the torrent's
smoothness ere it dash below;" its magnificence only the feast of
Baltassar in that last night of the splendor of Babylon, when the
Medes and Persians were already under her walls, and the river had
been turned away from its course through her quays, and a way left
open for the rush of the destroyer into her streets and palaces.
Already the mysterious impulse had been given which, during so many
centuries, drove down horde after horde of barbarians from the wild
north-east, to overflow the favored lands that surrounded the
Mediterranean. In the early days of Roman history the Gauls had rushed
on, sweeping away those earlier races whose remains we are now
exploring in the shallows of the Swiss lakes, and whose descendants
are probably to be found in the Basques, and in some of those degraded
castes which, in spite of the welding power of the Church, left
proscribed remnants in France and elsewhere until the great
revolution. That mighty wave burst upon the rock of the Capitol,
threatened for a moment utterly to overwhelmed it, and then fell
broken at its feet. But it is not by repelling one wave, however
formidable, that a rising tide is turned back. In the day of Rome's
{369} utmost power her very foundations were shaken by the torrent of
the Cimbri and Teutones. They, too, were broken against the steel-clad
legions of Marius, and fell off like spray on the earth. But the tide
was still advancing. What need to trace its successive inroads? Every
reader of Gibbon remembers how the time came at last when the very
site where Rome had stood had been so often swept by it, that of all
its greatness there remained nothing more than the sea leaves of some
castle of shingles and sand, after a few waves have passed over it.

  "Quench'd is the golden statue's ray;
  The breath of heaven hath swept away
  What toiling earth hath piled;
  Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
  As breezes strew on ocean's strand
  The fabrics of a child!"

There even came a time when for many weeks the very ruins of ancient
Rome were absolutely deserted, and trodden neither by man nor beast.
No wonder that the world stood by afar off weeping and mourning over
the utter destruction of all that the earth had ever known of
greatness and glory. So the sentence had been passed, in the day of
her greatest glory, by the prophetic voice of the angel, who cried
with a strong voice:

  "Fallen--fallen, is Babylon the great, and is become the habitation
  of devils and the hold of every unclean spirit, and of every unclean
  and hateful bird. And the kings of the earth shall weep and bewail
  themselves over her, when they shall see the smoke of the burning;
  standing afar off for fear of her torments, saying, Alas! alas! that
  great city Babylon, that mighty city; for in one hour is thy
  judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn
  over her, and shall stand afar off from her for fear of her
  torments, weeping and mourning, and saying, Alas! alas! that great
  city which was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and
  was gilt with gold and precious stones and pearls. For in one hour
  are so great riches come to nought." (Apocalypse, chap, xviii.)

It was not the ruin of one city, however glorious, but the sweeping
away of all the accumulated glories of the civilization of the whole
civilized world, during more than a thousand years. All had been
embodied in imperial Rome. In the words of our author--

  "The empire of Augustus inherited the whole civilization of the
  ancient world. Whatever political or social knowledge, whatever
  moral or intellectual truth, whatever useful or elegant arts, 'the
  enterprising race of Japhet' had acquired, preserved, and
  accumulated in the long course of centuries since the beginning of
  history had descended without a break to Rome, with the dominion of
  all the countries washed by the Mediterranean. For her the wisdom of
  Egypt and of all the East had been stored up. For her Pythagoras and
  Thales, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and all the schools beside
  of Grecian philosophy suggested by these names, had thought. For her
  Zoreaster, as well as Solon and Lycurgus, legislated. For her
  Alexander conquered, the races which he subdued forming but a
  portion of her empire. Every city, in the ears of whose youth the
  poems of Homer were familiar as household words, owned her sway. The
  magistrates, from the Northern sea to the confines of Arabia, issued
  their decrees in the language of empire--the Latin tongue; while, as
  men of letters, they spoke and wrote in Greek. For her Carthage had
  risen, founded colonies, discovered distant coasts, set up a
  world-wide trade, and then fallen, leaving her the empire of Africa
  and the west, with the lessons of a long experience. Not only so,
  but likewise Spain, Gaul, and all the frontier provinces, from the
  Alps to the mouth of the Danube, spent in her service their strength
  and skill; supplied her armies with their bravest youths; gave to
  her senate and her knights their choicest minds. The vigor of {370}
  new and the culture of long-polished races were alike employed in
  the vast fabric of her power. Every science and art, all human
  experience and discovery, had poured their treasure in one stream
  into the bosom of that society, which, after forty-four years of
  undisputed rule, Augustus had consolidated into a new system of
  government, and bequeathed to the charge of Tiberius" (p. 41).

No wonder the ancient world had assured itself that, as nothing
greater, nothing wiser, nothing more glorious than Rome could ever
arise upon earth, so its greatness, wisdom, and glory could never be
superseded. It was "the eternal city." It was "for ever to give laws
to the world." The contemporary poets could imagine no stronger
expression of an eternity, than that of a duration while Rome itself
should last. Yet was it at that very time that the eyes of a fisherman
of the lake of Tiberias were opened to see the angel "coming down from
heaven with power and great glory," from whose mighty cry over the
fall of Babylon we have already quoted some words. No wonder when the
time came that his prophecy was fulfilled, the world stood by weeping
and mourning, not over the fall of a single city (such as Scipio
Africanus had forecast as he watched the smoke of old Carthage rising
up to heaven), but over the ruin of the civilization of the whole
world. No wonder that, even in our own age, those whose hearts have so
far sunk back to the level of heathenism as to value only material
prosperity and worldly greatness, still re-echo the cry--

  "Alas! the eternal city, and alas!
  The trebly hundred triumphs, and the day
  When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
  The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away.
  Alas! for earth, for never shall we see
  That brightness in her eye she wore when
       Rome was free."

But the voice of divine wisdom was far different: "Rejoice over her,
thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath judged
your judgment upon her. And a mighty angel took up a stone, as it were
a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, 'With such
violence as this shall Babylon, that great city, be thrown down, and
shall be found no more at all; and the voice of harpers, and of
musicians, and of them that play on the pipe and on the trumpet, shall
no more be heard at all in thee; and no craftsman, of any art
whatsoever, shall be found any more at all in thee; and the sound of
the mill shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of the
lamp shall shine no more in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and
the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants
were the great men of the earth, for all nations have been deceived by
thine enchantments.' And in her was found the blood of prophets, and
of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth."

Thus total, according to the prophecy, was to be the destruction of
the wealth, civilization, greatness, and glory of the ancient heathen
world, gathered together in Rome, that in the utter sweeping away of
that one city all might perish together. How fully the words were
accomplished we know by the lamentation of the whole world over
Babylon, the echoes of which still ring in our ears. But to us
Christians it rather belongs to weigh the words which follow without
any break in the sacred text (although the division of the chapters
leads many readers to overlook the close connection). "After these
things I heard, as it were, the voice of much people in heaven,
saying, 'Alleluia. Salvation, and glory, and power is to our God. For
just and true are his judgments, who hath judged the great harlot
which corrupted the earth with her fornications, and he hath avenged
the blood of his servants at her hands.' And again they said,
'Alleluia. And her smoke ascendeth for ever and ever.'" Here is the
answer to that cry of the angel, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and
ye apostles and prophets."

{371}

Were any comment needed upon such prophecies--any explanation of the
sentence passed upon a civilization so great, so ancient, so widely
extended, and so refined--anything to reconcile us to the utter
destruction of so much that was fair and mighty, we may find it in the
latter half of the lecture before us. Not that our author is
insensible to the marvellous beauty of that glow with which classical
literature causes the figures of those days to shine before us. That
would be impossible for a man of his studies. He says:

  "Is not the very language of Cicero and Virgil an expression of this
  lordly, yet peaceful rule; this even, undisturbed majesty, which
  holds the world together like the regularity of the seasons, like
  the alternations of light and darkness, like the all-pervading
  warmth of the sun? If every language reflects the character of the
  race which speaks it, surely we discern in the very strain of Virgil
  the closing of the gates of war, the settling of the nations down to
  the arts of peace, the reign of law and order, the amity and concord
  of races, the weak protected, the strong ruled: in a word,

  'Romanos rerum dominos,
  gentemque togatam.'"

Neither, need it hardly be said, has he set the hideous pollutions of
that civilization fully before us: that is rendered impossible by its
very hideousness. Let those who recoil from the horrors of what he has
said--but a faint outline of the miserable truth, though traced with
singular artistic form and beauty--bear in mind the while the words of
the inspired prophecy, "All nations have drunk of the wine of her
fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication
with her"--"Her sins have reached unto heaven, and the Lord shall
reward her iniquities"--"In her was found the blood of prophets, and
saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." The crimes, as
well as the civilization of a thousand years, were accumulated at
Rome, and both were swept away together by that overwhelming flood of
fierce barbarians. Little were it worthy of Christians to mourn over a
civilization into whose very heart-strings such unutterable pollution
was intertwined; especially as it was removed, not like Babylon of
old, to leave behind it nothing but desolation, but to make room for
that kingdom of God which was to be enthroned upon its ruins; for such
was the purpose of God, that the very centre of Christendom, the very
seat of the throne of Christ upon earth, on which he would visibly sit
in the person of his Vicar, was there to be established, whence the
throne of the Caesars and the golden house of Nero had been swept away
in headlong ruin. "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first
heaven and the first earth was gone. And I heard a great voice from
the throne saying, 'Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will
dwell with them. And they shall be his people, and God himself shall
be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'"
"And he that sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'"
The full accomplishment of these words we expect, in faith and hope,
when "death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow
shall be any more; for the former things are passed away;" yet,
surely, whatever more glorious accomplishment is yet to come, it were
blindness not to see how far they are already fulfilled in the
substitution of Christendom for the civilized pagan world, the setting
up the throne of the Vicar of Christ upon the ruins of the palace of
the Caesars.

First among the causes of that hideous accumulated mixture of blood
and filth in which heathen civilization was drowned, Mr. Allies most
justly places the institution of slavery as it was at Rome, because by
this the springs of human life were tainted. It is certain that during
all the long years of the duration of the Roman {372} empire, there
was among its heathen population no one human being, who lived beyond
the earliest childhood, who was not polluted, and whose very soul was
not scarred and branded, by the marks of that hideous moral
pestilence. We say "its heathen population," because great as must
have been the evil it wrought upon ordinary Christians, we doubt not
that there were those who gathered honey out of corruption, and whose
justice, charity, and purity came out from that furnace of temptation
with a brightness which nothing but the most fiery trial could have
given to them. From slavery the whole of Roman society received its
form. Our author most truly says, "The spirit of slavery is never
limited to the slave; it saturates the atmosphere which the freeman
breathes together with the slave; passes into his nature, and corrupts
it." This miserable truth can never be too often impressed upon men,
because, unhappily, there are still advocates of slavery who think
that they apologize for it if they can prove, as they think, that the
slave is happy. As well might they argue that the introduction of the
plague into London would be no calamity, if the man who brought it in
upon him entered the city dancing and shouting. In ancient Italy
slaves replaced the hardy rustics, that "_prisca gens mortalium_" who,
though doubtless far less virtuous than they appeared in the fevered
dreams of men sick of the vices of Rome in the last days of the
republic, were still among the best specimens of heathen life.
Wherever slavery extends, labor becomes dishonorable as the badge of
servitude, a few masters languish in bloated luxury, but the nation
itself grows constantly poorer, as an ever-increasing proportion of
its population has to be maintained in indolence. At Rome slaves were
the only domestic servants, and after a time the only manufacturers.
And yet even this is nothing compared to the evils of a state of
society in which the great majority of women as well as of men are the
absolute property of their masters. Horrible as was this state of
things, it offered so many gratifications to the corrupt natures of
those whose hands held the power of the world, and without whose
consent it could not be abolished, that it would have seemed to any
one who had ever witnessed the life of a wealthy Roman noble no less
than madness to imagine that any man would ever willingly surrender
them.

As a matter of fact, so far was this state of society from holding out
any hope of its own amendment, whether sudden or gradual, that, as our
author remarks--

  "Of all the minds which have left a record of themselves, from
  Cicero to Tacitus, there is not one who does not look upon the
  world's course as a rapid descent. They feel an immense moral
  corruption breaking in on all sides, which wealth, convenience of
  life, and prosperity only enhance. They have no hope for humanity,
  for they have no faith in it, nor in any power encompassing and
  directing it."

Faithless and hopeless they were; but whatever this world could give
they had in abundance:

  "In the time of heathenism the world of sense which surrounded man
  flattered and caressed all his natural powers, and solicited an
  answer from them; and in return he flung himself greedily upon that
  world, and tried to exhaust its treasures. Glory, wealth, and
  pleasure intoxicated his heart with their dreams; he crowned himself
  with the earth's flowers, and drank in the air's perfume; and in one
  object or another, in one after another, he sought enjoyment and
  satisfaction. The world had nothing more to give him; nor will the
  latest growth of civilization surpass the profusion with which the
  earth poured forth its gifts to those who consented to seek on the
  earth alone their home and their reward; though, indeed, they were
  the few, to whom the many were sacrificed. The Roman noble, with the
  pleasures of a vanquished world at his feet, {373} with men and
  women from the fairest climes of the earth to do his bidding--men
  who, though slaves, had learnt all the arts and letters of Greece,
  and were ready to use them for the benefit of their lords; and
  women, the most beautiful and accomplished of their sex, who were
  yet the property of these same lords--the Roman noble, as to
  material and even intellectual enjoyment, stood on a vantage-ground
  which never again man can hope to occupy, however--

    'Through the ages an increasing purpose runs,
    And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.'

  "Caesar and Pompey, Lucullus and Hortensius, and the fellows of
  their order, were orators, statesmen, jurists, and legislators,
  generals, men of literature, and luxurious nobles at the same time;
  and they were this because they could use the minds as well as the
  bodies of others at their pleasure. Not in this direction was an
  advance possible" (p. 159).

Our author draws with great skill and vigor a picture of the moral
society of the heathen world, and of the beliefs upon which the
practice of the heathen rested. Into these we have no room to follow
him. At the end of this lecture he shows what sights they were which
met the eyes of a stranger coming from the east in the days of
Nero--an execution in which four hundred men, women, and children were
marched through the streets of Rome to the cross, because their master
had been killed by one of his slaves. In all such cases the Roman law
required that every slave in the house, however innocent, however
young or however old--man, woman, or child--should be put to death.
Thence the stranger passed to a scene of debauchery such as the world
has never imagined, in the gardens close to the Pantheon. This
stranger--

  "Why has he come to Rome, and what is he doing there? Poor, unknown,
  a foreigner in dress, language, and demeanor, he is come from a
  distant province, small in extent, but the most despised and the
  most disliked of Rome's hundred provinces, to found in Rome itself a
  society, and one, too, far more extensive than this great Roman
  empire, since it is to embrace all nations; far more lasting, since
  it is to endure for ever. He is come to found a society, by means of
  which all that he sees around him, from the emperor to the slave,
  shall be changed" (p. 101).

What madness can have inspired such a hope, or what miracle, real or
simulated, could fulfil it? And that, not in the golden age of
pastoral simplicity, in which men looked for wonders with an
uncritical eye, but "amid the dregs of Romulus," when all the world
seemed to have fallen together into the "sere and yellow leaf."

"He has two things within him, for want of which society was perishing
and man unhappy: a certain knowledge of God as the Creator, Ruler,
Judge, and Rewarder of men; and of man's soul made after the image and
likeness of this God. This God he has seen, touched, and handled upon
earth; has been an eye-witness of his majesty, has received his
message, and bears his commission. But whence had this despised
foreigner received the double knowledge of God and of the soul, so
miserably lost (as we have seen) to this brilliant Roman civilization?

"In the latter years of Augustus, when the foundations of the imperial
rule had been laid, and the structure mainly raised by his practical
wisdom, there had dwelt a poor family in a small town of evil repute,
not far from the lake of the remote province where this fisherman
plied his trade. It consisted of an elderly man, a youthful wife, and
one young child. The man gained his livelihood as a carpenter, and the
child worked with him. Complete obscurity rested upon this household
till the child grew to the age of thirty years" (p. 104).

Then follows in few words the history of his life, death, and
resurrection. These things the fisherman had {374} seen, and in this
was the power which was to substitute a new life for the corrupt
civilization of a world.

The details of the comparison which follows we may leave to be
considered when the work is continued. They are drawn out with great
spirit, thoughtfulness, and artistic beauty. For the comparison of the
two systems in an individual, Mr. Allies selects on the one side
Cicero, on the other St. Augustine. An able reviewer has maintained
that "Marcus Aurelius was the person to compare with St Augustine."
Mr. Allies has given his reasons for not selecting either Marcus
Aurelius or Epictetus in the defective religious system of both. There
were, however, other grounds which seem to us even stronger. To test
what heathenism can do, it was necessary that the example selected
should, as a chemist would say, present not "a trace" of any other
influence. Now this was impossible in the days of Epictetus or
Aurelius. Christianity had then been taught and professed publicly and
without restraint for many years, with only occasional bursts of
persecution since Nero first declared war upon it. Its theology,
indeed, was fully known only to the faithful, but its moral code was
publicly professed. The Christian teachers came before the people as
philosophers. It is absolutely certain that all the great Stoics, and
especially the emperor, must often and often have heard of the great
moral and religious principles laid down by the Christian teachers,
however imperfect was his knowledge of their religious practices. But
we have already had occasion to remark that men are driven, whether
they will or no, to approve and admit these great principles when they
are only publicly stated and maintained, although certain not to have
discovered them by their unassisted reason. We cannot, therefore, but
regard the religious and moral maxims of the later Stoics as an
imperfect reflection of the full light of Christianity, like the
moonlight illuminating without warming, but still taking such hold of
the minds which have once embraced them, that they could never be
forgotten. The life and practice of the imperial philosopher, we have
every reason to believe, was, for a man without the faith and the
sacraments, wonderfully high. Far be it from us to depreciate it, for
whatever there was in it that was really good we know resulted from
that grace which is given even beyond the bounds of the Church. But
our knowledge of details is most meagre, while Cicero we know probably
more familiarly than any great man in whose intimacy we hare not
lived. The thoughts and speculations which approved themselves to the
deliberate judgment of Marcus Aurelius, these we know, and in many
respects they are wonderful. Of his life we know little more than he
chose publicly to exhibit to his subjects. The failings of Cicero were
petty and degrading; but if he had been firmly seated on the throne of
the Caesars, and if we had possessed no more exact details of his life
than we do of the life of Marcus Aurelius, we much doubt whether we
should have been aware of them. Merivale says: "The high standard by
which we claim to judge him is in itself the fullest acknowledgment of
his transcendent merits; for, undoubtedly, had he not placed himself
on a higher level than the statesmen and sages of his day, we should
pass over many of his weaknesses in silence, and allow his pretensions
to our regard to pass almost unchallenged. But we demand a nearer
approach to the perfection of human wisdom and virtue in one who
sought to approve himself as the greatest of their teachers." He was
condemned indeed by his heathen countrymen, but their censure was
rather of his greatness than his goodness, and they would probably
have been even more severe had he attained what he did not even aim at
--Christian humility.

Considering these things, and especially that Cicero belonged almost
to {375} the last generation, which was wholly uninfluenced by the
reflected light of Christianity and in which, therefore, we can to a
considerable degree measure the real effects of heathen philosophy, we
venture to think that Mr. Allies has judged well in comparing him as
the model heathen with St. Augustine as the model Christian. The
comparison is drawn with a masterly hand.

On the whole, however, we incline to think that the two last lectures
are of the greatest practical value, especially at the present crisis.
The salt by which Christianity acts upon the world seems to be
martyrdom and holy virginity. Both of them have been always in
operation since the days of John the Baptist. But there are periods of
comparative stillness in which martyrdom is hardly seen, or at least
only at the outposts of the Christian host. At such times, it is by
holy virginity that the Church acts most directly and most powerfully
upon the world. This was the case in the Roman empire as soon as
persecution relaxed.

Our author says:

  "A great Christian writer [St. Chrysostom], who stood between the
  old pagan world and the new society which was taking its place, and
  who was equally familiar with both, made, near the end of the fourth
  century, the following observation: 'The Greeks had some few men,
  though it was but few, among them, who, by the force of philosophy,
  came to despise riches; and some, too, who could control the
  irascible part of man; but the flower of virginity was nowhere to be
  found among them. Here they always gave precedence to us, confessing
  that to succeed in such a thing was to be superior to nature and
  more than man. Hence their profound admiration for the whole
  Christian people. The Christian host derived its chief lustre from
  this portion of its ranks.' And, again, he notes the existence, in
  his time, of three different sentiments respecting this institution.
  'The Jews,' he says, 'turn with abhorrence from the beauty of
  virginity; which indeed is no wonder, since they treated with
  dishonor the very Son of the Virgin himself. The Greeks, however,
  admire it, and look up to it with astonishment, but the Church of
  God alone cultivates it.' After fifteen hundred years we find the
  said sentiments in three great classes of the world. The pagan
  nations, among whom Catholic missionaries go forth, reproduce the
  admiration of Greek and Latin pagans; they reverence that which they
  have not strength to follow, and are often drawn by its exhibition
  into the fold. But there are nations who likewise reproduce the
  Jewish abhorrence of the virginal life. And as the Jews worshipped
  the unity of the Godhead, like the Christians, and so seemed to be
  far nearer to them than pagan idolaters, and yet turned with
  loathing from this product of Christian life, so those nations might
  seem, from the large portions of Christian doctrine which they still
  hold, to be nearer to Christianity than the Hindoo and the Chinese;
  and yet their contempt and dislike for the virginal life and its
  wonderful institutions seems to tell another tale. But now, as
  fifteen hundred years ago, whether those outside admire or abhor,
  the Church alone cultivates the virginal life. Now, as then, it is
  her glory and her strength, the mark of her Lord, and the standard
  of his power, the most _special_ sign of his presence and operation.
  'If,' says the same writer, 'you take away its seemliness and its
  continuity of devotion, you cut the very sinews of the virginal
  estate; so when it is possessed together with the best conduct of
  life, you have in it the root and support of all good things: just
  as a most fruitful soil nurtures a root, so a good conduct bears the
  fruits of virginity. Or, to speak with greater truth, the crucified
  life is at once both its root and its fruit'" (p. 382).

We must conclude by expressing our deliberate conviction that no study
{376} can be more important at the present day than that of the change
from heathen civilization to Christendom, the means by which it was
brought about, and the effects which it produced. For in our day, most
eminently, the Protestant falling away is producing its fruits in
restoring throughout all Europe more and more of the special
characteristics of heathen society. We have not room at present to
offer any proofs of this, but we would beg every reader to observe for
himself, and we are confident that his experience will confirm what we
say. Nor is it only Catholics that are aware of this tendency. A
thoughtful writer in the _Saturday Review_, six months back, devoted a
whole article to trace the points of resemblance between an educated
English Protestant of our day and a heathen of cultivated mind. Those
who feel disposed at once to regard the idea as an insult are probably
judging of heathen civilization by Nero and Domitian. Mr. Allies's
book will at least dispel this delusion. In fact, it is only too
obvious that there is, even in our own day, no want of plausibility in
what is at the bottom only revived heathenism; and in consequence of
this remarkable resemblance, nothing could be more strictly practical
at the present moment than any studies which show us the old heathen
civilization as it really was, in its attractive as well as its
repulsive qualities.

From The Month.

SAINTS OP THE DESERT.

BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

1. Abbot Antony said: Without temptation there is no entrance possible
into the kingdom. Take away temptations, and no one is in the saving
way.

2. Some one asked blessed Arsenius, "How is it that we, with all our
education and accomplishments, are so empty, and these Egyptian
peasants are so full?"

He made answer: We have the world's outward training, from which
nothing is learned; but theirs is a personal travail, and virtue is
its fruit.

3. It was heard by some that Abbot Agatho possessed the gift of
discrimination. Therefore, to make trial of his temper, they said to
him, "We are told that you are sensual and haughty." He answered: That
is just it.

They said again, "Are you not that Agatho who has such a foul tongue?"
He answered: I am he.

Then they said, "Are you not Agatho the heretic?" He made answer: No.

Then they asked him why he had been patient of so much, yet would not
put up with this last. He answered: By those I was but casting on me
evil; but by this I should be severing me from God.

4. Holy Epiphanius was asked why the commandments are ten, and the
beatitudes nine. He answered: The commandments are as many as the
plagues of Egypt; but the beatitudes are a triple image of the Holy
Trinity.

5. It was told to Abbot Theodore, that a certain brother had returned
to the world. He answered: Marvel not at this, but marvel rather that
any one comes out of it.

6. The Abbot Sisoi said: Seek God, and not his dwelling-place.

7. It is told of a certain senior, that he wished to have a cucumber.
When he had got it, he hung it up in his sight, and would not touch
it, lest appetite should have the mastery of him. Thus he did penance
for his wish.

{377}

From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.

CHAPTER XVIII.

New Year's Day is always a holiday. And well it is for the girls and
boys of a parish, of a district,  of a county, ay, of all Ireland, if
it should rise upon them in the glowing beauty of a cloudless sun.
Then, indeed, the girls "are drest in all their best." Many a new
bright ribbon has been purchased on the previous market-day, and many
a twist and turn the congregation side of their bonnets has had. A bow
of new ribbon, blue or red, according to their complexion--for these
country girls are no more fools in such a matter than their
betters--has been held first to this side of their bonnet, then to
that; then the long ends have been brought across the top this way,
then that way, temporarily fastened with pins in the first instance,
until it is held at arm's-length, with the head a little to one side,
to test the final position. Their petticoats have been swelled out by
numbers, not by crinoline, which as yet was unknown, even to the
higher orders. But "be this as it may," the girls of the townlands of
Rathcash, Rathcashmore, and Shanvilla made no contemptible turn-out
upon the New Year's day after Tom Murdock had returned from Armagh.
The boys, too, were equally grand, according to their style of dress.
Some lanky, thin-shanked fellows in loose trousers and high-low boots;
while the well-formed fellows, with plump calves and fine ankles,
turned out in their new _corderoy_ breeches, woolen stockings, and
_pumps_. I have confined myself to their lower proportions, as in most
cases the coats and rests were much of the same make, though perhaps
different in color and material, while the well-brushed "_Caroline_"
hat was common to all.

Conspicuous amongst the girls in the district in which our story
sojourns, were, as a matter of course, Winny Cavana and Kate Mulvey,
with some others of their neighbors who have not been mentioned, and
who need not be.

Winny, since the little episode respecting her refusal of Tom Murdock,
and his subsequent departure, had led a very quiet, meditative life.
She could not help remarking to herself, however, that she had somehow
or other become still more intimate with Kate Mulvey than she had used
to be; but for this she could not account--though, perhaps, the
reader can. She had always been upon terms of intimacy with Kate; had
frequently called there, when time would permit, and sat for half an
hour, or sometimes an hour, chatting, which was always reciprocated by
Kate, whose time was more on her own hands. In what then consisted the
increase of intimacy can hardly be said. Perhaps it merely existed in
Winny's own wish that it should be so, and the fact that one and the
other, on such occasions, now always threw a cloak round her shoulders
and accompanied her friend a piece of the way home. Sometimes, when
the day was tempting, a decided walk would be proposed, and then the
bonnet was added to the cloak. What formed the burden of their
conversation in these chats, which to a close observer might be said
latterly to have assumed a confidential appearance, must be so evident
to the reader's capacity, that no mystery need be observed on the
subject. To say the {378} least, Emon-a-knock came in for a share of
it, and, as a matter of almost necessity, Tom Murdock was not
altogether left out.

Kate Mulvey, after the _éclaircissement_ with Winny, believed she
could do her friend some good without doing herself any harm, a
principle on which alone most people will act. With this view she took
an early opportunity to hint something to Emon of the result of the
interview between herself and Winny, and although she did it in a very
casual, and at the same time a clever, manner, she began to fear that
so far as her friend's case was concerned, she had done more harm than
good. The fact of Tom Murdock's proposal and rejection subsequent to
the interview adverted to, had not become public amongst the
neighbors; and before Winny had an opportunity of telling it to Kate,
Emon had left his father's house, to seek employment in the north. It
is not unlikely that he was tempted to this step by something which
had fallen from Kate Mulvey respecting Winny and Tom Murdock, although
the whole cat had not yet got out of the bag.

Hitherto poor Emon's heart had been kept pretty whole, through what he
considered a well-founded belief that Winny Cavana, almost as a matter
of course, must prefer her handsome, rich neighbor to a struggling
laboring man like him. Tom, he knew, she saw almost every day, while
at best she only saw him for a few minutes on Sundays after chapel.
Emon knew the meaning of the word propinquity very well, and he knew
as well the danger of it. He knew, too, that if there were no such
odds against him, he could scarcely dare aspire to the hand of the
rich heiress of Rathcash. He knew the disposition of old Ned Cavana
too well to believe that he would ever consent to a "poor devil" like
him "coming to coort his daughter." He believed so thoroughly that all
these things were against him, that he had hitherto successfully
crushed every rising hope within his breast. He had schooled himself
to look upon a match between Tom Murdock and Winny Cavana as a matter
so natural, that it would be nothing less than an act of madness to
endeavor to counteract it. What Kate Mulvey, however, had "let slip"
had aroused a slumbering angel in his soul. He was not wrong, then,
after all, in a secret belief that this girl did not like Tom Murdock
over-much. Upon what he had founded that belief he could no more have
explained--even to himself--than he could have dragged the moon down
from heaven; but he did believe it; he even combatted it as a fatal
delusion, and yet it was true. But how did this mend the matter as
regarded himself? Not in the slightest degree, except so far as that
the man he most dreaded, and had most reason to dread, was no longer
an acknowledged rival to his heart. Hopes he still had none.

But Emon-a-knock was now in commotion. The angel was awake, and his
heart trembled at a possibility which despair had hitherto hidden from
his thoughts.

For some time past he had not only not avoided a casual meeting with
Winny, but delighted in them with a safe, if not altogether a happy,
indifference. He looked upon her as almost betrothed to Tom Murdock;
circumstances and reports were so dovetailed into one another, and so
like the truth.

Although there was really no difference in rank between him and Winny,
except what her father's well-earned wealth justified the assumption
of, his position as a daily laborer kept him aloof from an intimacy of
which those in circumstances more like her own could boast; and poor
Emon felt that it was a matter for boast. Thus had he hitherto
refrained from attempting to "woo that bright particular star," and
his heart was comparatively safe. But now--ay, _now_--what was he to
do? "Fly, Fly" said he; "I'll go seek for employment in the north.
{379} To America, India, Australia--anywhere! Kate Mulvey may have
meant it as kindness; but it would have been more kind to have let me
alone. This horrible knowledge of that one fact will break my heart."

And Emon-a-knock did fly. But it was no use. There were many reasons
quite unconnected with Winny Cavana which rendered a more speedy
return than he had intended unavoidable. A stranger beyond the
precincts of his own pariah, he found it impossible to procure
permanent employment amongst those who were better known, and who
"belonged to the place"--a great consideration in the minds of the
Irish, high and low. The bare necessaries of life, too, were more
expensive in the north than about his own home; and for the few days'
employment which he got, he could scarcely support himself, while his
father and family would feel the loss of his share of the earnings at
home. No; these two separate establishments would never do. He could
gain nothing by it but the gnawing certainty of never seeing, even at
a distance, her in whom he now began to feel that his heart delighted.
Besides, he could manage to avoid her altogether by going to his own
chapel; yes, he felt it a duty he owed to his father not to let him
fight life's battle alone, and--he returned. We question whether this
_duty_ to his _father_ was his sole motive; and we shall see whether
he did not subsequently consider it a _duty_ to prefer the good
preaching of Father Roche, of Rathcash, to the somewhat indifferent
discourses of good Father Farrell in _his own_ chapel.

Emon had not been more than ten days or a fortnight away, and he was
now following the usual routine, of a day idle and a day working,
which had marked his life before he went.

But we were talking of a New Year's day, and it will be far spent if
we do not return to it at once, and so we shall lose the thread of our
story.

The day, as we had wished a few pages back, had risen in all the
beauty of a cloudless sun. There had been a slight frost the night
before, but as these slight frosts seldom bring rain until the third
morning, the country people were quite satisfied that the promise of a
fine day on this occasion would not be broken. The chapel-bells of
Rathcash and Shanvilla might be heard sounding their dear and cheerful
call to their respective parishioners that the hour of worship had
drawn near, and the well-dressed, happy congregation might be seen in
strings along the road and across the pathways through the fields, in
their gayest costume, laughing and chatting with an unbounded
confidence in the faithfulness of the sky.

Tom Murdock, the reader knows, had returned, but he had not as yet
seen Winny Cavana. One Sunday had intervened; but upon his father's
advice he had refrained from going "for that wan Sunda' to chapel."
Neither, on the same advice, had he gone near old Ned's house. The old
man--that is, old Murdock--had endeavored to spread a report that his
son Tom was engaged to be married to a very rich girl in Armagh. He
took his own views of all matters, whether critical or simple, and had
his own way of what he called managing them. He was not very wrong in
some of his ideas, but he sometimes endeavored to carry them out too
persistently, after anybody else would have seen their inutility.

On this New Year's day, too, he had hinted something about his son's
not going to mass, but Tom would not be controlled, and quickly "shut
up'" that is the _fashionable_ phrase now-a-days--the old man upon the
subject. His opinion, and he did not care to hide it, was, "that he
did not see why he should be made a mope of by Winny Cavana, or any
other conceited piece of goods like her." His father's pride came to
his aid in this instance, and he gave way.

Rathcash chapel was a crowded place of worship that day. Amongst {380}
the congregation, as a matter of coarse, were Winny Cavana and Kate
Mulvey, both conspicuous by their beauty and solemnity. Tom Murdock,
too, was there; doubtless he was handsome, and he was solemn also, but
his solemnity was of a different description. It was that generated by
disappointment, with a dream of villany in perspective.

Tom was not a coward, even under the nervous influence of rejected
love. Physically, he was not one in the matters of everyday life; and
morally, he wanted rectitude to be one when he ought. He therefore
resolved to meet Winny Cavana, as she came out of chapel, as much as
possible as if nothing had happened, and to endeavor to improve the
acquaintance as opportunity might permit. He purposed to himself to
walk home with her, and determined, if possible, that at least a
friendly intercourse should not be interrupted between them.

Emon-a-knock had steadily kept his resolution, notwithstanding our
doubts, and had not gone to Rathcash chapel for the last four or five
Sundays; he was even beginning to think that Father Farrell, after
all, was not quite so much below Father Roche as a preacher.

At length there was a rustling of dresses and a shuffling of feet upon
the floor, which proclaimed that divine worship had ended; and the
congregation began to pour out of Rathcash chapel--men in their dark
coats and Caroline hats, and women in their best bonnets and cloaks.
Tom Murdock was out almost one of the first, and sauntered about,
greeting some of the more distant neighbors whom he had not seen since
his return. At length Winny and Kate made their appearance. Winny
would have hurried on, but Kate "stepped short," until Tom had time to
observe their approach. He came forward with more cowardice in his