The Jews were formerly numerous in Abyssinia. There are not eighty thousand of them left now, and they are gradually disappearing under the influence of the powerful civilization of the Amara.
The origin of the Ethiopian Jews probably dates from the time of the prophet Jeremias, when commerce was carried on between Alexandria and Aksum. At a later period, similar facilities brought to Ethiopia the first Christian missionaries. This happened in the beginning of the fourth century, when the inhabitants of Gaul, or France, were still plunged in the darkness of paganism. The truth, however, progressed slowly in Abyssinia; for the local Judaism, though notably separated from that of the Hebrews, preserved its political power during five or six hundred years, notwithstanding the wonderful efforts of native missionaries, whose feasts and martyrdoms are still celebrated in the country. Even up to the 14th century there were pagans in it; and there are, very probably, some there still.
After the Mussulman invasion of the fifteenth century, Islamism filtered through Egyptian society. The Christianity of the country became corrupt, and we can liken it to nothing better now than to those lepers who abound in this part of Africa, whose bodies are at first attacked in their extremities, and fall away piecemeal. In the same way, her Christianity perished on the frontiers of Ethiopia. Twenty years before our arrival among the Tigre, they were Christians, or rather they lived in the recollection of their faith; but without baptism or sacrifice, and guided in their prayers by the descendants of their last priests. They became Mussulmans under our eyes, with the exception of their principal chief, who said, with a touching and proud respect for ancient usages, that "a king ought to die in the faith of his fathers." One becomes irritated on reflecting that two or three fervent missionaries could have, at the beginning of this century, rolled back the tide of advancing Mohammedanism, by evangelizing or rather reviving that ancient Christianity whose history goes back as far as St. Athanasius, and which we have seen expire after ages of agony.
If we study Christianity in the centre of Ethiopia, we find a somewhat confused schism, but of all schisms the one least removed from Catholic orthodoxy. The only dogmatic points which we regret in this schism are theoneprocession of the Holy Ghost, which has been condemned among us only at a late period, and the belief in onlyonenature in Jesus Christ, which is publicly professed by the African schools. But the term in the Abyssinian vernacular which we translate bynature, has such a vague and obscure signification that, if the word could be destroyed, the schism would no longer exist.It must be remembered that the Ethiopians do not understand the art of defining; and when I restricted this ambiguous term according to our method, they understood the dogma exactly as we, and congratulated themselves on being, without knowing it, attached to the same faith as Rome, that seat of St. Peter which always commands their respect.
What particularly distinguish their Christianity from ours, are vicious or irregular practices. Like many of the Eastern Christians, they allow the marriage of the clergy; but in the abbeys, where there are professors, they allow no priest to say Mass who is not a celibatarian by vow. "Among you," said an Ethiopian who had visited Europe, "the important practice is to go to church." "And among you," I answered, "the one thing necessary is to prolong your fastings." One is tempted to say that the active people of the West, and the slow and repose-loving nations of the East, have made the principal merit of a Christian to consist inthose pious exercises which cost the least trouble.
It is impossible to leave this subject without saying a word about the Dabtara, or secular clerics. They were organized by a king who found himself, like many of his royal brethren in Europe, very much embarrassed by those mixed questions, in which the spiritual power seems to invade the domain of the temporal. To keep the balance, between them, he created an intermediary body, called the Dabtara. This order is filled from all classes of society; and it possesses the usufruct of all the churches. It alone takes charge of the temporal affairs of the church, and frequently its members act as parish priests, which is a purely temporal office in Abyssinia. The Dabtara hire by the month, rebuke or dismiss the priest who says Mass. Their essential function consists in singing in choir. This duty requires a certain education. In Europe the music of our church hymns may be changed, the words remaining unaltered. The contrary is the case among the Ethiopians. Their music is traditional and sacramental, and in every well-ordered church, the rhymed words of every hymn are specially composed for every festival. The twelve Dabtara of every church display their piety, wisdom, and especially their wit in these productions. They use hymns learnedly ambiguous, to criticise the bishop, to give a lesson to the head of the monks, and even political hints to the sovereign. By recalling an act of some personage of the Old Testament, they find occasion to criticise the government of the city, to praise some Maecenas who is expected to be present at the service, or even, if necessary, to satisfy a personal grudge. When a Dabtara advances into the choir to whisper into the ear of the principal chanter the hymn which has just been written by the Dabtara, and which the singer must know by heart, the other Dabtaras surround the composer, examine the sense of the rhyme, and no matter what may be the result of their investigation, they always congratulate the happy author. Sometimes it is discovered that the hymn has not been made by a member of the order, but by some young candidate in distress, who, for a measure of meal, often sells to the wealthy the fresh inspirations of his genius.
After the teacher of plain-chant, the most important professor is he who teaches grammar, the roots of the sacred language, its dictionary, and particularly the art of composing hymns.After the lesson, the pupils spread over the lawn before the church, repeat the precepts just heard from their professor, and essay to make rhymes or compose hymns, which they afterward recite to him in order to obtain the benefit of his criticism. As in our middle ages, these scholars ask alms and live in misery; often they are the only servants of their preceptors. Lively and frolicsome, like our collegians, they play many tricks on their fellow-students, but never on their teacher, whom they love and almost worship. Having once chanced at Gondar to describe how my college-fellows in France had eaten the dinner of their professor, and left a sermon on fasting and patience on his plate, I was met with such a torrent of invective, that I never ventured on a repetition of the scandal.
In Abyssinia, education is essentially public and gratuitous. As all explanations must be made in the vernacular, which I spoke but poorly in the beginning, I was obliged to have recourse to a private tutor, and when I wished to recompense him for his trouble, I was answered that science should not be sold like any other vile merchandise, and that the honor of the teaching body required knowledge to be transmitted gratuitously, just as it had been acquired. The Ethiopian students are generally very diligent. If they play truant, their parents bring them into the church where the school is being held, and tie their feet together with an iron chain. Sometimes this disciplinary measure is ordered by the professor, and pupils are often seen who, distrusting themselves, ask for those chains, which are not considered symbols of dishonor. They are rarely worn by the higher scholars.
The university course of the Ethiopians is composed of four branches, which might be compared to the four faculties of our own. A fifth branch, devoted to astronomy and replete with traditional ideas, has not been cultivated for some time past. I knew the last professor of this science, who had only one pupil. The other classes are occupied with the study of the New Testament, the fathers of the church, civil and canon law, and the Old Testament. This last requires an effort of memory of which few Europeans are capable; for I have never heard but of one man in the West who knew the whole Bible by heart. No one can be a teacher in Ethiopia without knowing by heart the text of the book he is to explain, the variations of four or five manuscripts, and especially the ingenious commentary, sometimes even learned, but always traditional and purely oral, on the text. The degree of bachelor is unknown in that country; that of doctor is given to the student who is chosen by his professor as capable of explaining in the evening to his comrades the lessons given in class in the morning. In the case of a doubt of his capacity, the teacher is consulted, and his affirmation is considered a sufficient diploma. Great attention and much perseverance are required to make this system of unmethodical education profitable. An aged professor informed me that he had learned to read in three years. He spent two years afterward in learning the liturgical chant, and five years in studying grammar and in composing hymns. He learned how to comment on the New Testament in seven years; and spent fifteen years on the Old Testament, for the strain on his memory was very great.
I have dwelt somewhat on the Ethiopian colleges because M. Blanc, one of the English prisoners of Magdala, says expressly in his narration: "The Abyssinians have no literature; their Christianity is only a name; their conversational power is very limited."To this testimony, altogether negative, I oppose the statement first made, and which I could prove and extend farther. I will merely add that in Gojjam, as well as at Gondar and elsewhere, I have held disputes with native. Christians, on religious, philosophical, and other scientific subjects, and found them as well informed as if they had been brought up in Paris or at London.
With rare exceptions, the regular clergy alone has preserved its virtues and itsprestige. The secular priests have lost a great part of their importance by the singular institution of the Dabtara. Yet the Ethiopians, jealous of their political independence, and capable of preserving it by the natural influence of their traditional customs, wish to keep religious authority powerful and undivided. To avoid schisms, and as several bishops can consecrate others, they recognize only one, who must be of white race and a stranger to the country. He has always been consecrated by the schismatical patriarch of Alexandria; but, since the last consecration, I was assured that the Abyssinians would make application elsewhere for the future. The title of their bishop is abun. The last abun or aboona was Salama, who having only a semi-canonical appointment, and besides being addicted to all kinds of vice, had very little influence over the inferior clergy or the people. Suspected by the professors and hated by the Dabtara, he planted more thorns than blessings in the hearts of his subjects. A Copt by birth, he at first frequented the English Protestant school at Cairo, and carried afterward to the convent where he made his vows such doctrines of disobedience and incredulous opinions, that the Patriarch of Alexandria thought it would be wise to exile him to Ethiopia as abun, though he was under the canonical age. In fact, the abun was more anxious for money than for the faith. He received the 36,000 francs, which are usually given as a present at the investiture of the Abyssinian bishop; and the patriarch thus delivered up distant Ethiopia, too much despised by the Copts, to the vices and vague doctrines of Salama. This ornament of the episcopacy had no sooner arrived in his diocese, than he devoted himself to commerce, especially to the traffic in slaves, which is most profitable. His vices were such that our pen cannot describe them. He told me himself that by mistake he had ordained priest a boy only ten years old, and laughed heartily at the trick played on him in his case. Having learned from Monseigneur de Jacobis the cases which annul an ordination, I told them to the professors of canon law. They kept silence in public; and when I pushed them with questions, they all gave me this answer: "Your objections are true; only, in the name of God, do not scatter them among the Dabtara. Except the Masses said by old priests ordained by the preceding abun, there are none valid, and there is no holy sacrifice in Ethiopia; but the ignorance and strong faith of the faithful will suffice before God for their salvation." Abun Salama, busied with intrigues, in which he thought himself very skilful, was nevertheless, only the tool of the princes, who attached him to them in order to help their political combinations. It was he who consecrated King Theodore, who, after frequently insulting his consecrator, finally cast him into prison, where he lately died.
No matter what the English prisoners may say to the contrary, the Ethiopian soldiers are very brave, and fight fiercely if they are well commanded. As in Europe during the middle ages, the flower of their army is composed of cavalry. The battle is begun by the fusiliers, who shoot well; but their importance had not yet been comprehended by the native chiefs in my time. Soon the charge is sounded, the cavalry rushes to the conflict, the victory is quickly won, and the infantry, badly furnished with blunt sabres, lances, and bucklers, hardly does anything but make prisoners. Every soldier keeps all the spoils of those he may vanquish, except the guns and blood-horses, which by right belong to the general. During this latter phase of the victory, the commander-in-chief, deserted by his eager soldiers, is left almost unattended. In speaking with Ethiopian officers, I often mentioned to them, but always in vain, how important it is to have a body-guard for the commander. The first victory of Kasa, now King Theodore, attracted attention to this necessity afterward. Let us say a word here about the mother of this chief, since she is involuntarily one of the remote causes of the English expedition. This good old woman once did me a great service, and in 1848, notwithstanding the recent elevation of her son to royalty, she was still so polite as to rise at my approach. She was then courted as a power behind the throne. But a short time previously, she was the despised mother of Kasa, an obscure rebel, living in misery, and reprobated by all. His poor mother, in her old age, joined a religious order, and put on the little white bonnet which is its distinctive sign. But she was penniless. The convents had been robbed, and every one shunned the mother of a rebel. She was finally compelled to turn vendor ofkoso, a drug which the Ethiopians take six times a year, to kill the tape-worm, with which most of the inhabitants are afflicted.
Kasa, the rebel of Quara, grew more powerful day by day, and the proud Manan grew angry. Manan was the mother of Ali, the most powerful prince of Central Ethiopia, and the real mayoress of the palace of thatfainékantking who ruled at Gondar, only within the precincts of his dwelling. Manan, desiring to be calledytege, or queen, an exclusive title in that country, caused the nominal king to be dethroned by her son, and placed her husband,Yohannis, or John, in his stead. This prince was an estimable man, and honored me with his friendship.
In 1847, war was waged against the rebel Kasa. The soldiers of Manan insulted their adversary. One gasconading cavalier exclaimed, at a review: "Manan, my great queen, depend on my valor, for I shall lead before you in chains this fellow; this son of a vendor ofkoso!" But Kasa won the battle, and chained the boaster in a hut, where, after a fast of twenty-four hours, he received the following message from Kasa, delivered verbally by a waggish page: "How hast thou passed the night, my brother? How hast thou passed the day? May God deliver thee from thy chains! May the Lord grant thee a little patience! Be sad with me, for yesterday mamma remained at market all day, and could not sell a single dose ofkoso. I have therefore no money to buy bread for thee or for me. May God grant thee patience, my brother! May God break thy chains! It is Kasa who sends thee this message." The next day the officer received the same message. On the third day the irony of the conqueror was slightly changed.After the usual salutations, the page joyfully informed the captive that "Mamma had succeeded in selling a dose ofkoso, and bought a loaf, which Kasa sends him."
A few days after, I heard these details at Gondar. The news-mongers praised the mockery; but they only half-smiled, for the flower of society had fallen into misfortune. Then they regretted the good king Yohannis, and suspected the still undeveloped wickedness of the character of Kasa, the adventurous rebel of Quara. I saw Kasa, or Theodore, frequently at Gondar in 1848. He was dressed as a simple soldier, and had nothing, either in his features or language, which presaged his high destiny. He loved to speak of fire-arms. He was about twenty-eight years old; his face rather black than red; his figure slim; and his agility seemed to arise less from his muscular power than from that of his will. His forehead is high and almost convex; his nose slightly aquiline, a frequent characteristic of the pure-blooded Amaras. His beard, like theirs, is sparse, and his thin lips betray rather an Arabian than an Ethiopian origin. Kasa conquered all his competitors, became King of Ethiopia, and was consecrated by the abun, taking the name of Theodore, to verify an old prophecy current among the Jews and Christians, that a king of this name should rule over the ancient empire of Aksum. But the Ethiopians, like all people of mountainous regions, tenacious of their independence, and accustomed to liberty, did not yield at once to an upstart usurper, who owed his success less to ability and valor than to good luck.
In the beginning of his reign he acted with much clemency, owing, it is said, to the happy influence exercised over him by his first wife. When she died, he caused her body to be embalmed, according to the custom of the Ethiopian princes of the race of Solomon. Her coffin was carried after Theodore everywhere he marched. A special tent was erected in the camp for her remains, and the conqueror of Ethiopia was often seen entering it to meditate on his past happiness, and ask of God, as it was said, prudence and wisdom for the future. It is at this time that he had real thoughts, though always eccentric, of a good government. Civil divorce, and the consequent confusion of marriage, are the plague-spot of Abyssinian society. They uproot the foundations of the family, and are opposed to all ideas of order and stability. Without understanding that a radical change in society cannot be effected by a mere proclamation, Theodore decreed the obligation of regular marriages, and the abolition of divorce. An able statesman would have sought to destroy gradually, abuses of such long standing. Another of his decrees did him equal honor, and might have succeeded better, for he revived the old law of the Ethiopians against the slave-trade.
But the heart of man is fickle. Prince Wibe, falling into the hands of the conqueror, recommended his daughter to the Dabtara and monks of Darasge, his favorite abbey, where he had his family burial vault. One day the faithful guardians of the spot saw a band of soldiers rushing toward them. They thought it was Tissu, a recent rebel. They immediately concealed the sacred vessels, and for safety shut up the daughter of Wibe in the vault. Their surprise was great when they found it was Theodore himself, who was, according to custom, marching over his kingdom in quest of insurgents.He wanted to see everything; and when they refused to open the cavern for him, maintaining that a tomb prepared for Wibe, who was still a chained captive, could have no interest for his conqueror, Theodore suspected some plot, and caused the stone of the sepulchre to be removed. His surprise was great when, instead of a coffin, he beheld a beautiful girl, bathed in tears, and in the attitude of prayer. Theodore forgot his first love. He set Wibe at liberty, and married his daughter. This union was not happy. Theytege, or queen, having interceded to save the life of a rebel whom she had known at the court of her father, Theodore refused at first her request, and becoming angry, finally struck her. In order to humiliate her the more, he made a common camp follower his concubine. From this moment his decree on Christian marriage became a dead letter, and the slave-trade was renewed. Men must have stronger virtue than that of King Theodore, that their good thoughts may bear full fruit.
Let us here give some account of the English missions in Ethiopia; for they have helped to bring about and inflame the war now pending. M. Gobat, a Swiss Protestant, went as far as Gondar about forty years ago, and acquired a knowledge of the language of the country. After his return to Europe, he published a book of such seeming good faith, that it deceived me at first, as it must have deceived the English projectors of the missions. Charity obliges me to write that M. Gobat, in giving an account of his sermons to the people, has rather described what he desired to say and the answers he would like to hear, than what he actually said or heard. Without citing other witnesses of this fact, that of an educated Dabtara will suffice, who was ignorant of the existence of the Protestant missions. "Samuel Gobat," said he, "was a prepossessing person, who deceived one at first. I, who followed him, can affirm that he was really an unbeliever, or that he pretended to be so. He proposed frightful doubts and objections in matters affecting the Christian religion, but under the form of hypotheses. He always began his strange assertions by anif. Could he express them boldly? If he had, you know that in Gondar, at least, he would not have been allowed to continue, and he would have been denied a residence in our city."
The missionary societies in England did not know this condition of the Ethiopian mind, and influenced by the specious arguments of M. Gobat, they sent him a re-enforcement of three ministers, whom he left to return to Europe. They preached much more honestly and openly than he in Adwa and Tigray, where they were established. They were expelled in 1838, fifteen days before my arrival in the country. Two of them then went to Suria, from which they were also driven. With a perseverance worthy of a better cause, they returned again to Tigray, and again to Suria. Always exiled, they had at last the prudence, in 1855, to make no further attempt at evangelizing the country.
Seventeen years before this last date I met at Cairo a young Lazarist priest, whom I persuaded to accompany me into Ethiopia, to found a Catholic mission. He preceded me, went to Adwa about eight days before the first expulsion of the Protestant missionaries; and as my project seemed to him sensible, requiring only time and patience to realize it, I brought letters from him to Europe in 1838.His holiness, Gregory XVI., favored our attempt, and sent two missionaries to Ethiopia under the charge of Monseigneur de Jacobis, who soon became known all through that region by the name of Abuna Ya'igob. In spite of some imprudence, inevitable, perhaps, in a country where there are such strange contrasts, he succeeded beyond my most sanguine hopes, and when I left the country in 1849, there were twelve thousand Catholics in it, and many of the priests were natives. Last year an English account gives the number as sixty thousand; for the influence of true doctrines could not fail to be extended among a people so intelligent as are the Abyssinians. Monseigneur de Jacobis helped much to obtain this result, by his unchangeable mildness, and by that personal influence which is always exercised by a priest devoted to incessant prayer.
The fate of the Protestant missions was different. The ministers, instead of attributing their want of success to themselves, have blamed the Catholics as the movers of their expulsion from Ethiopia. Even the English Consul Plowden in his official report says that Theodore, after perusing the history of the Jesuits in Abyssinia, decided to allow no Catholic priest to teach in his states. The English are fond of decrying the memory of the Jesuits who taught in Ethiopia up to 1630. It is, however, very singular that I never heard of this history, and that the most learned anti-Catholic professors at Gondar never mentioned it to me in our controversies. On the contrary, they spoke of Peter Paez and his co-laborers with admiration mingled with regret, and quoted touching legends concerning them. A little further on in his account, Plowden, who seems ignorant of the fact that sermons are unknown in Ethiopia, adds that Theodore prohibited all preaching contrary to the Copt Church. We cannot expect that an English soldier, more or less Protestant, should comprehend fully religious questions; but although he was a mere soldier, he ought to have known that Theodore was attached to one of the three national sects, and had forbidden all other creeds, and condemned Catholics as well as Protestants.
It was in consequence of this decree that Monseigneur de Jacobis was compelled to leave Gondar in 1855. This pious bishop went to Musawwa, and there continued to govern his mission, which has been left almost undisturbed by the natives for almost thirty years. The chief proselytes of Gondar retired also to the shores of the Red Sea, and the Protestant ministers, always on the watch, imagined they had at length found a good opportunity to teach in the capital. They went thither under the guidance of M. Krapf, who, in default of other qualities, has at least uncommon activity and persistence, but which have been so far sterile of results. At their first expulsion in 1838, the four Protestant missionaries left butone proselyte in the whole of Ethiopia. This was a quondam pilgrim. He was going to Jerusalem with an Ethiopian priest, who, falling short of money, sold his companion into bondage. M. Gobat having ransomed him, had no difficulty in inspiring him with hatred of the priests, and of all their doctrines. We can only regard this single convert as an apostate induced to desert his faith by resentment and a spirit of revenge. Another young and intelligent Ethiopian, after studying for years in the Protestant schools of Europe, when asked, answered me frankly that the numerous dissensions in religion witnessed by him among Protestants, had destroyed all religious belief in his mind.Religious England always believing, though erroneously, ought to be startled by the consideration that her missionaries, real mercenaries as they are, only succeed in propagating doubt and incredulity instead of spreading the gospel.
M. Gobat, who was somewhat of a diplomatist, in writing to King Theodore, did not state his object to be the foundation of a Protestant mission. He merely announced that skilful mechanics, desiring to improve the physical condition of the country, wished to settle in it. King Theodore, who was desirous of obtaining blacksmiths, gunners, and engineers, to make cannon and mortars, and build bridges and roads, gave his consent. M. Gobat hinted that the workmen wanted the free exercise of their religion. Theodore referred the matter to the abun, who, knowing the tricks of his old teachers, bluntly told Mr. Sterne, one of the missionaries, who spoke of his intention to convert the Talasa, or native Jews, as the sole object of his coming to Gondar, "This mission to the Jews is only a pretext to plot against the faith of the Christians." Pretending not to take the hint, Mr. Sterne repeated his assertion, and the king consented to receive the English mechanics, who were to be the instruments in the hands of the pious missionaries in "evangelizing" the barbarous Ethiopians. But on the testimony of Mr. Sterne himself, and that of other Protestants, the scheme was a complete failure. Many of the "mechanics," or "pious laymen," became as immoral as any of the natives. Besides, in violation of their solemn promise made to the abun, the missionaries distributed, as Plowden informs us, "hundreds of Bibles, and taught the great truths of salvation to many pagans and Christians." We extract these facts from the work of the Rev. Mr. Badger, considered a most trustworthy witness in official circles in England. [Footnote 54] After a short stay at Gondar, Mr. Sterne went to London, was made bishop, and published a wordy volume containing but one fact worth noticing, namely, the intrinsic proof that the author was ignorant of the most ordinary customs of Ethiopia. By an imprudence which has cost him dear, Mr. Sterne related the story of the vender ofkosoin his book. A former student of the English missionaries informed Theodore of the fact, and the Protestants had reason to feel bitterly that a man's friends often prove to be his greatest enemies.
[Footnote 54:The Story of the British Captives in Abyssinia, 1863, 1864. By the Rev. George Percy Badger.]
The English government was indignant that its agent Plowden, as it is known, should have been massacred on the highway near Gondar. Theodore avenged his death, however, by the barbarous slaughter of its authors and their associates. But the party of the "saints" in England was not satisfied with this reparation. Theodore was weak, and no match for England. It was safe, therefore, to insult him. Had he been as powerful as the United States, England would have been as loath to touch him as she is afraid to refuse satisfaction to America for the ravages of the Alabama on the high seas. She, however, suppressed the consulship of Gondar, and sent Captain Cameron as her consul to Massowah, under the protection of the Turkish flag. Captain Cameron was a brave officer who had served in the Crimea, but he was no diplomatist.We all know that, as much from lack of this quality as from the semi-barbarous habits of King Theodore, who thinks himself all-powerful because he has been so successful in conquering rebels in his own kingdom, Cameron and five other English subjects, among them M. Rassam—another unskilful English agent—and two Germans, were imprisoned at Magdala on the 8th of July, 1866.
Magdala, where the prisoners still remain, is a stronghold in the Abyssinian highlands, 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and the climate there is less warm than in most parts of the torrid zone. There are a church, a treasury, a prison, and huts in the place, and a population of about three or four thousand persons, of whom four hundred are prisoners of every description; a garrison of six hundred sharpshooters and as many common soldiers armed with lance and shield. Although this fortress is considered strong by the natives, one of the prisoners writes that a single shell would suffice to blow up a place which the Ethiopians have looked upon as impregnable for three centuries.
Besides the European prisoners at Magdala, Theodore keeps fourteen others, mostly German mechanics, near his own quarters. These artisans, exported at the expense of a Protestant missionary society as "pious laymen" began their evangelical labors as messengers of peace in a very extraordinary fashion, by fabricating mortars and other engines of war. As for the spiritual welfare of the Christians of Ethiopia, they looked well to it by distilling bad brandy; and as for the temporal, they drove the profitable trade of slave-mongers. This is what M. Rassam, an Arabian, who turned Protestant to get employment from the English government, tells us. He was nine years at Aden aslieutenant-governor, and is considered one of the ablest English agents in the East, if we are to believe the parliamentary eulogium passed on him in a recent debate in the House of Commons. The last account heard from this unfortunate ambassador does not warrant the belief in his ability. The abun, Salama, having died, M. Rassam advises the English to choose another abun in Egypt, and put him at the head of the invading army as a kind of palladium! This advice, if put into execution, would be as absurd as if, on the death of Pius IX., Premier Disraeli, imitating the policy of Pitt, and wishing to restore the Marches to the Holy See, should send an army against the Sardinians, with a pope at its head elected at Canterbury or elsewhere, Jansenist or Catholic, no matter which, and should expect all the Italians to respect him as sovereign pontiff.
England has undertaken the Abyssinian expedition to preserve herprestigein the East, and she is determined to gain her point. The dusky King Theodore, pretended descendant of Solomon, cannot complain that he has not received diplomatic notice. When the German who brought him the British ultimatum, told him that if he did not deliver up the prisoners he would have both the armies of England and France against him—"Let them come," said Theodore, "and call me a woman if I do not give them battle." We know not if there be more of folly or of intrepid valor in this proud answer. In fact, notwithstanding the narrations of some travellers, naturally suspected of exaggeration, the Ethiopians have no idea of the military power of the Western nations, and their king may believe that he is a match for them.
The Bay of Adulis, usually so silent, is now swarming with ships. There were in it, a short time ago, seventy vessels, without counting those of the Arabians and East-Indians. The English have built two quays to assist the debarkation of troops. The English have the Snider gun, which they pretend to be superior to the Chassepot rifle. They have even forty elephants to frighten Theodore. One of them, an elephant of good sense if ever there was one, behaved himself so badly at the debarkation of the troops, that he was sent back to Hindostan.
England is determined to succeed. Instead of borrowing, she has levied a tax of ten millions of dollars. She will need at least six times that amount before the end of the war. Every English prisoner to be freed will cost at least ten millions. But her object is not merely the freeing of the prisoners, though she asserts that it is. She has to provide water for sixty-five thousand men and many beasts on the plains of Zullah, where, in default of natural fresh water, the troops drink a distillation of sea water. They need every day one hundred and eighty thousand quarts to drink; and this quantity has been provided at the enormous cost of twenty thousand dollars for every twenty-four hours. To transport the munitions of war, mules were bought and brought to Zullah from Egypt, Turkey, Spain, and France. The English soldiers, not knowing at first how to manage them, tied them with hay ropes. Many of the mules ate the ropes, escaped into the desert, and were lost. A railroad has been built, running from the sea to Sanafe, the first border station of Ethiopia, a distance of almost one hundred miles.
The line of march has been well chosen. The English could have crossed the plains of Tigray, which are level and oppose no obstacle; and then crossed through Wasaya without meeting any noteworthy difficulty except the river Takkaze, and Mount Lamalmo. Farther on, at Dabra Tabor, where Theodore usually resides, they might have chosen either the plains of the Lanige, or the cool and verdant hills of the Waynadaga territory as the sites of their encampment. But this route is not the shortest. Besides, the Wasaya begins to be unhealthy in the month of May, and there is no forage as far as Wagara.
The shorter route, which the English have taken, is by Agame and Wag. On those elevated plateaux they may keep all their energy, and they will find a territory less ravaged by civil war, and good pastures. The distance from Zullah to Magdala is about the same as from Paris to Lyons. But artillery is with difficulty transported over many of the gullies on the route; and perhaps for the elephants it will be found impracticable. But the leader of the expedition, Sir Robert Napier, will not balk at these details. He will push rapidly on to Delanta before the rainy season, which begins about the 10th of July. According to the prisoners, if he should invest Magdala at the beginning of May, the want of water would soon force the garrison to surrender. If the first rains have fallen before his arrival, the English will occupy Tanta among the Wara Haymano, and from that point open fire on Magdala. Soldiers living in huts, without casemates or caverns, could not stand a day against the English guns. In, any case, Magdala, the great Ethiopian fortress, will be taken, and it will remain to be seen whether the troops will march to Dabra Tabor to burn the camp of King Theodore, and kill him, or make him prisoner.Nevertheless, the use of diplomacy will not be despised. When Theodore put M. Rassam in prison, with great protestations of friendship, he promised him his liberty on the arrival of certain machines and expert workers. England sent both to Massowah, but required first the liberation of the prisoners without having used any of those forms which render a contract binding in the eyes of the Abyssinians. On his side, Theodore did not understand the value of a simple signature. Besides, he had been deceived by Plowden, who denied his character of consul, and cheated by the denials of the Protestant missionaries as to their attempts to proselytize the native Christians. He did not, therefore, believe the protestations of the English. The want of a sensible agent caused the failure of this negotiation, which might have succeeded if more skilfully conducted. Moreover, the English army, on entering the Tigray, issued a proclamation, of which theTimespublished a literal copy, as ridiculous inAmariññadialect as in English. Besides, the language used is almost unknown in Agama, where this document has been published. The English officers do not seem to have known that a proclamation is never published in Ethiopia in a written form. But what will King Theodore, the pretended descendant of Solomon, do? It is difficult to answer this question. The natives report that Theodore is often out of his senses when he drinks brandy, which the "pious laymen" of the Protestant mission zealously manufacture for hisspiritualcomfort. From the very beginning of his reign, Plowden informs us that he manifested symptoms of insanity. The English prisoners tell us more explicitly that Theodore himself informed them that his father was insane, and that he believed himself attacked with the same disorder. Several traits in his conduct toward the prisoners, and the massacre of one hundred of his own soldiers in his camp, on mere suspicion, give gravity to the assertions. If this be true, England has declared war against an adversary unworthy of her dignity. In case of defeat, the only refuge for Theodore is to retreat to his native province of Quara, on the border of a terrible desert, breathing pestilence on all the region around. Woe to the English soldiers if they attempt to follow him thither!
Of all the ancient empire of Yasu the Great, that Ethiopian Louis XIV., Theodore has only Quara, that he can call his own. His governors of the Tigra have been expelled by rebels, or have made themselves independent of his authority. Gojjan has proclaimed its independence; Wag also has risen in arms; Suria is free, and gives asylum to all refugees. Yet these are regions but recently subjected to the conquering arms of Theodore. Tissu Gobaze rules the lower Tigray, Wasaya, Walguayt, Simen, Wazara, and as far as Dambya, where Gondar stood before Theodore destroyed it.
What then is left to this unfortunate tyrant, resisted at home by numberless insurgents, and threatened by foreign force with destruction? The Awamas, whose rights he has respected because they know how to defend themselves, but who will seize the first opportunity to rebel; Tagusa, Acafar, Alafa, and Meca stretching along the Tana, but which he has made solitudes by his systematic pillage; and finally Bagemdir, that beautiful portion of the country, which obeys him with regret.A disease, a slight cheek, or a courageous peasant, would be sufficient to destroy Theodore, that royal meteor, which, after shining for a few years, will soon be extinguished in the night of oblivion. Considering the greatness of the English preparations, we are led to suspect that she has the intention of holding Northern Ethiopia after conquering it. Appearances seems to favor this conjecture, and no matter what the English journals may say, the idea is not of French origin. Plowden urged its realization in his official letters thirteen years ago; Cameron is in favor of it; and General Coghlan timidly hints its practicability in his military monograph on Ethiopian affairs. The English have been masters of Aden for the last thirty years, and they wish to make the Red Sea an English lake. They desire Ethiopia; for from it they could invade Egypt, where "King Cotton" would rule in all his glory. They allege the case of Algiers annexed to France in justification of their project. But let it be observed that Charles X., who ransomed at his own expense, the Greek slaves sold in the markets of Constantinople and in Egypt, could not allow the Dey of Algiers alone to keep French, Spanish, and English Christians in bonds; while the English have never done anything to prevent the slave-trade in Abyssinia. Many Christian slaves are annually bought within gunshot of the British ships on the Red Sea, to be brutalized in Mussulman harems.England has never made an effort to stop the traffic there. Can we blame King Theodore then, who, according to his degree of intelligence and power, wished to put an end to this inhuman commerce, for saying with at least as much modesty as her majesty's government has at command, "Which of us two is the greater barbarian?"
St. Columba, Apostle of Caledonia. By the Count de Montalembert, of the French Academy, New York: Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau street. 1868.
Irish ecclesiastical history is something unique in the world, and presents to us the spirit of Christianity run into an entirely new and original mould. The Celtic race, whose most perfect and completely actualized type exists in the people of Ireland, is a singular specimen of humanity, as it used to be in the primitive ages just after, and perhaps long before the flood, preserved, continued, and apparently incapable of being destroyed or changed, in the midst of other races of totally opposite character. The sudden and entire conversion of this people to Christianity, and the invincible tenacity with which it has clung to its first faith, together with the marked individuality of the expression which it has given to the Christian idea, form a phenomenon in history which cannot be too much studied or admired. It was a happy moment for Ireland when that Chevalier Bayard of Catholic literature, the Count de Montalembert, felt his chivalrous soul moved by the story of her ancient princely monks and dauntless, adventurous apostles, and set himself to the task of writing a work which unites all the romantic, poetic charm of the lyric strains of her bards, with the accuracy and minuteness of her monastic chronicles.His narrative, partly owing to the nature of his subject, and partly to his own genius, is like theScottish Chiefsand theWaverley Novels. The most striking, original, and grand of all the characters depicted by him in that part of theMonks of the Westwhich is devoted to Ireland, is St. Columba or Columbkill. This great man, who was by birth heir to the dignity of Ard-righ, or chief king of Ireland, the founder of Iona, and the apostle of Scotland, is the favorite saint of the Irish people after St. Patrick. He is a more thoroughly Irish saint than the great apostle of Ireland, who was the father and founder of the Irish people as a Christian nation, but was himself, probably, by birth and extraction a Gallo-Roman. A warrior, a poet, a chieftain, a monk, a statesman, an apostle, and, it is supposed, a prophet; the most intensely devoted and patriotic lover of his native island, perhaps, that ever lived; and yet sentenced by his stern old hermit confessor to perpetual banishment from it; the life of Columba overflows with all the materials of the most romantic and heroic interest.
The Life of Columba, whose title is placed at the head of this notice, is, as we have implied already, a monograph extracted from the great work on theMonks of the West, by Montalembert. It is a small book of only 170 duo-decimo pages, and therefore readable by almost everybody who ever reads anything better than newspapers and dime novels. It is, above all others, a book for every one, young or old, who has Celtic-Catholic blood in his veins. It is time now to use that English language which was forced by the haughty conqueror upon the Irish people, from a cruel motive which God has overruled for their glory and his own, as the means of diffusing the treasures hidden hitherto, so to speak, under acromlech. Those who put this unwilling people into a compulsory course of English, little thought what a keen-edged weapon they were placing in their hands, and training them to use. They could not foresee what use would be made of it by Curran, O'Connell, Thomas Moore, Bishop Doyle, and Father Meehan. The possession of the English language places the Irish people in communication with the whole civilized world, without depriving them of their rich patrimony of traditional lore, legend, and song. It is incumbent on all who love the faith, and sympathize with the wrongs and hardships, of the Irish people, to strain every nerve to increase the number and diffuse the circulation of books, in which this religious and patriotic tradition may be perpetuated. Wherever the Irish people are, in Ireland, England, America, Australia, they are deriving their intellectual nutriment more and more from English books; and thus, in proportion as they become readers, are coming under the influence of writers who write in the English language. It is most important, therefore, for those who are charged with the responsibility of watching over their religious, moral, and intellectual culture, to see to it that their minds are not flooded with an excess of purely secular literature, which has in it no mixture of the Catholic tradition. The greatest danger and misfortune of our rising generation of Catholics in America is the lack of this tradition in historical, poetic, and romantic literature. Even those who are the descendants of parents and progenitors of the old Catholic stock, must necessarily lose by degrees all vivid sentiment of any other nationality than the American, and be more influenced by thegenius locithan by any other genius, whether Celtic or Teutonic. The danger to be guarded against is a peril of becoming so much Americanized as to be reduced to acaput mortuumin the process. An American citizen, without faith and religion, even though he may be born and live in Boston, is involved in the consequences of original sin as well as others. It is no gain to transform a poor, simple, believing, fervent Catholic immigrant, in the second or third generation, into an intelligent, well fed, healthy animal, with a comfortable farm and the elective franchise, but with no more soul than the man with the muck-rake in thePilgrim's Progress, or those dirty heathen in the suburbs of the holy city of New York, who spend their Sundays in weeding cabbages.This deleterious change must be prevented, not only, by purely spiritual means, but also by preserving and fostering as much as possible the natural bonds which connect our youth of Catholic origin with the traditions of their ancestry. Hence, we are in favor of multiplying and circulating as much as possible those books which relate the history of the Catholic Church of Ireland, of her saints and prelates, her gallant chieftains and noble martyrs, her sufferings and persecutions. The English Catholic tradition, and the Scottish, are unfortunately broken. A dreary gap of three centuries intervenes between the present and the Catholic past; but in Ireland the continuity is perfect from the fifth century to the present moment. This is the great artery of life to the Catholic Church of the British empire and its colonies, and it must not be severed. There is an intense sympathy between the people of the United States and the people of Ireland. This is chiefly a sympathy with their oppressed condition as a people, and with their just demands for expiation and redress for the wrongs they have suffered from the hands of the British government. It would be prudent for the gentlemen of the English parliament to take note of this, and to be wise in time, by conceding all those rights and privileges at once with a good grace, which Ireland is sure to obtain sooner or later, whether parliament is willing or unwilling. This merely political sympathy will, we trust, prepare the way for a higher and holier sympathy with the faith, the constancy, the invincible fortitude of the Irish people as a Catholic nation, the Spartans of a sacred Thermopylae, who have immolated themselves to save the faith. It is time that the American public should learn what is theIrish Version of the History of the Reformation. This presupposes a previous knowledge of the first planting and cultivation of Christianity. When it is seen that the Irish fought and died for the very same religion which was planted among them by their first apostles, it will be easy to judge of the claims which the religion of Elizabeth and Cromwell had upon their submission. The labors of Montalembert are therefore invaluable, as bringing to light the hidden treasures of Irish ecclesiastical history, and in all his great work there is no chapter to be found more charming than the biography of the great patriarch of Iona. We conclude with the eulogium which Fintan, a contemporary monk, pronounced upon St. Columba in an assembly of wise and learned men, and which is justified by the history of his life. "Columba is not to be compared with philosophers and learned men, but with patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The Holy Spirit reigns in him; he has been chosen by God for the good of all; he is a sage among all sages, a king among kings, an anchorite with anchorites, a monk of monks; and in order to bring himself to the level even of laymen, he knows how to be poor of heart among the poor; thanks to the apostolic charity which inspires him, he can rejoice with the joyful, and weep with the unfortunate. And amid all the gifts which God's generosity has lavished on him, the true humility of Christ is so royally rooted in his soul that it seems to have been born with him."
Ecce Homo. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.Strahan & Co., London. G. Routledge & Sons,416 Broome street, New York. 1868.
On the day of writing this notice, Mr. Gladstone is introducing his motion for overthrowing that monstrous iniquity, the Irish Establishment. We feel, consequently, especially well-disposed toward him. Nevertheless, with all our respect for his talents and character, we cannot help being reminded of his illustrious countryman, that great ornament of the sea-faring profession. Captain Bunsby. Our English brethren, when they take up solid topics, appear to think laborious dulness and tedious obscurity the evidence of deep learning and sound judgment. Their essays are like those of collegians, who affect to write on political or philosophical subjects in an extremely old-mannish, old-cabinet-minister-like style.This is remarkably the case with the venerable university dons who advocate rationalistic opinions. The style of arguing adopted by these worthy and dignified gentlemen bears a striking resemblance to the movements of one who is carefully wending his way among eggs. As an instance, we may cite theEssays and Reviews, perhaps the dullest book ever written, unless theTreatises on Sacred Arithmetic and Mensuration, by Dr. Colenso, may be thought worthy to compete for the prize. TheEcce Homois not to be placed in precisely the same category. It is, nevertheless, in our humble opinion, a very vague, wearisome, and unsatisfactory book. We cannot account for its popularity in any other way than by ascribing it to the restless, sceptical, misty state of the English mind on religious subjects; the uneasy desire to find out something more than it knows about Christianity and its author. After eighteen centuries have rolled by, the question. Who is Jesus Christ? still remains a puzzle to all those who will not submit to learn from the teacher commissioned by himself. The author ofEcce Homohas endeavored to throw himself back to the time and into the period of the disciples of Christ, to examine with their eyes his words and actions, and from these to abstract a mental conception of his true character. What that conception is, remains as much a puzzle as the gospels themselves are to a rationalist, or the Exodus to Dr. Colenso. The language ofEcce Homois certainly irreconcilable with the definitions of the Catholic Church respecting the divine personality of Christ. Some of its statements respecting the nature of the work accomplished by him on the earth, and the evidence thereby furnished of his divine mission, are forcible and valuable, and perhaps to rationalists, Unitarians, and doubters, the work may be useful. No one, however, who understands Catholic theology, and believes in the true doctrine of the Incarnation, can read it without a strong sentiment of repugnance and dissatisfaction. Mr. Gladstone, nevertheless, although professing to accept the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation, undertakes the defence of the book, and even apologises for its most offensive passages. By doing this he shows that he himself does not grasp the full meaning of the formulas to which he gives his assent; and although he is not a rationalist, yet, from perpetual contact with them, and the influence of that halting, inconsequent state of mind produced by Anglicanism, he has acquired something of that dark-lantern style of which we have spoken above. There are gleams of light and passages of beauty here and there, especially on those pages where the author treats of the Greek Mythology as an imperfect effort to realize the idea of Deity incarnate in human form. As a whole, the essay, which is a mere review of another book, was well enough for a magazine article, but not of sufficient importance to warrant its publication in book form. Every person who acknowledges the true divinity of Jesus Christ while rejecting the authority of the Catholic Church, stands in a position logically absurd, and is therefore incapable of adequately advocating the cause of Christ and Christianity against the infidelity of the age. No one but a Catholic, endowed with genius, and fully imbued with the spirit of Catholic theology, can ever write in a satisfactory manner upon the Life of Christ, so as to meet that demand which causes the abortive efforts of unbelievers and half-Christians to find such an extensive circulation.
On the Heights. A Novel.By Berthold Auerbach.Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.
This volume, professing to be a translation from the German, is most thoroughly permeated with Germanmysticism; one can hardly give it the dignified name of theology. It carries one back in its bewildering metaphysics to the days ofThe Dial, when every girl of eighteen belonging to a certain clique, was devouring Bettina's correspondence with Goethe, and listening with rapt soul to lectures on "Human Life," from the oracular lips of a favorite seer; discourses utterly beyond the comprehension of the maiden's papa, but which she understood perfectly.