Those facts embrace the infinite individualities of the living kingdom continued across the known ages. The source of information is inexhaustible. What does it teach us? Do particular facts confirm the ideas of Darwin regarding the gradual mutability of species; do they even furnish the sketch of a demonstration limited to certain determined points, to certain animal or vegetable species; do they finally show us some of those transformations which are the foundation of the system? Man has been observing and studying nature for centuries: tradition, the ruins preserved from the past, permit us to remount far up the stream of time; have they apprehended in nature any traces of those great changes which incessantly and fatally transform the vegetable and animal species? Or, on the contrary, does not everything go against those supposed transformations, and prove the fixity in time and space of those real species; a fixity which is not contradictory, which rather adapts itself to a certain normal physiological variability, which always allows to subsist and be perceptible through it the type of the species, the essential and primary form? We easily conceive the importance that a sincere response to these questions may acquire. They strike at the experimental foundation of Darwin's theory; if this experimental basis is wanting, what becomes of those theories? Are they not mere personal and arbitrary conceptions; brilliant plays of an imagination strong and creative, it is true, but which cannot be substituted for Nature herself and her direct teachings?
A learned professor of the faculty of science of Lyons, M. Ernest Faivre, has just undertaken this particular and experimental study of the origin of species, of their variability and essentiality; and we signalize his work to our readers—La Variabilité des Espèces et les Limites. It is impossible to write, on so complex and obscure a question, a book more rich in facts, more clear in its developments, or more authoritative in its conclusions. It seems to us the condemnation without appeal of the system of Darwin.
The vegetable kingdom is considered less rebellious than the others to the theories of Darwin; variety has more extended limits in it, less fixed than in the animal; generation, increase, the exterior conditions, present the occasion of many changes often profound in appearance. M. Faivre shows that the true species exists through all these changes, and that it is reproduced of itself from modified types, when circumstances or the artificial selection of man no longer supports the latter. Nowhere has man been able to create a real and durable species; and the species from the most remote times to our days are maintained with a fixity which has become one of the essential characters of species. The ancient land of Egypt is full of moving revelations on this subject: the animals, the plants, the grains buried in the caves, are the same as the plants and animals which cover the borders of the Nile at the present time. All the naturalists have proved this identity of a considerable quantity of animal and vegetable species. Hence, Lamarck and Darwin, to lessen the value of an experience of more than three thousand years' duration, have pretended that the conditions of life and the conditions of the exterior medium had not changed in Egypt from the historical times, and that the permanency of the species became consequently an ordinary and logical fact. But history, geography, the study of the soil, prove that the situation of Egypt has been profoundly modified.The level of the Nile, the limits of the desert, the extent of the cultivated lands, the culture of the soil, the number of populous cities, the proximity or distance of the sea, the great public works, everything which transforms a country under the action of men, all have changed in Egypt as much if not more than in other countries, and nothing is found changed in the productions of this soil, in the living beings which it supports and nourishes. But we may go further than the historical period. The permanence of species is proved to-day from the glacial period; the bogs of Ireland, the submarine forests of England and of the United States, conceal in their depths relics of mammifera or of vegetable species exactly comparable to the vegetable and animal species actually living in those same countries. We could not enumerate all the proofs which establish the great fact of the permanency of species; the number of these proofs is immense, and no fact seriously contradicts them, and yet it is in the name of experience that the partisans of natural selection pretend to speak! The accidental, temporary, and superficial varieties which they produce become for them a sufficient warrant of absolute and permanent varieties which they cannot produce, but of which they impudently suppose the formal existence; thus destroying species by a mere hypothesis.
Natural selection has artificial selection for its ideal godfather, but what has the latter produced? Not only no species, but not even a permanent race definitively fixed and acquired. All the races made by the hand of man die if they are left to themselves, unsupported by an artificial selection constantly at work. It is a fact which M. Faivre supports with superabundant demonstration, taken from both the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The collection of those facts is truly irresistible. What! the continued transformation of species is given to us as a law, and yet we cannot find a solitary transformed species! The transformation of races, which must not be confounded with that of species, is itself conditional and relative, is soon effaced if nothing disturbs the return of the race to the pure type of the species, and yet we are told of the power of natural selection and of the battle of life which consecrates this power! This selection, this vital concurrence, this action of means, have been all employed to modify the proximate species, as the horse and the ass; domestication offered here all its resources; the hand of man could choose, ally, and cross the types at will.
"Assuredly," says M. Flourens, "if ever a complete reunion of all the conditions most favorable to the transformation of one species into another could be imagined, this reunion is found in the species of the ass and horse. And, nevertheless, has there been a transformation? … Are not those species as distinct to-day as they have always been? Among all the almost innumerable races which have been produced by them, is there one which passed from the species of the horse to that of the ass, or, reciprocally, from the species of the ass to that of the horse?" Why, say we with M. Faivre, pay no attention to such simple facts, and take so much trouble to seek outside of evidence explanations which do not agree with the reality?
The theories of Darwin have become the chief support of those who attribute to man a monkey origin. "I prefer to be a perfect monkey to a degenerate Adam," says one of the partisans of these theories.But why can they not perfect an ass so as to make a horse of it? There is not between these two latter species the profound anatomical difference which exists between the monkey and man—a difference so well established by Gratiolet, a great mind and a truesavant. On what, then, can be founded the theory of our descent from the monkey species, since the slightest change resists all fusion, all transition from one neighboring species to another?
The book of theVariabilité des Espècesis the answer of facts to the spirit of system. Calm and severe, rigorous and cold, this book admits only the testimony of nature. It will instruct and convince those who doubt on those questions. The author terminates by those conclusions which we willingly reproduce because they allow us to divine something else besides the indifferent study of facts; they are perhaps the only lines of the work where the sentiment of the moral dignity of man is apparent. "This hypothesis (namely, of the mutability of species) is not authorized," says M. Faivre, "either by its principle, which is a mere conjecture; or by its deductions, which the reality does not confirm; or by its direct demonstrations, which are hardly probabilities; or by its too extreme consequences, which science as well as human dignity forbid us to accept—the theory of spontaneous generation, the intimate and degrading relationship between man and the brute."
Notwithstanding the ability—we may almost say the genius—which illustrioussavantshave employed in defending the doctrine, reason and experience have not weakened the reserved and just judgment which Cuvier has passed upon it, and which will serve as the conclusion to this essay: "Among the different systems on the origin of organized beings, there is none less probable than that which causes the different kinds of them to spring up, successively, by developments or gradual metamorphosis."
One word more before quitting the subject. All these great forms of scientific error spring up in our old Europe, where they find at the same time numerous and passionate adherents, and firm and eloquent opponents. The attack and the struggle are kept up incessantly in the press, in our books, in our learned bodies, in our teaching faculties. If we examine the general character of these conflicts, we find in them truth almost intimidated, certainly less bold and less respected than error. Truth is self-conscious, and that is sufficient to prevent it from becoming weak or yielding to fatigue and discouragement; but it has not popular favor; it is tolerated, but hardly ever greatly encouraged. If we quit this tormented Europe, which is drawn only toward new errors, and cast our eyes toward those great United States of America, that fertile land appears to us as favorable to truth as to liberty. Let us listen an instant to that illustrioussavantwho has no superior in the domain of natural science, M. Agassiz; let us follow his teaching in the University of Cambridge. What elevation and what sincerity! How all those systems which seduce so many minds in these cisatlantic regions are brought to their true proportions—judged in their profound disregard of the laws of nature! Let us take, for instance, the influence of exterior conditions and of physical agents on animals—the basis of the system of Lamarck, and one of the principal conditions of the mutability of species in Darwinism. M. Agassiz, on this point, uses again the firm language which from the days of Cuvier natural science has not spoken in France:
"In so far as the diversity of animals and plants which live in the same physical circumstances proves the independence as to the origin of organized beings, from the medium in which they reside, so far does this independence become evident anew when we consider that identical types are found everywhere on the earth in the most varied conditions. Let all those different influences be united—all the conditions of existence, under the common apellation of cosmic influences, of physical causes, or of climates—and we shall always find in this regard extreme differences on the surface of the globe, and nevertheless we shall see living normally together under their action the most similar or even identical types. … Does not all this prove that organized beings manifest the most surprising independence of the physical forces in the midst of which they live, an independence so complete that it is impossible to attribute it to any other cause than to a supreme power governing, at the same time, physical forces and the existence of animals and plants, maintaining between both a harmonical relation by a reciprocal adaptation in which we can find neither cause nor effect? … It would be necessary to write a volume on the independence of organized beings of physical agents. Almost everything which is generally attributed to the influence of the latter must be considered as a simple correlation between them and the animal kingdom resulting from the general plan of creation." [Footnote 111]
[Footnote 111:Revue des Cours scientifique, Mai 2, 1868.]
The neighboring British provinces of the north—the new Dominion of Canada—from various reasons, claim at this time the public attention. From intrinsic merits they are worthy of notice. With much of interest in the natural prospects and the interior life of this country and its denizens, it is almost aterra incognitato the general traveller, and few penetrate to those remote portions where the ancient customs of the original settlers are faithfully retained and kept up in their primitive simplicity. Although closely contiguous to the American line, bordered by its lakes and its forests of dense timber, rich in valuable mines and costly furs indigenous to northern latitudes, it is chiefly for these possessions that the province is sought by the utilitarian trader, rather than visited by the pleasure-seeking tourist. And yet the general beauty of scenery and the peculiar characteristics of the people are worthy of close observation, and one might vainly seek in a wider range for material so grand, or characteristics better deserving of appreciation. The noble St. Lawrence is bordered by shores of smiling fertility in the summer months. The country rises in gradual ascent from the present boundaries of the stream, and geological inquiry demonstrates that at an earlier period the bed of the river extended to much wider limits than at present.Still it is a grand and noble stream, as it goes sweeping onward majestically to the ocean, gemmed with a thousand isles, and having hundreds of peaceful villages that nestle on either shore. A mere passing voyage on this route of travel presents a rich and varied panorama of natural beauty. Still more interesting to the mind of serious thought than this mere material attraction, is the suggested idea presented in every village, crowned hill, or hamlet, nestling in some nook along the shore, of the happy unity and devotion of a people who make, within their humble homes and in the practice of piety, the sacred faith of their worship themainobject of their existence. Strangers to their zeal many deride this devotion and call itfanaticism; but no system can offer, in practical moral results, a higher order of virtuous life than that presented by the CatholicHabitants[Footnote 112] of Lower Canada.
[Footnote 112: TheHabitantis a generic name applied to the farming population of Canada East.]
Retaining, with their French origin, the happy temperament of the Latin race—courteous, hospitable, and enthusiastic—foreign refinements have not destroyed original purity of character; and in their simple lives, wisely directed by zealous, self-denying curés, they illustrate in piety and contentment the happy results of this influence. To notice, then, the habitudes of this class, to enter their homes and penetrate thearcanaof their inner life, is a profitable study to all who are willing to receive the high moral lessons that grandeur does not constitute comfort, and that contentment may prevail where wealth does not abound, and that piety in simple faith presents a consolation that mere material possessions fail to bestow. While the patriotic Canadian claims as his motto,
"Notre culte, notre langue, notre lois," he properly places his religion first and above all other mundane considerations. This religion is the Catholic faith; and while the Canadian submits to political innovations, and recognizes the rights of the conquering arm of the British, he claims, in unbending adherence to his church, the observance of every ancient rite. The Code Napoleon may be modified by Saxon legislation; but the great common law of traditions in religious forms must ever remain undisturbed. Hence arises a peculiar charm in the simplicity, fervor, and unity of devotion among the Catholic Canadians. Voyaging from Montreal to La Rivière du Loup, at every intervening two or three leagues are defined the boundaries of a Catholic parish, denoted by the dome or spire of the village church. The proportions of these edifices present a solid character and generally harmonize in style; and, although lacking the finish of architectural design, they are constructed of stone, with ample accommodations for from one to two thousand worshippers. In this one edifice gathers, for miles around, the populace of the entire district; for here no discordant sects prevail to divide and weaken congregations. This one church, then, is the grand centre around which the people cluster, and which usually occupies the most commanding point of observation. If an ancient edifice, the building occupies the centre of the plateau of cottages, at once in former times the house of worship and fortress of defence. Should the approach of hostile Indians be signalled, the populace retired within the sacred precincts until after the danger passed, which was generally escaped by the appeal for peace, on terms of mutual accommodation, by the venerable priest.The influence of moral force often served to lead the minds of the aggressive savage to better and higher purposes.
Thus in this barren and bleak land whole tribes have been reclaimed from heathenism, though many priests, especially those of the Jesuit order, fell victims to their holy zeal, and offered their lives in sacrifice to their sacred efforts. Others lingered for years, prisoners in the hands of their captors, but still teaching in bondage, and finally, gaining influence from their virtues and learning, made proselytes of their persecutors. Thus whole tribes were brought within the influence of Christianity, and Canada was reclaimed from the savage customs of the natives, who have been elevated and preserved by the happy influence of the Church. These tribes have not disappeared, as elsewhere, before the rude invading march of the Christian, so-called, but continue in their united character and distinctive habits to live prosperously with their white brethren, and to venerate the religion they have embraced. Their principal villages dot the shores of the St. John and St. Lawrence, and even approach so near Quebec as Loretto. Their church edifices are generally of a simple character; but of late years, throughout Canada, many have been rebuilt, enlarged, or superseded by magnificent structures of more modern style than the ancient village church, in which, in times of a more primitive civilization, their forefathers worshipped. But the worship, in its outward ceremonies, remains unchanged. The same faith that won amid Siberian snows the land from savage rites, is alone fostered tenaciously in all its ancient forms. The devoted zeal of the French mission priest, driven from France by the bloody Revolution, carried the seeds of the true faith to the bleak shores of the Canadas; and their influence is well maintained by the curés of the present day, who continue not only to console spiritually, but in all the affairs of life give that wise direction which their superior intelligence enables them to exercise. The efforts of modern missionaries, who exhaust themselves in temporary efforts in remote regions, might take a wise lesson from this concentration of labor and dedication of life to the service of religion within fixed limits. It is granted, (for the fact cannot be controverted) that this people and country have been Christianized by the labors of the Catholic missionaries, and that the religion they inculcated is universally established and practised by the French population of the rural districts. It must, also, in fairness be admitted that the good effects of the system is demonstrated by the superiormoraleof the people under this control, who compare favorably with other sections where mixed sects predominate. Canada East, from the ocean to Quebec, is settled almost universally by Catholics, principally agriculturists, though along the shores the fisheries and pilotage occupy their attention as a means of livelihood. Among this people crime is almost unknown, so efficient have been the influences of their faith upon their moral habitudes. Notwithstanding this favorable condition of morality, emissaries from Canada West are diligently sent yearly with their stock of tracts for distribution and well-bound Bibles for sale. The preaching from one text, "Be not a busy-body in other people's matters," would be a judicious commentary on this course, especially as the influence of their own system fails to produce the benign influences of Catholicity, in freedom from the ordinary evils from which these happy, peaceful French parishes are exempted.
Devotion to their religion defends them from the influences of vice. Murder is a crime that rarely occurs among the native population, and other minor offences are equally unfrequent. To a people thus living harmoniously under an established religious influence, faithful in observance of their duties in patriarchal simplicity, and devoted to their religion, such invasion of the Protestant colporteur is a gratuitous impertinence. If the Catholic faith protects its votaries practically from sin, the substitution of another system, from the section of Canada West, (which by no means contrasts favorably with Catholic Canada East in comparative statistics of crime,) is no recommendation for the propagation of a faith that does not produce equal exemption from evil where their own influence prevails. Notwithstanding this common-sense proposition, zealots from the Bible societies yearly arrive among these devoted Christians, each one successively quarrelling about the proper construction of a book they universally recommend. The logical Canadian might well ask: "Why don't you agree among yourselves before you come to teach us? We are all happy in one opinion here!" Notwithstanding such rebuffs, the colporteurs proceed from house to house, leaving their incendiary documents, which inform the people that the creed that defends them from the influence of sin is a snare and delusion, and that to be saved they must forego its exercise, and advantageously adopt that of some one of the fifty Protestant sects. Any of these may be supposed to possess a sufficient diversity of doctrine to satisfy the most exacting inquirers in their search after religious novelties. If these so-called religious propagandists confined themselves exclusively to these statements, in conscientious diversity of belief, their action might be regarded as an ardent desire to do good to the souls of their fellow-men. But the basest means are used to proselytize, by deliberate forgeries of the truth. The following incident is recorded from personal knowledge of its occurrence, and can be verified by witnesses to the transaction: A colporteur of this beneficent class, from Canada West, entered the cottage of a poorHabitantfamily in the third range of the village of Saint-Michel, some fifteen miles from Quebec. One of the family was dying, in a room apart, and the priest of the parish was administering the last rites of the Church. The other members of the family were in the general room, during the confession preparatory to the anointing, and, although in grief, their circumstances did not protect them from the intrusion of the insidious stranger. The pedlar in piety vaunted his tracts, but as they were unable to read, these were unappreciated, and he finally displayed his costly Bible, which, he informed them, unless they possessed, studied, and read, they never could be saved. A stranger present—companion of the curé—asked the question: "Is it a Catholic edition?" "Oh! yes, certainly, a Catholic Bible," pointing to the binding with the embellishment of a large cross, the imprimatur of a bishop in France, and the recommendatory note from some Pope recommending its perusal to the study of the faithful. One had only to look within at the text to discover the perversion from the truth, and expose the fact that all these emblems were but afalse pretence, to make the book sell among those who would be more attracted by its external resemblance to the authorized version of Holy Scriptures.The curé at this moment entered, and, in taxing the man with his duplicity, he answered with effrontery, "It is a Catholic Bible, but not the Romish edition;" adding, unless all read it they must certainly perish. "Then," answered the priest, "all here must be lost, for not one can read; and unless you remain, in your Christian benevolence, and instruct them, they cannot avail themselves of your written instructions." Fortunately, as a protection against the insidious wiles of such base pretenders to exclusive possession of religious truth, the laws of Lower Canada protect the people against dangerous forms of proselytism, calculated to create breaches of the peace; and the invasion of a harmonious parish by these disturbers of the contented people can be promptly punished as a penal offence. They may sell or give away their books, but here their influence for evil ends; and the trouble these colporteurs give themselves, if expended in a more legitimate manner, might prove quite as effective for their personal good in earning an honest livelihood by more worthy methods. To uproot these tares of evil is the one trouble given to the worthy curés, who diligently watch and guard their flocks from the invasions of wolves, as well as instruct and guide them truthfully in the way of life. The result of their self-denying labors is manifest; and Catholic Canada compares favorably in its morality with any portion of the Christian world. An American Catholic entering one of these rural parish churches described, though recognizing the same service in the offering of the holy sacrifice, would be struck by several distinctive features in the Mass and congregation, and perhaps more than one observance that, as a republican Catholic, he never before witnessed. Distinctions in society are observed, but the deference is paid to superior goodness only; the lines that mark the grades of superiority in society being drawn by the personal worth of the possessor in his elevation to the place of honor. Three chief officers are elected from among the congregation every two years. They occupy the seat of honor in the church on a raisedbanc, in some cases canopied, but always decorated by two candles and a crucifix. To these points the priest first proceeds at the aspersion, and, making his obeisance and blessing, proceeds with the ceremony. And they are likewise first served on the distribution of thepain bénit, and always take precedence in the grander ceremonies of the church, being admitted within the sanctuary to receive the palms, and on other appropriate occasions having theplace notéeassigned to their occupation. This gives the laity an active part and place of honor in the service of the church. Personal worth, and aptitude to look after the secular interests of the church, are the sole qualifications for this position, and the united voice of the congregation, in assembly, declares their choice. No alteration or repairs, or any movement connected with changes in matters pertaining to the interests of the church, can be undertaken without their approval. They are the defenders of the secular interests, as the priest is exclusively of the spiritual direction, but most generally harmonize with their curé in any plans of improvement he may suggest.
An American participating in these Canadian services could intelligently follow all that is exhibited in the ritual, though he would be surprised in a simple rural population at the pomp and exactitude with which on grand occasions the services would be performed. No ceremony is omitted that would give dignity to devotion, and the Roman ritual is closely followed. Although the American stranger might not understand the French sermon or hymn, generally sung during the gradual or communion service, still in common faith he would recognize the offering of the great sacrifice, expressed in the same sonorous language in which the service of the Church offers her devotions in every clime. Thus, as a foreigner, in the Catholic Church he would in the most solemn parts of the service feel at home. In common with Roman discipline, the Diocese of Quebec excludes female singers from the organ-loft, save by dispensation during the month of Mary, when this joyful season is marked by this indulgence. The choristers, composed of men and boys, sit within the sanctuary, in stalls arranged in a double row on either side, and these are chosen for their excellent character as well as vocal powers. [Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: They sometimes number forty or fifty in an ordinary village church.]
None would be admitted who did not possess the one qualification of piety. All are decently surpliced, and on Sundays and fête-days four of the boys wear, in addition to the surplice, pendent wings of muslin, neatly plaited, and act as the prominent assistants to the Mass. At the feast of Corpus Christi, the grandest ceremonial of the Church, (after the consecration of a bishop,) as many as eight censers are used, and the road through which thecortégepasses is garlanded with flowers, and banners are waving from every point. The grandeur of the ceremonial exceeds that of cathedral pomp in American cities, for the procession makes the out-door circuit of the village, stopping at four sections for the benediction. Two of these are erected temporarily of boughs of trees tastefully decorated, and most villages possess two small chapels distinct from the church that are permanently constructed for these purposes, and used on various occasions, whenever the bishop prescribes peculiar devotions. Thus, at the blessing of the seeds of the earth, in invoking prayers for a plentiful harvest, in times of plague, war, or inundation, these specialty services are peculiarly enjoined, and these chapels are then ever ready for the reception of the sacrament. Otherwise they are closed and unused, and only stand as memorials of the faith of the people; marking with the emblem of Christianity the Catholic land of Canada. At every mile a black cross stands as a milestone to point the way and keep religious hope alive on every side and every step; and sometimes, to mark special blessings in answer to prayers, these crosses are handsomely carved and of stone, and almost always enclose, even when of ordinary material, some sacred statue of venerated saint. Thus in the frigid clime and snow-capped hills of Canada, a Catholic love of the beautiful, pure, and good stands in memorials as frequent as may be found in the sunny climes of Italy or of the smiling lands of the south. Who will say that these objects of veneration do not tend to keep faith alive? The rustic Canadian, as he passes the memorial, lifts his mind to the higher reality to which it points, and in respectful adoration either raises his hat or devoutly crosses himself in prayer. Call it superstition if you will, but it is at least a harmless form of decent respect to the earthly insignia of heavenly realities which the emblem represents.The same respect, too, is universally extended to the curé when he passes abroad; all bow or lowly make their obeisance to the man of God. These outward manifestations of human respect only teach lessons of honor for the office proper to be observed; and, to the credit of Protestant gentlemen it may be added, in Lower Canada, the character and influence of the priest are so highly esteemed that, even though strangers to the Church, in many instances they conform to the custom. A Catholic never passes the clergy of the church without the compliment of thesalut; to omit the observance would be a mark of disrespect. These peculiarities, like the order of the church service, arrest the attention of the American Catholic. The whole Mass is uniformly performed in Gregorian tones. The versicle of the day and theIntroitare chanted by leading voices in the sanctuary. The choir commence theKyrie, and it is likewise responsively intoned alternately, first by voices in the sanctuary, and then, with organ accompaniment, answered by singers in the organ-loft. And so the service is carried on most impressively, throughout theGloriaandCredo, even unto the canon of the Mass, with the same tone that is proper to the Mass of the day. Thus is produced an effect of solemn harmony and unity with the celebrant at the altar. No light operatic air clashes with the severe ritual, but all is grave and subdued, and only relieved by the simple pathos of some French hymn, creditably chanted, and most frequently as a solo, by the best voice of the choir. The Canadians are a music-loving people, and all orders cultivate this gift of nature. Their melodies are spirit-stirring and deserving of wider cultivation. As it is, many of our popular airs spring fromla chanson Canadienne. Frugal in their tastes, the simple pleasures of social companionship are their chief relaxation; though the games and enjoyments of their hardy clime have their many votaries, and they excel in all the manly out-door exercises, in which even their women participate. Perhaps this may be one reason, besides higher moral causes, that account for the peculiar longevity and large families of the Canadian people. If more primitive in their customs than in lands where luxurious habits prevail, they are exempted from many evils consequent on their indulgence, and the virtues of the heart flourish and abound in luxuriance as the teachings of the church prevail and are practised. Hospitality is the crowning merit of the Canadian people. The stranger ever receives a generous welcome and courteous attentions. The French origin of the people retains all the idiosyncrasies of the latter race, and that easy grace of manner inseparable from French habitude. A Canadian peasant will receive a stranger with a ready tact that is universal, even to those in the simplest rank in life. This frankness and generosity of manner are partially the influence of the Church, which inculcates the practice of courtesy springing from goodness of heart and virtuous intention, and it is especially inculcated in a rite peculiar to the Catholic Church in Canada. During the course of the Mass, every Sunday, is duly observed the generally obsolete custom called theAgapae, of apostolic institution. It is one of those ceremonials which in its latent significance teaches a wholesome truth and duty, and it is to be regretted that it should have fallen into desuetude elsewhere.Significant of the good-fellowship that should prevail among all members of the human family, and in recognition of our common dependence one upon the other, and the duty of mutual aid and support to our brother-man, this feast of love is eaten in common by all ranks and conditions in life. If a Protestant should be present, and conduct himself orderly during the service, the courteous Canadian would extend a portion of the bread for the acceptance of his dissenting brother, as there is nothing of a sacramental character in its reception, and it is as free as the holy water fount in which the curious unbeliever often dips his hand with more superstitious dread than the Catholic believer. In this rite, large loaves of bread are prepared in rotation by the respective families of the parish, each in their order supplying the demand. This is calledle pain bénit, blessed bread; and, after its benediction by prayer, that our daily food may be used to our advantage, which ceremony takes place from the steps of the altar, just before theGloria, it is cut and divided into small pieces among the congregation, who receive it from the ushers, (themairesbeing first served,) in whatever position they may be in during the course of the service—either kneeling, seated, or standing. Its distribution usually commences during the course of theCredo, and, unless the congregation is very large, concludes at least before the commencement of the most solemn period of the Holy Sacrifice. The ceremony creates no confusion, but is received as an ordinary part of the day's duties. The morsel is accepted, the recipient blesses himself, with a short prayer, and the particle is consumed. The value of the observance of this rite is, the sacred lesson that it so significantly teaches. Its absence would only create remark in the mind of theHabitant, who is singularly tenacious of any innovation on the established customs of his forefathers, even where they manifestly are somewhat burdensome to be observed; for the preparation of bread in three or four large loaves for a thousand people is not entirely an insignificant matter. In the city churches of Quebec, the rite by dispensation is not observed, but it is universal in all the rural parishes. "La religion est changée." theHabitantwould say with a sigh, should an effort be made to cut loose from any of the ancient landmarks and customs to whose practice he had been accustomed. The observance of this habit is therefore wisely retained, as teaching a wholesome lesson of charity to our fellow-man. All are recipients alike, young and old, the sinner as well as the saintly, for all have need of the tender indulgence of each other in deference to their common infirmities. Many lands of softer clime possess fairer scenes and a richer soil; but for the elevated affections of the heart in simplicity, none possess in a rarer degree those virtues calculated to render man noble and happy, and to elevate him in the social scale, than the people of these northern possessions that bound our American limits. Perhaps in the march of events, should their country ever be absorbed with our own republican institutions, the strongest bond of fellowship will be, the common religion they hold in such perfect unity with numbers of their American brethren. It is this principle that will render them adaptive to our political institutions as good citizens; and, perhaps, in simple faith, earnest devotion, and rigid standard of observances of the Catholic faith, the American Catholic could well borrow from his Canadian brethren a portion of that zeal for which they are so justly conspicuous.
Our limits forbid all that might be said of the Catholic hierarchy in Canada; a body of men who, for learning, piety, and self-sacrifice, furnish so many glorious examples worthy of imitation. Zealous in the cause of education, as fervent in their piety, they have made the sterling worth of the Canadian Church a subject for praise and imitation in every land. The simplest Canadian follows the language of the Church in his daily prayers; and as the Angelus sounds within her borders thrice a day, or the passing-bell tells of a soul departed, or the joyful chime proclaims a Christian received within the Church, the Latin prayer universally ascends from a thousand hearts, and Heaven's benisons follow in benignant response. May the sun of prosperity ever lighten her borders!
Translated From The French.
"O grief beyond all other griefs! when fateFirst leaves the young heart desolateIn the wide world."Moore.
"O grief beyond all other griefs! when fateFirst leaves the young heart desolateIn the wide world."Moore.
It was at the close of the memorable 26th of June, 1848, one of the most dreadful days of that sanguinary strife called "the Revolution," which had desolated Paris since the month of February, that a man, dressed in a torn and blood-stained blouse, his face and hands black with gunpowder, and carrying a gun on his shoulder, climbed hastily the dark, dirty staircase of a house in the Rue de la Parcheminerie. He was followed by a miserable-looking child of apparently about eight years old, whose little, trembling legs managed with difficulty to keep up with the long strides of the individual before him, who from time to time looked back to see that he was coming.
On reaching the third story, the revolutionist, for such he evidently was, opened a door, and entered a dismal, bad-smelling room of poverty-stricken aspect. A woman of about forty was there, busily occupied over a small iron furnace casting lead bullets, of which a number ready for use were lying on the dirty brick floor beside her.
"Here they are, all hot, all hot," cried she with a fierce laugh as he came in. "I don't keep you waiting for your tools, you see; there's not a citizen of Paris that has a better help-mate than you, Auguste; is there, now? And I'm as ready with my knife as—but what have you there?" And the dreadful woman strode forward a step as she caught sight of the child, half-hidden behind her husband.
"It's a poor little devil I picked up on a barricade," replied Auguste. "Ma foi! I believe that he had followed his father to the fight, where the citizen received his passport for the other world; the little one had hooked himself on to the corpse, and I had some trouble to loosen his hold, and afterward to put him on his legs again; but a drop of brandy did it at last, and here he is!"
"And what on earth are we to do with him?" vociferated the woman, who had listened to this explanation with many a shrug and menacing gesture. "I shall not feed him, I tell you. Where's the grub to come from, I should like to know?"
"Come, now," said Auguste soothingly, "be reasonable, do. Now that the dog's dead, you can give him the bones and lickings, can't you? It won't cost more to keep this little wretch than it did to keep the dog. Not so much, I believe."
"He's not worth either bones or lickings," screamed the wife. "Medor earned his living, while this beast of a child"—here she caught the frightened boy by the arm and whirled him violently round—"hasn't the strength of a fly!"
"He'll be able to pick up rags in a day or two, Pelagie, you will see; Come, now, let us keep him. Here, sit down, young one." And Auguste pushed the child down on a wooden stool.
Pelagie stormed, but Auguste at last gained the day, and even obtained a crust of bread for the wretched little creature, whose large eyes glanced from the one to the other of the speakers while they debated his fate. His thin, pale cheek still bore the traces of the tears he had shed when his father fell, shot through the heart, on the barricade, and his little blouse and torn trousers were stained with his father's blood!
We shall not repeat the conversation of the husband and wife on the events of the day—that day when the infatuated workpeople and proletaires of Paris murdered the venerable priest who, obedient to the call of his sacred duties, had come to the scene of strife and slaughter to preach mercy and forbearance. "The shepherd gives his life for his sheep," and, "May my blood be the last shed," were the last words of Archbishop Affre. Alas! when the torch of civil war is once lighted, men seem to grow mad; the fiercest passions of humanity are let loose, and ruin and death seem alone able to end the struggle. So has it ever been with the excitable people of Paris; so will it ever be with the ignorant and vicious. Many fell after the good archbishop, and among them Auguste Vautrin. He had gone off, carrying with him the newly-made bullets, and leaving the child whose life he had probably saved; he returned no more. A neighbor whispered to Pelagie that same night that her husband was lying dead in the Rue St. Antoine, but the depraved and unloving wife did not care to reclaim his body, and all that was left of the miserable man was consequently thrown ignominiously into the common grave of the misguided revolutionists.
"Pinn'd, beaten, cold, pinch'd, threaten'd, and abused,His efforts punish'd and his food refused,Awake tormented, soon aroused from sleep,Struck if he wept, and yet compelled to weep,The trembling boy dropped down, and strove to pray,Received a blow, and trembling turned away."Crabbe.
"Pinn'd, beaten, cold, pinch'd, threaten'd, and abused,His efforts punish'd and his food refused,Awake tormented, soon aroused from sleep,Struck if he wept, and yet compelled to weep,The trembling boy dropped down, and strove to pray,Received a blow, and trembling turned away."Crabbe.
Pelagie Vautrin, now a widow, continued to gain her living as before. She was what is called in France a "merchant of the four seasons," that is, a costermonger, hawking about the streets in a handcart the different vegetables and fruits of each season, sometimes even venturing on a load of salt mackerel, sometimes of dried figs. She was a strong, masculine-looking virago, who might have gained a tolerable living, for one day with another brought her in about three francs, had she not been given to drink.Every bargain she made either to buy or to sell was ratified by a glass of brandy, so that by the time she had emptied her cart, her pocket was nearly empty too. At all times without gentleness or pity, she became almost ferocious when excited by liquor, and it was a cruel fate that had made the little orphan fall into her hands. He, poor fellow, seemed to be quite friendless. Questioned and cross-questioned by Pelagie and her neighbors, he could give no further account of himself than that he was called Marcel, and that his father was shot on the barricade; the child shuddered each time that he was forced to answer this. He appeared never to have known his mother, replying always that he had lived with his father, only with his father, and nobody else. He was a slight, elegantly formed boy, with the intelligent, delicate features peculiar to the true Parisian. Timid and nervous, he trembled each time that Pelagie addressed him, and implicitly obeyed her slightest order.
During the two days that followed the death of Auguste, Pelagie remained shut up in her dirty, close-smelling room. Whether she feared that the restoration of public order might expose her to the unpleasant observation of the law, or that the loss of her husband did really somewhat affect her, we know not; certain it is that she staid quietly at home, and even shared the bread and boiled beef that a neighbor had fetched for her from agargote, or poor eating-house, near by, with Marcel. He had been provided with a heap of rags for a bed, and permitted to sleep. And for two nights, poor boy, he had slept as children, happily the poor as well as the rich, only can sleep—forgetful of the past and unthinking of the future. But on the morning of the third day, Pelagie got up in full possession of all her wonted energy and brutality.
"Out of bed, little beggar!" were her first words, as she pushed the sleeping child with her foot; "out of bed; you must begin to work for your bread. Now, listen to me," she continued, as Marcel, with a scared look, started up ready-dressed from his bed of rags; "listen, do you hear, to me. You will go search for all the bits of old iron, old nails, and things of that sort, that you can find in the streets and gutters. Here is a leathern bag to put them in; do you see? I shall tie it about your waist, and take care you don't lose it. And here is a basket and a hook; with this hook you will catch up all the pieces of paper and rag that you see, and put them into the basket. Now, mind what you're about: I shall have an eye on you, wherever you may be. Here is a piece of bread; and don't come back until your basket is full, or I shall skin you."
So saying, she thrust the bewildered, frightened boy out of the door, which she shut immediately, leaving him to grope his way down the dark, crazy staircase as he best might.
After two or three falls he reached the door of the house, and found himself in the narrow, filthy gutter called the Rue de la Parcheminerie—one of the impure, airless thoroughfares of that old Paris which the present ruler of France is levelling to give place to wide, healthful, handsome streets and squares. He stood a moment hesitating whether he should turn to the right or to the left, when the voice of Pelagie calling to him from the window above made him look up. "Be off!" she screamed. "I'm watching you, and mind you bring me back all you get!"