"ART. XL. To none we will sell, to none will we deny, nor delay, right or justice.
"ART. LI. And, as soon as peace is restored, we will send out of the kingdom all foreign soldiers, cross-bowmen, and stipendiaries, who are come with horses and arms, to the injury of the kingdom.
"ART. LV. All unjust and illegal fines, and all amerciaments imposed unjustly, and contrary to the law of the land, shall be entirely forgiven," etc.
The sixty-third and last article is:
"ART. LXIII. Wherefore we will, and firmly enjoin, that the Church of England be free, and that all men in our kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions peaceably," etc.
Copies of this charter were found to have been deposited in the cathedrals of Lincoln, Salisbury, and Gloucester. When, in the next reign, that of Henry III., circumstances required that the charter should be confirmed, the ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other bishops. Coming before the king, in Westminster Hall, with tapers in their hands, they denounced excommunication against the breakers of the charter; and, casting down their tapers, exclaimed, "So may all that incur this sentence be extinguished." To which the king responded, "So help me God, I will keep all these things inviolate."
Hallam says, of this great charter:
"It is still the key-stone of English liberty," "and all that has since been obtained is little more than as confirmation or commentary."
Sir James Mackintosh and Sir William Blackstone agree essentially with Hallam. In respect to the merit of obtaining the charter, Mr. Hallam says:
"As far as we are guided by historical testimony, two great men, the pillars of our church and state, may be considered as entitled beyond the rest to the glory of this monument—Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William, Earl of Pembroke."
Of the charter, Sir William Blackstone says:
"It protected every individual of the nation in the free enjoyment of his life, his liberty, and his property, unless declared to be forfeited by the judgment of his peers."
The Petition of Right, passed in 1628, was based confessedly upon Magna Charta. Its principal provisions are:
1. That no loan or tax might be levied, save by consent of parliament.2. That no man might be imprisoned but by legal process.3. That soldiers might not be quartered on people against their will.4. That no commissions be granted for executing martial law.
This Petition of Right, in its third article, quotes entire the thirty-ninth of the charter, which is there styled "the great charter of the liberties of England." Coke, who drew up the petition, in his speech against the king's prerogative, says: "In my opinion, it weakens Magna Charta and all our statutes."
The Bill of Rights, passed at the Revolution of 1688, assumes it as the clear duty of the subjects "to vindicate and assert their ancient rights and liberties." The Act of Settlement declares that "the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof."
The correspondence and analogy between the principles of the great charter, together with its successive commentaries and confirmations, and those upon which the American Revolution rests, are obvious and striking. We may particularly instance the royal infringements upon the rights of the colonists, in refusing assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary to the public good; keeping up standing armies in time of peace without the consent of the legislature; affecting to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power; quartering armed troops upon the inhabitants; imposing taxes upon them without their consent; depriving them, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury; and altering fundamentally the form of their government.
Without a basis of right principle, the American Revolution would have been a rebellion against legitimate authority, and the people would have been deprived of that rectitude of conscience which bore them through the war; they would have been demoralized by the overthrow of their inbred loyalty, without which no free government is secure. If there was not a violation of conscience in withdrawing their allegiance to the British crown, it was because they had sovereign rights which were above that allegiance. It was because there was a Magna Charta which, in the words of Coke, "would brook no sovran." The contest was for those transmitted liberties which the American people claimed as a birthright under the British Constitution. Nearly six centuries divide 1776 from 1215; but the gulf is spanned by that arch of immortal principles which was projected by Cardinal Stephen Langton and his Catholic compeers in the meadow of Runnymede.
In violating the unity of Christendom in the sixteenth century, England thus outraged the national conscience, and her disloyalty to the truth that she had inherited for a thousand years was followed by the oppression of her colonies, which finally led to their separation from her. There was this great principle involved in that contest, and this great difference in favor of the colonists: England oppressed them, from her want of Catholic guidance and restraint and the observance of her own organic principle;theyresistedheron that basis of public right, and loyalty, and reason, which had been embedded in the English Constitution by their common Catholic ancestry. Not for the defence only of those rights, but for the knowledge of them—for their very existence—were our ancestors indebted to the Roman Catholic religion.
Upon the traditional laws and free principles of the English Constitution, we have erected an unrivalled system of order and right, while in English hands they have degenerated into a scheme of legalized oppression which is without a parallel among nations claiming to be free. Providence, acting on events, has so disposed them that England's persecution of the faith has transferred the Catholic population from that country to this, where with the language are found also the true tradition and the just development of the English Catholic constitution.
What is wanted to the perfection of American nationality is a firm moral, that is, religious foundation. It is easily susceptible of proof that no strong nationality has ever subsisted without such a basis. I do not, of course, limit the proposition to the Christian religion. But the foundation must be the more stable as the religion which underlies and props it is nearer to a conformity with unmixed truth. The first step in our career of greatness was to turn from England and to advance toward that unity which she had abandoned—when we seized upon the traditional Catholic principles and defended them against her attempted despotism.The true course of our national welfare and security lies still in the same direction—toward unity, and toward the Catholic Church. For what is to supply the spiritual needs of this young, and energetic, and glorious people? Surely not these transmitted and transplanted heresies which have passed into their decline and are tottering in their dotage. The creed which might answer for some bounded island, a petty electorate, or a mountain canon, is too narrow for this continental power, which needs a religion confederate as its own union and wide as the expansion of its own domain.
We have here many difficult and dividing moral questions already pressing for a solution. The fusion of the Caucasian tribes—already harmonized by the Catholic traditions, and never very remotely divided by characteristics—will probably serve but as the origination of a superior race: at least physiological laws give no ground to fear a deterioration. But we have here a numerous distinct race which must ever remain distinct, and which increases more rapidly than the white population.
I am not aware that history furnishes an instance of the justreconciliationof two distinctly different races of men upon the same soil, except by the aid of the Catholic religion. In Mexico and in South America the Catholic religion is establishing such a reconciliation, and it is the only harmonizing element in those societies.
It is impossible to say what peaceful solution of the problem will be reached here; but the ultimate destiny of the African blood planted and rooted on this soil will be either adjudicated upon Catholic principles, or else philanthropic theories, veil them as we may, will apply to the evil the remedy still worse of civil war. Questions like this demand a guide to conscience and a clear and uniform exposition of moral obligations.
The United States government has never denied the due spiritual authority of the Head of the Church—has never done aught to infringe his just prerogatives. There has never been enacted here an original or formal protest against the rights of the Apostolic See.
This people have never thrown off the claims of the Catholic religion, and they have not rejected it. The nation is not under the ban of a misguided defiance of the right spiritual authority.
In no sense, therefore, has this nation as a nation compromised itself as against those fundamental principles of unity and liberty of which the Catholic Church is, in the spiritual order, the true and only representative. As from her and her alone it can receive the perpetual impulse of a free, progressive, national development, so in yielding to her influence is it guilty of no inconstancy to its organtic law, of no infidelity to its historic past. The destiny which it is destined to accomplish in the political depends upon the position which it voluntarily assumes in the moral order, and this in turn upon the source from which it drinks in the springs of its religious life.
It needs but to be true to its origin, its constitution, its equity, and its ancestral virtues to become and to remain the foremost of the nations of the earth. But truth to these necessitates fidelity to her from whom visibly and directly not only they, but all that is noble and elevating in art or arms or civilization has originated, and in whom they have found an impregnable defender—the Catholic Church, the Communion of the Apostolic See.
Translated From The Historisch-politische Blaetter.
In the year 1854 appeared a work of great merit, entitledA History of the Apostolic Church, together with aGeneral Introduction to Church History,from the pen of Philip Schaff, a professor in the Lutheran Seminary at Mercersburg, and a literary colleague of Dr. Nevin, called "the American proto-martyr of the suffering church." At that time, Professor Schaff, who is a native of Graubündten, in Switzerland, was making a long stay in Europe. In the same year he published two other works—St. Augustine, Berlin, 1854, pp. 129, a brochure or precursor of the present large work, andAmerica—the Political, Social, and Ecclesiastico-Religious Condition of the United States, which is a continuous eulogy of his adopted country. That Dr. Schaff has for thirteen years zealously prosecuted the study of ecclesiastical history, the unusual size of the work before us sufficiently evinces. It is dated from the Bible House in New York, January, 1867, and dedicated to the teachers and friends of the author, August Tholuck, Julius Müller of Halle, J. A. Dorner of Berlin, and J. P. Lange of Bonn.
From the preface and dedication we learn that Schaff studied exegesis in Tübingen under Dr. Schmid, history under Dr. Bauer, and attended the lectures on systematic theology of Dr. Dorner. At this time he resided in Halle, "under the hospitable roof" of Tholuck, and by him and Julius Müller he was encouraged to choose an academical career. Since his residence in North America he has twice visited Europe, in 1854 and in 1865. His friends frequently wished him to obtain a professor's chair in Germany, but he could not determine to separate himself from a land in which since his twenty-fifth year he had found a second home, and desired his days to close in the "noble mediatorship between the Evangelical Christianity of the German and English languages." His book shows that he has defended in America, not altogether unworthily, the German theology—"the true, liberal, catholic, and evangelical theology."
An English translation of the present history of the ancient church, entitledHistory of the Christian Church; or, History of Ancient Christianity,appeared at the same time. Editions of this work were simultaneously published in New York and Edinburgh, in the years 1859 and 1862. It is indeed a continuation ofThe Apostolic Church, but, like it, a separate work "it contains the fruits of twenty years' active labor as professor of church history in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania."
Dr. Schaff remained in New York two years, for the purpose of availing himself of the use of its larger libraries. Here the Astor Library was at his command.This library, founded in the year 1850, by the German, John Jacob Astor, with a capital of four hundred thousand dollars, has been extensively increased by his son. It contains in a magnificent building one hundred and fifty thousand carefully selected volumes, among which are many costly and classic works on all branches of literature. He had also access to the library of the Union Theological Seminary, "which has purchased the Van Ess Library, (that of the well-known Catholic Bible translator,) with a collection of the fathers of the Church and the great learned compilations; it has since been increased by the addition of the library of E. Robinson, and the productions of recent Protestant theology. It is worthy of remark that the libraries of our celebrated German church historians find their way to America. Thus, the Neander library has been for a length of time in the Baptist Seminary at Rochester; the Thilo Library in Yale College, New Haven; and the Niedner Library in the Congregationalist Seminary at Andover. Neander's library, together with the manuscript of his church history, are shelved in a separate room at Rochester." This is unfortunately the customary way in which the important libraries of German theologians find their way either to England or North America, or, at least, are sold under the hammer.
The author honors the truth when he acknowledges and prefers the older and mostly Catholic investigators to the labors of Protestant inquirers. He mentions the Benedictines in the editions of the fathers of the church, the Bollandists in hagiography, Mansi and Hardouin in the collection of the councils, Gallandi, Dupin, Ceillier, Oudin, Cave, and J. A. Fabricius in patrology and the history of church literature; in particular branches he mentions Tillemont, Peteau, (Petavius,) Bull, Bingham, and Walch as his favorite guides. Whether he will prepare for the press his numerous manuscripts on the church history of the middle ages and modern times, the author refers to a distant and indefinite time. It will be done if "God grants him time and strength." For the present, his leisure time will be employed with the enlarged English edition of Lange's biblical works.
The peculiarity of our author consists in working up and turning to advantage the studies of others. In Schaff we find little or no independent research, for which he needs both time and inclination, but he excels in an exact and erudite employment of that which has been prepared by others. We are not finding fault with this, but rather approve of and commend it. In more personal and independent investigation, the present lacks the results of his previous intellectual labors. Dr. Schaff may make these once more respected; indeed, he avails himself more extensively of the labors of Catholic authors than any other modern Protestant historian.
In a book so rich in its contents, we are obliged to confine ourselves to a notice of special points only; we prefer this limitation to an estimate of the general contents, which of course embrace the ordinary well-known topics. The author treats of the inner life of the church, monasticism, ecclesiastical customs, worship, and Christian art more minutely than any of his predecessors.
The author discusses more briefly than we expected the two important chapters on the church's care of the poor, and of prisoners and slaves.The question of slavery is considered in paragraphs 89 and 152, inThe History of the Apostolic Church, paragraph 113, and in a separate treatise published in 1861,Slavery and the Bible. More than thirty-four years ago, as Möhler for the first time treated of this subject, he could say that he had searched with ardor both large and small works on church history for the purpose of instructing himself on the mode of the abolition of slavery, but all to no purpose; so that here he was compelled to open the way himself. Frequently since that time this question has been historically treated, but by no means exhausted. With a few words Dr. Schaff dismisses the important decrees of the Emperor Constantine in the years 316 and 321. He only remarks: "Constantine facilitated their liberation, granted Sunday to them, and gave ecclesiastics the privilege of emancipating their slaves of their own will and without the witnesses and ceremonies which were otherwise necessary." Here he citesCorpus Juris, 1. i. art. 13, 1. 1 and 2. The fact is, that the Emperor Constantine issued a command, April 18th, 321, to Bishop Hosius, of Cordova, according to which the liberation of slaves in the Christian churches should have the same effect as manumission under the Roman law. The principal law of this decree reads thus: "Those who liberate their slaves in the bosom of the church are declared to have done this with the same authority as if it were done by the Roman state, with her accustomed solemnities." This statute may be found in theTheodosian Code,lib. iv. tit. 7,De Manumiss. in Ecclesia; Lex 2,Codex Justin. De his, qui in Ecclesia manumittuntur. It is mentioned by Sozomen in theHistoria Tripartita, and by Nicephorus Callisti, vii. 18. It does not appear to us that Dr. Schaff has seen the text of the decree; for this does not refer only to the slaves of ecclesiastics, but to slaves in general. Whoever declared in the church that his slaves had received their liberty, they were from that fact free. Schaff is of the opinion that Möhler, (who was also ignorant of this decree,) in his able treatise on the abolition of slavery, has overestimated the influence of the sermons of St. Chrysostom on the subject, and we cannot say that he is entirely incorrect. On the other hand, the latter raised the question of the so-calledinnerliberation of the slaves, that is, their Christian treatment, the solicitude and care of Christian masters for their servants. The emancipation of slaves who were not prepared for liberty was always injurious to the slaves themselves, and not at all promotive of the general welfare.
Dr. Schaff treats the life and teaching of St. Augustine with becoming respect. He does him, however, a great injustice when he makes him teach, after the example of Tertullian and St. Cyprian, [Footnote 139] a symbolical doctrine of the Last Supper, which at the same time includes a real spiritual repast through faith, and thus in this respect he makes him approach the Calvinistic or orthodox reformed doctrine. St. Augustine a Calvinist in the doctrine of the Eucharist! But the few passages which Dr. Schaff advances for this purpose prove directly the faith of St. Augustine in the real, not in the symbolical, presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar. In his twenty-sixth tract on John we read: "Who abides not in Christ, neither eats his flesh, nor drinks his blood, even though he should press with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ."
[Footnote 139: It is Dr. Schaff, and not the author of the article, who attributes this doctrine to the two writers mentioned.—ED. C. W.]
Our Lord says: "He who eateth my body, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him." (John vi. 57.) Jesus refers to those who receive it with living faith and devotion, since the mere corporal partaking of the Eucharist is no abiding in Christ; therefore St. Augustine could say, and so can every Catholic teacher at the present time, "Who abides not in Christ, neither eats (truly) his flesh, nor drinks his blood, even though he should press with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ." The same doctrine is contained in the familiar hymn, "Sumunt boni, sumunt mali, sorte tamen inoequali, vitae vel interitus" [Footnote 140]
[Footnote 140: "The good and the bad receive, yet with the different lot of life or of destruction."]
The wicked, then, who receive the body, receive it not to life, but to judgment, for Christ lives not in them. With no better reason can Schaff adduce the words of St. Augustine in the preceding tract: "Why prepare your teeth and your stomach? Believe and eat." Every Catholic teacher must declare the same; it is not the corporal participation, but the spiritual disposition, which is faith and love, which must be impressed upon the mind of the faithful in receiving the Holy Eucharist.
Dr. Schaff is quite unfortunate in adducing the passage, (De peccator, meritis et rem. ii. 25,) "Although it is not the body of Christ, yet it is holy, since it is a sacrament." The impression is created in the mind of the reader that St. Augustine here denies in plain words the real presence of Christ. When we examine more closely, it is found that the question is not of the Eucharist at all, but of the blessed bread called Eulogia, and of which catechumens were allowed to partake. The entire passage runs thus: "Sanctification is not of one mode; for I think that even catechumens are sanctified in a certain way through the sign of Christ and the prayer of the imposition of hands; and that which they receive, although it is not the body of Christ, yet it is holy, more holy than the food by which we are nourished, since it is a sacrament." Here the saint distinguishes three kinds of food. First, that which is used for sustenance; second, the Eulogia, or the blessed bread, which catechumens received after they were set apart for the laying on of hands and blessings—this is called a sacrament; and third, the Eucharistic bread, which he calls the "body of the Lord." This blessed bread (which twenty years ago the author saw handed around in French churches) is indeed holier than common bread, a very sacrament, or, as we would say, asacramental, but still it is not the body of the Lord. The real presence is, then, taught in this passage, and Schaff would have been guilty of a falsification if he had read it in its proper connection. For his credit let us suppose that he has not done so. We find this quotation in Professor Schmid'sCompendium of the History of Dogma, the first edition of which was often before Dr. Schaff. Schmid at least permits the truth to appear (second edition, p. 109) when he quotes St. Augustine saying, "That which they receive, although it is not the body of Christ, yet it is holy," etc. Since we find so many passages in St. Augustine, which prove his belief in the real presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we are bound to explain the other passages, in which he speaks of a figurative partaking, in conformity with them.
These defects, however, do not prevent us from heartily acknowledging the excellence of Professor Schaff's work, and expressing the hope that the author may employ his undoubted talents in the service of Christian truth.
A Sonnet.A sorrow that for shame had hid her face,Soared to Heaven's gate, and knelt in penance thereBeneath the dusk cloud of her own wet hair,Weeping, as who would fain some deed eraseThat blots in dread eclipse baptismal grace:Like a felled tree with all its branches fairShe lay—her forehead on the ivory stair—Low murmuring, "Just art Thou, but I am base."Then saw I in my spirit's unsealed kenHow Heaven's bright hosts thrilled like the gems of mornWhen May winds on the incense-bosomed thornThe diamonds change to ruby. MagdalenArose, and kissed the Saviour's feet once more,And to that suffering soul his peace and pardon bore.Aubrey De Vere.
A Sonnet.A sorrow that for shame had hid her face,Soared to Heaven's gate, and knelt in penance thereBeneath the dusk cloud of her own wet hair,Weeping, as who would fain some deed eraseThat blots in dread eclipse baptismal grace:Like a felled tree with all its branches fairShe lay—her forehead on the ivory stair—Low murmuring, "Just art Thou, but I am base."Then saw I in my spirit's unsealed kenHow Heaven's bright hosts thrilled like the gems of mornWhen May winds on the incense-bosomed thornThe diamonds change to ruby. MagdalenArose, and kissed the Saviour's feet once more,And to that suffering soul his peace and pardon bore.Aubrey De Vere.
Cradle Lands.By Lady Herbert.With Illustrations.New-York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1869.
We welcome the appearance of this handsome volume with especial heartiness and interest for at least two reasons. It is the first attempt ever made by a Catholic publisher in this country to produce an illustrated work, of other than a strictly religious character, suitable as a holiday gift and valuable at the same time from its intrinsic merit; and it is one of the few good narratives in the English language of travel in the Holy Land written by a devout Catholic, and filled consequently with a genuine religious spirit. We have had Christmas books, annuals, etc., some of them excellent in their way; but their way was rather a narrow one, and we have never until now attempted to rival the Protestant publishing-houses on their own ground.Cradle Lands, however, is just the book which hundreds of our friends will be glad to buy for presents, and hundreds more will be glad to have for their own use. It is very handsomely made, is clearly printed on excellent paper, and well bound; and the illustrations, faithfully reproduced from the London edition, are everything that could be desired.
The book is well worth the pains that have been spent on it. Lady Herbert is an experienced traveller; with a quick eye for whatever is interesting, and a style sufficiently lively to make her chapters easy reading. She has not the graceful pen of a Kinglake or a Curtis; but she is rarely or never dull, and her power of description is by no means contemptible. But, as we said before, a peculiar interest belongs to her narrative on account of the spirit of Catholic piety which permeates it—not breaking out inopportunely in religious commonplaces, but coloring the scenes she paints with a graceful light of faith, and enticing us to look upon the land of our Lord not with the eyes of modern scepticism, but in the devout spirit in which a good Christian ought to look at it. She travelled with a party of friends from Egypt through Palestine, visiting the holy places, and afterward passing into Asia Minor. She describes not only the venerable relics of the past scattered through those sacred spots, and the condition of the modern native population, but the state of Christianity, the convents, schools, asylums, and other religious foundations, in which she appears to have found frequent hospitality. We need not follow her closely over ground which, in its principal features, is already familiar to most of our readers; but, as specimens of her style, we shall reproduce a few episodical passages. Here is a picture of harem life, a subject trite enough, yet always fresh:
"Before leaving Cairo, the English ladies were invited to spend an evening in the royal harem, and accordingly, at eight o'clock, found themselves in a beautiful garden, with fountains, lit by a multitude of variegated lamps, and were conducted by black eunuchs through trellis-covered walks to a large marble-paved hall, where about forty Circassian slaves met them, and escorted them to a saloon fitted up with divans, at the end of which reclined the pacha's wives. One of them was singularly beautiful, and exquisitely dressed in pink velvet and ermine, and priceless jewels. Another very fine figure was that of the mother, a venerable old princess, looking exactly like a Rembrandt just come out of its frame. Great respect was paid to her, and when she came in every one rose. The guests being seated, or rather squatted, on the divan, each was supplied with long pipes, coffee in exquisitely jewelled cups, and sweetmeats, the one succeeding the other without intermission the whole night. The Circassian slaves, with folded hands and downcast eyes, stood before their mistresses to supply their wants. Some of them were very pretty, and dressed with great richness and taste. Then began a concert of Turkish instruments, which sounded unpleasing to English ears, followed by a dance, which was graceful and pretty; but this again followed by a play, in which half the female slaves were dressed up as men, and the coarseness of which it is impossible to describe. The wife of the foreign minister kindly acted as interpreter for the English ladies, and through her means some kind of conversation was kept up. But the ignorance of the ladies in the harem is unbelievable. They can neither read nor write; their whole day is employed in dressing, bathing, eating, drinking, and smoking.
"Before the close of the evening, Princess A——, addressing herself to the mother of the party, through her interpreter, spoke very earnestly and seriously about her daughters, (then twelve and fourteen years of age,) remonstrating with her on their being still unmarried, and adding: 'Next Friday is the most auspicious of all days in the year for betrothal. I will have six of the handsomest and straightest-eyebrowed pachas here for you to choose from.' In vain the English lady refused the intended honor, pleading that in her country marriages were not contracted at so early an age, to say nothing of certain differences of race and of faith! The princess was not to be diverted from her purpose, and persisted in arranging the whole of the Friday's ceremonial. Let us hope that the young 'straight-eyebrowed pachas' found some other fair ladies, to console them for the non-appearance of their wished-for English brides on the appointed day. Thesoiréelasted till two o'clock in the morning, when the royalty withdrew; and the English ladies returned home, feeling the whole time as if they had been seeing a play acted from a scene in theArabian Nights, so difficult was it to realize that such a kind of existence was possible in the present century."
The original plan of our travellers was to proceed from Cairo across the desert, but they were afterward obliged to choose an easier route on account of the sickness of one of the party. Preparations for the desert journey, however, had been made, and there is a pleasant description of their outfit:
"At last, thanks to the kindness of an English gentleman long resident in Cairo, Mr. A——, five tents were got together and pitched, on approval, in the square opposite the hotel. One was a gorgeous affair, sky-blue, with red-and-white devices all over it, looking very like the tent of a travelling wild-beast show. But as it was the only large and roomy one, and was capable of containing the four ladies and their beds and bedding, it was finally decided to keep it, and to make it the drawing-room by day, reserving the more modest ones for the gentlemen of the party, as well as for the servants and the cooking apparatus. Their numbers were so great, with the 'tent-pitchers' and the other necessary camp-followers, that our travellers decided to dispense with chairs and tables—rather to the despair of a rheumatic member of the company!—and to content themselves with squatting on their carpets for their meals in true oriental fashion, and making use of the two wicker-baskets (which were to sling on each side of the mules, and contained the one dress for Sunday allowed to each lady) for dressing and wash-hand stands. A cord fastened across the tents at night served as a hanging wardrobe, to prevent their getting wet on the (sometimes) damp ground; some tin jugs and basins, with a smarter set in brass of a beautiful shape, (called in Cairo a 'tisht' and 'ibreek,') together with a few 'nargeeleh' pipes for the use of their guests on state occasions, completed their furnishing arrangements. They had brought from their boats a 'Union Jack,' so as to place themselves under the protection of their country's flag, and also an elaborate 'Wyvern,' the fabrication of which, in gorgeous green, with a curly tail, had afforded them great amusement in their start four months before.
"This life in tents is a free and charming way of existence, and, except in wet weather, was one of unmixed enjoyment to the whole party. The time spent by the leaders of the expedition in providing these necessary articles was occupied by the younger ones in buying presents in the bazaars: now struggling through the goldsmiths' quarter, (the narrowest in all Cairo,) where you buy your gold by the carat, and then have it manufactured before your eyes into whatever form you please; now trying on bright 'kaffirs' made of the pure Mecca silk, and generally of brown and yellow shades, with the 'akgal,' a kind of cord of camel's-hair which binds them round the head; or else the graceful burnous, with their beautifully blended colors and soft camel's-hair texture; or the many bright-colored slippers; or, leaving the silk and stuff bazaar, threading their way through the stalls containing what we should call in England 'curiosities,' and selecting the beautiful little silver filagree or enamel cups called 'zarfs,' which hold the delicate, tiny Dresden ones within—meant to contain that most delicious of all drinks, the genuine Eastern coffee, made without sugar or milk, but as unlike the horrible beverage known by that name in England as can well be imagined!In the same stalls were to be found beautiful Turkish rosaries, of jasper and agate, or sweet-scented woods, with long-shaped bottles of attar of roses, enamelled 'nargeelehs' and amber-mouthed pipes, and octagonal little tables made of tortoise-shell inlaid with mother-of-pearl."
Here is a good story of Egyptian law-courts:
"A certain French gentleman entrusted an Englishman with £90 to buy a horse for him. The Englishman, accordingly, gave the money to a native, whom he considered thoroughly trustworthy, with orders to go into Arabia and there purchase the animal. The Arab, however, spent most of the money in his own devices, and returned to Cairo, after a few months, with a wretched horse, such as would appear at a Spanish bull-fight. The Englishman, immensely disgusted, returned the £90, to his French friend, simply saying that he had failed in executing his commission; but he determined to try and recover it from the Arab. So he went and told the whole matter to the governor of Cairo, who appointed his deputy as judge. While the case was being tried, dinner-time came; and the judge, the prosecutor, and the prisoner, all sat down together, and dined in a friendly way. No embarrassment was caused thereby; but after dinner, the judge, turning to the prisoner, quietly said: 'Can you pay the Frank gentleman the money you owe him?' On receiving a simple reply in the negative, the judge added, 'Then you had better go off at once to prison, and delay this gentleman no longer.' The Arab went without a word, and remained in this miserable place (for the prisons are infamous) for two months, after which his brother took his place for him. Finally the money was paid by instalments."
With the following beautiful description of a "Good-Friday service at Jerusalem," we commend Lady Herbert's book to the favor of our readers:
"It is a beautiful and solemn service, in which even Protestants are seen to join with unwonted fervor; and on this special day it was crowded to excess. When it was over, the two friends returned to the altar of St. Mary Magdalen, the words and tones of the hymn still lingering in their hearts:
'Jesu! dulce refugium,Spes una te quaerentium.Per Magdalenae meritumPeccati solve debitum.'
'Jesu! dulce refugium,Spes una te quaerentium.Per Magdalenae meritumPeccati solve debitum.'
To those who are sorrowful and desponding at the sense of their own unworthiness and continual shortcomings, there is a peculiar attraction and help in the thoughts of this saint, apart from all the rest. The perfections of the Blessed Virgin dazzle us by their very brightness, and make us, as it were, despair of following her example. But in the Magdalen we have the picture of one who, like us, was tempted and sinned and fell, and yet, by the mercy of God and the force of the mighty love he put into her heart, was forgiven and accepted for the sake of that very love he had infused.
"Presently the English stranger rose, and, approaching one of the Franciscan monks, begged for the benediction of her crucifix and other sacred objects, according to the short form in use at the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre; a privilege kindly and courteously granted to her. And now the shades of evening are darkening the aisles of the sacred building, and the pilgrims are gathered in a close and serried mass in the Chapel of Calvary, waiting for the ceremony which is to close the solemn offices of that awful day. By the kindness of the duke, who had been their companion in the Via Crucis, the two ladies were saved from the crowd, and conducted by a private staircase from the Greek chapel to the right of the altar of Calvary. The whole is soon wrapped in profound darkness, save where the light is thrown on a crucifix the size of life, erected close to the fatal spot. You might have fancied yourself alone but for the low murmur and swaying to and fro of the dense crowd kneeling on the floor of the chapel. Presently a Franciscan monk stepped forward, and, leaving his brethren prostrate at the foot of the altar, mounted on a kind of estrade at the back, and proceeded to detach the figure of our Blessed Lord from the cross. As each nail was painfully and slowly drawn out, he held it up, exclaiming, 'Ecce, dulces clavos!' exposing it at the same time to the view of the multitude, who, breathless and expectant, seemed riveted to the spot, with their upturned faces fixed on the symbol represented to them. The supernatural and majestic stillness and silence of that great mass of human beings was one of the most striking features of the whole scene. Presently a ladder was brought, and the sacred figure lifted down, as in Rubens's famous picture of the 'Deposition,' into the arms of the monks at the foot of the cross.As the last nail was detached, and the head fell forward as of a dead body, a low deep sob burst from the very souls of the kneeling crowd. Tenderly and reverently the Franciscan fathers wrapped it in fine linen, and placed it in the arms of the patriarch, who, kneeling, received it, and carried it down to the Holy Sepulchre, the procession chanting the antiphon, 'Acceperunt Joseph et Nicodemus corpus Jesu; et ligaverunt illud linteis cum aromatibus, sicut mos est Judaeis sepelire.' The crowd followed eagerly, yet reverently, the body to its last resting-place. It is a representation which might certainly be painful if not conducted throughout with exceeding care. But done as it is at Jerusalem, it can but deepen in the minds of all beholders the feelings of intense reverence, adoration, and awe with which they draw near to the scene of Christ's sufferings, and enable them more perfectly to realize the mystery of that terrible Passion which he bore for our sakes in his own body on the tree.
"And with this touching ceremony the day is over; the crowd of pilgrims disperses, to meet on the morrow in the same spot for the more consoling offices of Easter-eve.
"But in many a heart the memory of this day will never be effaced; and will, it is humbly hoped, bear its life-long fruit in increased devotion to the sacred humanity of their Lord, and in greater detestation of those sins which could only be cancelled by so tremendous an atonement."
The Bird.By Jules Michelet.With 210 illustrations by Giacomelli.New York: T. Nelson & Sons. 1868.
It is not often that nature finds so charming an interpreter as Michelet. He throws around us the very perfume of the flowers; and his birds not only sing, but sing to us, speak to us, and become our dearest friends. Reading, we forget the close walls of the city, the weary noise, the heavy air of overcrowded human life; we follow the birds in their flight, drink in their spirit of liberty, joy, tenderness, and love, till, with Michelet, we almost give them a personality, a soul. It is difficult to cull from a bed of choice flowers a single specimen, for one will appeal to us through its beauty of form, another of color, another by its delicacy and fragrance; so here, where every page is charming, we know not how to choose between the grandeur and magnificence of the tropical forests, or the stern and silent melancholy of the polar regions, or the more home-like charm of scenes that we know. The last, perhaps, cannot fail to please. Here is his description of an autumnal migration:
"Bright was the morning sky, but the wind blew from La Vendée. My pines bewailed their fate, and from my afflicted cedar issued a low, deep voice of mourning. The ground was strewn with fruit, which we all set to work to gather. Gradually the weather grew cloudy, the sky assumed a dull leaden gray, the wind sank, all was death-like. It was then, at about four o'clock, that simultaneously arrived, from all points, from the wood, from the Erdre, from the city, from the Loire, from the Sèvre, infinite legions, darkening the day, which settled on the church roof, with a myriad voices, a myriad cries, debates, discussions. Though, ignorant of their language, it was not difficult for us to perceive that they differed among themselves. It may be that the youngest, beguiled by the warm breath of autumn, would fain have lingered longer. But the wiser and more experienced travellers insisted upon departure. They prevailed; the black masses, moving all at once like a huge cloud, winged their flight toward the south-east, probably toward Italy. They had scarcely accomplished three hundred leagues (four or five hours' flight) before all the cataracts of heaven were let loose to deluge the earth; for a moment we thought it was a flood. Sheltered in our house, which shook with the furious blast, we admired the wisdom of the winged soothsayers, which had so prudently anticipated the annual epoch of migration."
This book was to the author a sort of oasis; it was undertaken or rather grew up in the interval of a rest from historical labors; it was for him a refreshment, a rest; and such it could not fail to prove to any one of us in the midst of the weary cares of every-day life. Unfortunately, Michelet has not interpreted history so successfully as he has nature, and the results of his labor are far less praiseworthy than the results of his recreation.
The Birdis most beautifully illustrated by Giacomelli, Doré's collaborateur on his celebrated Bible.
Tablets.By A. Bronson Alcott.Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.
No one who has ever enjoyed the pleasure of an interview with the "Orphic Alcott," and felt the charm which his rare conversational powers throw around every subject to which they are directed, can fail to find a renewal of that pleasure while perusing the genial volume which has just emanated from his too infrequent pen. Elegant in its external garniture, it brings upon its pages the faint odor of the roses that bloom on the broad Concord lawns, the rustle of the leaves that shelter the secluded nook in which the writer finds "the leisure and the peace of age," the cool air that floats across clear Walden-water, filling both library and studio with its bracing breath; so giving to the reader, familiar with the scenes amid which theseTabletswere inscribed, a double satisfaction in the thoughts which they suggest and in the memories which they revive.
The book itself consists of two series of essays: the first, "Practical;" the second, "Speculative." The former will most interest the ordinary reader. The latter will be appreciated by few who are not otherwise instructed in the peculiar views of their author. The "Practical" essays are entitled "The Garden," "Recreation," "Fellowship," "Friendship," "Culture," "Books," "Counsels," and each is subdivided into different heads. Hackneyed as several of these subjects appear to be, the reader will experience no sense of weariness while following Mr. Alcott over them. Were not his ideas original, "the method of the man" would be alone sufficient to give an interest of no common order to his well-weighed words. Many of his aphorisms are like "apples of gold in pictures of silver;" and some deserve to become household truths with all thoughtful men. Such is his verdict upon political partisanship on page 148; his strong, courageous plea for individuality on page 145; and his high view of education on pages 103et seq. From these and various other passages, which space alone forbids us to distinguish, we may say that, if "a man's speech is the measure of his culture," there are few men into whose sphere one can be brought whose kindliness and courtesy, whose flowing spirits and sprightly wit, can more captivate and charm than the gray-haired student who sits in the arbors, groves, and gardens, and day by day treasures up on the tablets of his diary the choice things of mankind, and illustrates them with choice memories of his own.
At this period of Mr. Alcott's life, we anticipated, in reading hisTablets, which speak so charmingly of this world, finding some light shed on the world to come. It makes us sad to think we found nothing.
A New Practical Hebrew Grammar,With Hebrew-English And English-Hebrew Exercises,And Hebrew Chrestomathy.By Solomon Deutsch, A.M., Ph.D.New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1868.
Text-books should be valued according to the perfection of the method adopted, and the precision and arrangement of details, rather than on account of abundance of matter or exhaustive explanations. Books which contain copious treatises are useful, and even necessary, for the master, but injurious to the advancement of the pupil. The author of the school-book should aim at arranging the elements in the department in which he writes so that the scholar may, with the least trouble, acquire a knowledge of the rules, principles, and leading features of the subject. Students should not be expected to learn everything in school. The professor who aims at imparting a complete knowledge, or all he may know on a subject, will confuse his students, be found too exacting, and will be finally punished by disappointment. School exercise was very appropriately calleddisciplinaby the Romans, a term which implied rather a training in the manner in which the various branches should be studied, than the attainment of their mastery.