The complaint inPutnamis, that the State and city of New York have granted aid to certain Catholic charitable institutions, such as hospitals, orphan asylums, reformatories or protectorates for Catholic boys, etc., out of all proportion to its grants of aid to similar Protestant institutions. Also, that the Legislature has authorized the city to appropriate a certain percentage of the fees received for liquor licenses to the support of private schools for the poor, some portion, even the larger portion, of which, it is assumed, will go to the support of Catholic parochial schools, and therefore, it is pretended, to the support ofsectarianschools; for in the Protestant mind whatever is Catholic is sectarian. But is it true that the State or the city does proportionably less for non-Catholic charitable or educational institutions—not a few of which are well known to be formed for the very purpose of picking up, we might say kidnapping, Catholic poor children, and bringing them up in some form of Protestantism or infidelity—than it does for Catholic charitable institutions? Most certainly not. It does far less for Catholic than for non-Catholic institutions; and yet, because it does a little for institutions, though for the benefit of the whole community, under the control and management of Catholics, the State and city are calumniated, and we are insulted by its being pretended that our church is made the state church.
In this matter of State grants or city donations, the Protestant mind proceeds upon a sad fallacy. The divisions of Protestants among themselves count for nothing in a question between them and Catholics. Protestants overlook this fact, and while they call all grants and donations to Catholic institutions sectarian, they call none sectarian of all that made to Protestant institutions which are not under the control and management of some particular denomination of Protestants, as the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, or the Methodist; but this is a grave error, and cannot fail to mislead the public. All grants and donations made to institutions, charitable or educational, not under the control and management of Catholics are made to non-Catholics; and, with the exception of those made to the Hebrews, to Protestant institutions. There are but two religions to be counted, Catholic and Protestant. The true rule is to count on one side whatever is given to institutions under Catholic control and management, and on the other side all that is given for similar purposes to all the institutions, whether public or private, not under Catholic control and management. The question, then, comes up, Have the State and city given proportionately greater amounts to Catholic charitable and other institutions than to Protestant institutions? If not, we have no more than our share, and the Protestant clamor is unjust and indefensible.
Of the policy of granting subsidies by State or city, to eleemosynary institutions, whether Catholic or Protestant we say nothing; for being, even now, at most not more than one fifth of the whole population of the State, we are in no sense answerable, as Catholics, for any policy the State may see proper to adopt. But, if it adopts the policy of granting subsidies, we demand for our institutions our proportion of the subsidies granted. Have we received more than our proportion? Nay, have we received anything like our proportion? We find from the official report made to the State Convention, that the total of grants made by the State to charitable and other institutions—including the New York Institution of the Deaf and Dumb, the New York Institution for the Blind, the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents of New York, State Agricultural College, State Normal School, the Western House of Refuge for Juvenile Delinquents, State Lunatic Asylum, the Asylum for Idiots, the Willard Asylum for the Insane, academies, orphan asylums, etc., hospitals, etc., colleges, universities, etc., and miscellaneous—-have amounted, for twenty-one years, ending with 1867, to $6,920,881.91.Of this large amount, Catholics should have received for their institutions certainly not less than one million of dollars. Yet, all that we have been able to find that they have received out of this large sum is a little less than $276,000; that is, not over one fourth of what they were entitled to; yetPutnam's Magazinehas the effrontery to pretend that our church is favored at the expense of Protestantism.
So much for the State subsidies. In passing to the city, we find its donations to charitable institutions, from 1847 to 1867 inclusive, amount to $1,837,593.27; of which, Catholic institutions, including $45,000 for parochial schools, have received, as nearly as we can ascertain from the returns, a little over three hundred thousand dollars. All the rest has gone to non-Catholic, and a large part to bitterly anti-Catholic associations and institutions. Of the aggregate grants and donations of the State and city of $8,754,759.18, Catholic institutions, as far as we have been able to discover from the official tables before us, received, prior to 1868, less than $600,000, not, by any means, a fourth of our proportion. Yet we are treated as the established church!
But we have not yet stated the whole case. We do not know how many millions are appropriated annually for the support of public schools throughout the State; but in this city the tax levy, this year, for the public schools, is, we are told, $3,000,000 or over. Catholics pay their proportion of this amount, and they are a third of the population of the city. The sum appropriated to the aid of private schools, we are told, is estimated at $200,000; and if every cent of it is applied in aid of our schools, as it will not be, it is far less than the tax we pay for schools which we cannot use. The public schools are anti-Catholic in their tendency, and none the less sectarian because established and managed by the public authority of the State. The State is practically Protestant, and all its institutions are managed almost exclusively by Protestants. St. John's College, Fordham, or St. Francis Xavier's, in this city, is not more exclusively Catholic than Columbia or Union is exclusively Protestant. These latter are open to Catholics, but not more than the former are to Protestants. We count in the grants and donations to Protestant institutions the whole amount raised by public tax, together with that appropriated from the school fund of the State for the support of the public schools. Thus we claim that Catholic charities and schools do not receive, in grants and donations, a tithe of what is honestly or justly their share—whether estimated according to their numbers or according to the amount of public taxes, for sectarian charitable and educational purposes levied on them by the State and its municipalities. How false and absurd, then, to pretend that this State specially favors our religion, and treats us as a privileged class! The writer inPutnamis obliged to draw largely on his sectarian imagination for facts to render his statements at all plausible. His pretended facts are in most cases no facts at all. We wish his estimate of the value of the real estate owned by the church were true; but he exaggerates hugely the amount, and then says it is held, for the most part, in fee-simple, by one or another of five ecclesiastics, which shows how ill-informed he is.We subjoin the brief but spirited contradiction, by the bishop of Rochester, of several of his misstatements.
"To the Editor of the Rochester Democrat:
"In your paper, of June 16, appears an article with the caption, Our Established Church.' The article is based on one with the same title inPutnam's Magazinefor July. I do not wish to review the article inPutnam, but claim the privilege of correcting some of its misstatements.
"I am one of the 'five ecclesiastics' in the State of New York holding property worth millions. Yet, strange to say, there is not to my knowledge one foot of land in the wide world in my name. All the church societies in the diocese of Rochester not organized as corporate bodies under the laws of the State of New York, previous to my appointment as Bishop of Rochester, have organized or are completing their organization under those laws. So soon as these societies comply with the law of the State, Bishop Loughlin, of Brooklyn, will transfer to them, by quit-claim deeds, whatever property of theirs he inherited from the late Bishop Timon. Had I had ever so little desire to hold property in my name, I might have held in fee-simple the lots on which I am building the bishop's house; but I have placed the title in the name of 'St. Patrick's Church Society.'
"The other 'ecclesiastics' in the State of New York, who have not already transferred the property which they held in fee-simple, are engaged in making such transfer of the 'fifty millions' said to be held by them.
"The chief trouble, it seems to me, is in the fact that the Catholic Church is allowed to hold property in any shape or form. But the Catholic Church does hold property, and she will continue to hold it to the end of the chapter, and 'What do you propose to do about it?'
"'The (Catholic) Nursery and Hospital on Fifty-first street and Lexington avenue,' is a Protestant institution.
"The new St. Patrick's Cathedral stands on ground purchased by Catholics about sixty years ago, and ever since in their possession. This fact spoils Parton's compliment to the Archbishop Hughes's foresight, and a nice bit of irony inPutnam's Magazine.
"The Catholics in New York City, in 1817, opened an orphan asylum, which they maintained, without assistance from the city or State, until some time after the year 1840, when they received on a perpetual lease the block of ground between Fourth and Fifth avenues and Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets, at that time of very little value. On these lots they have erected two vast and magnificent buildings, in which they support over a thousand children, at an annual cost to them, and not to the city or State, of from $70,000 to $90,000.
"I make these corrections to show that the writer of the article inPutnamis far astray in his facts. There are many other objectionable statements in the article, but a magazine contribution without a little spice in it would be tame and unreadable. Thus, the allusion to the church trouble in Auburn, and the pretty play on the name of the church, would lose their point if the history of that affair were properly understood.
"Catholics do not claim to have rights above any one else, but they know they have equal rights with others. They have no notion of their church ever becoming the 'Established Church,' and they are just as certain that no other church shall ever assume to be the 'Established Church' in the United States.
B. J. McQuaid,"Bishop of Rochester."
This is conclusive as far as it goes. We do not know the money value of our churches, the sites and buildings of our schools, colleges, orphan asylums, hospitals, religious houses, and academies; but it is possible that in the five dioceses into which the State is ecclesiastically divided it may be half as much as the value of the real estate owned by Trinity Church in this city; but be it more or be it less, the property of the church has been bought and paid for, so far as paid for at all, with very slight exceptions, by the voluntary offerings of the faithful, and none of it has been obtained by the despoiling of Protestant owners. Very little of it is due to public grants, and the few lots leased us by the city at a nominal rent for a term of years, though of great value now, were of little value when leased.Nor have these lots in any case been leased for sites of churches, but in all cases for purposes in which the city itself is no less deeply interested than the Catholics themselves. The grants to the reformatory for Catholic boys, though apparently large, are measures of economy on the part of the city; for we can manage reformatories and take care of our juvenile delinquents far more economically than the city or Protestant institutions can. The industrial school of the Sisters of Charity is a public benefit, and the city and the State would save money were all their hospitals and asylums placed under the charge of these good sisters, or of the kindred congregation of the Sisters of Mercy. Our hospitals, again, are as open to Protestants as to Catholics. It is never a Catholic practice to inquire what is a man's religion before rendering him assistance. Whoever needs our help, whatever his religion, is our neighbor.
The city has made donations, as far as we are aware, only to such Catholic institutions as are established for really public objects, and which in their operations save the city from what would otherwise be either a public nuisance or a public charge. Take the case of Catholic orphan asylums. The orphans they receive and provide for would otherwise be a charge on the city treasury. Take the institute of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. It has for its object a noble charity, that of rescuing and reforming fallen women. These victims of vice and propagators of corruption, received and cared for by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and generally restored to health, virtue, and usefulness, would, if not taken up by them, fall into the hands of the correctional police, and the city would have the expense of arresting, punishing, and providing for them in the house of correction, the penitentiary, or its hospitals. Catholic charity not only accomplishes a good object, confers a public benefit, but saves a heavy expense to the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction. It is only such Catholic institutions as tend directly to promote a public good, and to lighten the public expense, that the city aids with its grants and donations. It aids in the same way, and to a far greater extent, similar Protestant institutions, such as the House of the Friendless, the House of Mercy, the Society for the Protection of Juvenile Delinquents, the Christian's Aid Society, the Magdalen Society, the Nursery and Children's Hospital, etc., for the most part, institutions founded with an anti-Catholic intent.
TheMagazineasserts, the "State paid out, in 1866, for benefactions under religious control, $129,025.49, … of which the trifling sum of $124,174.14 went to the religious purposes" of the Catholic Church. We have not been able to find a particle of proof of this, and the mode of reckoning adopted byPutnamis so false, and its general inaccuracy is so great, that, in the absence of specific proof, we must presume it to be untrue, and made only for a sensational effect. The writer inPutnamseems to count as Catholic such institutions and associations as the Ladies' Mission Society, The New York Magdalen Benevolent Society, Ladies' Union Aid Society, Nursery and Children's Hospital, Ladies' Home Missionary Society, Five Points Gospel Union Mission, Five Points House of Industry, Young Men's Christian Association, and we know not how many more, all Protestant, and not a few of them designed, under pretext of charity, and by really rendering some physical relief to the poor and destitute, to detach the Catholic needy, and especially Catholic children, from the church, and yet all of them are beneficiaries of the State or city.No institution supported, even for proselyting purposes, by a union of two or more evangelical sects, is reckoned byPutnamas Protestant or sectarian. We hold them to be thoroughly Protestant, and rabidly sectarian.
The sensational writer inPutnamcomplains of the city for leasing to Catholics valuable real estate, at a nominal rent, for a long term of years. Only one such lease, that for the House of Industry for the Sisters of Charity, has been made in this city since 1847. The site of St. Patrick's Cathedral, which he pretends is leased by the city, at a rent of one dollar a year, has been owned by Catholics for over sixty years, and was bought and paid for by them with their own money, as the venerable Bishop of Rochester asserts. The only other instance named, that of the Nursery and Children's Hospital, Fifty-first street and Lexington avenue, is a Protestant, not a Catholic institution. The writer should not take grants and donations made to Protestants as grants and donations made to Catholics. Between Catholics and Protestants there is a difference!
The writer's statement of the huge endowments the church will have, at the rate the city and State are endowing her, in 1918, we must leave to the consideration of the futurePutnams. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We will only say that the church has had, thus far, in this country, no endowment, and has no source of revenue but the unfailing charity of the faithful. The magnificent revenues of our churches, colleges, hospitals, asylums, etc., so dazzling to the writer inPutnam, are all in his eye. We have not a single endowed church, convent, college, school, hospital, or asylum in the Union! We do great things with small means, and what to Protestants would seem to be no means at all, because He who is great is with us, and because we rely on charity, and charity never faileth.
We have sufficiently disposed of the property question, and vindicated the State and city from the charge of undue favoritism to our church. No charge can be more untrue or more unjust. A few words on the common school question, and we dismiss the article inPutnam, which has already detained us too long.
The writer inPutnamattempts to be so ironical and so witty, and so readily sacrifices sobriety and truth to point, that he must excuse us from following him step by step in his account of our relation to the common schools. We know well the common school system of this and other States. We—we speak personally—received our early education in the public schools, were for five years a common school teacher, and for fifteen years had charge of the schools in the place of our residence, as school committee-man. We have not one word to say against them as schools for the children of those who are willing to secularize education. We make no war on the system for non-Catholics. If they wish the system for themselves, we offer them no opposition. Indeed, for those who hold the supremacy of the secular order, and believe that every department of life should be secularized, no better system can be devised. We oppose it not when intended for them, but only when intended for us and we are taxed to support it. We hold the spiritual order superior to the secular, and wish our children to be educated accordingly.
We hold that education, or the instruction and training of children and youth, is a function of the church, a function which she cannot discharge except in schools exclusively under her management and control. This education and training can be successfully given only in the Catholic family and the Catholic school. In this country, for reasons we need not stop to enumerate, the Catholic school is especially necessary. We do not, by any means, oppose what is called secular learning, and in no country where they have not been prevented by a hostile or anti-Catholic government, have Catholics failed to take the lead in all branches of secular learning and science. All the great literary masterpieces of the world, since the downfall of Pagan Rome, are the productions either of Catholics or of men who have received a Catholic training. Few as we are, and great as are the disadvantages under which we labor in this country, Catholics even here compare more than favorably, at this moment, in secular learning and science, with non-Catholics. The religious training they receive from the church, the great catholic principles which she teaches them in the catechism and in all her services, tend to quicken and purify the mind, and to fit it to excel even in secular science and learning. The Catholic has the truth to start from, and why should he not surpass all others? No! we do not oppose, we favor secular learning and science; but we oppose separating secular training from religious training, and can never consent to the secularization of education. Here is where we and the present race of Protestants differ. It is because the common schools secularize, and are intended by their chief supporters to secularize, education and to make all life secular, that we oppose them, and refuse to send our children to them where we can possibly avoid it. Even if religious education is given elsewhere, in the family or in the Sunday-school, the evil is only partially neutralized. The separation of the secular from the religious tends to create a fearful dualism in both individual and social life, to place the spiritual and the secular in the relation of antagonism, each to the other, which renders impracticable that concord between the two orders so necessary to the harmonious development of the individual life and the promotion of the well-being and progress of society. We insist, therefore, on having our children and youth trained in schools under charge of the church, that in them the spiritual and the secular may be harmonized as necessary parts of one dialectic whole.
Such are our views and wishes, and such our conscientious conviction of duty. Whether we are right or wrong, is no question for the state or civil authority to settle. The state has no competency in the matter. It is bound to respect and protect every citizen in the free and full enjoyment of the freedom of his conscience. We stand before the state on a footing of perfect equality with non-Catholics, and have the same right to have our Catholic conscience respected and protected, that they have to have their non-Catholic and secularized conscience respected and protected. We do not ask the state to impose our conscience on them, or to compel them to adopt and follow our views of education; but we deny its right to impose theirs on us, or even to carry out their views of education in any degree at our expense. The Catholic conscience binds the state itself so far, but only so far, as Catholics are concerned. Non-Catholics are the great majority of the population, at least five to our one, throughout the State, and they have the power, if they choose to exercise it, to control the State and to deny us our equal rights; but that does not alter the fact that we have equal rights, and that the State is bound to respect and cause them to be respected.The State no doubt is equally bound to respect and protect the equal rights of non-Catholics, but no more than it is bound to respect and protect ours.
On this question of education, we and non-Catholics no doubt stand at opposite poles. We cannot accept their views, and they will not accept ours. Between them and us there is no common ground on which we and they can meet and act in concert. They feel it as keenly as we do. Now as the State owes equally respect and protection to both parties, and has no right to attempt to force either to conform to the views of the other, its only just and honest course is to abandon the policy of trying to bring both together in a system of common schools. Catholic and non-Catholic education cannot be carried on in common. In purely secular matters, Catholics and Protestants can act in common, as one people, one community; but in any question that involves the spiritual relations and duties of men, we and they are two communities, and cannot act in concert; and as both are equal before the State, it can compel neither to give way to the other. This may or may not be a disadvantage; but it is a fact, and must by all parties be accepted as such.
The solution of the problem would present no difficulty, were the non-Catholics as willing to recognize our rights as we are to recognize theirs. They support secular schools, and wish to compel us to send our children to them, because they hope thus to secularize the minds of our children—enlightenthem, they say; darken them, we say—and detach them from the church, or, at least, so emasculate their Catholicity that it will differ only in name from Protestantism. They regard common schools, in which secular learning is diverted from religious instruction and training, as a most cunningly devised engine for the destruction of the church; and therefore they insist on it with all the energy of their souls, and the strength of their hatred of Catholicity. It gives them the forming of the character of the children of Catholics, and thus in an indirect way makes the State an accomplice in their proselyting schemes. Here arises all the difficulty in the case. But, whether they are right or wrong in their calculations, the State has no more right to aid them against us, than it has to aid us against them. If it will, as it is bound to do, respect and protect the rights of conscience, or real religious liberty, the only solid basis of civil liberty, it must do as the continental governments of Europe do, and divide the public schools into two classes; the one for Catholics, and the other for non-Catholics; that is, adopt the system of denominational schools, or, rather, as we would say, Catholic schools—under the management and control of the church—for Catholics, and secular schools—under its own management and control,—for the rest of the community. Let the system stand as it is for non-Catholics, by whatever name they may be called, and let the State appropriate to Catholics, for the support of schools approved by their church, their proportion of the school fund, and of the money raised by public tax for the support of public schools, simply reserving to itself the right, through the courts, to see that the sums received are honestly applied to the purposes for which they are appropriated.The State may, if it insists, fix the minimum of secular instruction to be given, and withhold all or a portion of the public moneys from all Catholic schools that do not come up to it.
This, if the State, for public reasons, insists on universal education, is the best way of solving the difficulty, without violence to the equal rights of either Catholics or non-Catholics. The State would thus respect all consciences, and at the same time secure the education of all the children of the land, which is, no doubt, a public desideratum. Another way would be, to exempt Catholics from the tax levied for the support of the public schools, and give to the schools they maintain their proportion of the school fund held in trust by the State, and leave Catholics to establish and manage schools for their own children in their own way, under the supervision and control of the church. Either way of solving the difficulty would answer our purpose, and we venture to say that one or the other method of dealing with the public school question will ere long have to be adopted, whatever the opposition excited.
The American sense of justice already begins to revolt at the manifest wrong of taxing us to support schools from which our conscience will not permit us to derive any benefit. At present, we pay our quota to the support of the public schools, which we cannot with a good conscience use, and are obliged to support our own schools in addition. This is grossly unjust, and in direct violation of the equal rights guaranteed us by the constitution, and the religious liberty which is the loud boast of the country. The subsidies granted to some of our parochial schools in this city are an attempt, and an honorable attempt, to mitigate the injustice which is done us by the common school system. But the sums appropriated, as considerable as they may seem, are far below the sums collected from us, for the support of the public schools. The principle on which the common school system is founded is, that the wealth of the State should educate the children of the State. One third, at least, of the children of this city, are the children of Catholic parents, and belong to the Catholic Church. The sum appropriated for the public schools in this city, the present year, is, if we are correctly informed, something over three millions of dollars, and Catholics are entitled to one third of it, or to one million of dollars. They do not receive for their schools even a third of one million—even according to the most exaggerated statements ofPutnam's Magazineand the sectarian press—and nothing like the amount of the public school tax which they are compelled to pay; yet it is pretended that ours is the established church, and that Catholics are specially favored by the State and city! We ask no favors, but we demand justice, and that our equal rights with non-Catholic citizens be respected, and protected.
There are other points, inPutnam, that we should like to notice—points which are intended, and not unfitted, to tell on the minds of ignorant anti-Catholic bigots and fanatics; but our space, as well as our patience, is exhausted. The writer is worthy of no confidence in any of his statements. He proves effectually that it is untrue that figures cannot lie; for under his manipulation they not only lie, but lie hugely. Even the anti-CatholicNationhas rebuked him for his levity, and he has even disgusted all fair-minded and moderate Protestants. He has quite overshot his mark. But be that as it may, we have confidence in the justice and right sense of the great body of our countrymen and fellow-citizens, and we do not believe, however much they dislike the church, that they will persevere in a course manifestly unjust to Catholics, and repugnant to the first principles of American liberty, after becoming once aware of its bad character.
As to the subsidies granted by the Legislature to Catholic charitable and educational institutions, they have been far less than are due—as the Hon. John E. Devlin justly remarked in the Convention, not ten per cent of the amount granted. And it has been no crime on our part to accept what has been offered us; for we have received and accepted them only for purposes of public utility and common humanity. Nor are we responsible for the action of the State Legislature; for it is composed chiefly of non-Catholics, and by a large majority elected by non-Catholics. Catholics are by no means the majority of electors in the State. We institute no inquiry into the motives that have influenced the members of the Legislature; we never assign bad or sinister motives, when good and proper motives are at hand. We presume the motive has been a sense of justice toward a large and growing class of the community, whose rights have for a long time been trampled on or disregarded. To condemn them, is not at all creditable to the rabid Protestant press, and, in our judgment, is very bad policy. However it may be with the Protestant leaders, the majority of the American people are sincerely and earnestly attached to the American doctrine of equal rights, and will no more consent to its manifest violation in the case of Catholics than of non-Catholics.
"Why are ye afraid, O ye of little faith?"
As if the storm meant Him;Or'cause Heaven's face is dim,His needs a cloud.Was ever froward windThat could be so unkind,Or wave so proud?The wind had need be angry, and the water black,That to the mighty Neptune's self dare threaten wrack.There is no storm but thisOf your own cowardiceThat braves you out:You are the storm that mocksYourselves; you are the rocksOf your own doubt.Besides this fear of danger there's no danger here,And he that here fears danger does deserve his fear.
As if the storm meant Him;Or'cause Heaven's face is dim,His needs a cloud.Was ever froward windThat could be so unkind,Or wave so proud?The wind had need be angry, and the water black,That to the mighty Neptune's self dare threaten wrack.There is no storm but thisOf your own cowardiceThat braves you out:You are the storm that mocksYourselves; you are the rocksOf your own doubt.Besides this fear of danger there's no danger here,And he that here fears danger does deserve his fear.
Crashaw.
When spring came again, the letters from Mr. Granger were less frequent, and as weather and work grew warmer, the family had to content themselves with a few lines at irregular and sometimes long intervals.
They were not to be anxious, he wrote, even if they should not hear from him for several weeks. As the newspapers and the speech-makers had it, we were making history every day, and he must write his little paragraph with the rest. It took both hands to wield the pen, and he must have a care to make no blots. Which was a roundabout way of saying that his military duties required all his time. They must remember that "no news is good news," and try to possess their souls in patience.
On his next furlough he would
"Shoulder his crutch,and tell how fields were won,"
"Shoulder his crutch,and tell how fields were won,"
or lost; but till then a hasty scrawl must suffice. He thought of them whenever he lay down to rest; and sometimes, when he was in the midst of the hurry and noise of battle, he would catch a flitting vision of the peaceful fireside where friends sat and thought of him. That home was to him like the headland beacon to the mariner far away on the rough horizon, and threw its point of tender light on every dark event that surged about him.
"I shall be there before long. Meantime, good-by, and don't worry."
From Mr. Southard they had heard less frequently, and less at length. His monthly letters to his congregation were usually accompanied by a few lines addressed to Mr. or Mrs. Lewis, telling them in rather formal fashion where he was, and as little as possible of what he was doing. At present, the regiment of which he was chaplain still had their quarters at New Orleans.
"I am afraid he thinks that we don't care much to hear from him," Margaret said, the three ladies sitting together, and talking the matter over. "Suppose we all write just as freely as we do to Mr. Granger? We can tell him all the little household events, and how his chair and his place at the table are still called his, and kept for him. I think he would be pleased, don't you, Aura?"
"I do. It isn't a wonder that he writes formally to us when he gets such ceremonious answers."
"To complain of cold replies to cold letters is like the wolf accusing the lamb of muddying the brook," retorted Mrs. Lewis. "I shall waste none of my sweetness on the desert air, and you will be a pair of simpletons if you do. We might expend ourselves in those gushing epistles to him, and after a month or two we should probably get about three lines apiece in return, each line cooler than the last, and not an intimation that he wasn't bored."
"But I think he would be pleased," repeated Margaret doubtfully, beginning to waver.
"What right or reason have you to think so when he never says that he is?" Mrs. Lewis persisted. "For my part, I think that friendship is worthy of acknowledgment from king or kaiser—that is, if he wants it; and if Mr. Southard isn't an iceberg, then he is a very selfish and arrogant man, that's all.You may do as you like. But I shall never again try to get a sunbeam out of that cucumber. I have spoken."
The entrance of Mr. Lewis put an end to their discussion. He came in with a very cross face.
"Here I've got to start for Baltimore, with the thermometer at eighty degrees, and the Confederates swarming up the Shenandoah by tens of thousands, and ready to pounce on anybody south of New York!' Why have I got to go?' Why, my agent is on the point of absconding with the rents, and the insurance policies on my houses are out, and I can't renew them in Boston or New York for love or money; and if things are not seen to there, we shall be beggars. You needn't laugh, madam! It's no joke. I've just seen a man straight from Baltimore, and he says that rascal is all but ready to start on a European tour with my money in his pocket. I shall get a sunstroke, or have an apoplexy; I know I shall."
"A cabbage-leaf in your hat might prevent the sunstroke," his wife said serenely. "As to the apoplexy, I am not so safe about that, if you keep on at this rate. When do you start?"
"To-night; and now it is two o'clock. The rails may be ripped up at any hour. You see now, Mrs. Lewis, the disadvantage of living in one town and having your property in another. You would come to Boston. Nothing else would suit you. And the consequence is, that I've got to go posting down to Baltimore in July, to collect my rents."
Mrs. Lewis laughed merrily.
"'The woman whom thou gavest me'—that's the way, from Adam down. Who would think, girls, that this is the very first intimation I ever had that Mr. Lewis would rather live in Baltimore than Boston! But, bless me! I must see to his valise, and have an early dinner. As for the raid panic, I will risk you. I don't believe there's much the matter."
Margaret had been looking steadily at Mr. Lewis ever since he began speaking. She said not a word while the others exclaimed and questioned, and finally went out to prepare for his journey; but some sharp work was going on in her mind, an electric crystallization of vague and floating impressions, impulses, and thoughts into resolve.
It had been weeks since they heard from Mr. Granger. She had not been very much troubled about it—had, indeed, wondered that she felt so little anxiety; but her quietude was by no means indifference or security. She could not have defined her own feelings. For the last week she had not uttered his name, had shrunk with an unaccountable reluctance from doing so, and, worse yet, had found it impossible to pray for him.
Her other prayers she said as usual; but when she would have prayed for his safe return, the words died upon her lips. She was neither excited nor distressed; she was, perhaps, more calm than usual. Her hands were folded, her face upraised, she had placed herself in the presence of God; but if a hand had been laid upon her lips she could not have been more mute. A physical weakness seemed to deprive her of the power of speech. This was not once, but again, and yet again.
Margaret had the most absolute faith in the power of prayer. She believed that we may sometimes obtain what we had better not have, God giving for his word's sake to those who will not be denied, but chastening the petitioner for his lack of submission by means of the very gift he grantsShe had said to herself, "If a sword were raised to strike one I love, it could not fall while I prayed. He has promised, and I believe."
But now, if the sword hung there indeed, she could utter no word to stay its falling. She felt herself forbidden, bound by a restraint she could not throw off. "Well, Margaret," Mr. Lewis said at length, "what are you thinking of? You look as if your brain were a galvanic battery in full operation, sending messages in every direction at once. The sparks have been coming out of your eyes for the last five minutes."
The crystallizing process was over, and her resolution lay there in her mind as bright and hard as though it were the work of years.
"I'm going to Washington," she said. "I have been thinking of it this week. I will go with you tonight, if you please."
Of course there were wonderments, and questions, and objections. According to all the canons of propriety, it was highly improper for a lady to go South under the existing state of things, unless there were bitter need. It was warm, and it was hard travelling night and day, as he would have to do. He would like to have her company, of course, but he didn't see—
"No matter about your seeing," interrupted Miss Hamilton, rising. "If you won't have me with you, I'll go alone. Please don't say any more. Cannot you understand, Mr. Lewis, that there are times when trivial objections and opposition may be very irritating? We will not discuss canons of propriety just now. I have something of more consequence to attend to."
"Well, don't be cross," he said good-naturedly. "I won't say another word. If you can stand the journey, I shall be glad to have you go. But you will have to be quicker in getting your traps ready than my wife and Aurelia ever are."
"I can be ready in fifteen minutes to go anywhere," was the reply. "Now I will go tell Mrs. Lewis."
Mrs. Lewis saw at a glance that opposition was useless. Moreover, she was one of those persons who can allow for exceptional cases, and distinguish between rashness and inspiration.
"I know it seems odd," Margaret said to her; "but I must go. I feel impelled. I would go if I had to walk. You will be good, and take my part, won't you? Don't tell anybody where I have gone—nobody has any right to know—and take care of my little Dora. I'm going up to the State House now, but will be back by the time dinner is ready."
"I wouldn't venture to stop her if I could," Mrs. Lewis said. "Margaret is not given to flying off on tangents, and this start may mean something. She has perception at every pore of her."
In the messenger's room at the State House a score of persons were in waiting.
"I would like to see the governor a few minutes," Margaret said.
"You will have to wait your turn, ma'am," answered a very authoritative individual. "The gov'ner's tremendously busy—overwhelmed with work—hasn't had time to get his dinner yet. Just sit down and wait, and I will let him know as soon as there is a chance. If you tell me your business, I might mention it to him."
"Thank you! Which is his room?"
He pointed to a door. "But you can't go in now. I'll tell him presently, if you give me your name."
With the most sublime disregard for formalities, Miss Hamilton walked straight toward the door indicated.
"But I tell you you can't go in there," said the messenger angrily, attempting to stop her.
For answer, she opened the door, and walked into the room where the governor sat at a table, with a secretary at each side of him. He looked up with a frown on seeing a visitor enter unannounced, but rose immediately as he recognized her.
"That's right. I'm glad you did not wait," he said. Then as she glanced at his companions, added, "Come in here," and led her through a small ante-room where two young ladies sat waiting, and into the vacant council-chamber.
I will detain you but a minute," she said hastily. "I am going to start for Washington to-night, and I want to visit the hospitals there. Will you give me a letter to some one who will get me permission? I am not sure that I shall find an acquaintance in the city at this season, except the family to whose house I shall go, and they are people of no influence. Besides, I do not wish to have any delay!"
"Certainly; with pleasure! I will give you letters that will take you through everything without a question. But what in the world are you going there now for? It is hardly safe. My autograph will stand a pretty good chance of falling into the hands of Mosby."
"I am uneasy about Mr. Granger," she replied directly. "We haven't heard from him for weeks, and I must know if there is anything the matter. He has been a good friend to me. He saved my life once, and I owe him everything. We are only friends, you know; but that word means something with me. Do you think there is any impropriety in my going? Mr. Lewis goes with me as far as Baltimore."
"Not the least impropriety in life," was the prompt reply. "I won't say a word against your going. I always think that when any person, man or woman, gets that raised look that I see in your face, slow coaches had better roll off the track. Come, now, and I'll write your letters."
"You are worth a million times your weight in gold!" Margaret exclaimed. "You are one of the few persons who don't carry a wet blanket about in readiness to extinguish people. I cannot tell how I thank you!"
The gentleman laughed.
"Rather an extravagant valuation, considering the present percentage, and my pounds avoirdupois. As for wet blankets, I never did much believe in 'em."
While the governor wrote, Margaret stood at his elbow and watched the extraordinary characters that grew to life beneath his pen.
"Are you sure they will understand what those mean?" she asked timidly.
"They will know the signature," he replied, making a dab over a letter, to indicate that aniwas somewhere in the vicinity. "You can use them ascartes—well—noires, I suppose, on the strength of which you are to ask anything you please. Choate and I"—here a polysyllable was dashed across the whole sheet—"had a vocation for lettering tea-boxes, you know. There! now you had better use either of these first, if it is just as convenient, and keep Mr. Lincoln's till the last. But aren't you afraid of being stopped on the way? Everything is in a heap down there."
"So I hear; but I feel as if we shall get through."
"Don't mention to any one about my going, will you?" she whispered, as they went to the door.