But whatever the people in Ireland may see fit to do or dare, the organization of armed men in this country to assist in that purpose is most reprehensible and fraught with the greatest mischiefs. For any person within our limits to attempt to levy war on a country at peace with the United States is clearly illegal. If he be a stranger, it is a criminalabuse of our hospitality; if a citizen, he disregards his oath of allegiance. Such a movement gives color to the assertions of the worst enemies of all foreigners, the Know-nothings, who accuse Irishmen of not becoming citizens in the true spirit of their oath, but merely pretended ones, whose object is to use this country as theirpoint d’appuifor ulterior objects. Besides, such societies have a tendency to unsettle the minds of the people, and divert them from the main objects of their self-expatriation—free homes and altars. But even if Ireland were to-day independent, not one-tenth of the Irish in America could or would return. The mass of them are permanently attached to America by affection, association, or interest; their children are growing up around them, naturally imbued with a love for this, the country of their birth; their property and business are here; some are too old to be retransplanted, and others young enough to prefer seeking fortunes in our stupendous and but yet only partially developed commonwealth, to spending a lifetime in the necessarily limited sphere of enterprise presented by so small a country as Ireland under the most favorable auspices. True patriotism should, therefore, dictate to the Irish-American the wisdom of promoting the welfare of this large majority of his countrymen who, for good or evil, must pass their lives with us. And what a vast and enticing field is thus presented to the successful merchant and ardent Irish nationalist! If they cannot free Ireland, they can by their money and their intelligence free tens of thousands of their countrymen from the slavery of poverty and dependence, from the vices of the cities and the degradation of the factories and the coal-mines. Such an effort, judiciouslymade, apart from the benefits it would confer on so many poor and deserving citizens, and the unanswerable argument it would present of practical, disinterested sympathy, would, if the occasion should ever present itself, enable the persons so benefited to assist in their turn the cause of true Irish nationality. There is nothing so successful, it is said, as success, and while the sympathies of most nations, particularly of our own, are easily enlisted in favor of an oppressed nation like Ireland, there is generally observable an implied doubt that she is misgoverned because her people have not the capacity to properly govern themselves. At home, they certainly have not been allowed to try the experiment, but here, with free institutions already firmly established, vast mineral, agricultural, and commercial industries to invite their labor and excite their ambition, and with an area of unoccupied land almost beyond conception, a people incapable of profiting by these advantages, either as individuals or by mutual co-operation, expose themselves to the suspicion of being deficient in that organizing faculty and mental grasp which create and sustain independent governments.
Without intending to draw an invidious distinction between one class of citizens and another, we may point to the German immigration to this country as an admirable example of the benefits arising from organization and mutual support. It is this harmony of purpose that has given to the Teutonic element, though by no means the strongest in our population, a preponderating influence in several of the Western states, and the proprietorship of innumerable farms on both sides of the Mississippi River. Coming from a self-governing country, and leaving behind an extensive trading and manufacturing connection,the German immigrant has of course many advantages over his Irish fellow-voyager, but those who have closely watched the progress of both races in America assert that it is to the admirable system of mutual help and protection enjoyed by the former that his great industrial progress is mainly due.
We are satisfied that there are many wealthy citizens of Irish birth in this city and elsewhere who would gladly contribute of their super-abundant means to assist their less fortunate fellow-countrymen, were any feasible project inaugurated by which they could do so practically and efficiently, and we trust that there are among us adopted citizens themselves—persons who, abandoning chimerical schemes of conquest and invasion, would devote their time and ability to assist those of their helpless countrymen who have come and are coming among us. Every intelligent agriculturist that can be planted on the virgin soil of our now waste public lands, every ingenious mechanic that is furnished with employment in our workshops, and, we may say, every stalwart laborer that is removed from the overstocked labor market of the East and assisted to the towns and smaller cities of the South and West, adds to the general wealth of the community, increases the strength and glory of our republic, and conduces to its growing intelligence and morality.
The pursuit of wealth, however important, is not of course the primary duty of man, considered either as an individual responsible being or as a citizen. Religion, in its proper practical sense, is not only the source of happiness for mankind in this world and the next, but is absolutely necessary for the preservation of all well-regulated society, and it is on this account among others that so manyadmirers of American institutions have seen with regret that a large portion of our immigrants from the continental countries of Europe evince a complete disregard for the plainest forms of Christianity. Now, the founders of this government were essentially a religious people. The Catholics of Maryland and the Puritans of New England; the Virginia Episcopalians and the Pennsylvania Quakers, feared God and revered his laws, as far at least as they understood them; and the excellent institutions which those men of diverse opinions, but honest intentions, originated and transmitted to us, are but the reflex of that reverential and devotional spirit. We admire the thrift and enterprise of our German fellow-citizens, we admit their general good order, taste, and proficiency in art, particularly the beautiful one of music, and we know how many fine churches and hospitals they have built and are sustaining, but it cannot be denied that there is a great deal of indifferentism, and even worse, among the anti-Catholic portion of them, the outward evidence of which may be found in the complete disregard that is so generally manifested for the holiness of the Sunday. We are not of those who would deny to the hard-working and hard-faring classes their proper share of innocent and healthful amusement on the only day in the week that they can escape from labor, but this recreation should be preceded by some act of devotion, some solemn and open recognition of our dependence on the great Giver of life and happiness. Still, whoever visits our saloons and pleasure gardens on a Sunday will find them thronged with persons of all ages and both sexes from early morning till midnight, while churches that would gladly receive them are comparatively deserted. Luther’s revoltagainst the church has much of this to answer for, but Kant, Fichte, and other so-called philosophers of more modern times have much more; for while the “Reformers” only unsettled the religious mind of Germany, and partially succeeded in alienating it from the Catholic Church, the schoolmen succeeded in making atheism fashionable among the intelligent classes by covering it with a thin veil of learned mysticism. This want of proper deference for the day set apart by the church, and by all Christian sects, for special reverence, and the observance of which is even enjoined by our common and statute law, is, we maintain, not only un-American, but is likely to produce a general contempt for all law, and lead to a weakening of the sense of that obedience which every individual citizen owes to the public authority.
In thus alluding to the characteristics of some of our adopted citizens, we have touched only on those of the two most numerous representativesof European nationalities, not because there are not others whose deficiencies, from an American point of view, are not as apparent, but from the fact that we consider, from their numerical strength and intrinsic qualities, they are destined to exercise a marked and extensive influence on the future character of the country. In feeling or temperament, they are not opposed to us nor to each other. The vivacity and even excitability of one race find their complement in the solidity and matter-of-fact disposition of the other—a union of qualities which, governed and properly managed by the practical genius of Americans, will in all human probability lead to results in the distant future of the magnitude of which we scarcely dare to dream. No people ever possessed the advantages that we, native and adopted, enjoy. Let us avail ourselves of them in such manner that posterity may look back to us, as we to the Revolutionary fathers, with unmingled feelings of gratitude and admiration.
FROM THE FRENCH OF HENRI LASSERRE.
(Concluded.)
Another episode.
There are, in civil life, men whose appearance is precisely that of a soldier. Though they have never seen service, every one who meets them and does not know them takes them without hesitation for veterans. They have the rather stiff carriage, firm step, disciplined appearance, and concealed good-fellowship belonging to the profession. They are specially common in the mixed services, such as the customs, the waters and forests, which, though purely civil in their nature, borrow their degrees of rank and their methods from the systemadopted for the army. On the one hand, these men have, like private citizens, a family and a domestic life; on the other, they are bound in a thousand ways by the manifold requirements of an entirely military rule. To this is due the peculiar appearance of which I speak, and with which every one is familiar.
If, then, you have ever seen a brave cavalry officer in citizen’s dress, with his short hair and his bristly moustache beginning to turn gray; if you have noticed in his energetic features those straight and vertical lines which are hardly as yet wrinkles, and which seem peculiar to these military faces; if you have gazed upon that forehead, rebellious to the hat, and which seems made expressly for the kepi or tricorne, upon those firm eyes which by day are accustomed to brave danger, but by night become gentle at the fireside as they rest upon the children’s heads; if you remember this characteristic type, I have no need to introduce you to M. Roger Lacassagne, officer in the custom-house at Bordeaux—you know him as well as I.
When, about two years ago, I had the honor of visiting him at his house, Rue du Chai des Farines,No.6, at Bordeaux, I was struck at first by his severe appearance and his air of reserve.
He asked me, with the somewhat brusque politeness habitual to men of discipline, what was the object of my visit.
“Monsieur,” said I, “I have heard the story of your journey to the Grotto of Lourdes, and for the profit of some inquiries I am just now making, I have come to have it from your own mouth.”
At the words “the Grotto of Lourdes,” this stern countenance became tender, and a dear remembrance softened its rigid lines.
“Be seated,” said he, “and excuse the disorder of our establishment. My family leaves to-day for Arcachou, and everything is topsy-turvy.”
“Do not mention it. Tell me all about these interesting events of which I have already heard, but only confusedly.”
“For my part,” said he in a voice choked by emotion, “I shall never in my life forget their smallest details.
“Monsieur,” he continued after a moment of silence, “I have only two sons. The youngest, about whom I am going to tell you, is called Jules. He will come in before long. You will see how sweet, pure, and good he is.”
M. Lacassagne did not tell me all his affection for this youngest son. But the accent of his voice, which became gentle and as it were caressing in speaking of this child, showed me all the depth of his paternal love. I understood that in that strong and tender feeling was concentrated all the force of this manly soul.
“His health,” continued he, “was excellent until the age of ten.
“At that period there came on unexpectedly, and without apparent physical cause, a disease the importance of which I did not at first appreciate. On the 25th of January, 1865, when we were sitting down to supper, Jules complained of a trouble in his throat which prevented him from swallowing any solid food. He had to limit himself to a little soup.
“This state of things continuing next day, I called in Dr. Noguès, one of the most distinguished physicians of Toulouse.
“‘The difficulty comes from the nerves,’ said he—which gave me hopes of a speedy cure.
“In fact, a few days afterwards, the boy was able to eat, and I thought all was over, when the trouble returned,and continued with occasional intermissions till the end of April. It then became fixed. The poor child had to live entirely on liquids; on milk, the juice of meat, and broth. Even the broth had to be very clear, for such was the narrowness of the orifice that it was absolutely impossible for him to swallow anything solid, even tapioca.
“The poor boy, reduced to such miserable diet, was becoming visibly emaciated, and was dying slowly.
“The physicians, for there were two—as I had from the outset requested a celebrated practitioner, Dr. Roques, to consult with Dr. Noguès—the physicians, I say, astonished by the peculiarity and the persistence of this difficulty, tried vainly to discover its precise nature, that they might apply a remedy. One day, it was the tenth of May—for I suffered so much, sir, and thought so much about this illness that I remembered every date—one day, I saw Jules in the garden running with unusual haste, and as it were precipitately. Now I dreaded the least agitation for him.
“‘Stop, Jules!’ cried I, going to him and taking his hand.
“He broke away immediately.
“‘Father, I cannot,’ said he. ‘I must run. It is stronger than I.’
“I took him in my lap, but his legs moved convulsively. Soon after the movement passed to his head and face.
“The true character of his disease had at last declared itself. My poor child was attacked by chorea. You are no doubt aware, sir, by what horrible contortions this disease is usually marked.”
“No,” said I, interrupting him, “I do not even know what it is.”
“It is what is often calledSt.Vitus’s dance.”
“Yes, I have heard of that. Go on.”
“The principal seat of the disease was in the œsophagus. The convulsions which I had just witnessed, and which were continued at all hours from that time, put an end to the perplexities of the physicians.
“But though they now understood the difficulty, they could not overcome it. After fifteen months of treatment, the most they could do was control these violent external symptoms; or really, in my own opinion, these disappeared of themselves by the efforts of nature alone. But as to the contraction of the throat, it had become chronic and resisted all appliances. Remedies of every kind, the country, the baths of Luchon, were successively and uselessly employed for about two years. All the treatment seemed only to increase the disease.
“Our last trial had been one season at the sea-side. My wife had taken our poor child toSt.Jean-de-Luz. I need hardly say that in the state in which he was, the care of his body was everything. Our only object was to keep him alive. We had from the first suspended his studies and stopped all labor on his part, whether of body or mind; we treated him like a plant. Now, his mind was naturally active and inquiring, and this privation of intellectual occupation gave him muchennui. The poor boy was also ashamed of his trouble; he saw other children in good health, and he felt himself as it were disgraced and under a ban; so he kept apart.”
The father, deeply moved by these memories, stopped a moment to check a rising sob, and continued:
“He kept apart. He was sad. When he found some interesting book, he would read it to distract his mind. AtSt.Jean-de-Luz, he saw one day on the table of a lady who lived in the neighborhood a little notice of theapparition at Lourdes. He read it, and seems to have been very much impressed by it. He said that evening to his mother that the Blessed Virgin could very easily cure him; but she paid no attention to his proposal, considering it as only a childish whim.
“On our return to Bordeaux—for a little while before this my station had been changed, and we had come to live here—on our return to Bordeaux the child was absolutely in the same condition.
“That was last August.
“So many vain efforts, so much science employed without success by the best physicians, so much lost trouble, had by this time, as you will easily imagine, discouraged us most completely. Disheartened by the failure of all our endeavors, we gave up all kinds of remedies, letting nature act alone, and resigning ourselves to the inevitable evil which God was pleased to send us. It seemed to us that so much suffering had in a certain way redoubled our love for this child. Our poor Jules was tended by his mother and myself with equal tenderness and solicitude continually. Grief added many years to our lives. You would hardly believe it, sir, but I am only forty-six years old.”
I looked at the poor father; and at the sight of his manly face, upon which grief had left such visible traces, my heart was moved. I took his hand and pressed it with cordial sympathy and real compassion.
“Meanwhile,” said he, “the strength of the child decreased perceptibly. For two years he had taken no solid food. It was only at great expense, by means of a liquid nourishment in preparing which all our ingenuity had been taxed that it might be substantial, and by most extraordinary care, that we had been able to prolong his life. He hadbecome frightfully thin. His pallor was extreme; he had no blood showing under his skin; you would have said he was a statue of wax. It was evident that death was coming on apace. It was not only certain, but imminent. And, though the uselessness of medical science in the case had certainly been clearly shown, I could not help knocking once again at its door. I knew of no other in this world.
“I applied to the most eminent physician in Bordeaux, Dr. Gintrac. Dr. Gintrac examined his throat, sounded it, and found, besides the mere contraction which had almost entirely closed the alimentary canal, some most threatening roughnesses or small swellings.
“He shook his head, and gave me little hope. He saw my terrible anxiety.
“‘I do not say that his cure is impossible,’ said he; ‘but he is very ill.’
“These were his exact words.
“He considered it absolutely necessary to employ local remedies; first injections, then the application of a cloth soaked in ether. But this treatment prostrated the child; in view of the result, the surgeon himself, M. Sentex, employed in the hospital, advised us to discontinue it.
“In one of my visits to Dr. Gintrac, I communicated to him an idea which had occurred to me.
“‘It seems to me,’ said I, ‘that if Juleshad the will, he could swallow. Does not this difficulty perhaps come from fear? Is it not perhaps that he does not swallow to-day merely because he did not yesterday? If so, it is a mental malady, which can only be cured by moral means.’
“But the doctor dispelled this my last illusion.
“‘You are mistaken,’ said he. ‘The disease is in the organs themselves, which are only too really and seriouslyaffected. I have not contented myself with looking at them, for the eye may easily be deceived; but I have sounded them with an instrument, and felt of them carefully with my fingers. The œsophagus is covered with little swellings, and the passage has become so small that it ismaterially impossiblefor the boy to take any food whatever, except liquids, which can accommodate themselves to the size of the opening, and pass through the pin-hole, as I may call it, which still remains. If the enlargement of the tissues proceeds a few millimetres further, the patient cannot live. The beginning of the trouble, the alternations which characterized it, and its occasional interruptions also bear out the result of my examination. Your child, having once recovered, would have continued well if the difficulty had been in his imagination. Unfortunately, it is organic.’
“These remarks, which had been already made to me at Toulouse, but which I had gladly forgotten, were too conclusive not to convince me. I returned home, with death in my soul.
“What could now be done? We had applied to the most distinguished physicians both of Toulouse and Bordeaux, and all had been unavailing. The fatal evidence was before my eyes; our poor child was condemned, and that without appeal.
“But, monsieur, such cruel conclusions cannot easily remain in a father’s heart. I still tried to deceive myself; my wife and I continued to consult; I was thinking of hydropathy.
“It was in this desperate state of things that Jules said to his mother, with an air of confidence and absolute certitude which strongly impressed her:
“‘Mamma, neither Dr. Gintrac nor any other doctor can do anything for my trouble. It is the Holy Virgin who will cure me. Send me to the Grotto of Lourdes, and you will see that I shall be cured. I am sure of it.’
“My wife reported this proposal to me.
“‘We must not hesitate!’ cried I. ‘He must go to Lourdes. And that as soon as possible.’
“It was not, sir, that I was full of faith. I did not believe in miracles, and I hardly considered such extraordinary interventions of divine power as possible. But I was a father, and any chance, no matter how insignificant, seemed to me not to be slighted. Besides, I hoped that, without any supernatural occurrence, the possibility of which I did not wish to admit, this journey might have a salutary moral effect on the child. As for a complete cure, I did not entertain the slightest idea of such a thing.
“It was in winter, at the beginning of February; the weather was bad, and I wished to wait for a fine day, on Jules’s account.
“Since he had read the little notice, eight months before, atSt.Jean-de-Luz, the idea which he had just expressed to us had never left him. Having expressed it once without any attention being paid to it, he had not introduced the subject again; but the thought had remained in him, and worked there while he was undergoing all the medical treatment with a patience that had to be seen to be appreciated.
“This faith, so full and complete, was the more extraordinary because we had not brought up the child to any unusual practices of piety. My wife attended to her religious duties, but that was all; and, as for myself, I had, as you have just heard, philosophicideas tending quite the other way.
“On the 12th of February, the weather promised to be magnificent. We took the train for Tarbes.
“During the whole journey, Jules was gay, and full of the most positive faith that he would be cured; his faith was overpowering.
“As for myself, I encouraged, but did not share, this confidence; it was so great that I should call it exaggerated, did I not fear to be wanting in respect for the God who inspired it.
“At Tarbes, at the Hôtel Dupont, where we put up, every one noticed the poor child, so pale and wasted, and yet with such a sweet and attractive expression. I mentioned at the hotel the object of our journey, and in the good wishes and prayers which these good people made for us there seemed to be a presentiment of success. And when we set out, I saw plainly that they would await our return with impatience.
“Notwithstanding my doubts, I took with me a small box of biscuits.
“When we arrived at the crypt above the Grotto, Mass was being said. Jules prayed with a faith which shone out in all his features, with a truly celestial ardor.
“The priest noticed his fervor, and when he had left the altar, he came out of the sacristy almost immediately, and approached us. A good idea had occurred to him on seeing the poor little one. He proposed it to me, and, turning to Jules, who was still on his knees, said:
“‘My child, would you like to have me consecrate you to the Blessed Virgin?’
“‘Indeed I would,’ answered he.
“The priest immediately proceeded with the very simple ceremony, and recited over my child the sacred formulas.
“‘Now,’ said Jules, in a tone which impressed me by its perfect confidence, ‘I am going to be cured.’
“We went to the Grotto. Jules knelt before the statue and prayed. I looked at him, and can still see the expression of his face, his attitude, and his joined hands.
“He rose, and we went to the fountain.
“It was a terrible moment.
“He bathed his neck and chest. Then he took the glass and drank several mouthfuls of the miraculous water.
“He was calm and happy, gay in fact, and radiant with confidence.
“For my part, I trembled and almost fainted at this last trial. But I restrained my emotion, though with difficulty. I did not want to let him see my doubt.
“‘Try now to eat,’ said I, handing him a biscuit.
“He took it, and I turned away my head, not feeling able to look at him. It was, in fact, the question of the life or death of my child which was to be decided. In putting this question, such a fearful one for a father’s heart, I was playing, as it were, my last card. If I failed, my dear boy would have to die. This test was a decisive one, and I could not see it tried.
“But I was soon relieved of my agony.
“Jules’s voice, joyous and sweet, called me:
“‘Papa! I have swallowed it. I can eat, I knew I could—I had faith!’
“What a surprise it was! My child, who had been at death’s door, was saved, and that instantly. And I, his father, was a witness to this astonishing resurrection.
“But, that I might not disturb the faith of my son, I checked any appearance of astonishment.
“‘Yes, Jules, it was certain, and could not have been otherwise,’ said I, in a voice which I made calm by great effort.
“There was in my breast, however, a whirlwind of excitement. If it could have been opened, it would have been found burning as if full of fire.
“We repeated our experiment. He ate some more biscuits, not only without difficulty, but with an increasing appetite. I was obliged to restrain him.
“But I could not refrain from proclaiming my happiness, and thanking God.
“‘Wait for me,’ said I to Jules, ‘and pray to the Blessed Virgin. I am going to the chapel.’
“And leaving him for a moment kneeling at the Grotto, I ran to tell the priest the wonderful news. I was quite bewildered. Besides my happiness, so unexpected and sudden that it was terrible, besides the confusion of my heart, I felt in my soul and mind an inexpressible disturbance. A revolution was going on in my agitated and tumultuous thoughts. All my ‘philosophical’ ideas were tottering and crumbling away.
“The priest came down immediately and saw Jules finishing his last biscuit. The Bishop of Tarbes happened to be that day at the chapel, and he wished to see my son. I told him of the cruel illness which had just had such a happy end. Every one caressed the child, and rejoiced with him.
“But I meanwhile was thinking of his mother, and of the joy in store for her. Before going to the hotel, I ran to the telegraph office. My despatch contained only one word: ‘Cured!’
“Hardly had it gone before I wanted to recall it.
“‘Perhaps,’ said I, ‘I have been toohasty. Who knows if he will not have a relapse?’
“I did not dare to believe in the blessing I had received; and when I did believe in it, it seemed that it was going to escape from me.
“As for the child, he was happy without the least mixture of disquietude. He was exuberant in his joy and perfect security.
“‘You see now, papa,’ said he to me every moment, ‘it was only the Blessed Virgin who could cure me. When I told you so before, I was sure of it.’
“At the hotel, he ate with an excellent appetite; and how I enjoyed watching him!
“He wanted to return on foot to the Grotto to give thanks for his deliverance, and actually did so.
“‘You will be very grateful to the Holy Virgin, will you not?’ said a priest to him.
“‘Ah! I shall never forget,’ said he.
“At Tarbes, we stopped at the hotel where we had put up the day before. They were on the lookout for us. They seem to have had (as I think I told you) a feeling that we would be successful. There was a great rejoicing. People gathered around us to see him eat with a relish everything that was served upon the table; to see him eat heartily who the day before could only swallow a few spoonfuls of liquid. That time seemed to me long gone by.
“This illness, against which the science of the most able physicians had failed, and which had just been so miraculously cured, had lasted two years and nineteen days.
“We were in haste to return to his mother, and took the express train for Bordeaux. The child was overcome with fatigue by the journey, and I should also say by his emotions,were it not for his peaceable and constant calmness in spite of his sudden cure, which overwhelmed him with joy, but did not astonish him. He wanted to go to bed on reaching home. He was extremely sleepy, and took no supper. His mother, who had nearly died of joy before our return, when she saw him so exhausted and refusing to eat, was seized by a horrible doubt. She told me that I had deceived her, and I had the greatest difficulty in making myself believed. But how she rejoiced when, the next morning, Jules sat down at our table, and breakfasted with a better appetite than ourselves. It was not till then that she became reassured.”
“And since then,” I asked him, “has there been no relapse?”
“No, sir, absolutely none. I may say that the cure progressed, or rather consolidated itself, considering that it had been as complete as it was instantaneous. The transition from a disease so fixed and obstinate to a perfect cure was made without the least gradation, though it was without apparent disturbance. But his general health improved visibly, under the influence of a restorative regimen, the salutary effects of which it was full time for him to experience.”
“And the physicians? Have they testified to Jules’s previous condition? Certainly they should have done so.”
“I thought so too, sir, and mentioned the subject to the Bordeaux doctor who had been the last to attend my child; but he maintained a reserve which prevented me from insisting. As for Dr. Roques of Toulouse, to whom I wrote immediately, he hastened to recognize in the clearest terms the miraculous nature of the fact which had occurred, and which was entirely beyond thepowers of medicine. ‘In view of this cure, so long desired and so promptly effected,’ he said to me, ‘why not quit the narrow sphere of scientific explanations, and open one’s mind to gratitude for so strange an event, in which Providence seems to obey the voice of a child?’ He rejected most decidedly, as a physician, the theories which are always produced on such occasions of ‘moral excitement,’ ‘the effect of the imagination,’ etc., and confessed frankly in this event the clear and positive action of a superior Being revealing himself and imposing himself on the conscience. Such, sir, was the opinion of M. Roques, physician of Toulouse, who knew as well as myself the previous condition and the illness of my son. There is his own letter, dated February 24.
“But the facts which I have just related are also so well known that no one would care to contest them. It is superabundantly proved that science was absolutely powerless against the strange disease by which Jules had been attacked. As for the cause of his cure, every one can place it differently, according to the point of view which he chooses to assume. I, who had previously believed only in purely natural phenomena, saw clearly that its explanation must be sought in a higher order of things; and every day I gave thanks to God, who, putting an end to my long and cruel trial in such an unexpected way, had approached me in the way most adapted to make me bow before him.”
“I understand you, and it seems also to me that such was the divine plan.”
After these words, I remained some time silent and absorbed in my reflections.
The conversation returned to the boy so wonderfully cured. The father’sheart came back to him, as the needle does to the pole.
“Since that time,” said he, “his piety is angelic. You will see him soon. The nobleness of his feelings is visible in his face. He is well-born, his character is honest and dignified. He is incapable of lies or meanness. And his piety has not been at the expense of his natural qualities. He is studying in a school close by, kept by M. Conangle, in the Rue du Mirail. The poor child has quickly made up for his lost time. He loves his studies. He is the first in his class. At the last examination, he took the highest prize. But, above all, he is the best and most amiable. He is the favorite of his teachers and schoolmates. He is our joy, our consolation, and—”
At this moment the door opened, and Jules came with his mother into the room where we were sitting. I embraced him affectionately. The glow of health was on his face. His forehead is large, high, and magnificent; his attitude has a modesty and gentle firmness which inspires a secret respect. His eyes, large and bright, show a rare intelligence, and absolute purity and a beautiful soul.
“You are happy to have such a son,” said I to M. Lacassagne.
“Yes, sir, I am happy. But my poor wife and I have suffered a great deal.”
“Do not be sorry for that,” said I, going a little away from Jules. “This path of grief was the way which led you from darkness to light, from death to life, from yourself to God. The Blessed Virgin has shown herself twice in this event as the mother of life. She has given your son his temporal life in order to give you the true life which knows no end.”
I left this family, so greatly blessed by our Lord, and, still under the impression of what I had heard andseen, I wrote, with my heart full of the feelings produced, what you have just read.
Let us return to Lourdes. Time had passed, and human industry had been at work. The surroundings of the Grotto, where the Blessed Virgin had appeared, had changed their former aspect. Without losing anything of its grandeur, this savage spot had put on a pleasing aspect. Yet unfinished, but fairly alive with workmen, a superb church, proudly crowning the Massabielle rocks, was rising joyously to heaven. The lofty heights, so abrupt and uncultivated, where formerly the feet of the mountaineers could scarcely descend, were covered with a greensward and planted with shrubs and flowers. Among dahlias and roses, daisies and violets, beneath the shade of acacias and cytisuses, a path, broad as the highway, wound in sinuous curves from the church to the Grotto.
The Grotto was enclosed like a chancel by an iron railing. From the roof a golden lamp had been suspended. On the rocks, which had been pressed by Mary’s sacred feet, clusters of tapers burned day and night. Outside the enclosure the miraculous spring fed three bronze lavers. A canal, screened from sight by a little building, afforded a chance for those invalids who wished to be bathed in this blessed water. The mill-race of Savy had changed its bed, having been led into the Gave, further up. The Gave itself had withdrawn somewhat, to give room for a fine road which leads to the Massabielle Rocks. Below, on the banks of the river, the ground had been levelled, and formedan extensive lawn and walk, shaded by elms and poplars.
All these changes had been accomplished and were still going on amid the incessant concourse of the faithful. The copper coin, thrown by popular faith into the grotto—theex-votosof so many invalids who had been cured, of so many hearts who had been consoled, of so many souls reawakened to truth and life, alone defrayed the cost of these gigantic labors, which approaches the sum of two million francs. When God, in his bounty, vouchsafes to call men to co-operate in any of his works, he does not employ soldiers, or tax-gatherers, or constables to collect the impost—he accepts from his creatures only a voluntary assistance. The Master of the universe repudiates constraint, for he is the God of free souls; he does not consent to receive anything which is not spontaneous and offered with a cheerful heart.
Thus the church was gradually rising, thus the river and the millstream gave way, hillsides were levelled, trees were planted, and pathways traced around the now famous rocks where the Mother of Christ had manifested her glory to the eyes of mortals.
Encouraging the laborers, superintending everything, suggesting ideas, sometimes putting his own hands to the work to set a misplaced stone or straighten a badly-planted tree, recalling, by his ardor and holy enthusiasm, the grand figures of Esdras and Nehemiah, occupied, by God’s order, with the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, a tall man, of marked features, seemed to make himself everywhere present. His powerful stature and black cassockrendered him conspicuous to all eyes. His name will be speedily guessed. It was the chief pastor of the town of Lourdes, the Abbé Peyramale.
Every hour of the day he thought of the message which the Blessed Virgin had addressed to him; every hour he thought of the miraculous cures which had followed the apparition; he was a daily witness of countless miracles. He had devoted his life to execute the orders of his powerful Queen, and raise to her glory a splendid monument. All idleness, all delay, every moment wasted, seemed to his eyes a token of ingratitude, and his heart, devoured by zeal for the house of God, often broke forth in warnings and admonitions. His faith was perfect, and full of confidence. He had a horror of the wretched narrowness of human prudence, and scouted it with the disdain of one who looks upon all things from that holy mount whereon the Son of God preached the nothingness of earth and the reality of heaven, when he said: “Be not solicitous ... seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
One day, while standing before the miraculous fountain amid a group of ecclesiastics and laymen, the architect offered him a plan for a pretty chapel which he proposed to build above the Grotto. The curé looked at it, and a flush rose to his cheek. With a gesture of impatience he tore the drawing into bits, and tossed it into the Gave.
“What are you doing?” cried the astonished architect.
“Look you,” answered the priest, “I am ashamed of what human meanness would offer to the Mother of my God, and I have treated the wretched plan as it deserved. Wedo not want a country chapel to commemorate the great events which have taken place here. Go, give us a temple of marble as large and as high as these rocks can sustain—as magnificent as your soul can conceive! Go, and do not check your genius till you have given us achef-d’œuvre; and understand that, if you were Michael Angelo himself, it would all be unworthy of her who has appeared in this spot.”
“But,monsieur le curé,” observed everybody, “it will cost millions to carry out your ideas!”
“She who has made this barren rock send forth its living stream—she will know how to make faithful hearts generous,” answered the priest. “Go, do what I tell you. Why are you afraid, O ye of little faith?”
The temple rose in the proportions designed by the man of God.
The good pastor, as he watched the progress of the various works, often used to say:
“When will it be granted me to assist, with my priests and people, at the first procession which goes to inaugurate in these hallowed precincts the public worship of the Catholic Church? It seems to me that then I could sing myNunc dimittis, and die of joy.” His eyes filled with tears at the thought. Never was there a deeper or warmer desire than this innocent wish of a heart given wholly to God.
Sometimes, at hours when the crowd was thin at the Massabielle Rocks, a little girl used to come and kneel before the place of the apparition, and drink of the miraculous spring. She was a poor child, and meanly clad—nothing marked out from the common people about. And if the pilgrims were all strangers to the place, no one suspected that it was Bernadette. This privileged soul had withdrawn into silence and concealment.She went daily to the sisters’ school, where she was the simplest, and strove to be the most unnoticed. The numerous visitors whom she was called upon to receive never disturbed her peace of mind, which ever retained the memory of its glimpse at heaven and the incomparable Virgin. Bernadette kept all these things in her heart. People came from all quarters, miracles were being worked, the temple was rising. Bernadette and the holy pastor of Lourdes awaited, as their crowning joy, the day which was to bring to their eyes the sight of priests of the true God leading their people, with cross advanced and flying banners, to the spot of the apparitions.
In spite of the bishop’s decree, the church in fact had not yet taken possession, by any public ceremony, of this spot, consecrated for ever. It was not till the 4th of April, 1864, that this was done, by the inauguration and blessing of the superb statue of the Blessed Virgin, which was placed with all the pomp customary on such occasions in the rustic niche, bordered with wild flowers, where the Mother of God had appeared to the child of man.[39]
The weather was magnificent. The young spring sun had risen, and advanced in a blue and cloudless sky.
The streets of Lourdes were adorned with flowers, banners, garlands, and triumphal arches. The bells of the parish church, the chapels, andthe churches of the neighborhood, rang out joyous peals. Immense numbers of people flocked together to this great festival of earth and heaven. A procession, such as had never been seen by the oldest inhabitant, moved from the church of Lourdes to the Grotto. Troops, in all the splendor of military attire, led the way. Following them were the confraternities of Lourdes, the societies for mutual aid, and other associations, with their banners and crosses; the Congregation of the Children of Mary, whose long robes were white as snow; the Sisters of Nevers, with their long black veil; the Daughters of Charity, with their great white hoods; the Sisters ofSt.Joseph, in dark mantles; the religious orders of men, the Carmelites, the Brothers of Instruction and of the Christian schools, and prodigious numbers of pilgrims, men and women, young and old—fifty or sixty thousand persons in all—wound along the flowery road leading to the Massabielle rocks. Here and there, choirs and instrumental bands gave a voice to the popular enthusiasm. Last, surrounded by four hundred priests in choir dress, his vicars-general, and the dignitaries of his cathedral chapter, came his lordship, Mgr. Bertrand-Sévère Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, in his mitre and pontifical robes, with one hand blessing the people, and bearing his crosier in the other.
An indescribable emotion, an exaltation of feeling, such as only Christian people assembled before God can know, filled every heart. The day of solemn triumph had at last come, after so many difficulties, struggles, and disasters. Tears of joy, enthusiasm, and love ran down the cheeks of the people, moved by an impulse from God.
What indescribable joy must have filled the heart of Bernadette on thisday, as she led the Congregation of the Children of Mary! What overwhelming happiness must have inundated the soul of the venerable curé of Lourdes, who was no doubt at the side of the bishop, singing the hosanna of the victory of God! Having both had to labor, the time was certainly come for them to enter into their reward.
Alas! one would have sought in vain among the Children of Mary for Bernadette: among the clergy surrounding the bishop, the Abbé Peyramale would not have been found. There are joys too sweet for earth, which are reserved for heaven. Here below, God refuses them to his dearest children.
At this time of rejoicing, when the bright sun was shining on the triumph of the faithful, the curé of Lourdes, laboring under a disease which was expected to result fatally, was a victim to intense physical sufferings. He was stretched on his bed of pain, at the head of which two religious watched and prayed night and day. He wished to rise to see the grand cortége pass, but his strength failed him, and he had not even a momentary glimpse of its splendor. Through the closed shutters of his room, the joyous sound of the silvery bells came to him only as a funeral knell.
As for Bernadette, God showed her his predilection, as usual with his elect, by giving her the bitter trial of pain. While Mgr. Laurence was going, accompanied by countless numbers of his flock, to take possession of the Massabielle rocks in the name of the church, and to inaugurate solemnly the devotion to the Virgin who had appeared there, Bernadette, like the eminent priest of whom we have just spoken, was prostrated by illness; Providence, perhaps, fearing for this well-beloved child a temptation to vainglory, deprivedher of the sight of this unprecedented festivity, where she would have heard her name on the lips of thousands, and extolled from the pulpit by the voice of enthusiastic preachers. Too poor to be taken care of in her own home, where neither she nor her family would ever receive any gift, Bernadette had been carried to the hospital, where she lay upon the humble bed provided by public charity, in the midst of those poor whom the world calls unfortunate, but whom Jesus Christ has blessed in declaring them the possessors of his eternal kingdom.
Eleven years have now elapsed since the apparitions of the most Holy Virgin. The great church is almost finished; it has only to be roofed, and the holy sacrifice has long since been celebrated at all the altars of the crypt below. Diocesan missionaries of the house of Garaison have been stationed by the bishop near the grotto and the church, to distribute to the pilgrims the apostolic word, the sacraments, and the body of our Lord.
The pilgrimage has taken dimensions perhaps quite without precedent, for before our day these vast movements of popular faith did not have the assistance of the means of transportation invented by modern science. The course of the Pyrenees Railroad, for which a straighter and cheaper route had been previously marked out between Tarbes and Pau, was changed so as to pass through Lourdes, and innumerable travellers continually come from every quarter to invoke the Virgin who has appeared at the Grotto, and to seek at the miraculous fountain the healing of all their ills. They come not only from the different provinces of France, but alsofrom England, Belgium, Spain, Russia, and Germany. Even from the midst of far America, pious Christians have set out, and crossed the ocean to come to the Grotto of Lourdes, to kneel before these sacred rocks, which the Mother of God has sanctified by her touch. And often those who cannot come write to the missionaries, and beg that a little of the miraculous water may be sent to their homes. It is thus distributed throughout the world.
Although Lourdes is a small town, there is a continual passing to and fro upon the road to the grotto, a stream of men, women, priests, and carriages, as in the streets of a large city.
When the pleasant weather comes, and the sun, overcoming the cold of winter, opens in the midst of flowers the gates of spring, the faithful of the neighborhood begin to bestir themselves for the pilgrimage to Massabielle, no longer one by one, but in large parties. From ten, twelve, or fifteen leagues’ distance, these strong mountaineers come on foot in bodies of one or two thousand. They set out in the evening and walk all night by starlight, like the shepherds of Judea, when they went to the crib of Bethlehem to adore the new-born infant God. They descend from high peaks, they traverse deep valleys, they cross foaming torrents, or follow their course, singing the praises of God. And on their way the sleeping herds of cattle or of sheep awake, and diffuse through these desert wilds the melancholy sound of their sonorous bells. At daybreak, they arrive at Lourdes; they spread their banners, and form in procession to go to the Grotto. The men, with their blue caps and great shoes covered with dust from their long night march, rest upon a knotty stick, and usually carry upon theirshoulders the provisions for their journey. The women wear a white or red capulet. Some carry the precious burden of a child. And they move on slowly, quiet and recollected, singing the litanies of the Blessed Virgin.
At Massabielle they hear Mass, kneel at the holy table, and drink at the miraculous spring. Then they distribute themselves, in groups according to family or friendship, upon the grass around the Grotto, and spreading out on the sod the provisions they have brought, they sit down upon the green carpet of the fields. And, on the bank of the Gave, in the shade of those hallowed rocks, they realize in their frugal repast those fraternal agapes of which tradition tells us. Then, having received a last blessing and said a parting prayer, they set out with joyful hearts upon their homeward way.
Thus do the people of the Pyrenees visit the Grotto. But the greatest numbers are not from there. From sixty or eighty leagues’ distance come continually immense processions, brought from these great distances upon the rapid wings of steam. They come from Bayonne, from Peyrehorade, from La Teste, from Arcachon, from Bordeaux, and even from Paris. At the request of the faithful, the Southern Railroad has established special trains, trains of pilgrimage, intended exclusively for this great and pious movement of Catholic faith. At the arrival of these trains, the bells of Lourdes ring out their fullest peals. And from these sombre carriages the pilgrims come out and form in procession in the square by the station; young girls dressed in white, married women, widows, children, full-grown men, the old people, and the clergy in their sacred robes. Their banners are flung to the breeze; the crucifix and thestatues of the Blessed Virgin and the saints are displayed. The praises of the Mother of God are upon every lip. The innumerable procession passes through the town—which seems, on such occasions, like a holy city, like Rome or Jerusalem. One’s heart is elated at the sight; it rises toward God, and attains without effort that elevation of feeling in which the eyes fill with tears and the soul is overwhelmed by the sensible presence of our Lord. One seems to enjoy for a moment a vision of paradise.
The hand of the Almighty does not weary in shedding all kinds of graces at the spot where his Mother has appeared. Miracles are still frequent. Not long ago Fr. Hermann recovered his sight there.
God has accomplished his work.
He says to the flake of snow, resting hidden upon the lonely peak, “Thou must come from Me to Me. Thou must pass from the inaccessible heights of the mountain to the unfathomable caves of the deep.” And he sends his servant the sun with its brilliant rays to collect and draw along this shining dust, changing it first into limpid pearls. The drops of water run through the snow, they roll down the side of the mountain, they leap over the rocks, they break upon the pebbles, they reunite, they collect in a mass, and run together, now gently, now rapidly, toward the wonderful ocean, that striking image of eternal movement in eternal rest—and thus they reach the valleys where the race of Adam dwells.
“We will stop these drops of water,” says this race of man, as proud now as in the days of Babel.
And they undertake to dam up this weak and quiet stream as itgently crosses their fields. But the stream laughs at their dikes of wood, earth, and pebbles.
“We will stop these drops of water,” the fools repeat in their delirium.
And they heap up enormous rocks; they join them together with impenetrable cement. And notwithstanding, the water does leak through in a thousand places. But the men are numerous—they have a force greater than the armies of Darius. They stop up the thousand fissures, they fill up the cracks, they replace the fallen stones; and at last a time comes when the stream cannot pass by. It has before it a barrier higher than the pyramids, and thicker than the famous walls of Babylon. Beyond this gigantic obstacle, the pebbles of its dry bed are shining in the sun.
Human pride shouts its pæan of triumph.
Meanwhile the water continues to descend from those eternal heights where it has heard the voice of God; and millions of drops, coming one by one, stop before the barrier and rise silently against this granite wall which millions of men have built.
“Look,” say the men, “at the immense power of our race. See this enormous wall. Raise your eyes to its summit; admire its astonishing height. We have for ever conquered this stream which comes from the mountains.”
At this moment, a thin sheet of water passes over the cyclopean barrier. They run up; but the sheet has thickened—it is a river which is now falling, scattering on all sides the upper rocks of the wall.
“What is the matter?” they cry on all sides in the doomed city.
It is the drop of water to which God has spoken, and which proceeds invincibly on its way.
What has your Babel-like wall accomplished?What have you done with your herculean efforts? You have changed a quiet stream into a formidable cataract. You tried to stop the drop of water; but it now resumes its course with the violence of Niagara.
How humble was this drop of water, this word of a child to which God had said, “Pursue thy course!” How insignificant was this drop of water—this shepherdess burning a candle at the Grotto—this poor woman praying and offering a bouquet to the Blessed Virgin—this old peasant on his knees! And how strong, how apparent, impassable, and invincible was this enormous wall, upon which all the force of a great nation, from the policeman and the gendarme to the prefect and the minister, had labored for eight months!
But the child, the poor woman, the old peasant, have resumed their course. Only now it is not a stray candle or a poor bouquet that testifies to the popular faith; it is a magnificent monument which the faithful are erecting; they are spending millions upon this temple, already celebrated throughout Christendom. Their opposers thought to put down some scattered believers; but now they come in crowds, in immense processions, displaying their banners and singing their hymns. There is a pilgrimage without precedent; whole peoples now come, borne upon their iron roads by chariots of fire and steam. It is not now a little neighborhood which believes—it is Europe; it is the Christian world which is coming from all directions. The drop of water which men tried to stop has become a Niagara.
God has finished his work. And now, as on the seventh day, when he entered into his rest, he has resigned to men the duty of profitingby this work, and the formidable responsibility of developing or compromising it. He has given them a germ of abundant grace, as of other things; the burden remains on them of cultivating and maturing it. They can multiply it a hundredfold by walking humbly and holily in the order of his providence; they can make it unfruitful by refusing to enter into this order. Every good thing from on high is entrusted to human liberty, as the terrestrial paradise was at the outset, on the condition of laboring for and keeping it—“ut operaretur et custodiret illum.” Let us beseech God that men may not reject what he has done for them, and that they may not by earthly ideas or irreligious acts break in their guilty or awkward hands the sacred vessel of divine grace which they have received in trust.
Most of the persons mentioned in the course of this long history are still alive. The prefect, Baron Massy, Judge Duprat, Mayor Lacadé, and Minister Fould are dead.
Some of them have made several steps in advance on the road to fortune. M. Rouland has left the Ministry of Public Worship (for which he does not seem to have been well fitted), to take care of the Bank of France. M. Dutour, the procureur-imperial, has become counsellor of the court; M. Jacomet is the chief commissary of police in one of the largest cities of the empire.
Bourriette, Croisine Bouhohorts and her son, Mme. Rizan, Henri Busquet, Mlle. Moreau de Sazenay, the widow Crozat, Jules Lacassagne, and all those whose cures we have recorded, are still full of life, and testify by their recovered health andstrength to the powerful mercy of the apparition at the Grotto.
Dr. Dozous continues to be the most eminent physician of Lourdes. Dr. Vergez is at the spring of Barèges and attests to the visitors at this celebrated resort the miracles which he formerly witnessed. M. Estrade, whose impartial observations we have several times given, is receiver of indirect contributions at Bordeaux. He lives atNo.14 Rue Ducau.
Now, as formerly, Mgr. Laurence is Bishop of Tarbes. Age has not diminished his faculties. He is to-day what we have represented him in this work. He has near the Grotto a house to which he sometimes retires, to meditate in this spot, beloved by the Virgin, on the great duties and the grave responsibilities of a Christian bishop who has received so wonderful a grace in his diocese.[40]
The Abbé Peyramale recovered from the severe illness of which we spoke above. He is still the venerated pastor of this Christian town of Lourdes, where his record is left in ineffaceable characters. Long after he is gone, when he rests under the sod in the midst of the generation which he has formed to the Lord; when the successors of his successors live in his house and occupy the great wooden chair in his church, his memory will be living in the minds of all; and when the “Curé of Lourdes” is mentioned, every one will think of him.
Louise Soubirous, the mother of Bernadette, died on the 8th of December, 1866, the very day of the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In choosing this festival to take the mother from the miseries of the world, she who had said to the child, “I am the Immaculate Conception,” seemsto have intended to temper the bitterness of the loss to the heart of her survivors, and to show them as a Certain pledge of hope and of a happy resurrection the sign of her radiant appearance.
While thousands go to the Grotto to contribute to the splendid church, Bernadette’s father has remained a poor miller, subsisting with difficulty by manual labor. Mary, the daughter, who was with Bernadette at the time of the first apparition, has married a good peasant, who has become a miller and works with his father-in-law. The other companion, Jane Abbadie, is a servant at Bordeaux.
Bernadette is no longer at Lourdes. We have seen how she had, on many occasions, refused gifts freely offered, and repelled the good fortune which was knocking at the door of her humble cottage. She was dreaming of other riches. “We shall know some fine day,” the unbelievers had said at the outset, “what her pay is going to be.” Bernadette had in fact chosen her pay, and put her hand on her reward. She has become a Sister of Charity. She has devoted herself to tend in the hospitals the poor and the sick collected by public benevolence.
After having seen with her own eyes the resplendent face of the thrice holy Mother of God, what could she do but become the compassionate servant of those of whom the Virgin’s Son has said: “As long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”
It is among the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction at Nevers that Bernadette has taken the veil. She is called Sister Marie-Bernard. We have lately seen her in her religious habit at the mother-house of thiscongregation. Though she is now twenty-five, her face has kept the character and the charm of childhood. In her presence, the heart feels moved in its better part by an indescribable religious sentiment, and one leaves it embalmed in the perfume of this peaceful innocence. One understands that the Holy Virgin has specially loved her. Otherwise, there is nothing extraordinary, nothing which would make her conspicuous, or would make one suspect the important part she has filled in this communication from heaven to earth. Her simplicity has not been touched by the unexampled interest which has been taken in her. The concourse and enthusiasm of the multitude have no more troubled her soul than the turbid water of a torrent would tarnish the imperishable purity of a diamond.
God visits her still, not now by bright visions, but by the sacred trial of suffering. She is often ill, and suffers cruelly; but she bears her pains with a sweet and almost playful patience. Sometimes they have thought her dead. “I shall not die just yet,” she would say, smiling.
She never speaks, unless questioned, of the favors which she has received.
She was the Blessed Virgin’s messenger. Now that she has given her message, she has retired into the shade of religious life, wishing to be unnoticed among a number of companions.
It is a trouble to her when the world comes to seek her in the depth of her retreat, and when some circumstance obliges her to appear before it again. She fears the glory of this life. She lives in the humility of the Lord, and is dead to the vanities of the earth. And this book which we have written, and which speaks so much of Bernadette, Sister Marie-Bernard will never read.
[39]This statue, made of fine Carrara marble, of life-size, was presented to the Grotto of Lourdes by two noble and pious sisters of the diocese of Lyons, Mesdames de Lacour. It was executed according to Bernadette’s particular instructions, by M. Fabish, the eminent Lyonnese sculptor. The Blessed Virgin is represented as Bernadette described her, with scrupulous regard to the smallest details, and rare talent in execution.
[40]Mgr. Laurence died at the Vatican Council in the winter of 1869-70.
We are late in our comments on the riot of the 12th of July last in this city, occasioned by the Orange procession in commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne; but as what we have to say relates to general principles rather than to particular facts, our remarks will have suffered little from the delay, and will stand a chance of being more carefully read and duly weighed than if made at an earlier day. The tragic event is not likely to be soon forgotten.
The secular press of the city have, as far as we have observed, with scarcely an exception, taken the ground that, however ill-advised might be the Orange procession, it was a right of the Orangemen, and the liberty of the citizen was infringed by the police order prohibiting it. The order was also an act of cowardice, as dictated by fear of a Catholic mob; and hence its revocation by the governor, and his excellency’s resolution to sustain the majesty of the law, and to protect the Orange procession by all the force, if necessary, at his command, was a firm and manly interference in behalf of liberty and law. The sectarian press of city and country see in the police order prohibiting the procession—dictated, it is assumed, by the Catholic clergy—only a proof of the hatred of the Catholic Church to liberty and republican institutions, and in the action of the governor, and the bravery of the military in firing on the crowd, and killing and wounding a large number of citizens, for the most part innocent, exceptof idle curiosity, an assurance much needed, that Protestants have as yet even in this country some rights which Catholics are bound and can be compelled to respect.
The view taken by the sectarian press is ridiculous, as well as malicious. The Catholic Church was the victim of the riot, but her only responsibility for it was in warning her children against it, and bidding them to let the procession alone, and not to go near it. If she had been heeded, there would have been no riot, no disturbance. The question was not a Catholic question, and the church had nothing to gain by preventing the procession, still less by a riot to break it up. The pretence that the rights of Protestants are in danger from Catholics in this country, where the Protestants outnumber the Catholics as eight or ten to one, is too absurd to be even a passable joke. Do the sectarian journals count one Catholic more than a match for eight or ten Protestants? That were a greater compliment to us than we deserve. We are afraid the sectarian leaders have bad consciences, which make them cowards. Catholics cannot show the least sign of vitality, or make the slightest move for the practical possession of the equal rights guaranteed them by the constitution and laws, but they take fright, tremble in their shoes, and cry out: “Liberty is in danger!” the Pope is going to suppress American republicanism, strip Protestants of their rights, cut their throats, or reduce them to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water” to—the Jesuits.They are dreadfully alarmed, or affect to be, and create a panic throughout the whole country. But, dear frightened souls, there is no occasion for your alarm, unless you suppose you cannot be free if everybody else is not enslaved. Even if we were the majority of the American people, as we are not, nor likely to be to-day, to-morrow, or the day after, you would be in no danger, for we understand liberty as well as you do, appreciate it more highly, love it better, and have made greater sacrifices for it than you can imagine. Not a few of us have fled hither from the tyranny and oppression of Protestant governments, expatriated ourselves for the sake of liberty, and do you believe us such fools as to destroy it the moment we have found it?
This talk about the hostility of the church to liberty and American republicanism, when not malicious, is sheer nonsense. The acts Protestants allege to prove that the church is hostile to liberty, prove the contrary; for they were acts done against tyrants and despots in defence of liberty, both civil and religious. What were her long struggles against the Franconian and Suabian emperors, but struggles on her part for the freedom of religion, the basis and principle of all true liberty? Why did the popes deny to kings and emperors in the middle ages the right of investiture by the cross and ring, but because to have conceded it would have enslaved the church to Cæsar, and destroyed the independence of religion and the freedom of conscience? Know you not that it was under the fostering care and protection of the church that grew up the freedom and independence of all modern nations? What nation, state, or people has she ever deprived of independence or liberty? Ifshe has asserted the rights of sovereigns, and condemned sedition, turbulence, conspiracies, insurrections, rebellions, on the part of the people, she has been equally prompt and determined in asserting the rights and franchises of subjects, and in censuring, excommunicating, and even deposing, when professing to be Catholic, the tyrant who despoiled and oppressed them. The great principles of justice and equality on which American republicanism is founded were taught by hooded friars in their monasteries, and proclaimed from the Papal throne ages before the landing at Plymouth of the Pilgrims from theMayflower, or the settlement of English colonists on the banks of the James. Do, dear friends, read and try to understand a little of history, and dismiss your idle fears, or, if fear you must, fear for the salvation of your own souls hereafter.