ST. JEAN DE LUZ.

“After having analyzed,” he says, “the memoir which the Academy has confided to our examination, and having refuted it principally in the portions which concern Louise Lateau, it remains for us in our turn to give our own ideas relative to a fact of such interest which has formed the subject of the memoir.“And first of all, are the facts cited real? According to our thinking, the simulation of the ecstasies is simply impossible, accompanied as they are by functional troubles the provocation for which would pass quite beyond the empire of the will. As for the actual spontaneity of the stigmata, we have demonstrated this experimentally.”

“And first of all, are the facts cited real? According to our thinking, the simulation of the ecstasies is simply impossible, accompanied as they are by functional troubles the provocation for which would pass quite beyond the empire of the will. As for the actual spontaneity of the stigmata, we have demonstrated this experimentally.”

And now for the chief part of the report. It is that in which the learned academician attempts to give a physiological explanation of the facts. For him ecstasies are a species of double life, of a second condition, such as may be presented in ordinary and extraordinary nervous states, as well as in others: (a) in consequence of material injury to the brain; (b) during the existence of well-determined neurotic disorders; (c) under the influence of certain special appliances (magnetism, hypnotism); (d) spontaneously, without the intervention of any external provocation (as somnambulism or extraordinary neurotic affections).

After having examined each of these points in detail, the author thus continues:

“This point established, what of ecstasies? Well, whatever we may do, it is impossible for us not to class them in the same order of facts, not to see in them the influence of a neurotic perturbation analogous to that which controls neurotic diseases. It is in both cases the passage of a human being into a state of second condition, characterized by the suspension, more or less complete, of the exercise of the senses, with a special concentration of all the cerebral powers towards a limited object. Among the ecstatics, as among the hypnotics, there prevails a perturbation, diminution, or abolition of external sensibility. All is concentrated in a new cerebral functional department.”

So far for the ecstasies. Passingnext to the production of stigmata, the report admits in principle the theory of Alfred Maury. That is to say, the imagination plays the principalrôlein the production of these phenomena. But to meet the brilliant member of the Institute, he calls to his aid the physiological laws and most recent discoveries, in order to show how the imagination can, by the irritation of certain given parts, provoke a veritable congestion of those parts, and then a hemorrhage.

“In virtue of what mechanism,” he asks, “are blisters first produced, and bleeding afterwards? We have established the genesis of stigmatic angiomata.[268]The attention has given place to pain, and pain to repeated touchings; from this proceeds the congestion which has brought on the arrest of the blood in the capillaries, and, as a consequence, their enlargement. Then comes the rush of blood, giving place to congestive motions, determined by a hemorrhagic diathesis, and the phenomena disclose themselves in all their simplicity; the leucocytes[269]will pass across the capillaries, will discharge themselves under the skin, and the blister is the result. The accumulation of blood continuing in proportion to the enlargement of the capillaries, the fleshly tegument will end by bursting; then the blood itself, whether by traversing the channels created by the previous passage of the leucocytes, or by the rupture of the vessels, the likelihood of which can be sustained, ends by an external eruption, and the hemorrhage follows.”

But M. Warlomont goes still farther. He says that not only are stigmata and ecstasies capable of explanation when taken apart from one another, but that by their union they constitute what in pathology is called aggregate of symptoms. According to this, stigmata and ecstasies would constitute an altogether unique morbid state, to which the professor gives the following name and definition: “Stigmatic neuropathy is a nervous disease, having its seat in the base of themedulla oblongata, the first stage of which consists in the paralysis of the vaso-motor centre, and the second in its excitation.” Presented in this way, the report of the distinguished member of the Academy was not only a report, but a veritable original work. Thus this book, wherein the author had joined loyalty of procedure to elegance of style and deep erudition, produced a profound sensation. The theory which he advances might well leave certain doubts with the reader relative to the solidity of the bases on which it leans, but by its method it exercised a real fascination on the mind. M. Warlomont’s conclusions were, as far as the interpretation of the facts went, diametrically opposed to those of the book which M. Lefebvre had published several years before, and it was not without a very great curiosity that the public awaited the reply of the latter.

The reply was not long in coming. M. Lefebvre’s discourse occupied, so to say, exclusively the sessions of May 29 and June 26. After having rendered due homage to the courtesy and science of the distinguished reader of the report, the Louvain professor hesitated not to sustain the first conclusions advanced in his book, and to demonstrate the small foundation of the theory of his adversary on this question. It is to be regretted that the limits at my disposal do not allow me to enter into all the physiological details and pathological considerations on which M. Lefebvre builds his conclusions. I regret it the more because the brilliant words of the orator exercise a very specialimpression by the clearness of their exposition, the logic of their reasoning, and the exquisite charm which they give to even the driest questions.

First, as to the stigmatic hemorrhages, we cannot be astonished, after having followed the proofs which the learned orator gives us, to find him lay down the following conclusions:

“1. M. Warlomont is driven to admit a single vaso-motor centre; the most recent researches are against this localization: the vaso-motor centres are several and disseminated.“2. The distinguished reader of the report constructs his doctrine of the action of the imagination on a series of hypotheses.“The two chief ones are: that the imagination has the power, every Friday morning, of completely paralyzing the vaso-motor centre and the vaso-constrictor nerves; and after midday, by a contradictory action, to excite violently this centre, and consequently to close up the vaso-constrictors—pure suppositions which have not only not been demonstrated by the author, but which seem to me absolutely anti-physiological.“3. Even admitting these hypotheses as well founded, it is an established fact that the complete paralysis of the vaso-motor centres and of the vaso-constrictor nerves is never followed by bleeding on the surface of the skin; the experience of all physiologists agrees on this point.“4. This experience proves, on the contrary, that in such cases there are sometimes produced suffusions of blood in the mucous membranes; such suffusions never show themselves in Louise Lateau.“5. A series of hypotheses still more complicated than those laid down as premises by the distinguished reader of the report might be conceded—to wit, the paralysis of the arteries and the simultaneous constriction of the veins. Experiment again proves that even under these conditions bleeding on the surface of the skin is not produced.“6. M. Warlomont, in parting from the hypotheses which I have just combated, admits that the bleeding produced by the influence of the imagination is a bleeding by transudation. But the characteristics of transudation, studied in the light of modern physiology, are completely opposed to those of the stigmatic bleeding of Louise Lateau.“7. Finally—and this argument alone will suffice to overthrow the thesis of the distinguished reader of the report—clinical observation, in accordance with physiological induction, proves that in circumstances where the imagination exercises its greatest violence it never produces bleeding on the surface of the skin.”

“1. M. Warlomont is driven to admit a single vaso-motor centre; the most recent researches are against this localization: the vaso-motor centres are several and disseminated.

“2. The distinguished reader of the report constructs his doctrine of the action of the imagination on a series of hypotheses.

“The two chief ones are: that the imagination has the power, every Friday morning, of completely paralyzing the vaso-motor centre and the vaso-constrictor nerves; and after midday, by a contradictory action, to excite violently this centre, and consequently to close up the vaso-constrictors—pure suppositions which have not only not been demonstrated by the author, but which seem to me absolutely anti-physiological.

“3. Even admitting these hypotheses as well founded, it is an established fact that the complete paralysis of the vaso-motor centres and of the vaso-constrictor nerves is never followed by bleeding on the surface of the skin; the experience of all physiologists agrees on this point.

“4. This experience proves, on the contrary, that in such cases there are sometimes produced suffusions of blood in the mucous membranes; such suffusions never show themselves in Louise Lateau.

“5. A series of hypotheses still more complicated than those laid down as premises by the distinguished reader of the report might be conceded—to wit, the paralysis of the arteries and the simultaneous constriction of the veins. Experiment again proves that even under these conditions bleeding on the surface of the skin is not produced.

“6. M. Warlomont, in parting from the hypotheses which I have just combated, admits that the bleeding produced by the influence of the imagination is a bleeding by transudation. But the characteristics of transudation, studied in the light of modern physiology, are completely opposed to those of the stigmatic bleeding of Louise Lateau.

“7. Finally—and this argument alone will suffice to overthrow the thesis of the distinguished reader of the report—clinical observation, in accordance with physiological induction, proves that in circumstances where the imagination exercises its greatest violence it never produces bleeding on the surface of the skin.”

Regarding ecstasies, the orator, after having examined the different states with which the reader of the report to the Academy compared the ecstasies of Louise Lateau, concludes by saying:

“I believe I have demonstrated that the analysis of second conditions, brought out with so much skill by the distinguished gentleman, does not give the key to the ecstasy of Louise Lateau. But, setting aside these states of nervous disease, should not the imagination be made to bear all the burden of the ecstasy, as it does of the stigmatization?”

After examining this question, the orator concludes in the negative. In finishing his beautiful discourse he says:

“Our honorable colleague, in studying the causes of the stigmatization and ecstasy, has given to them a physiological interpretation. On this ground I have separated from him, and I believe I have demonstrated that that interpretation is not only insufficient, but also erroneous. I believed for a moment that M. Warlomont was about to offer an acceptable scientific theory. I do not say a theory complete and adequate—I am not so exacting; I know too well that we do not know the all of anything. If our eminent colleague had proposed to us a physiological interpretation, satisfying the most moderate demands of science, I should have accepted it, not with resignation, but with joy and eagerness; and believe me, gentlemen, my religious convictions would have suffered no shock thereby.“Our learned colleague, whom you have charged with examining the eventsof Bois d’Haine, has not, then, in my opinion, given to them their physiological interpretation. Other physicians have attempted the same task; I name two of them, because their works have been produced within these walls.“First of all, Dr. Boëns. In withdrawing his memoir from the order of the day of the Academy, he has withdrawn it from our discussion. Nevertheless, I believe I am not severe in affirming that the considerations which claimed his attention, and the irony of which he has been so prodigal in my own regard, have thrown but little light on the events of Bois d’Haine. Dr. Charbonnier has submitted to your appreciation a work of a more scientific character. M. Warlomont has examined it with the attention which it deserves, and has refuted it. I am thus dispensed from returning to it.“I maintain, then, purely and simply, the conclusions of my study: The stigmatization and the ecstasies of Louise Lateau are real and true facts, and science has not furnished their physiological interpretation.”

“Our learned colleague, whom you have charged with examining the eventsof Bois d’Haine, has not, then, in my opinion, given to them their physiological interpretation. Other physicians have attempted the same task; I name two of them, because their works have been produced within these walls.

“First of all, Dr. Boëns. In withdrawing his memoir from the order of the day of the Academy, he has withdrawn it from our discussion. Nevertheless, I believe I am not severe in affirming that the considerations which claimed his attention, and the irony of which he has been so prodigal in my own regard, have thrown but little light on the events of Bois d’Haine. Dr. Charbonnier has submitted to your appreciation a work of a more scientific character. M. Warlomont has examined it with the attention which it deserves, and has refuted it. I am thus dispensed from returning to it.

“I maintain, then, purely and simply, the conclusions of my study: The stigmatization and the ecstasies of Louise Lateau are real and true facts, and science has not furnished their physiological interpretation.”

M. Crocq spoke after M. Lefebvre. Like M. Warlomont, the learned Brussels professor believes that the interpretation of the facts positively established about Louise Lateau belongs to pathological physiology. The theory of M. Crocq differs but little from that of M. Warlomont. He attaches more importance to abstinence than the learned reader of the report, and thus comes nearer to M. Charbonnier; he believes, also, that the bleeding is altogether caused by a rupture of the capillaries. Apart from these small distinctions, it may be said of him, as of M. Warlomont, that he is of opinion that the imagination, by its influence on the nervous system, is the principal cause of the ecstasies and stigmata. Here are the rest of his conclusions:

“I. The state of Louise Lateau is a complex pathological state, characterized by the following facts:“1. Anæmia and weakness of constitution, arising from privations endured since childhood.“2. Nervous exaltation produced by anæmia and directed in a determined sense by the education and religious tendencies of Louise.“3. Ecstasies constituting the supreme degree of this exaltation.“4. Bleeding, having for its starting point anæmia and exaltation of the vaso-motor nervous system.“5. Relative abstinence, considerably exaggerated by the sick girl, conformably to what is observed among many persons who suffer from nervous disorders.“II. This state offers nothing contrary to the laws of pathological physiology; it is consequently useless to go outside of that in search of explanation.“III. It has the same characteristics as all the analogous cases related by physicians and historians; mysticism altogether, save cases of jugglery and mystification, ought to enter into the province of pathology, which is vast enough to contain it; and all the phenomena explain themselves perfectly by taking as starting point the principles which I have laid down.”

“I. The state of Louise Lateau is a complex pathological state, characterized by the following facts:

“1. Anæmia and weakness of constitution, arising from privations endured since childhood.

“2. Nervous exaltation produced by anæmia and directed in a determined sense by the education and religious tendencies of Louise.

“3. Ecstasies constituting the supreme degree of this exaltation.

“4. Bleeding, having for its starting point anæmia and exaltation of the vaso-motor nervous system.

“5. Relative abstinence, considerably exaggerated by the sick girl, conformably to what is observed among many persons who suffer from nervous disorders.

“II. This state offers nothing contrary to the laws of pathological physiology; it is consequently useless to go outside of that in search of explanation.

“III. It has the same characteristics as all the analogous cases related by physicians and historians; mysticism altogether, save cases of jugglery and mystification, ought to enter into the province of pathology, which is vast enough to contain it; and all the phenomena explain themselves perfectly by taking as starting point the principles which I have laid down.”

If we had to advance our own opinion on this important question, we should say that, after the report in which M. Warlomont had treated his subject with so much method and science, there remained few new arguments which could be applied to the physiological theory of the phenomena of mystics. It should be considered, however, no small advantage for the latter physician to feel himself supported by M. Crocq, who had brought to the debates the weight of his profound erudition and vast experience.

By all impartial judges the case might be regarded as understood. It was so in effect. The different orators who succeeded each other in the tribune of the Academy had brought to their respective discourses the strongest possible arrayof facts and of arguments. I shall astonish no one, then, by saying that M. Warlomont could not allow the victorious discourse of his colleague of Louvain to pass without some observations. It is impossible for us here to give arésuméof his discourse. In the main it added no new proof to the substance of the debate, and confined itself to the criticism of certain details.

It is enough for us to say that in this discourse the learned reader of the report to the Academy gave new proof of the brilliancy of his mind and the adroitness of his gifts.

M. Lefebvre, on his side, felt himself to be too much master of the situation to need emphasizing his triumph any further. This is what he did in the session of October 9, 1875. Without precisely entering into the heart of the debate, he brought out more strongly certain of the arguments which he had already used; he employed them to refute some of the assertions made in the discourses of his adversaries, held up certain inaccuracies, and concluded, as he had the right to do, by the following words, which give an exact idea of the state of the question:

“Let us resume. M. Warlomont has studied with earnestness and candor the events of Bois d’Haine. He has stated, as I have done, the reality of the stigmatization and ecstasy; he has demonstrated, as I have, that these phenomena are free from any deception. M. Crocq, after having examined the facts on the spot, has arrived at the same conclusions. The learned reader of the committee’s report has built up a scientific theory of the stigmatization and ecstasy; the eminent Brussels professor has, in his turn, formulated an interpretation very nearly approaching to that of M. Warlomont, but which differs from it, nevertheless, on certain points. I have sought, on my side, a physiological explanation of these extraordinary facts, and I have arrived at the conclusion that science could furnish no satisfactory interpretation of them. I have expounded at length before the Academy the reasons which prevent me from accepting the theories of my two honorable opponents; but my position is perfectly correct. I confine myself to recognizing my powerlessness to interpret the facts of Bois d’Haine. M. Warlomont takes another attitude. He pretends that we have a scientific explanation of these phenomena. We have not one—we have had three or four; which is the true one? Is it that of M. Boëns? Is it that of M. Charbonnier, to which, beyond doubt, you attach some importance, since you have voted that it be printed? Is it that of the learned reader of your report? Begin by choosing. As for me, I hold fast to my first conclusions: The facts of Bois d’Haine have not received a scientific interpretation.”

After certain remarks made at the same session by MM. Vleminckx, Crocq, Lefebvre, Masoin, Boëns, the general discussion closed. The printing of M. Charbonnier’s memoir was decided on and a vote of thanks to the author passed. With this should have ended the task of the Academy; and those who had hoped for a physiological interpretation of the facts of Bois d’Haine, as the outcome of these discussions, were in a position to felicitate themselves on the result; for by its absolute silence the Academy allowed a certain freedom of choice.

But during the session of July 10, 1875, which a family affliction prevented M. Lefebvre from assisting at, two members proposed orders of the day on the discussion of Bois d’Haine. Nevertheless, by a very proper sentiment, which the distinguished president, M. Vleminckx, was the first to advance, those orders of the day were not carried at that date.

That of M. Kuborn was thus conceived:

“The Academy, considering—“That the phenomena really established about the young girl of Bois d’Haine are not new and are explicable by the laws of pathological physiology;“That the prolonged abstinence which has been argued about has not been observed by the committee;“That no supervision, therefore, having been established, and there having been no chance of establishing it, the proper thing was not to pause on the consideration of this fact, but to consider it as not having come up—“The Academy follows its order of the day as far as concerns the question of the stigmatization and exstasy.”

“The Academy, considering—

“That the phenomena really established about the young girl of Bois d’Haine are not new and are explicable by the laws of pathological physiology;

“That the prolonged abstinence which has been argued about has not been observed by the committee;

“That no supervision, therefore, having been established, and there having been no chance of establishing it, the proper thing was not to pause on the consideration of this fact, but to consider it as not having come up—

“The Academy follows its order of the day as far as concerns the question of the stigmatization and exstasy.”

Here is the order of the day proposed by M. Crocq:

“The Academy, considering—“That the phenomena established about Louise Lateau are not beyond a physiological explanation;“That those which are not established ought no longer to occupy our attention—“Declares the discussion closed, and passes to the order of the day.”

“The Academy, considering—

“That the phenomena established about Louise Lateau are not beyond a physiological explanation;

“That those which are not established ought no longer to occupy our attention—

“Declares the discussion closed, and passes to the order of the day.”

The same resolutions, the small foundation for which, after the discourses which had been made, every impartial mind ought to recognize, were again brought up in the session of October 9.

M. Vleminckx, having induced the authors of the orders of the day to modify their wording in such a manner as to render them acceptable, M. Fossion proposed the following form, more soothing than its predecessors:

“The Royal Academy of Medicine declares that the case of Louise Lateau has not been completely scrutinized and cannot serve as a base for serious discussion; consequently, it closes the discussion.”

M. Laussedat, after some preliminary remarks, finally proposed the order of the day pure and simple, which was adopted.

The bearing of this vote will escape the mind of no one. In setting aside the orders of the day which pretended that what had been positively established in the question of Bois d’Haine might be solved by science, the Academy has fully confirmed the conclusions of M. Lefebvre’s book.

Meanwhile, in ending, let us return to Bois d’Haine, to that young girl who has become more than ever the object of the veneration of some, the study of others, and the wonder of all.

Since 1868 Louise Lateau presents the phenomena weekly of the bloody stigmata and the ecstasies, to which later on was added abstinence from food.

Her first and chief historian, M. Lefebvre, after having watched the young girl, affirms since 1869: She, whom a certain portion of the public considers as a cheat or an invalid, really presents the phenomena which are reported of her. These phenomena are exempt from trickery, and it is impossible to explain them by the laws of physiology and pathology. We omit the question of fasting, which remains to be studied.

Seven years after the appearance of the first phenomena, at the time when the commotion which they produced had, so to say, reached its height, the leading learned body in Belgium examined the mysterious scenes in the humble house of Bois d’Haine, and, through MM. Crocq and Warlomont, made an inquiry into the reality and sincerity of the facts, and brings in a verdict that the facts are real and free from all fraud.

Finally, this same Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, by its vote, avows in the face of the world that, if it ought not to recognize a supernatural cause in the facts about Louise Lateau, as little can it demonstrate their natural origin and physiological genesis.

Such is the actual state of this extraordinary question.

“Il s’imagine voir, avec Louis le Grand,Philip Quatre qui s’avanceDans l’Ile de la Conférence.”—La Fontaine.

“Il s’imagine voir, avec Louis le Grand,Philip Quatre qui s’avanceDans l’Ile de la Conférence.”

“Il s’imagine voir, avec Louis le Grand,

Philip Quatre qui s’avance

Dans l’Ile de la Conférence.”

—La Fontaine.

Few towns are set in so lovely a frame as St. Jean de Luz, with its incomparable variety of sea, mountain, river, and plain. In front is the dark blue bay opening into the boundless sea. On the north are the cliffs of Sainte Barbe. At the south are the Gothic donjon and massive jetty of Socoa, behind which rises gradually a chain of mountains, one above the other, from wooded or vine-covered hills, dotted here and there with the red-and-white houses of the Basque peasantry and the summer residences of the wealthy merchants of St. Jean de Luz, till we come to the outer ramparts of La Rhune with its granite cliffs and sharp peaks, the Trois Couronnes with their jagged outline, and still farther on a long, blue line of mountains fading away into the azure sea. It is from La Rhune you can best take in all the features of the country. To go to it you use one of the modest barks that have replaced the sumptuous galleys of Louis Quatorze, and ascend to Ascain, a pretty hamlet, from which the summit of La Rhune is reached in two hours. It is not one of the highest in the Pyrenean chain, being only three thousand feet above the sea, but it is an isolated peak, and affords a diversified view of vast extent. To the north are the green valleys of Labourd, with the steeples of thirty parishes around; Bayonne, with the towers of its noble cathedral; and the vast pine forests of the mysterious Landes. To the west is the coast of Spain washed by the ocean. East and south are the mountains of Béarn and Navarre, showing peak after peak, like a sea suddenly petrified in a storm.

Such is the magnificent frame in which is set the historic town of St. Jean de Luz. It is built on a tongue of land washed by the encroaching sea on one hand and the river Nivelle on the other. The situation is picturesque, the sky brilliant, the climate mild. It seems to need nothing to make it attractive. The very aspect of decay lends it an additional charm which renewed prosperity would destroy. The houses run in long lines parallel with the two shores, looking, when the tide is high, like so many ships at anchor. At the sight of this floating town we are not surprised at its past commercial importance, or that its inhabitants are navigatorspar excellence. Its sailors were the first to explore the unknown seas of the west, and to fish for the cod and whale among the icebergs of the arctic zone. In the first half of the XVIIth century thirty ships, each manned by thirty-five or forty sailors, left St. Jean de Luz for the cod-fisheries of Newfoundland, and as many for Spitzbergen in search of whales. The oaks of La Rhune were cut down for vessels. The town was wealthy and full of activity. Those werethe best days of ancient Lohitzun. But though once so renowned for its fleets, it has fallen from the rank it then occupied. Ruined by wars, and greatly depopulated by the current of events, its houses have decayed one after another, or totally disappeared before the encroachments of the sea. Reduced to a few quiet streets, it is the mere shadow of what it once was. Instead of hundreds of vessels, only a fishing-smack or two enliven its harbor. And yet there is a certain air of grandeur about the place which bespeaks its past importance, and several houses which harmonize with its historic memories. For St. Jean de Luz was not only a place of commercial importance, but was visited by several of the kings of France, and is associated with some of the most important events of their reigns. Louis XI. came here when mediating between the kings of Aragon and Castile. The château of Urtubi, which he occupied, is some distance beyond. Its fine park, watered by a beautiful stream, and the picturesque environs, make it an attractive residence quite worthy of royalty. The ivy-covered wall on the north side is a part of the old manor-house of the XIIth century; the remainder is of the XVIIth. The two towers have a feudal aspect, but are totally innocent of feudal domination; for the Basque lords, even of the middle ages, never had any other public power than was temporarily conferred on them by their national assemblies.

It was at St. Jean de Luz that Francis I., enthusiastically welcomed by the people after his deliverance from captivity in Spain, joyfully exclaimed: “Je suis encore roi de France—I am still King of France!” It likewise witnessed the exchange of the beautiful Elizabeth of France and Anne of Austria—one given in marriage to Louis XIII. and the other to Philip of Spain amid the acclamations of the people.

Cardinal Mazarin also visited St. Jean de Luz in 1659 to confer with the astute Don Luis de Haro, prime minister of Philip IV., about the interests of France and Spain. The house he inhabited beside the sea still has his cipher on the walls, as it has also the old Gobelin tapestry with which his apartments were hung. He was accompanied by one hundred and fifty gentlemen, some of whom were the greatest lords in France. With them were as many attendants, a guard of one hundred horsemen and three hundred foot-soldiers, twenty-four mules covered with rich housings, seven carriages for his personal use, and several horses to ride. He remained here four months. His interviews with the Spanish minister took place on the little island in the Bidassoa known ever since as the Isle of Conference, which was never heard of till the treaty of the Pyrenees. All national interviews and exchanges of princesses had previously taken place in the middle of the river by means ofgabares, or a bridge of boats.

It was this now famous isle which Bossuet apostrophized in hisoraison funèbreat the burial of Queen Marie Thérèse:

“Pacific isle, in which terminated the differences of the two great empires of which you were the limit; in which were displayed all the skill and diplomacy of different national policies; in which one statesman secured preponderance by his deliberation, and the other ascendency by means of his penetration!Memorable day, in which two proud nations, so long at enmity, but now reconciled by Marie Thérèse, advanced to their borders with their kings at their head, not to engage in battle, but for a friendly embrace; in which two sovereigns with their courts, each with its peculiar grandeur and magnificence, as well as etiquette and manners, presented to each other and to the whole universe so august a spectacle—how can I now mingle your pageants with these funeral solemnities, or dwell on the height of all human grandeur in sight of its end?”

The marriage of Louis XIV. with the Spanish Infanta, to which the great orator refers, is still the most glorious remembrance of St. Jean de Luz. The visits of Louis XI., Francis I., and Charles IX. have left but few traces in the town compared with that of theGrand Monarque. The majestic presence of the young king surrounded by his gay, magnificent following, here brought in contrast with the dignity, gloom, and splendor of the Spanish court, impressed the imagination of the people, who have never forgotten so glorious a memory.

Louis XIV. arrived at St. Jean de Luz May 8, 1660, accompanied by Anne of Austria, Cardinal Mazarin, and a vast number of lords and ladies, among whom was theGrande Mademoiselle. They were enthusiastically welcomed by the ringing of bells, firing of cannon, and shouts of joy. Garlands of flowers arched the highway, the pavement was strewn with green leaves, and Cantabrian dances were performed around the cortége. At the door of the parish church stood the clergy in full canonicals, with thecuréat their head to bless the king as he went past. He resided, while there, in the château of Lohobiague, the fine towers of which are still to be seen on the banks of the Nivelle. It is now known as the House of Louis XIV. Here he was entertained by the widowedchâtelainewith the sumptuous hospitality for which the family was noted. A light gallery was put up to connect the château with that of Joanocnia, in which lodged Anne of Austria and the Spanish Infanta. Here took place the first interview between the king and his bride, described by Mme. de Motteville in her piquant manner. From the gallery the Infanta, after her marriage, took pleasure in throwing handfuls of silver coin to the people, calledpièces de largesses, struck by the town expressly for the occasion, with the heads of the royal pair on one side and on the other St. Jean de Luz in a shower of gold, with the motto:Non lætior alter.

The château of Joanocnia, frequently called since that time the château of the Infanta, was built by Joannot de Haraneder, a merchant of the place, who was ennobled for his liberality when the island of Rhé was besieged by the English in 1627, and about to surrender to the Duke of Buckingham for want of supplies and reinforcements. The Comte de Grammont, governor of Bayonne, being ordered by Richelieu to organize an expedition at once for the relief of the besieged, issued a command for every port to furnish its contingent. St. Jean de Luz eagerly responded by sending a large flotilla, and Joannot de Haraneder voluntarily gave the king two vessels, supplied with artillery, worthy of figuring in the royal navy. For this and subsequent services he was ennobled.His arms are graven in marble over the principal fire-place of the château—a plum-tree on an anchor, with the motto:

“Dans l’ancre le beau prunierEst rendu un fort riche fructier.”

“Dans l’ancre le beau prunier

Est rendu un fort riche fructier.”

This château, though somewhat devoid of symmetry, has a certain beauty and originality of its own, with its alternate rows of brick and cream-colored stone, after the Basque fashion, its Renaissance portico between two square towers facing the harbor, and the light arches of the two-story gallery in the Venetian style. Over the principal entrance is a marble tablet with the following inscription in letters of gold:

“L’Infante je reçus l’an mil six cent soixante.On m’appelle depuis le chasteau de l’Infante.”

“L’Infante je reçus l’an mil six cent soixante.

On m’appelle depuis le chasteau de l’Infante.”

The letter L and thefleur-de-lisare to be seen as we ascend the grand staircase, and two paintings by Gérôme after the style of the XVIIth century, recalling the alliance of France and Spain and the well-knownmotof Louis XIV.:

“Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées!”

All the details of the residence of the royal family here, as related by Mme. de Motteville and Mlle. de Montpensier, are full of curious interest. The former describes the beautiful Isle of Conference and the superb pavilion for the reunion of the two courts, with two galleries leading towards France and Spain. This building was erected by the painter Velasquez, who, asaposentador mayor, accompanied Philip IV. to the frontier. This fatiguing voyage had an unfavorable effect on the already declining health of the great painter, and he died a few weeks after his return.

During the preliminary arrangements for the marriage Louis led a solemn, uniform life. Like the queen-mother, who was always present at Mass, Vespers, and Benediction, he daily attended public services, sometimes at the Recollects’ and sometimes at the parish church. He always dined in public at the château of Lohobiague, surrounded by crowds eager to witness the process of royal mastication. In the afternoon there were performances by comedians who had followed the court from Paris; and sometimes Spanish mysteries, to which Queen Anne was partial, were represented, in which the actors were dressed as hermits and nuns, and sacred events were depicted, to the downright scandal of the great mademoiselle. The day ended with a ball, in which the king did not disdain to display the superior graces of his royal person in aballet compliqué. Everything, in short, was quite in the style of theGrand Cyrusitself.

The marriage, which had taken place at Fontarabia by procuration, was personally solemnized in the parish church of St. Jean de Luz by the Bishop of Bayonne in the presence of an attentive crowd. The door by which the royal couple entered was afterwards walled up, that it might never serve for any one else—a not uncommon mark of respect in those days. A joiner’s shop now stands against this Porta Regia. The king presented the church on this occasion with a complete set of sacred vessels and ecclesiastical vestments.

The church in which Louis XIV. was married is exteriorly a noble building with an octagonal tower, but of no architectural merit within. There are no side aisles, but around the nave are ranges of galleries peculiar to the Basque churches, where the separation ofthe men from the women is still rigorously maintained. The only piece of sculpture is a strangePietàin which the Virgin, veiled in a large cope, holds the dead Christ on her knees. A rather diminutive angel, in a flowing robe with pointed sleeves of the time of Charles VII., bears a scroll the inscription of which has become illegible.

Behind the organ, in the obscurity of the lower gallery of the church, hangs a dark wooden frame—short but broad—with white corners, which contains a curious painting of the XVIIth century representing Christ before Pilate. It is by no means remarkable as a work of art; for it is deficient in perspective, there is no grace in the drapery, no special excellence of coloring. The figures are generally drawn with correctness, but the faces seem rather taken from pictures than from real life. But however poor the execution, this painting merits attention on account of its dramatic character. The composition represents twenty-six persons. At the left is Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, seated in a large arm-chair beneath a canopy, pointing with his left hand towards the Saviour before him. In his right hand he holds a kind of sceptre; his beard is trimmed in the style of Henri Quatre; he wears a large mantle lined with ermine, and on his head atoque, such as the old presidents of parliament used to wear in France.

Below Pilate is the clerk recording the votes in a large register, and before him is the urn in which they are deposited.

In front of the clerk, but separated from him by a long white scroll on which is inscribed the sentence pronounced by Pilate, is seated our Saviour, his loins girded with a strip of scarlet cloth, his bowed head encircled by luminous rays, his attitude expressive of humility and submission, his bound hands extended on his knees.

In the centre of the canvas, above this group, is the high-priest Caiaphas standing under an arch, his head thrown back, and his hands extended in an imposing attitude. He wears a cap something like a mitre, a kind of stole is crossed on his breast, his long robe is adorned with three flounces of lace. His face is that of a young man. The slight black mustache he wears is turned up in a way that gives him a resemblance to Louis XIII. It is evidently a portrait of that age.

At the side of Pilate, and behind Christ, are ranged the members of the Jewish Sanhedrim, standing or sitting, in various postures, with white scrolls in their hands, which they hold like screens, bearing their names and the expression of their sentiments respecting the divine Victim. Their dress is black or white, but varied in form. Most of them wear amosette, or ermine cape, and the collar of some order of knighthood, as of S. Michael and the S. Esprit. They are all young, have mustaches, and look as if they belonged to the time of Louis Treize. On their heads are turbans, ortoques.

Through the open window, at the end of the pretorium, may be seen the mob, armed with spears, and expressing its sentiments by means of a scroll at the side of the window: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend. Crucify him! crucify him! His blood be on us and on our children.”

The chief interest of the picturecentres in these inscriptions, which are in queer old French of marvellous orthography. At the bottom of the painting, to the left, is the following:

“Sentence, or decree, of the sanguinary Jews against Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.”

Over Pilate we read:

“Pontius Pilate Judex.”

The sentiments of the high-priests and elders, whose names we give in the original, are thus expressed:

“1.Simon Lepros.For what cause or reason is he held for mutiny or sedition?“2.Raban.Wherefore are laws made, I pray, unless to be kept and executed?“3.Achias.No one should be condemned to death whose cause is not known and weighed.“4.Sabath.There is no law or right by which one not proved guilty is condemned; wherefore we would know in what way this man hath offended.“5.Rosmophin.For what doth the law serve, if not executed?“6.Putéphares.A stirrer-up of the people is a scourge to the land; therefore he should be banished.“7.Riphar.The penalty of the law is prescribed only for malefactors who should be made to confess their misdeeds and then be condemned.“8.Joseph d’Aramathea.Truly, it is a shameful thing, and detestable, there be no one in this city who seeks to defend the innocent.“9.Joram.How can we condemn him to death who is just?“10.Ehieris.Though he be just, yet shall he die, because by his preaching he hath stirred up and excited the people to sedition.“11.Nicodemus.Our law condemns and sentences to death no man for an unknown cause.“12.Diarabias.He hath perverted the people; therefore is he guilty and worthy of death.“13.Sareas.This seditious man should be banished as one born for the destruction of the land.“14.Rabinth.Whether he be just or not, inasmuch as he will neither obey nor submit to the precepts of our forefathers, he should not be tolerated in the land.“15.Josaphat.Let him be bound with chains and be perpetually imprisoned.“16.Ptolomée.Though it be not clear whether he is just or unjust, why do we hesitate: why not at once condemn him to death or banish him?“17.Teras.It is right he should be banished or sent to the emperor.“18.Mesa.If he is a just man, why do we not yield to his teachings: if wicked, why not send him away?“19.Samech.Let us weigh the case, so he have no cause to contradict us. Whatever he does, let us chastise him.“20.Caïphas Pontifex.Ye know not well what ye would have. It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.“21.The People To Pilate.If thou let this man go, thou art not the friend of Cæsar. Crucify him! crucify him! His blood be on us and on our children!”

“1.Simon Lepros.For what cause or reason is he held for mutiny or sedition?

“2.Raban.Wherefore are laws made, I pray, unless to be kept and executed?

“3.Achias.No one should be condemned to death whose cause is not known and weighed.

“4.Sabath.There is no law or right by which one not proved guilty is condemned; wherefore we would know in what way this man hath offended.

“5.Rosmophin.For what doth the law serve, if not executed?

“6.Putéphares.A stirrer-up of the people is a scourge to the land; therefore he should be banished.

“7.Riphar.The penalty of the law is prescribed only for malefactors who should be made to confess their misdeeds and then be condemned.

“8.Joseph d’Aramathea.Truly, it is a shameful thing, and detestable, there be no one in this city who seeks to defend the innocent.

“9.Joram.How can we condemn him to death who is just?

“10.Ehieris.Though he be just, yet shall he die, because by his preaching he hath stirred up and excited the people to sedition.

“11.Nicodemus.Our law condemns and sentences to death no man for an unknown cause.

“12.Diarabias.He hath perverted the people; therefore is he guilty and worthy of death.

“13.Sareas.This seditious man should be banished as one born for the destruction of the land.

“14.Rabinth.Whether he be just or not, inasmuch as he will neither obey nor submit to the precepts of our forefathers, he should not be tolerated in the land.

“15.Josaphat.Let him be bound with chains and be perpetually imprisoned.

“16.Ptolomée.Though it be not clear whether he is just or unjust, why do we hesitate: why not at once condemn him to death or banish him?

“17.Teras.It is right he should be banished or sent to the emperor.

“18.Mesa.If he is a just man, why do we not yield to his teachings: if wicked, why not send him away?

“19.Samech.Let us weigh the case, so he have no cause to contradict us. Whatever he does, let us chastise him.

“20.Caïphas Pontifex.Ye know not well what ye would have. It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

“21.The People To Pilate.If thou let this man go, thou art not the friend of Cæsar. Crucify him! crucify him! His blood be on us and on our children!”

On the large scroll in the centre of the picture is the sentence of Pilate:

“I, Pontius Pilate, pretor and judge in Jerusalem under the thrice powerful Emperor Tiberius, whose reign be eternally blessed and prospered, in this tribunal, or judicial chair, in order to pronounce and declare sentence for the synagogue of the Jewish nation with respect to Jesus Christ here present, by them led and accused before me, that, being born of father and mother of poor and base extraction, he made himself by lofty and blasphemous words the Son of God and King of the Jews, and boasted he could rebuild the temple of Solomon, having heard and examined the case, do say and declare on my conscience he shall be crucified between two thieves.”

This picture is analogous to the old mysteries of the Passion once so popular in this region, in which the author who respected the meaning of the sacred text was at liberty to draw freely on his imagination. It was especially in the dialogue thatlay the field for his genius. However naïve these sacred dramas, they greatly pleased the people. A painting similar to this formerly existed in St. Roch’s Church at Paris, in which figured the undecided Pilate in judicial array, Caiaphas the complacent flatterer of the people, and the mob with its oldrôleof “Crucify him! crucify him!”

We must not forget a work of art, of very different character, associated with the history of St. Jean de Luz. It is a curious piece of needle-work commemorating the conferences of the two great statesmen, Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro, and evidently designed by an able artist, perhaps by Velasquez himself. It is a kind ofcourte-pointe(it would never do to call it by the ignoble name of coverlet!) of linen of remarkable fineness, on which are embroidered in purple silk the eminent personages connected with the treaty of the Pyrenees, as well as various allegorical figures and accessory ornaments, which make it a genuine historic picture of lively and interesting character. This delicate piece of Spanish needle-work was wrought by the order of Don Luis de Haro as a mark of homage to his royal master. He presented it to the king on his feast-day, May 1, 1661, and it probably adorned the royal couch. But the better to comprehend this work of art—for such it is, in spite of its name—let us recall briefly the events that suggested its details.

Philip IV. ascended the Spanish throne in 1621, when barely sixteen years of age. His reign lasted till 1665. He had successively two ministers of state, both of great ability, but of very different political views. In the first part of his reign the young monarch gave his whole confidence to the Count of Olivares, whose authority was almost absolute till 1648. But his ministry was far from fortunate. On the contrary, it brought such humiliating calamities on the country that the king at length awoke to the danger that menaced it. He dismissed Olivares and appointed the count’s nephew and heir in his place, who proved one of the ablest ministers ever known in Spain. He was a descendant of the brave Castilian lord to whom Alfonso VII. was indebted for the capture of Zurita, but who would accept no reward from the grateful prince but the privilege of giving the name of Haro to a town he had built. It was another descendant of this proud warrior who was made archbishop of Mexico in the latter part of the XVIIIth century, and was so remarkable for his charity and eloquence as a preacher.

Don Luis not only had the military genius of his ancestor, but the prudence of a real statesman, and he succeeded in partially repairing the disasters of the preceding ministry. He raised an army and equipped a powerful squadron, by which he repulsed the French, checked the Portuguese, brought the rebellious provinces into subjection, and effected the treaty of Munster; which energetic measures produced such an effect on the French government as to lead to amicable relations between the two great ministers who, at this time, held the destiny of Europe in their hands, and to bring about a general peace in 1659.

It was with this object Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro agreed upon a meeting on theIle des Faisans—as the Isle of Conference was then called—which led to the treaty of the Pyrenees.

As a reward for Don Luis’ signal services, particularly the peace he had cemented by an alliance so honorable to the nation, Philip IV., in the following year, conferred on him the title of duke, and gave him the surnamede la Paz.

It was at this time Don Luis had this curiouscourte-pointewrought as a present to the king. He was the declared patron of the fine arts, and had established weekly reunions to bring together the principal artists of Spain, some of whom probably designed this memorial of his glory. It was preserved with evident care, and handed down from one sovereign to another, till it finally fell into the possession of the mother of Ferdinand VII., who, wishing to express her sense of the fidelity of one of her ladies of honor, gave her this valuable counterpane. In this way it passed into the hands of its present owner at Bayonne.

On the upper part of this covering the power of Spain is represented by a woman holding a subdued lion at her feet. In the centre are Nuestra Señora del Pilar and S. Ferdinand, patrons of the kingdom, around whom are the eagles of Austria, so closely allied to Spain. And by way of allusion to theIle des Faisans, where the recent negotiations had taken place, pheasants are to be seen in every direction. Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro are more than once represented. In one place they are presenting an olive branch to the powers they serve; in another they are advancing, side by side, towards Philip IV., to solicit the hand of his daughter for Louis XIV. Here Philip gives his consent to the marriage, and, lower down, Louis receives his bride in the presence of two females who personify France and Spain. The intermediate spaces are filled up with allusions to commerce with foreign lands and the progress of civilization at home. Not only war, victory, and politics have their emblems, but literature, beneficence, and wealth. But there are many symbols the meaning of which it would require the sagacity of a Champollion to fathom.

This is, perhaps, the only known instance of a prime minister directing his energies to the fabrication of a counterpane. Disraeli, to be sure, has woven many an extravagant web of romance with Oriental profusion of ornament, but not, to our knowledge, in purple and fine linen, like Don Luis de Haro. We have seen one of the gorgeous coverlets of Louis XIV., but it was wrought by the young ladies of St. Cyr under the direction of Mme. de Maintenon; and there is another in the Hôtel de Cluny that once belonged to Francis I. The grand-daughter of Don Luis de Haro, the sole heiress of the house, married the Duke of Alba, carrying with her as a dowry the vast possessions of Olivares, Guzman, and Del Carpio. The brother-in-law of the ex-Empress Eugénie is a direct descendant of theirs.

Opposite St. Jean de Luz, on the other side of the Nivelle, is Cibourre, with its solemn, mysterious church, and its widowed houses built along the quay and straggling up the hill of Bordagain. Prosperous once like its neighbor, it also participated in its misfortunes, and now wears the same touching air of melancholy. The men are all sailors—the best sailors in Europe—but they are absent a great part of the year. Fearless wreckers live along the shore, who brave the greatest dangers to aid ships in distress.In more prosperous days its rivalry with St. Jean de Luz often led to quarrels, and the islet which connects the two places was frequently covered with the blood shed in these encounters. The convent of Recollects, now a custom-house, which we pass on our way to Cibourre, was founded in expiation of this mutual hatred, and very appropriately dedicated toNotre Dame de la Paix—Our Lady of Peace. The cloister, with its round arches, is still in good preservation, and the cistern is to be seen in the court, constructed by Cardinal Mazarin, that the friars might have a supply of soft water.

The Basques are famed for their truthfulness and honesty, the result perhaps of the severity of their ancient laws, one of which ordered a tooth to be extracted every time a person was convicted of lying! No wonder the love of truth took such deeprootamong them. But had this stringent law been handed down and extended to other lands, what toothless communities there would now be in the world!

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.”

The deduction we arrive at from the argument which we have laid down is that the history of the world is a consistent one, and not a series of loose incidents strung together. It is as much this morally, it is as truly the evolution and unwinding of a high moral law and of a great spiritual truth, as the life of the plant from the seed to the ripe fruit is the development of a natural growth. This last is governed by laws with which we are only partially acquainted; whereas the moral law and the spiritual truth are revealed to us by the divine scheme of creation and redemption. There is nothing existing, either in the natural or in the spiritual law, and especially in this last, which is not more or less, in one way or in another, by assertion or by negation, a revelation of the divine Being.

He reveals himself directly by his volitions and indirectly by his permissions. And we can only be one with him when we have learnt to accept both and to submit to both; not in the spirit of quietism or fatalism, but as actively entering into his intentions, accepting what he wills, and bearing what he permits. There is no harmony possible between the soul and God until we have arrived at this; and the history of the world is the history of man’s acquiescence in, or resistance to, the supreme will of God. The first disruption of the will of man from the will of God, in the fall of man, wove a darkwoof into the web of time; and every act of ours which is not according to the will of God weaves the same into our own lives, because it is a rupture of the law of harmony which God has instituted between himself as creator and us as creatures. Were that harmony unbroken, man would rest in God as in his centre; for, being finite, he has no sufficiency in himself, but for ever seeks some good extrinsic to himself. The same applies to all creation, whose ultimate end and highest good must always be some object beyond, and above itself; and that object is none other than God, “quod ignorantes colitis,”[270]—the finite striving after the Infinite. Thus the whole divine government of the world is a gradual unfolding of the divine Will, according as we are able to receive it. And the degree of receptivity in mankind, at various periods of the world’s history, and in different localities, accounts for the variety in the divine dispensations, and for the imperfection of some as compared with others. The “yet more excellent way”[271]could not be received by all at all times. The promise was given to Abraham. But four hundred and thirty years elapsed before its fulfilment, for the express purpose of being occupied and spent in the institution of the law as a less perfect dispensation, and which was given because of transgressions—“propter transgressiones posita est”[272]—thus showing the adaptive government of God: the gradual building up of the city of the Lord, whose stones are the living souls of men, which are “hewed and made ready,”[273]but so that there shall be “neither hammer, nor axe, nor tool of iron heard” while it is building. For God does not force his creature. He pours not “new wine into old bottles,” but waits in patience the growth of his poor creatures, and the slow and gradual leavening of the great mass. A time had been when God walked with man “at the afternoon air”;[274]and whatever may be the full meaning of this exquisitely-expressed intercourse, at least it must have been intimate and tender. But when the black pall of evil fell on the face of creation, the light of God’s intercourse with man was let in by slow degrees, like single stars coming out in the dark firmament. The revelations, like the stars, varied in magnitude and glory, lay wide apart from each other, rose at different intervals of longer or shorter duration, and conveyed, like them, a flickering and uncertain light, until the “Sun of Justice arose with health in his wings,”[275]and “scattered the rear of darkness thin.” The degree of light vouchsafed was limited by the capacity of the recipient; and that capacity has not always been the same in all ages, any more than in any one age it is the same in all the contemporary men, or in each man the same at all periods of his life. It is thus that we arrive at the explanation of an apparent difference of tone, color, and texture, so to speak, in the various manifestations of God to man. The manifestation is limited to the capacity of the recipient; and not only is it limited, but to a certain extent it becomes, as it were, tinged by the properties of the medium through which it is transmitted to others. It assumes characteristics that are not essentially its own. For so marvellous is the respect with which the Creatortreats the freedom of his creature that he suffers us to give a measure of our own color to what he reveals to us, so that it may be more our own, more on our level, more within our grasp; as though he poured the white waters of saving truth into glasses of varied colors, and thus hid from us a pellucidity too perfect for our nature. And thus it happens that to us who dwell in the light of God’s church, with the seven lamps of the seven sacraments burning in the sanctuary, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob hardly seems to us the same God as our God. We see him through the prism of the past, amid surroundings that are strange to us, in the old patriarchal life that seems so impossible a mode of existence to the denizens of great cities in modern Europe.

This is equally true throughout the history of the world. It is also true of every individual soul; and it is true of the same soul at different periods of its existence. He is the same God always and everywhere. But there is a difference in the kind of reception which each soul gives to that portion of divine knowledge and grace which it is capable of receiving and which it actually does receive. For they are “divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music.”[276]They differ in capacity and they differ in material; and the great God, in revealing himself, does so by degrees. He has deposited, as it were, the whole treasure of himself in the bosom of his spouse, the church; but the births of new grace and further developed truth only come to us as we can bear them and when we can bear them. The body of truth is all there; but the dispensing of that truth varies in degree as time goes on. God governs in his own world; but he does so behind and through the human instruments whom he condescends to employ. And as, in the exercise of his own free-will, man chose the evil and refused the good, so has the Almighty accommodated himself to the conditions which man has instituted. Were he to do otherwise, he would force the will of his creature, which he never will do, because the doing it would have for result to deprive that creature of all moral status and reduce him to a machine. From the moment that we lose the power of refusing the good and taking the evil, from the moment that any force really superior to that which has been put into the arsenals of our own being robs us of the faculty of selection, we lose all merit and consequently all demerit. The Creator, when he made man, surrounded him with the respect due to a being who had the power of disposing of his own everlasting destiny. Nor has he ever done, nor will he do, anything which can entrench on this prerogative. The whole system of grace is a system divinely devised to afford man aid in the selection he has to make. There lies an atmosphere of grace all around our souls, as there lies the air we breathe around our senses. The one is as frequently unperceived by us as the other.[277]We are without consciousness as regards its presence, as weare without direct habitual consciousness of the act of breathing and of our own existence, except as from time to time we make a reflective modification in our own mind of the idea of the air and of the fact of our inhaling it. We are unconscious that it is the divine Creator who is for ever sustaining our physical existence. We are oblivious of it for hours together, unless we stop and think. It is the same with the presence of grace.

And though “exciting” grace, as theology calls it, begins with the illustration of the intellect, it does not follow that we are always by any means conscious of this illustration. It is needless to carry out the theological statement in these pages. What we have said is enough to bring us round to our point, which is that the action of grace on the individual soul, and the long line of direct and indirect revelations of God’s will from the creation to the present hour, though always the same grace and always the same revelation, receive different renderings according to the vehicle in which they are held—much as a motive in music remains the same air, though transposed from one key to another. Not only, therefore, does man, as it were, give a color of his own to the revelation of God, but he has the sad faculty of limiting its flow and circumscribing its course, even where he cannot altogether arrest it. We are “slow of heart to believe,” and therefore is the time delayed when the still unfulfilled promises may take effect. Our Lord declares that Mosespermittedthe Hebrews to put away their wives, because of the hardness of their hearts; “but from the beginning it was not so.”[278]God’s law had never in itself been other than what the church has declared it to be. The state of matrimony, as God had ordained it, was always meant to be what the church has now defined. But man was not in a condition to receive so perfect a law; and thus the condition of man—that is, the hardness of his heart—had the effect of modifying the apparent will of God, as revealed in what we now know to be one of the seven sacraments. The Hebrews were incapable of anything more than a mutilated, or rather a truncated, expression of the divine will, as it was represented to them in the law of Moses on the married state. Nor could we anywhere find a more perfect illustration of our argument. In the first place, it is given us by our Lord himself; and, in the second, it occurs on a subject which, taken in its larger sense, involves almost every other, lies at the root of the whole world of matter, and of being through matter, and may be called the representative idea of the creation. Now, if on such a question as this mankind, at some period of their existence, and that a period which includes ages of time, and covers, at one interval or another, the whole vast globe, could onlybearan imperfect and utterly defective rendering, how much more must there exist to be still further developed out of the “things new and old” which lie in the womb of time and in the treasures of the church, but which are waiting for the era when we shall be in a condition to receive them! The whole system of our Lord’s teaching was based on this principle. He seems, if we may so express it, afraid of overburdening his disciples by too great demands upon their capacity.He says with reference to the mission of S. John the Baptist: “Ifyou will receive it, he is Elias that is to come,”[279]and in the Sermon on the Mount he points out to them the imperfection of the old moral code, as regarded the taking of oaths and the law of talion. Now, the moral law, as it existed in the mind of God, could never have varied. It must always have been “perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.” But it passed through an imperfect medium—the one presented by the then condition of mankind—and was modified accordingly.

We hold, therefore, in what we have now stated, a distinct view of the way in which God governs the world; not absolutely, not arbitrarily, butadaptively. And where we see imperfection, and at times apparent retrogression, it is the free will of man forcing the will of God to his own destruction, “until he who hindereth now, and will hinder, be taken out of the way.”[280]

If this be true of God’s direct revelations of himself, and of his moral law as given from time to time to mankind, according as, in their fallen state, they could receive it—if, in short, it be true of his direct volitions—it is also true of his permissions. If it hold good of the revelations of his antecedent will, it holds good of the instances (so far as we may trace them in the history of the world) of his consequent will; that is, of his will which takes into consideration the facts induced by man in the exercise of his own free will, which is so constantly running counter to the antecedent will of God. The divine permissions form the negative side of the revelation of God. They are his permissive government of the world, not his direct government. The direct government is the stream of revelation given to our first parents, to the patriarchs and lawgivers of Israel, and now, in a more direct and immediate way, through our Blessed Lord in his birth, death, and resurrection, by the church in the sacraments, and through her temporal head, the vicar of Christ.

Even now, when he has consummated his union with his church, and that she is the true organ of the Holy Ghost, and thus the one true and infallible medium and interpreter of God’s direct government of the world, he also governs it by the indirect way of his overruling providence. The events which occur in history have ever a double character. They have their mere human aspect, often apparently for evil alone; and they have their ultimate result for good, which is simply the undercurrent of God’s will working upwards, and through the actions of mankind. Events which, on the face of them, bear the character of unmitigated evils, like war, have a thousand ultimate beneficial results. War is the rude, cruel pioneer of the armies of the Lord; for where the soldier has been the priest will follow. Persecutions kindle new faith and awake fresh ardor. Pestilence quickens charity and leads to improvements in the condition of the poor. Nor do we believe that it is only in this large and general, unsympathetic, and sweeping manner that God allows good to be worked out of evil. We have faith in the intercession of the Mother of Mercy; and as ultimate good may arise to whole races of mankind out of terrible calamities, so, we arepersuaded, there is a more intimate, minute, and loving interference to individual souls wherever there is huge public calamity. The field of battle, the burning city, the flood, and the pestilence are Mary’s harvest fields, whither she sends her angels, over whom she is queen, with special and extraordinary graces, to gather and collect those who might otherwise have perished, and, in the supreme moment which is doubtless so often God’s hour, to win trophies of mercy to the honor and glory of the Precious Blood.

Unless we believe in God’s essential, actual, and unintermittent government of the world, we cannot solve the riddle of the Sphinx, and her cruel, stony stare will freeze our blood as we traverse the deserts of life. If we believe only in his direct government, we shall find it chiefly, if not solely, in his church; and the area is sadly limited! If we acknowledge his essential providence in his permissions, if we make sure of his presence in what appears its very negation, then alone do we arrive at the solution of life’s problems; and even this, not as an obvious thing, but as a constant and ever-renewed act of faith in the under-flowing gulf-stream of divine love, which melts the ice and softens the rigor of the wintry epochs in the world’s history. If we admit of this theory, which is new to none of us, though dim to some, we let in a flood of light upon many of the incidents described in the Old Testament, and specially spoken of as done by the will of God, but which, to our farther-advanced revelation of God, read to us as unlike himself. The light of the later interpretation has been thrown over the earlier fact; but in the harmony of eternity, when we are freed from the broken chord of time, there will be no dissonant notes.

There can be no more wonderful proof of God’s unutterable love than the way in which he has condescended to make the very sins of mankind work to his own glory and to the farther revelation of himself. From the first “felix culpa” of our first parents, as the church does not hesitate to call it, down to the present hour—down even to the secret depths of our own souls, where we are conscious of the harvests of grace sprung from repentant tears—it is still the great alchemist turning base metal in the crucible of divine love into pure gold.

It is one of the most irrefragable proofs of the working of a perpetual providence that can be adduced.

Granted that there are no new creations, but that creation is one act, evolving itself by its innate force into all the phenomena which we see, and into countless possible others which future generations of beings will see, nothing of this can prevent the fact that the moral development of the status of mankind, the revelations of divine truth, and consequently of the Deity, through the flow of ages, has ever been a bringing of good out of evil which no blind, irresponsible law could produce. There is no sort of reason why evil should work into its contrary good, except the reason that God is the supreme good, and directs all apparent evil into increments of his glory, thereby converting it into an ultimate good. We must remember, however, that this does not diminish our culpability, because it does not affect our free-will. It does not make evil another form of good. It is no pact with the devil. It is war and victory,opposition and conquest. It is justice and retribution, and it behooves us to see whether we are among those who are keeping ourselves in harmony with the eternal God in his direct government of the world; in harmony (so far as we know it) with his antecedent will; or whether we are allowing ourselves to drift away into channels of our own, working out only the things that he permits, but which he also condemns, and laying up for ourselves that swift devouring flame which will “try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

We have thus arrived at two different views of God’s government of the world—his direct government and his indirect or permissive government. We now come to what we may call his inductive teaching of the world—the way in which truths are partially revealed to us, and come to us percolating through the sands of time, as mankind needs them and can receive them.

Our Lord himself gives us an example of this inductive process when he speaks of “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” as being “not the God of the dead, but of the living,” thus showing that the Jews held, and were bound to hold, the doctrine of immortality by an inductive process. The teaching of the old law was symbolic and inductive. The histories of the Old Testament are of the same character. They are written with no apparent design. They are the simple account of such incidents as the historian thought himself bound to record; acting, as he did, under the divine impulse, which underlay his statements without fettering his pen. He was not himself half conscious of the unspeakable importance of his work. Consequently, there is no effort, hardly even common precaution and foresight, in his mode of chronicling events. He glances at incidents without explaining them, because while he wrote they were present to his own experience, and would be to that of his readers. A writer in our day would allude to a person having performed a journey of fifty miles in an hour’s time without thinking it necessary to explain that people travel by steam. In another part he would advert to railroads, and the rapidity of locomotion as their result, equally without a direct reference to the individual who effected fifty miles in an hour. To the reader of three thousand years hence the one incidental allusion will explain and corroborate the other, and thus, by internal evidence, prove the authenticity and consistency of the history. Unintentional coincidences crop up as the pages grow beneath his hand, and to the careful student of Scripture throw light unlooked for on the exactitude and veracity of the narrative. And the substratum of the whole of the Old Testament history is the gradual growth of one family out of all the families of mankind, into which, as into a carefully prepared soil, the seed of divine truth was to be sown. Through all the variety of the Old Testament writers the same underlying design exists; and though this was a special stream of revelation unlike any that now exists or that is now required (for reasons which are obvious to every Catholic who knows what the church is), yet they form an indication of the way in which the divine Creator is for ever governing the world and preparing it with a divine foresight for his ultimate purpose. The Holy Ghostspeaks now through a direct organ, which organ is the church. Formerly God spoke through historic events and multitudinous incidents in connection with one race of people. But this very fact authorizes us to believe that the samecharacterof government exists throughout the whole universe in a greater or less degree, and that God is preparing the way for the ultimate triumph of the sacred Humanity and of his spouse the Church, on the far-off shores of sultry Africa, in the inner recesses of silent China, among the huge forests which skirt the Blue Mountains, or amid the glittering glories of the kingdoms of ice.

There is nothing more depressingly sad, more deeply to be regretted, and more difficult to explain than the almost hopeless narrowness of most people in their appreciation of divinely-ordained facts. We live like moles. We throw up a mound of dusky earth above and around us, within which we grope and are content. The treasures of sacred lore, the depths of spiritual science, the infinite variety of Scriptural information, with the divinely-pointed moral of every tale, are things which most of us are content to know exist, and to think no more about. The very lavishness with which God has given us all that we want for the salvation of our souls seems to have stifled in our ungenerous natures the longing to know and to do more. When the Evangelist said that the world would not hold the books that might be written on the sacred Humanity alone, he must have had an intuition, not so much of the material world and material volumes, as of the world of narrowed minds and crippled hearts who would be found stranded on the shores of our much-vaunted civilization and progress.

Back to Index Next