evident to him, that the life of man consists, not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and willing service. "Moreover, the study of ecclesiastical history awoke within him many strange and dubious thoughts. It was impossible to hear of Calvin without hearing of Servetus; to read Athanasius without reading also of Arian. The search after Truth and Freedom, both intellectual and spiritual, became a passion in his soul. By slow degrees, and not by violent spiritual conflicts, he became a Protestant. He had but passed from one chapel to another in the same vast cathedral. He was still beneath the same ample roof,* still heard the same divine service chanted in a different dialect of the same universal language. Out of his old faith he brought with him all he had found in it that was holy, and pure, and of good report. Not its bigotry, and fanaticism, and intolerance; but its zeal, its self-devotion, its heavenly aspirations, its human sympathies, its endless deeds of charity. Not till after his father's death, however, did he become a clergyman. Then his vocation was manifest to him. He no longer hesitated, but entered upon its many duties and responsibilities, its many trials and discouragements, with the zeal of Peter and the gentleness of John." We shall briefly conclude the story, and return to this most important chapter. With the spring, and the flowers, and the birds, came Kavanagh to the village. The first thing he remarked, and it cheered and consoled him, was the pale countenance of a young girl, whose dark eyes had been fixed upon him, during the whole discourse, with unflagging interest and * If the difference was so slight, and the change no more than represented, why did Kavanagh cease to be a Catholic and become a Protestant, or rather Puseyitish Unitarian? Does not the author perceive, that, just in proportion as he diminishes the importance of the change, does he weaken the motives to make it? If Kavanagh remained in the same building, continued to worship under the ample roof of the same spacious temple, he continued to retain substantially his Catholic faith, and then, in professing himself a Protestant, must have believed that he was incurring the damnation of his own soul. Moreover, if he still recognized his former religion as substantially true, he could not have supposed that he at all endangered his salvation by remaining a Catholic, and then he could have been influenced only by worldly motives, or temporal interests, in avowing himself a Protestant. Does Mr. Longfellow mean to teach that there are only worldly reasons for being a Protestant rather than a Catholic, and thus, by implication, avow that he himself would be a Catholic, if he consulted only the salvation of his soul? This is no strained inference from his doctrine, and we have not the shadow of a doubt that it is true with regard to Protestants generally. They would all be Catholics, if they consulted only their own spiritual welfare, and are Protestants only because they wish to enjoy the world, and live without having to practise the rigid self-denial Catholicity enjoins. attention. She sat alone in a pew near the pulpit. It was Alice Archer. Alas for Alice! he soon met Miss Vaughan at the taxidermist's. She had come to purchase a carrier-pigeon to conduct a correspondence between herself and Alice. As she departed, he said, half aloud," Of course she would never think of marrying a poor clergyman!" A week later Kavanagh was installed in a little room in the church-tower. He had become intimate with Churchill, and completed the first great cycle of parochial visits, besides working assiduously at his sermons. His words were always kindly; but while he was gentle, he was firm. In short, he completely enchanted the congregation. He did not suggest many changes, but showed that some relics of Catholic good taste and feeling were in him, by desiring the organist to relinquish the old and pernicious habit of preluding with triumphal marches, or playing scraps of regular music very slowly to make them sacred, and substitute, instead of this and his own barbarous conceptions, some of the beautiful symphonies of Pergolesi, Palestrina, and Sebastian Bach. Meanwhile, the church-bells of Fairmeadow, like those of Varennes, kept sounding, "Marry thee, marry thee, marry, marry!" and the Roaring Brook responded sympathetically to the peal. We cannot narrate all the incidents of the pleasureparty; but this one circumstance makes us wish Cecilia a little more gifted or a little less in love : "How indescribably beautiful this brown water is!' exclaimed Kavanagh. It is like wine, or the nectar of the gods of Olympus; as if the falling Hebe had poured it from her goblet.' "More like the mead or metheglin of the Northern gods,' said Mr. Churchill, spilled from the drinking-horns of Valhalla.' "But all the ladies thought Kavanagh's comparison the better of the two." We half suspect the humor of that passage to have been obtained more by accident than design; the touch is so exquisitely fine, that it suggests the sponge of Protogenes. Cecilia's hand trembled in Kavanagh's, and his soul was softened within him. The day passed delightfully with all. But Alice Archer? The carrier-pigeon was flying from her to Cecilia, when, pursued by a kingfisher, it darted into Kavanagh's room. A billet was beneath its wing addressed "Cecilia." The bird was then on its way to her. Seizing a pen, he 11 NEW SERIES. VOL. IV. NO. I. wrote his love, and fastened the note to the silken band around the messenger's neck. Disordered by its flight, the dove flew back to Alice, who, mistaking Kavanagh's epistle for Cecilia's answer, opened and read it. It was an impulse, an ejaculation of love, every line quivering with electric fire, signed "Arthur Kavanagh." But in the ecstasy of her joy and wonder that her prayer for Kavanagh's love should have been answered, her eye fell, for the first time, on the superscription; - it was "Cecilia Vaughan." Alice fainted. Her first act on recovering was to reseal the note, and send the bird to its proper destiny. Cecilia's answer was brief, "Come to me!" - and the magic syllables brought Kavanagh to her side. That afternoon Cecilia went to Alice to tell her of what had happened, and accept her congratulations. In her happiness Cecilia saw not her poor friend's agony, but mistook her tears of blood for tears of joy. The snow of that winter fell on the happy home of Cecilia Vaughan and the lonely grave of Alice Archer. The wedding did not take place till spring. And then Kavanagh and his Cecilia departed on their journey to Italy and the East. They intended to be absent one year; they were gone three. - When they returned, they found Churchill still correcting school exercises, - his romance not yet begun, his Obscure Martyrs yet unrecorded, though Alice Archer had perished broken-hearted under his eye. The curtain is then drawn over the actors for the present. Will it rise to unfold a sequel? Mr. Longfellow had the good taste to make Kavanagh's conversion to Protestantism sentimental instead of logical. It was mainly effected by the legend of a giant who wished to serve Christ, but knew not how, until he heard the voice of a child crying out, "Plant thy staff in the ground and it shall blossom and bear fruit." This is emblematic of active charity and willing service,and active charity and willing service are not to be found in Catholicity; therefore Kavanagh became a Protestant! The application of the legend is akin to that of Hawkesworth's celebrated tale of the dervise, - "No life pleasing to God that is not useful to man." It is assumed that the Catholic Church is a collection of lazy monks, nuns, and hermits, and concluded that a set of creatures politically and socially useless cannot be acceptable to God. Really, it is impossible to argue this point seriously. If rational beings, knowing well that the Catholic Church saved Europe from barbarism, and reduced it from chaos to peace and order,- to something very different from its present condition,-knowing well that the monasteries were the model farms, the colleges, the inns, the sanctuaries of Christendom,- knowing well that Catholicity converted all Europe, and a great portion of Asia, Africa, and America, to Christianity, if rational beings, knowing all this, and a great deal more, and having before them the Jesuit missions in North America, and Protestant exterminations in the Sandwich Islands, are still so jaundiced by prejudice as to prate of Catholic supineness and Protestant activity, we care not how soon we are complimented on our insanity. - It is extremely difficult to get Protestants to feel that the kingdom of God is not of this world, that we are permitted to give up all and follow our Redeemer, that we may live, not for time, but for eternity. They never will comprehend that there is still a Church that is commissioned to teach, and a body to be taught. They are incapable of perceiving that it is not every man's vocation to be a missionary; that many of us have trouble enough to save our own souls, and have to fly all contact with the temptations of society to escape defeat. Serving man is the main thing, — their primal virtue; pleasing God, secondary. Would to Heaven they would begin by loving and serving God with their whole souls! They would soon discover that whatever is pleasing to God must be useful to man, individually and collectively. They refuse to see, that if every individual purifies himself, society must be pure. They shrink from believing the salvation of a single human soul of infinitely more importance than the prosperity and glory of a nation. They never suspect that the prayers offered up on Catholic altars every minute in the year may, like the prayer of the high-priest on the battle-field, avail more than armies, and preserve a people from destruction. They little believe that the fervent aspiration of some pale, feeble daughter of St. Vincent, breathed out at the foot of the cross, for her neighbour and her country, is far more useful to mankind than pyramid, aqueduct, railroad, or telegraph, and all the committees of ways and means who were ever appointed to enlighten or bewilder themselves or their constituents. We hope we are wrong in suspecting Mr. Longfellow of insinuating that active charity and willing service are not Catholic virtues; for he recognizes "the zeal, the self-devotion, the heavenly aspirations, the human sympathies, the endless deeds of charity," of the Church of Christ. He seems really to have a share of Catholic feeling, he is free from most vulgar prejudices respecting us, he loves to speak of the sweetly sounding Angelus, and of the bells that recalled "the ages when in all Christendom there was but one Church; when bells were anointed, baptized, and prayed for, that, wheresoever those holy bells should sound, all danger of whirlwinds, thunders, lightnings, and tempests might be driven away." Perhaps the legend is meant only to excite Kavanagh to action as well as meditation; still we fear not, since, immediately afterward, the author has the heart to accuse us of "bigotry, fanaticism, and intolerance." Of Mr. Longfellow the writer of this knows nothing, save from these two little volumes. His private and public life, his pursuits, his ordinary conversation and habits, his religion, his social reputation, even the bulk of his writings, are unknown to him. Before reading Evangeline, he only knew him by hearsay and these three lines: "And our hearts, though bold and brave, But in Evangeline we fancied that we discovered that yearning after Catholicity, so conspicuous in Wordsworth, Young, Coleridge, Shelley, and Walter Scott, a yearning that every man of genius has often felt and expressed. In Mr. Longfellow it seemed profounder, and blended with a keen relish of the beauty of Catholic life. In Kavanagh this yearning is still more conspicuous. The symbolical meaning of Evangeline is not very evident ; it seems to be a vain pursuit of earthly happiness, never attained until the soul is consecrated to God, whilst, reactively, with Gabriel it represents man ever losing the happiness that pursues him, by his own impatience and want of resignation. Mr. Longfellow is German enough to conceive these double allegories. In Kavanagh the allegory is palpable. Kavanagh is a liberal æsthetic church. He brought out of the old faith all that was holy, pure, and of good repute, and left behind all its bigotry, fanaticism, and intolerance; he embraced the duties and responsibilities, the trials and discouragements of the ministry, with the zeal of Peter and the gentleness of John, and found a reasonable amount of temporal felicity in the eyes and arms of Cecilia Vaughan. He is a higher than the Čurch of England, — |