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UNIFICATION AND EDUCATION.

Mr. Wilson is a strong political partisan, but he is above all a fervent Evangelical, and his aim, we presume, is to bring his political party to coincide with his Evangelical party, and make each strengthen the other. We of course, as a Catholic organ, have nothing to say of questions in issue between different political parties so long as they do not involve the rights and interests of our religion, or leave untouched the fundamental principles and genius of the American system of government, although we may have more or less to say as American citizens; but when either party is so ill-advised as to aim a blow either at the freedom of our religion or at our federative system of government, we hold ourselves free, and in duty bound, to warn our fellow-citizens and our fellow-Catholics of the impending danger, and to do what we can to avert or arrest the blow. We cannot, without incurring grave censure, betray by our silence the cause of our religion or of our country, for fear that by speaking we may cross the purposes of one or another party, and seem to favor the views and policy of another.

The party has sometimes coincided, and sometimes has not strictly coincided, with one or another of the great political parties that have divided the country, but it has always struggled for the consolidation of all the powers of government in the general government. Whether prompted by business interests or by philanthropy, its wishes and purposes have required it to get rid of all co-ordinate and independent bodies that might interfere with, arrest, or limit the power of Congress, or impose any limitation on the action of the general government not imposed by the arbitrary will of the majority of the people, irrespective of their state organization.

What the distinguished senator urges we submit, therefore, is simply the policy of consolidation or centralization which his party has steadily pursued from the first, and which it has already in good part consummated. It has abolished slavery, and unified the labor system of the Union; it has contracted a public debt, whether needlessly or not, large enough to secure to the consolidation of the powers of a national government in the general government the support of capitalists, bankers, railroad corporators, monopolists, speculators, projectors, and the business world generally. Under pretence of philanthropy, and of carrying out the abolition of slavery, and abolishing all civil and political distinctions of race or color, it has usurped for the general government the power to determine the question of suffrage and eligibility, under the constitution and by the genius of our government reserved to the states severally, and sends the military and swarms of federal inspectors into the states to control, or at least to look after, the elections, in supreme contempt of state authority. It has usurped for the general government the power of granting charters of incorporation for private business purposes elsewhere than in the District of Columbia, and induced it to establish national bureaus of agriculture and education, as if it was the only and unlimited government of the country, which it indeed is fast becoming.

The work of consolidation or unification is nearly completed, and there remains little to do except to effect the social and religious unification of the various religions, sects, and races that make up the vast and diversified population of the country; and it is clear from Mr. Wilson's programme that his party contemplate moulding the population of European and of African origin, Indians and Asiatics, Protestants and Catholics, Jews and pagans, into one homogeneous people, after what may be called the New England Evangelical type. Neither his politics nor his philanthropy can tolerate any diversity of ranks, conditions, race, belief, or worship. A complete unification must be effected, and under the patronage and authority of the general government.

Mr. Wilson appears not to have recognized any distinction between unity and union. Union implies plurality or diversity; unity excludes both. Yet he cites, without the least apparent misgiving, the fathers of the republic--Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, and Madison--who were strenuous for the union of the several states, as authorities in favor of their unity or consolidation in one supreme national government. There were points in which these great men differed among themselves--some of them wished to give more, some of them less, power to the general government--some of them would give more, some of them less, power to the executive, etc., but they all agreed in their efforts to establish the union of the states, and not one of them but would have opposed their unity or consolidation into a single supreme government. Mr. Wilson is equally out in trying, as he does, to make it appear that the strong popular sentiment of the American people, in favor of union, is a sentiment in favor of unity or unification.

But starting with the conception of unity or consolidation, and resolving republicanism into the absolute supremacy of the will of the people, irrespective of state organization, Mr. Wilson can find no stopping-place for his party short of the removal of all constitutional or organic limitations on the irresponsible will of the majority for the time, which he contends should in all things be supreme and unopposed. His republicanism, as he explains it, is therefore incompatible with a well-ordered state, and is either no government at all, but universal anarchy, or the unmitigated despotism of majorities--a despotism more oppressive and crushing to all true freedom and manly independence, than any autocracy that the world has ever seen. The fathers of the republic never understood republicanism in this sense. They studied to restrict the sphere of power, and to guard against the supremacy of mere will, whether of the monarch, the nobility, or the people.

But having reached the conclusion that true republicanism demands unification, and the removal of all restrictions on the popular will, Mr. Wilson relies on the attachment of the American people to the republican idea to carry out and realize his programme, however repugnant it may be to what they really desire and suppose they are supporting. He knows the people well enough to know that they do not usually discriminate with much niceness, and that they are easily caught and led away by a few high-sounding phrases and popular catchwords, uttered with due gravity and assurance--perhaps he does not discriminate very nicely, and is himself deceived by the very phrases and catchwords which deceive them. It is not impossible. At any rate, he persuades himself unification or consolidation can be carried forward and effected by appeals to the republican instincts and tendencies of the American people, and secured by aid of the colored vote and woman suffrage, soon to be adopted as an essential element in the revolutionary movement. The colored people, it is expected, will vote as their preachers direct, and their preachers will direct as they are directed by the Evangelicals. The women who will vote, if woman suffrage is adopted, are evangelicals, philanthropists, or humanitarians, and are sure to follow their instincts and vote for the unification or centralization of power--the more unlimited, the better.

But the chief reliance for the permanence in power of the party of consolidation is universal and uniform compulsory education by the general government, which will, if adopted, complete and preserve the work of unification. Education is the American hobby--regarded, as uneducated or poorly educated people usually regard it, as a sort of panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. We ourselves, as Catholics, are as decidedly as any other class of American citizens in favor of universal education, as thorough and extensive as possible--if its quality suits us. We do not, indeed, prize so highly as some of our countrymen appear to do the simple ability to read, write, and cipher; nor do we believe it possible to educate a whole people so that every one, on attaining his majority, will understand the bearing of all political questions or comprehend the complexities of statesmanship, the effects at large of all measures of general or special legislation, the bearing on productive industry and national wealth of this or that financial policy, the respective merits of free trade and protection, or what in a given time or given country will the best secure individual freedom and the public good. This is more than we ourselves can understand, and we believe we are better educated than the average American. We do not believe that the great bulk of the people of any nation can ever be so educated as to understand the essential political, financial, and economical questions of government for themselves, and they will always have to follow blindly their leaders, natural or artificial. Consequently, the education of the leaders is of far greater importance than the education of those who are to be led. All men have equal natural rights, which every civil government should recognize and protect, but equality in other respects, whether sought by levelling downward or by levelling upward, is neither practicable nor desirable. Some men are born to be leaders, and the rest are born to be led. Go where we will in society, in the halls of legislation, the army, the navy, the university, the college, the district school, the family, we find the few lead, the many follow. It is the order of nature, and we cannot alter it if we would. Nothing can be worse than to try to educate all to be leaders. The most pitiable sight is a congressional body in which there is no leader, an army without a general, but all lead, all command--that is, nobody leads or commands. The best ordered and administered state is that in which the few are well educated and lead, and the many are trained to obedience, are willing to be directed, content to follow, and do not aspire to be leaders. In the early days of our republic, when the few were better educated than now and the many not so well, in the ordinary sense of the term, there was more dignity in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the government, more wisdom and justice in legislation, and more honesty, fidelity, and capacity in the administration. In extending education and endeavoring to train all to be leaders, we have only extended presumption, pretension, conceit, indocility, and brought incapacity to the surface.

It is not, therefore, for political or military reasons that we demand universal education, whether by the general government or under the state governments. We demand it, as far as practicable, for other and far higher reasons. We want it for a spiritual or religious end. We want our children to be educated as thoroughly as they can be, but in relation to the great purpose of their existence, so as to be fitted to gain the end for which God creates them. For the great mass of the people, the education needed is not secular education, which simply sharpens the intellect and generates pride and presumption, but moral and religious education, which trains up children in the way they should go, which teaches them to be honest and loyal, modest and unpretending, docile and respectful to their superiors, open and ingenuous, obedient and submissive to rightful authority, parental or conjugal, civil or ecclesiastical; to know and keep the commandments of God and the precepts of the church; and to place the salvation of the soul before all else in life. This sort of education can be given only by the church or under her direction and control; and as there is for us Catholics only one church, there is and can be no proper education for us not given by or under the direction and control of the Catholic Church.

All this is clear enough. What, then, is to be done? Mr. Wilson, who is not remarkable for his reticence, tells us, if not with perfect frankness, yet frankly enough for all practical purposes. It is to follow out the tendency which has been so strengthened of late, and absorb the states in the Union, take away the independence of the state governments, and assume the control of education for the general government, already rendered practically the supreme national government;--then, by appealing to the popular sentiment in favor of education, and saying nothing of its quality, get Congress, which the Evangelicals, through the party in power, already control, to establish a system of compulsory education in national schools--and the work is done; for these schools will necessarily fall into Evangelical hands.

Such is what the distinguished Evangelical senator from Massachusetts calls a "New Departure," but which is really only carrying out a policy long since entered upon, and already more than half accomplished. While we are writing, Mr. Hoar, a representative in Congress from Massachusetts, has introduced into the House of Representatives a bill establishing a system of national education under the authority of the general government. Its fate is not yet known, but no doubt will be, before we go to press. The probabilities are that it will pass both Houses, and if it does, it will receive the signature of the President as a matter of course. The Evangelicals--under which name we include Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, Baptists, and Methodists, etc.--all the denominations united in the Evangelical Alliance--constitute, with their political and philanthropic allies, the majority in Congress, and the measure is advocated apparently by the whole Evangelical press and by the larger and more influential republican journals of the country, as any number of excerpts from them now before us will satisfy any one who has the curiosity to read them. We did think of selecting and publishing the more striking and authoritative among them, but we have concluded to hold them in reserve, to be produced in case any one should be rash enough to question our general statement. There is a strong popular feeling in many parts of the country in favor of the measure, which is a pet measure also of the Evangelical ministers generally, who are sure to exert their powerful influence in its support, and we see no reason to doubt that the bill will pass.

But while we see ample cause for all citizens who are loyal to the system of government which Providence enabled our fathers to establish, and who wish to preserve it and the liberties it secures, to be vigilant and active, we see none for alarm. The bill, if it passes, will be manifestly unconstitutional, even counting the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments as valid parts of the constitution; and there may be more difficulty in carrying it into effect than its framers anticipate. It is part and parcel of a New England policy, and New England is not omnipotent throughout the Union, nor very ardently loved; not all the members of the several evangelical denominations will, when they understand it, favor the revolution in the government Mr. Wilson would effect. There are in those denominations many men who belong not to the dominant party, and who will follow their political rather than their denominational affinities; also, there are in them a large number, we should hope, of honest men, who are not accustomed to act on the maxim, "the end justifies the means," loyal men and patriotic, who consider it no less disloyalty to seek to revolutionize our government against the states than against the Union, and who will give their votes and all their influence to preserve the fundamental principles and genius of our federative system of government, as left us by our fathers, and resist, if need be, to the death the disloyal policy of unification and education proposed by Mr. Wilson.

The educational question ought not to present any serious difficulty, and would not if our Evangelicals and humanitarians did not wish to make education a means of preventing the growth of the church and unmaking the children of Catholics, as Catholics; or if they seriously and in good faith would accept the religious equality before the state which the constitution and laws, both of the Union and the several states, as yet recognize and protect. No matter what we claim for the Catholic Church in the theological order--we claim for her in the civil order in this country only equality with the sects, and for Catholics only equal rights with citizens who are not Catholics. We demand the freedom of conscience and the liberty of our church, which is our conscience, enjoyed by Evangelicals. This much the country in its constitution and laws has promised us, and this much it cannot deny us without breaking its faith pledged before the world.

As American citizens, we object to the assumption of the control of education, or of any action in regard to it, by the general government; for it has no constitutional right to meddle with it, and so far as civil government has any authority in relation to it, it is, under our system of government, the authority of the states severally, not of the states united. We deny, of course, as Catholics, the right of the civil government to educate, for education is a function of the spiritual society, as much so as preaching and the administration of the sacraments; but we do not deny to the state the right to establish and maintain public schools. The state, if it chooses, may even endow religion, or pay the ministers of religion a salary for their support; but its endowments of religion, when made, are made to God, are sacred, and under the sole control and management of the spiritual authority, and the state has no further function in regard to them but to protect the spirituality in the free and full possession and enjoyment of them. If it chooses to pay the ministers of religion a salary, as has been done in France and Spain, though accepted by the Catholic clergy only as a small indemnification for the goods of the church seized by revolutionary governments and appropriated to secular uses, it acquires thereby no rights over them or liberty to supervise their discharge of their spiritual functions. We do not deny the same or an equal right in regard to schools and school-teachers. It may found and endow schools and pay the teachers, but it cannot dictate or interfere with the education or discipline of the school. That would imply a union of church and state, or, rather, the subjection of the spiritual order to the secular, which the Catholic Church and the American system of government both alike repudiate.

It is said, however, that the state needs education for its own protection, and to promote the public good or the good of the community, both of which are legitimate ends of its institution. What the state needs in relation to its legitimate ends, or the ends for which it is instituted, it has the right to ordain and control. This is the argument by which all public education by the state is defended. But it involves an assumption which is not admissible. The state, having no religious or spiritual function, can give only secular education, and secular education is not enough for the state's own protection or its promotion of the public good. Purely secular education, or education divorced from religion, endangers the safety of the state and the peace and security of the community, instead of protecting and insuring them. It is not in the power of the state to give the education it needs for its own sake, or for the sake of secular society. The fact is, though statesmen, and especially politicians, are slow to learn it, and still slower to acknowledge it, the state, or secular society, does not and cannot suffice for itself, and is unable to discharge its own proper functions without the co-operation and aid of the spiritual society. Purely secular education creates no civic virtues, and instead of fitting unfits the people for the prompt and faithful discharge of their civic duties, as we may see in Young America, and indeed in the present active and ruling generation of the American people. Young America is impatient of restraint, regards father and mother as old-fogies, narrow-minded, behind the age, and disdains filial submission or obedience to them, has no respect for dignities, acknowledges no superior, mocks at law if he can escape the police, is conceited, proud, self-sufficient, indocile, heedless of the rights and interests of others--will be his own master, and follow his own instincts, passions, or headstrong will. Are these the characteristics of a people fitted to maintain a wise, well-ordered, stable, and beneficent republican government? Or can such a people be developed from such youngerlings? Yet with purely secular education, however far you carry it, experience proves that you can get nothing better.

The church herself, even if she had full control of the education of all the children in the land, with ample funds at her command, could not secure anything better, if, as the state, she educated for a secular end alone. The virtues needed for the protection of the state and the advancement of the public or common good, are and can be secured only by educating or training the children and youth of a nation not for this life as an end, but for the life to come. Hence our Lord says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you." The church does not educate for the secular order as an end, but for God and heaven; and it is precisely in educating for God and heaven that she secures those very virtues on which the welfare and security of the secular order depend, and without which civil society tends inevitably to dissolution, and is sustained, if sustained at all, only by armed force, as we have seen in more than one European nation which has taken education into its own hand, and subordinated it to secular ends. The education needed by secular society can be obtained only from the spiritual society, which educates not for this world, but for the world to come. The virtues needed to secure this life are obtained only by seeking and promoting the virtues which fit us for eternal life.

This follows necessarily from the fact that man is created with a spiritual nature and for an immortal destiny. If he existed for this life only, if he were, as some sciolists pretend, merely a monkey or a gorilla developed, or were like the beasts that perish, this indeed would not and could not follow, and the reconciliation of the nature and destiny of man with uniform human experience would be impossible. We should be obliged, in order to secure the peace and good order of society, as some unbelieving statesmen do not blush to avow, to educate in view of a falsehood, and take care to keep up the delusion that man has a religious nature and destiny, or look to what is false and delusive for the virtues which can alone save us from anarchy and utter barbarism. Yet what would serve the delusion or the falsehood, if man differs not by nature from the dog or the pig? But if man has really a spiritual nature and an immortal destiny, then it must necessarily follow that his real good can in no respect be obtained but in being educated and trained to live for a spiritual life, for an immortal destiny. Should not man be educated according to his spiritual nature and destiny, not as a pig or a monkey? If so, in his education should not the secular be subordinated to the spiritual, and the temporal to the eternal? We know well, experience proves it, that even the secular virtues are not secured when sought as the end of education and of life, but only in educating and living for that which is not secular, and in securing the virtues which have the promise of the life of the world to come.

All education, as all life, should be religious, and all education divorced from religion is an evil, not a good, and is sure in the long run to be ruinous to the secular order; but as a part of religious education, and included in it, secular education has its place, and even its necessity. Man is not all soul, nor all body, but the union of soul and body; and therefore his education should include in their union, not separation--for the separation of soul and body is the death of the body--both spiritual education and secular. It is not that we oppose secular education when given in the religious education, and therefore referred to the ultimate end of man, but when it is given alone and for its own sake. We deny the competency of the state to educate even for its own order, its right to establish purely secular schools, from which all religion is excluded, as Mr. Webster ably contended in his argument in the Girard will case; but we do not deny, we assert rather, its right to establish public schools under the internal control and management of the spiritual society, and to exact that a certain amount of secular instruction be given along with the religious education that society gives. This last right it has in consideration of the secular funds for the support of the schools it furnishes, and as a condition on which it furnishes them.

Let the state say distinctly how much secular education in the public schools it exacts, or judges to be necessary for its own ends, and so far as the Catholic Church has anything to do with the matter it can have it. The church will not refuse to give it in the schools under her control. She will not hesitate to teach along with her religion any amount of reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, music, and drawing, or the sciences and the fine arts, the state exacts and provides for; nor will she refuse to allow it to send, if it chooses, its own inspectors into her schools to ascertain if she actually gives the secular education required. Let it say, then, what amount of secular education it wants for all the children of the land, and is willing to pay for, and, so far as Catholics are concerned, it can have it, and of as good quality, to say the least, as it can get in purely secular schools, and along with it the religious education, the most essential to it as well as to the souls of all.

But the difficulty here, it is assumed, is that the spiritual society with us is divided into various denominations, each with its distinctive views of religion. That, no doubt, is a damage, but can be easily overcome by bearing in mind that the several divisions have equal rights, and by making the public schools denominational, as they are in Prussia, Austria, France, and to a certain extent in England, where denominational diversities obtain as well as with us. Where the community is divided between different religious denominations, all standing on a footing of perfect equality before civil society, this is the only equitable system of public schools that is practicable. If the state does not adopt it, it must--1, let the whole business of education alone, and make no public provision for it; 2, establish purely secular, that is, godless schools, from which all religion is excluded, to which no religious people can be expected to consent, and which would ruin both public and private virtue, and defeat the very purpose of all education; or, 3, it must practically, if not theoretically, recognize some one of the several denominations as the state religion, and remit the education of childhood and youth to its management and control, as is virtually the case with our present public schools, but which would be manifestly unjust to all the others--to non-evangelicals, if evangelicalism is made the state religion, or to the Evangelicals, if a non-evangelical denomination be established as the religion of the state. The only way to be just to all is, as everybody can see, to recognize in practice as well as in profession the equal rights of all denominations in the civil order--make the public schools denominational, and give to each denomination that asks it for the sake of conscience its fair and honest proportion, to be as to their internal economy, education, and discipline under its sole control and management.

Mr. Wilson proposes for our admiration and imitation the Prussian system of public schools, and though we do not know that it is superior to the Austrian or even the French system, yet we think highly of it. But, what the Evangelical senator does not tell us, the Prussian system is strictly the denominational system, and each denomination is free and expected to educate in its own schools its own children, under the direction of its pastors and teachers, in its own religion. The Prussian system recognizes the fact that different communions do exist among the Prussian people, and does not aim to suppress them or at unification by state authority. It meets the fact as it is, without seeking to alter it. Give us the Prussian system of denominational schools, and we shall be satisfied, even if education is made compulsory. We, of course, protest against any law compelling us to send our children to schools in which our religion cannot be freely taught, in which no religion is taught, or in which is taught in any shape or degree a religion which we hold to be false or perilous to souls. Such a law would violate the rights of parents and the freedom of conscience; but with denominational schools compulsory education would violate no one's conscience and no parental right. Parents ought, if able, to have their children educated, and if they will not send their children to schools provided for them by the public, and in which their religion is respected, and made the basis of the education given, we can see no valid reason why the law should not compel them. The state has the right, perhaps the duty, in aid of the spiritual society and for its own safety and the public good, to compel parents to educate their children when public schools of their own religion, under the charge of their own pastors, are provided for them at the public expense. Let the public schools be denominational, give us our proportion of them, so that no violence will be done to parental rights or to the Catholic conscience, and we shall be quite willing to have education made compulsory, and even if such schools are made national, though we should object as American citizens to them, we should as Catholics accept them. We hold state authority is the only constitutional authority under our system to establish schools and provide for them at the public expense; but we could manage to get along with national denominational schools as well as others could. We could educate in our share of the public schools our own children in our own way, and that is all we ask. We do not ask to educate the children of others, unless with the consent or at the request of parents and guardians.

The Prussian system of denominational schools could be introduced and established in all the states without the least difficulty, if it were not for Evangelicals, their Unitarian offshoots, and their humanitarian allies. These are religious and philanthropic busybodies, who fancy they are the Atlas who upholds the world, and that they are deputed to take charge of everybody's affairs, and put them to rights. But they forget that their neighbors have rights as well as themselves, and perhaps intentions as honest and enlightened, and as much real wisdom and practical sagacity. The only obstacle to the introduction and establishment of a just and equitable system of public schools comes from the intolerant zeal of these Evangelicals, who seek to make the public schools an instrument for securing the national, social, and religious unification they are resolved on effecting, and for carrying out their purpose of suppressing the church and extirpating Catholicity from American soil. They want to use them in training our children up in the way of Evangelicalism, and moulding the whole American population into one homogeneous people, modelled, as we have said, after the New England Evangelical type. Here is the difficulty, and the whole difficulty. The denominational system would defeat their darling hope, their pet project, and require them to live and let live. They talk much about freedom of conscience and religious liberty and equal rights; but the only equal rights they understand are all on their side, and they cherish such a tender regard for religious liberty, have so profound a respect for it, that they insist, like our Puritan forefathers, on keeping it all to themselves, and not to suffer it to be profaned or abused by being extended to others.

Prussia, though a Protestant country, does not dream of making the public schools a machine either for proselytism or unification. She is contented to recognize Catholics as an integral part of her population, and to leave them to profess and practise their own religion according to the law of their church. Our Evangelicals would do well to imitate her example. We Catholics are here, and here we intend to remain. We have as much right to be here as Evangelicals have. We are too many to be massacred or exiled, and too important and influential a portion of the American people to be of no account in the settlement of public affairs. We have votes, and they will count on whichever side we cast them; and we cannot reasonably be expected to cast them on the side of any party that is seeking to use its power as a political party to suppress our church and our religion, or even to destroy our federative system of government, and to leave all minorities at the mercy of the irresponsible majority for the time, with no other limit to its power than it sees proper to impose on itself; for we love liberty, and our church teaches us to be loyal to the constitution of our country.

The wisest course, since there are different religious denominations in the country, is to accept the situation, to recognize the fact, acquiesce in it, and make the best of it. Any attempt to unmake, by the direct or indirect authority of the state, Catholics of their faith or any denomination of its belief, is sure to fail. Each denomination is free to use Scripture and reason, logic and tradition, all moral and intellectual weapons, against its rivals, and with that it should be contented. Whatever may be the rightful claims of the church in the theological order, she is contented with the civil protection of her equal rights in the political order. She asks--with the wealth, the fashion, the public opinion, the press, nine-tenths of the population of the country, and the seductions of the world against her--only "an open field and fair play." If she does not complain, her enemies ought to be satisfied with the advantages they have.

We have entered our protest against a party programme which threatens alike the genius of the American government and the freedom of religion, for so much was obviously our duty, both as Catholics and citizens. We are aware of the odds against us, but we have confidence in our countrymen that, though they may be momentarily deceived or misled, they will, when the real character of the programme we have exposed is once laid open to them, reject it with scorn and indignation, and hasten to do us justice.

FOOTNOTES:

THE CROSS.

In weary hours to lonely heights When thou hast travelled sore, A sorrowing man hath borne his cross And gone thy way before.

Thine eyes cannot escape the sign On every hand that is Of him who bore the general woe, Nor knew a common bliss.

But men, remembering his face, Dreamed of him while they slept, And the mother by the cradle side Thought of his eye, and wept.

Now haunts the world his ghost whose fate Made all men's fates his own; So for the wrongs of modest hearts A myriad hearts atone.

Oh! deeply shall thy spirit toil To reach the height he trod, And humbly strive thy soul to know Its servant was its God.

Only earth's martyr is her lord; Such is the gain of loss: And, looking in all hearts, I see The signal of the cross.

THE HOUSE OF YORKE.

GENEALOGIES.

Under a thickly-branched tree in the northern part of one of the southern counties of Maine is a certain gray rock, matted over with dim green lichens that are spotted with dead gold. From under this rock springs a sparkling little stream. It is no storied fountain, rich with legends of splendor, poetry, and crime, but a dear, bright little Yankee brook, with the world all before it. That world it immediately proceeds to investigate. It creeps through thready grasses and russet pine-needles; it turns aside, with great respect, for a stone no larger than a rabbit; and when a glistening pitchy cone drops into it, the infant river labors under the burden. When the thirsty fawn comes there to drink, nearly the whole rivulet flows down its throat, and the cone is stranded high and dry; what there is left flows southward. A sunbeam pierces the scented gloom, creeps down a tree-trunk, steals over a knoll of green-and-brown tree-moss, which then looks like a tiny forest on fire, over yellow violets, which dissolve in its light, over a bank of rich dark mould veined with the golden powder of decayed pine-trees, moist and soft, and full of glistening white roots, where the flowers push down their pearly feet. Over the bank, into the water, goes the sunbeam, and the two frolic together, and the stream dives under the gnarled roots, so that its playmate would believe it lost but for that gurgle of laughter down in the cool, fresh dark. Then it leaps up, and spreads itself out in a mirror, and the elder-tree, leaning over to look at the reflection of its fan-like leaves and clusters of white flowers, gets very erroneous ideas concerning its own personal appearance; for the palpitating rings that chase each other over the surface of the water make the brown stems crinkle, the leaves come to pieces and unite again, and the many flowers in each round cluster melt all together, then twinkle out individually, only to melt again into that bloomy full moon. Over this shimmer of flowers and water big bees fly, buzzing terribly, dragon-flies dart, or hang, purple-mailed, glittering creatures, with gauzy wings, and comical insects dance there, throwing spots of sunshine instead of shadow down to the leafy bed. Then the brook flows awhile in a green tranquil shadow, till, reaching the interlaced roots of two immense trees that hold a bank between them, it makes a sudden, foamy plunge the height of a stag's front. She is a bride then, you may say--she is Undine, looking through that white veil, and thinking new thoughts.

Now the bear comes down to drink and look at his ugly face in the deepening wave, foxes switch their long tails about the banks, deer come, as light-footed as shadows, drink, and fling up their short tails, with a flit of white, and trot away with a little sniff, and their heads thrown back, hearing the howl or the long stride of the wolf in pursuit. Rabbits come there, and squirrels leap and nibble in the branches above. Besides, there are shoals of pretty, slim fishes.

So through the mellow gloom and sunny sparkle of the old forest, the clear brook wanders, growing wiser, and talking to itself about many things.

Now, indeed, the young river puts on state, and lets people see that it is not to be waded through; and when they build a dam across, it flows grandly over, in a smooth, wine-colored curve. Times are changed, indeed, since the little gray birds with speckled breasts looked with admiration at its first cascade, since the bear, setting down his great paw, clumsily splashed the whole stream up over his shaggy leg. There are farms to keep up appearances before, mill-wheels to turn, and ships to bear up. Pine-cones, indeed! Besides, a new and strange experience has come to it, and its bosom pulses daily with the swelling of the tides. And here one village street, with white houses, follows its course a mile or so, and another street with white houses comes down to its bank from the west, crosses over, and goes up eastward. This town, with its two principal streets forming a cross near the mouth of the river, a white cross at the end of a silver chain--shall we call it Seaton? It is a good enough name. And the river shall be Seaton River, and the bay into which it flows shall be Seaton Bay. But the ocean that makes the bay, and drinks the river, shall be Atlantic still.

We have spoken!

We follow the road that follows the stream on its eastern bank, cross West Street, get into a poor, dwindling neighborhood, leave the houses nearly all behind, go over two small, ill-conditioned hills, and find at our right a ship-yard with wharves, at our left a dingy little cottage, shaped like a travelling-trunk, and not much larger than some. It stands with its side toward the dusty road, a large, low chimney rises from the roof, there is a door with a window at each side of it. One can see at a glance from the outside how this house is divided. It has but two rooms below, with a tiny square entry between, and a low attic above. Each room has three windows, one on each of the three outer walls.

The kitchen looked toward the village through its north window. Opposite that was a large fireplace with an ill-tempered, crackling fire of spruce-wood, throwing out sparks and splinters. It was April weather, and not very warm yet. In the chimney-corner sat Mr. Rowan, sulkily smoking his pipe, his eyes fixed on the chimney-back. He was a large, slouching man, with an intelligent face brutalized by intemperance. Drunkard was written all over him, in the scorched black hair, not yet turning gray, in the dry lips, bloated features, and inflamed eyes. He sat in his shirt-sleeves, waiting impatiently while his wife put a patch in his one coat. Mrs. Rowan, a poor, faded, little frightened woman, whom her female acquaintances called "slack," sat near the south window, wrinkling her brows anxiously over the said patch, which was smaller than the hole it was destined to fill. The afternoon sunshine spread a golden carpet close to her feet. In the light of it one could see the splinters in the much-scoured floor, and a few fraggles in the hem of Mrs. Rowan's calico gown.

At the eastern window sat Edith Yorke, eleven years of age, with a large book on her knees. Over this book, some illustrated work on natural history, she had been bending for an hour, her loose mop of tawny hair falling each side of the page. So cloistered, her profile was invisible; but, standing in front of her, one could see an oval face with regular features full of calm earnestness. Bright, arched lips, and a spirited curve in the nostrils, saved this face from the cold look which regular features often give. The large, drooping eyelids promised large eyes, the forehead was wide and not high, the brows long, slightly arched, and pale-brown in color, and the whole face, neck, hands, and wrists were tanned to a light quadroon tint. But where the coarse sleeve had slipped up was visible an arm of dazzling whiteness. Outside the window, and but two rods distant, hung a crumbling clay bank, higher than the house, with a group of frightened alder-bushes looking over the top, and holding on with all their roots. Some day, in spite of their grip--the sooner, perhaps, because of its stress--the last frail hold was to be loosed, and the bushes were to come sliding down the bank, faster and faster, to pitch headlong into the mire at the bottom, with a weak crackling of all their poor doomed branches.

Presently the child looked up, with lights coming and going in her agate-colored eyes. "How wonderful frogs are!" she exclaimed involuntarily.

There was no reply.

She glanced at her two companions, scarcely conscious of them, her mind full of something else. "But everything is wonderful, when you come to think of it," she pursued dreamily.

Mr. Rowan took the pipe from his mouth, turned his forbidding face, and glowered at the girl. "You're a wonderful fool!" he growled; then resumed his pipe, feeling better, apparently, for that expression of opinion. His wife glanced up, furtive and frightened, but said nothing.

Edith looked at the man unmoved, saw him an instant, then, still looking, saw him not. After a while she became aware, roused herself, and bent again over the book. Then there was silence, broken only by the snapping of the fire, the snip of Mrs. Rowan's scissors, and the lame, one-sided ticking of an old-fashioned clock on the mantelpiece.

After a while, as the child read, a new thought struck up. "That's just like! Don't you think"--addressing the company--"Major Cleaveland said yesterday that I had lightning-bugs in my eyes!"

Without removing his pipe, Mr. Rowan darted an angry look at his wife, whose face became still more frightened. "Dear me!" she said feebly, "that child is an idjut!"

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