308 actly this which Father Hyacinthe said to them, in his six sermons or "Conférences" at Notre Dame. I went one Sunday to hear him. Though I went early the crowd was already too great to allow me to get near The nave of the Cathedral, half way down which enough for easy hearing. stands the pulpit, was reserved, during these discourses, for men, and was closely packed, (price of chairs, three cents.) Though but a part of the cathedral, it is in itself of the dimensions of a good sized church. Outside of it in the first aisle between the columns sat men and women; still further off in the second aisle was a mixed company, mostly standing; here you saw the workman's blouse, the soldier's red trousers and blue overcoat, the schoolboy's half-military uniform, and the black robe of the seminarist; and towering above, the preposterous cocked hat, scarlet waistcoat, laced coat and silver-headed staff of the church-beadle. It is really a significant fact that these Conférences or lectures should have been so largely attended, people going an hour before the time to secure seats, and this when they were of a highly philosophic turn, dealing in metaphysical discussion, quoting Kant and the like. The preacher I found a man of middle age, dressed in the brown robe and white, hooded cloak of the Carmelites. His discourse was extempore, as always here, his manner, as always, animated and dramatic, with much gesture of the arms and fingers. There is one curious custom in these churches; at the end of each portion of his discourse the preacher pauses, turns aside and loudly blows his nose; this is It is no doubt a the signal for the whole congregation to do the same. relief, and may conduce to quiet between whiles, but the effect is ludicrous enough to the unaccustomed. The crowd and other engagements prevented my going again. But I read the reports which were published each week in the "Morale Indépendante," and in the little paper which is sold at the door of the church. He began by saying that "after a year's absence he found himself before the same audience and in face of the same error, but both had grown." That error was "not atheism, not pantheism, those were its two wings; he would call it anti-theism," for it was virtually and essentially a denial of the personal and living God; hence it was dangerous to religion and the church. He granted much to his opponents, that they were sincere, that there was truth in what they taught. It was He, too, believed in the human conthe same truth which he taught. science, in the dignity of the human personality, in the progress of the human race. He, too, believed in a moral law written in the human soul, primitive and behind all revelations. He admitted that morality could exist separate from religion; that Right was not right because God willed it, but God willed it because it was right. He spoke of "natural prophecy," of "rational revelation, source of eternal commandments,” of “the word of God in the heights of the soul," of God as "the living ground of every thought, the true light, the eternal Christ lighting every man, even the nonChristian." But after all, of course he came round and brought up with the Church and the "Word made flesh and the Reason come down to us in the womb of the Immaculate Virgin." He asserted that, if not intention 309 ally, yet logically, the doctrine of independent morality was atheism, and would practically end "in irreligion, and consequently, in immorality." He quoted Napoleon as saying, "Man without God; yes, I have seen him at work since 1793; that sort of man we don't govern, we shoot him down." To prevent that necessity, "with all the energy of his convictions, with all the enthusiasm of his feelings, with all the force of his will, in the name of the Holy Catholic Church, in the name of France and the great future, which was opening before her, he repelled this independent morality." And all this eloquence against men who inculcate the practise of all the virtues, and the building up society on justice and respect for mutual rights! At the close of the whole, the Archbishop added his words. He expressed to the people his earnest hope "that their sons at the age of eighteen and twenty would not count on the maxims of the independent morality to protect them against the storms of their hearts, but would confide themselves to the church." He warned them, "your daughter, sweet angel of fifteen, will not find that morality suffice to guard her from the power of her passions; much better that she believe sincerely, honestly, simply in the words of her curate; trust me, that will be much more efficacious." us. There were two passages in Father Hyacinthe's discourses somewhat noticeable. One was where he appealed to the Protestants: "I turn to my auxiliaries, I look into the bosom of Christian Protestantism, I look into the bosom of sincere Deism, and I say you are my auxiliaries. Certainly I do not forget what separates us, but neither do I forget what unites Do you not, with me, believe in the Christ? Or if not, do you not bow your soul before the personal and living God? I do not now look at the abyss which separates us, I stretch out to you a friendly hand, and I thank you for the aid which you lend me here and everywhere when I defend religious morality." The other was the declaration in the last discourse that the Roman Church had never imposed its doctrine by force; "Human representatives of the divine sovereignty over conscience, we come with our teachings, with our sacraments, but we come as suppliants. We can enter into the conscience of the peoples by one door alone — that of free consent. Has the Church ever imposed itself upon men's faith by any other force than the force of truth and love? Has the church ever carried the gospel to unbelieving nations as the Koran was carried, at the point of the sword? All history is there, to say that she has never done it, all theology to say that she cannot do it." Pretty bold statement, is n't it? "The part of the sword in the world,” he adds, "may sometimes be those are its happy moments and to defend justice and weakness when oppressed in the Church; it is never to impose the faith on the nations which repel it. Faith, conviction, the free adhesion of mind and heart - how can the sword attain such a result? 'T would be a folly and a crime, too, to attempt it, for if there is, next to the majesty of God, an inviolable majesty, it is that of the human conscience." Good words, good father; but to show that a thing is a folly and a crime is not exactly to prove that the Church has never done it. And if she has never literally tried to propagate her doctrine by the sword, her history is there to show how freely she has used that instrument to suppress dissent and heretical free thoughts, and her theology is there to justify the procedure. Father Hyacinthe is, I believe, a disciple of Cousin, who was said to have been present at the first "Conférence;" (but that was afterwards denied.) The "Morale Independante” rather scouts that venerable philosopher, and declares his doctrine of the "impersonal Reason" to be an "antiquated notion that has perished of decrepitude." I wish that I could, in words, convey to you some idea of the grandeur and beauty of the Cathedral in which these Conférences have been preached. The vastness of the symmetry; the massive simplicity, the daring lightness; the vistas of shadow and colored light through the ranged columns, round and clustered, "the height, the depth, the gloom, the glory," are a perpetual but indescribable delight. To tell you that the church is 390 feet long, 128 wide, 102 high; that the great rose-windows of the transepts, set far, far above your head, are thirty-six feet in diameter, will give you little idea, unless you mentally compare these figures with some building with whose dimensions you are familiar. There is no church in Paris which comes near this of Notre Dame, in grandeur and beauty. It was begun about 1150, and is not yet entirely finished; which may be a consolation and encouragement to All Souls. Recent renovations have taken away from the interior much of the grey time-stain, and given too white a hue to the stone, of which the whole interior is constructed; but they have enriched it, also, with many new windows of stained glass, and with color upon the walls of the side chapels. A large number of blocks of old houses on one side of its square have just been pulled down to make way for a new hospital; the old Hotel-Dieu, which some of your readers will remember between the church and the river, is to be removed, and a fine view of the Cathedral will be thus opened. This is but one among a hundred demolitions and rebuildings which are rapidly and entirely changing the aspect of old Paris. Of some other matters I hope to write you before long. SAMUEL LONGFELLOW. -- THE LESSON FOR THE PEOPLE. Mr. Lincoln early recognized and reported a fact of the times, when, on his way from Springfeld to the Capitol, he said: "If the country is to be saved, the people must save it." He instinctively felt that he was by nature constituted to execute the will of the people, and not to lead it-or oppose it. The leaderless people became the country's leader; they thought, wrought, suffered, endured, and triumphed; and will go on triumphing to the end! But they must learn to buy their victory at a less cost; learn that compromise is cheap at the start and dear at the end; that justice may be used in affairs of the State with economy; that their enemy can only be converted by their own veracity. Let them demand ALL that's Right: in due time it will be granted and the battle will be over. "When half-gods go, ED. SAID Thoreau: "The wisest definition of poetry the poet will instantly prove false by setting aside its requisitions." This acute observation has never been more strikingly proved than by the author of the volume before us. The curious and the metaphysical have frequently essayed a complete and accurate definition of the word poetry; but it would be impossible to locate within any of their survey-bills, the strange pastures into which Walt Whitman leads his flocks. And yet the author of “Leaves of Grass," is as unquestionably a true poet, as the greatest of his contemporaries. He seems to us more purely permeated with the subtile essence of poetry than almost any other. It is the air he breathes: the very blood of his arteries. With others there are wide vistas of unmitigated prose in their view of life; to this poet, everything in the world is glowing with poetic beauty. Objects which seem so insignificant- so homely and common-place to most of us, he weaves into his poems. We would not, of course, be understood to say that a simple photography of whatever objects pass before us answers the ends of art. The hand which holds the pencil is everything; and all must be so portrayed that we view them from the poet's own high stand-point. This answers the artistic end; and it is vain to deny artistic treatment in Walt Whitman's poems because they are not constructed in accordance with canons previously laid down. The true poet discovers new and unsuspected laws of art, and makes his own rules. If he touches the secret chords of poetry in our soul, that is the only test, whether we can explain it to our own understanding or not. "Drum-Taps" contains but few strikingly different characteristics from the author's former volume. We are pleased to find that certain features of that are not introduced in this; for we are compelled to confess that there were certain pages of the "Leaves of Grass" which we regretted had been written. We have written upon the fly-leaf of our copy this passage from "The Essays: “Osmand had a humanity so broad and deep, that although his speech was so bold and free with the Koran as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor outcast, eccentric or insane man, some fool who had cut off his beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in his brain, but fled at once to him: that great heart lay there so sunny and hospitable in the centre of the country, that it seemed as if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side." On looking through the pages of "Drum-Taps,” and catching the soft and sweet strains of a sublime tenderness, much more than the martial music which the title indicates, certain scenes in Washington in the winter of '63 and '64 recur very vividly to memory; his meeting soldiers on the street whom he had nursed and tended "Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have crossed and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips," * Published by the Author: New York. walks with him through some of the hospitals, where he came a ministering spirit, daily. It was very affecting to witness the adoration which this divine love kindled. And it was somewhat amusing, too, to discover certain little myths which were afloat from bed to bed concerning him, for he was not known among them as writer or poet, and there seemed to be some mystery attached to his mission. In this brief notice we have left little space for some extracts which we proposed to give. How striking a trope, for instance, is this! "One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground before me, Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low." In vivid word-painting our poet has few equals, as these scattered lines from "The Veteran's Vision" show: "The skirmishers begin-they crawl cautiously ahead — I hear the irregnlar snap! snap! I hear the sounds of the different missiles - the short t-h-t! t-h-t! of the rifle balls; " "I hear the great shells shrieking as they pass; The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees." "And ever the sound of the cannon, far and near, (rousing, even in dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the depths of my soul.)” B. FLAG OF STARS, THICK-SPRINKLED BUNTING. FLAG of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting! Long yet your road, fateful flag!-long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner! Dream'd again the flags of kings, highest borne, to flaunt unri valled? O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step, passing highest flags of kings, Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol-run up above them all, Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting! WALT WHITMAN. |