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TRE VIATORIAN. F~C ET SP.SFH~.
VOL. XIII. MARCH, 1896. NO. 7
ST~ JOSEPH.
The heroes who struggled and toiled for our banners "
We honor and love, and this surely is just But what of the hero
who saved map's Re-
deemer, Who labored to nourish that heavenly
trust?
He knew that in journeyipg to sunny Egypt Great trials and
sufferings would wring
his heart sore, But angels had whispered, and Jesus smiled
swe:etly, . He thinks of Redemption and hastens the
more.
He saved Godls own son from the malice of Herod,
And slaved for him lest future ills might betide;
When terror and trembling had seized the fair virgin,
He soothed htlr with words and kept close to her side.
0 bright satellite of the great branch of Judah,
Descendant of kings, and of far greater worth,
Called lord by the Qu~en of the earth and the heavens,
Called father by Him whom the Virgin brought. forth.
Great saint, from thy splendor' look down on thy clients,
Permit one faint ray from thy glory to shine,
And grant that when dying we have the embhces
Of Jesus and Mary, and also have thine. J. H. N.
RIGHELIEU.
"Riche lieu" or "The Conspiracy;'' by Lord Bul wer Lytton, is
truly one of the leading classical plays in the Eng~ Iish language.
It has all the require-ments of a masterpiece, and is very often
taken as the work of the im-mortal Shakespeare.
ln the first place th~ play is divided into five acts. The first
of these is fully in keeping with the rules of Blair, who says,
''The first act ought to contain a clear exposition of the subject,
should awaken curiosity of the spectator,s and furnish them the
. material for understanding the se-quel." This Lytton, in the
first act of "Richelieu" has skillfully done, for with the opening
words of the play ''Here's to our enterprise" the plot begins to
show itself. Then again the presence of the characters are neatly
explained by their conversation, and their exits could not have
been more suitably managed. Also, in the fil:'st act, all the
principle characters are introduced, in such a manner as to give a
clear idea of their conne~tion with the plot . ..
The plot is the dethroning of Louis XIII by the 'villain Baradas
whose ultimate end is to secure the throne of France; this he
cannot do without having as a colleague a person closely
allied to the king, whom he four..d in
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the Duke of Orleans, brother of the king, who willingly entered
into the conspiracy under promise that he should be made king. But
one person now stood in Baradas's way, and this was the Prime
Minister of Louis XIII, France's greatest statesman, Cardinal
Richelieu, whose deathBaradas desires, and for this purpose joins
in friendship with De Mauprat, who is the affianced husband of the
woman Baradas loves. Thus Lytton, by a skillful arrange-ment of
scenes, gives us in the first act a clear conception of the leading
characters and the plot of the play.
In the second, third, and fourth acts ''the plot thickens"' and
the conspira-tors seelll certain of success. Through-out we feel
ourselves becoming more and more interested, and they are so
written that if a line if omitted, we seem to have dropped a .
thread of the plot, a fact which Lytton never lost sight of, and on
which every scene, yes, every speech, seems to hinge.
In the fifth and last act comes the unravelling of the plot, and
it is here that the skill of Lytton is more cleatrly seen than .
anyw.here else. . For in the last scene of this act be accomplished
a thing which has seldom been equalled and never surpassed; that
is, he brings together fourteen ''speaking" charac-ters, whose
conversation, which in no way conflicts, lays bare the plot and
brings the play to a . most happy end-ing . .
Before reviewing the character of ~ichelieu, I would like to
answer a question which is often asked, namely: ''Why are not more
of Lytton's works recognized as masteq~ieces?" I ans~
wer, because his other plays are too local-so much so that the
greater part of them can only be understood
. by the people of his time and those acquainted with the scenes
he de-scribes.
In beauty of diction he has been surpassed by none. Shakespeare,
no doubt, had a better conception of hu-man nature, but' his
language was not J,ore elegant.
The leading character, ''Richelieu," is the cardinal from whom
the play takes its name. Cardinal Richelieu has been most severely,
and_, as a rule, most unjustly criticised. He was a truly great
man, and as such, was not without enemies. He may have been
ambitious-over much-but he loved his country and brought all the
pow-ers of his great mind to advance her interests and to shed
lustre on her crown. Lytton gives him credit for this, in language
which always awakens the patriotic feelings slumbering in the
breasts of true Frenchmen: "France! I love thee! all earth shall
never
pluck thee from my heart! My mistress France-my we~ded
wife-Sweet France, who 'lhall proclaim divorce
for thee and me."
We must look to impartial and just historians for a true view of
Richelieu.
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In Parson's "Lies and Errors of His-tory" we find Richelieu to
have been not only a great statesman, but also a true ecclesiastic,
a man, cautious,. shrewd, and crafty, but whose pur-pose was a holy
one-the love of his religion and the love of his pountry.
Many historians present the Cardi-nal as a man steeped in
debauchery
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and leading -~ most . vofuptuous life. This Parsons refutes,.
saying:
''Work: was always a passion with Richelieu, and when he was not
occu-pied in the public affairs of his diocese he was engaged in
the direction of souls, in settling quarrels and pre-venting duels,
in c'onsoling the af-flicted, and in study.''
But let us consider in what light Lytton regarded Cardinal
Ricbelieu in his famous play. He seems, .at times,
. to place him before us as an intriguer, as a man who thought
more of self than of anything else. He portrays him as a proud and
haughty man, as is shown by the answer he makes De-Mauprat when
threatened with in-stant death: "Thou liest, knave! I am old-most
feeble. But thou liest! Armand de Richelieu dies
not by the hand of man; The stars have said it. Cali them all,
thy brother butchers! Earth has no such fiend No! as one parricide
of his fatherland, Who dares in Richelieu murde:r; France!"
But although Lytton in the fore-going quotation depicts
Richelieu as a proud man, as a man who re~lized his power, still in
other passages he lauds him, as in the scene where his feelings
'fqr the weak and oppressed are shown, . tha1t is, the defending of
Julie from the king's wrath :
HTo those who sent you! And say you found the virtue they
would
slay here, Couch'd l1pon this heart, as on an altar, And
sheltered by wings of sacred Rome.' '
..o!\..nd again in those beautiful and mos-t forcible -.
lines:o
."Then wakes the power which in the age of iron
Burst forth to curb the great and ra1se the low.
Mark where she stands! Around her form I draw the awful circle
of
our solemn church! 'Set but a foot within that holy ground,
and
. on thy head Yea, though it wore a crown, I launch the curse of
Rome!"
Lines which made the villian Bara-das cower, for although a man
with-out the least spark of honor, he feared Richelieu when he
spake as an ecclesi-astic of the church, to which he owed
allegiance.
In the last scene of the play Lytton sums up Richelieu's
character by show-ing us his patriotism. It w:as after he had
triumphed over his e~emies and the enemies of France that he
uttered those patriotic words: "JII.y own. dearFrance! I have thee
yet; I have saved thee! I clasp thee still! It was thy voice that
called i:ne Back from the tomb! What mistress like one's
country!"
There is but one great fault, I find, with Lytton's portrayal of
the char-acter of Cardinal Richelie'u, and it is .
' this : he seems to make of Louis XIn. a puppet who obeyed
Richelieu in all things as if he were the subject in-stead of the
ruler.
He seems to make of Louis XIII.; who has been well styled the
Just, a weak-minded king, a king unworthy to sit on the throne of
Henry IV. because h e was, as it were, ruled by Richelieu; but this
is denied by all impartial his-torians. Marius Topin, in 1875,
pub-lished over two hundred and fifty
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126 THE VIATORIAN.
le.tters of Louis . XIII. to Richelieu, which he secured in the
Foreign Office at Paris. These let~ers have been proven to be
authentic and they, as Parsons says, 'give us a good idea of th,e
relations of Louis and his great minister, while they furnish a
view of the king's character which differs much from that obtained
from the impressive drama of Lytton. They show us that Louis never
ceased to love the Cardinal, or to confide en-tirely in bim. ''
Richelieu, as is proven by many re-liable historians, did not
try to dazzle with. his genius, his king, f.or he is said to have
been the most passion-
. ately devoted of subjects and servants. France owes its
prosperity under
Louis X _[II. to the genius of Ricbelieu; 1oined to the common
sense of Louis the ''Just," each seems a complement of the other;
the reign of Louis i~ that of Richelieu, the ministry of Richelieu
that of Louis.
But when we consider that Lytton strove to make the character of
~icbelieu the promi:oen t one in his play, (;tnd when we consider
that he was dealing with members of a church of which he knew
little, we are willing to admit that his portrayal of the Cardinal
is a fairly impartial one, and be bas endeared himself to all
French-
. men, for he has praised a man who was ever true to his God,
his country, and his king. He bas given to the coming generation a
brief sketch of the greatest statesman France bas ever produced, of
a man who is ranked high among the great men of the world. Q. J.
Q.
THREE DAYS IN MARCH. .
While the church proposes to our veneration chiefly the
spiritual deeds of the saints, their human side is often most
interesting. Such is true in a most particular way of three saints
whose feasts occur in March. Placed in circumstances so widely
different and destined . for a work of such pro-nounced diversity,
each presents a picture most beautiful in its entirety, most
complete in its de taUs. On March 7, the church commemo-rates the
grandeur of that intellectual hero, St. Thomas of Aquin, whom
pos-terity bas fondly called the "angelic doctor," and since the
Holy Father has proposed him as the patron of Cath-olic education,
he is known as the "angel of thescbools."
At once a giant in intellectual strength, a man of great
accomplish ments, and a saint whose humility was rivalled only by
his men tal gifts, he seems to have excelled as a worker, as a most
incessant toiler, leaving wot~s of such profundity, so broad in
scope, and of such completeness, that he may be said to have
toucned and solved every question in theology.
When we consider that all this great work-great in itself _and
in the amount accomplished-was done be-fore St. Thomas had reached
his fif-tieth year, our wonder increases the more and we are less
able to fathom the super.eminent genius of the man.
Living in a time that prejudiced. men are pleased to call "the
dark ages," his was a genius that would shed lustre on any age or
any insti~
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THE VIATORIAN. 127
tution, and stabqs out in vivid con-trast to the self-assertion
and the superficia1 acquirements of the so-called learned men of
our times. The world stands -sorely in need today of such
thoughtful, patient, persevering, and capable workers as the
great-souled, heaven-lit genius of St. Thomas Aquiaas.
On March 17 another and great champion of God's cause is
proposed to our notice, no less than Ireland's great apostle-St.
,Patrick.
Born under the genial skie's of France, from whose shores he was
early lured into galling captivity, he spent his first years amidst
the people he was to bring from the darkness of paganism into the
noon tide of Christian faith. Here he was schooled in the hardships
of Ms mortified life, to _.that strength and patience that marked
every hour of his after life, and in sor-row ana retirement he
listened to the voic,e of peace-to that heavenly call to evangelize
the island where he had seen ~o many hardships, but to which he
longed to bring the tidings of re-demption, that he might break the
chains of spiritual bondage that bound iq. ignorance a naturally
reli-gious people,. and so fill up the mission to which he was so
consciously led. Time so9n unfolded the plans of God . . Having
studied, prayed, and so pre-pared himself to do God's bidding, and
with an apostle's zeal and power, the one inspired by God in
heaven, the other conferred by His vice-geran t on earth the ardent
Patrick went forth to h'is people to begin the work he had long
desired to undertake.
With what success he accomplished his task need not be . told.
The world never saw a victory so complete nor effects so lasting.
Pagan rites and temples fell at his approach,. and so quickly that
he lived to see the whole island christianized, means at hand to
propagate the saving faith, and the real sacrifice offered instead
of pagan idolatries.
\
Here was a most astonishing vic-tory. Everything that appealed
to custom, prejudice, the memories of their ancestors, by one
stroke this great apostle changed, and this with-out the shedding
of one drop of blood.
Only God's power is responsible for so great a transformation,
but one cannot help admiring the striking qualities of the agent He
chose.
In the passage of centuries when the faith implanted by St.
Patrick has been tried by persecution, culumny, and by a
:;uccession of means as diabolical in their conception as they have
been persistent in their application, the world has h~d ample time
to study out the grandeur of .the saint's work, and if it be
patient in its study, and honest in its judgment, the founding of
empires, and their destruction; and the glory of Europe's proudest
nation will seem trivial in the gaudy finery of her brightest days
compared with constancy and grandeur of that un,. shaken faith, and
with the untiring devotion to a God whom they knew only in
suffering and worshiped only in sorrow.
This was Patrick's missioE, to im-plant an undying faith, to win
a blood-less victory, though his children were
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to ~know no rest while they were faith-ful to his teachings. .,
In the third name we find still less, from a worldly point of view,
to at-'tract attention. This is J osepb, the foster-father of the
Savior, the vir~ ginal spouse of a virgin bride' and mother. But
what a mission was his! To watch, to feed, to oe a constant
companion of the Savior. His feast the church celebrates on the
19th of this month, and him she has chosen as her universal
patron.
Were we to study the life of this wonderful man we would find
scarcely a thing to note. . Retiring, modest, shunning the world,
by no ~eans a brilliant man, at least as the world judges, we
hardly know in what he differed from the most ordinary man about
us. Yet the poet tells us
"That many a :flower js born to blush mi-seen,"
which line conveys a . great truth. Only God's designs brought
the hum-ble Joseph into view, only Bis will made his virtues
shine.
But because he was exalted to so ' great a dignity, we easily
conclude
that his virtues were in keeping, since God fits every agent for
the work He wills him to do.
The church is great in her saints. She alone has them. Other
institu-tions make some professions of good, and do to. a great
extent succ8ed ad-mirably; but only. God's one church, of whose
holy mission and power tl;lese three are glowing examples, bas the
means of developing and harmonizing the whole man, and of thus
rendering
him capable of the great and good works which the saints have
done, ' of
,
fostering the patience that makes mar-tyrs, and of giving the
impulse to virtue that bas filled the world with her virgins.
But these three of whom we briefly speak can be well studied in
this age, since they .stand in flat contradiction to that love of
display, sham learning, and inconstant spirit that marks the
character of modern men.
And when the world stands today trembling at the powerful
~rmaments that cover the seas, and the terrible armies that crowd
the shores, made still more terrible by the monstrous weapons of
modern warfare, is it not pleasant ~o recall these great
intellec"-tual heroes, whose bloodless battles left impressions
that no human power can efface?
NIGHT.
Slowly sinks the .sun behind the horizon and gradually its
brilliant rays become dirnp1er. The eye is charmed by the inspiring
scene now presented in the hesperian world, where thP sky seems to
blush for its very beauty. All nature becomes si-lent as the
beauteous eye of heaven is lost to view. Darkness comes as the
light vanishes, for oft' welcome night is present. How different
the aspect! A little while ago and all was bright and gay, now ,
everything appears dark, dismal, and silent. The imag-ination, lost
in the twilight's loveli-ness, changes its conceptions and
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becomes calm. Alas! too . ~oon, our drearp is ended. The west
has lost its sp-lendor and brilliancy, arid as we turn from it i~ a
rather gloomy mood, lo.! the orient smiles. The moon bas risen and
is already brightening the
appearance of earth with its borrowed light.
"Even now she shows, half veiled her ~ovely face; "
Across the gloomy valley flings her light, Far to the western
slopes with hamlets
white; And gives, when woods the checkered
upland strew, To the green corn of summer, autumn's
hue." Our admiration . increases and the
i!llagination regains its ascendency as Luna slowly traverses
the starry
~eaven, s~iling down upon us .and ap-pearing to take care of and
watch over night's noiseless slumbers. Lighting up all things here
below, it crea'~es that
. sublime scene; all those charms which made the poet
exclaim:
"How beautiful is night!" Night is the time for repose. Dur-
ing its long still hours every natural object seems to require
rest and un-consciousness, and to muster new strength for the
comingday.
When the sun has ~isappeared be-hind the horizon, a hushed
repose ' s.eems spread over the. whole face of nature, and if .we
notice the sweet and delicate flowers, they appear to . be nodding
sleepily upon their stems 'as if longing to close their eyes and
r.est; the animals stretch .themselves in their respective sheds or
lie con-tentedly . in the open air on the grassy
' plains; the sweet songsters seek rest,
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until the blushing morn is ushered in, when they fill the air
with their har-monious notes.
Even man must sleep at night. Wearied froi:n his daily toils, he
re-tir~s; thereby refreshing and invigor-ating his body and giving
repose to his mind. It is a law of nature which none can violate
with impunity, that the night must be spen't in peaceful slumbers.
Its very solemnity breathes rest and stillness.-"Now o'er the
soothed accordan.t heart we
feel '
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal, And ever, as we fondly
muse, we find
The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind."
The busy thoroughfares of our numerous cities are no longer
crowded and noisy. Only the distan-t eyes of the celestial regions
are open in all their brilliancy and beauty, guarding, as it were,
the sleeping ones of earth, and looking down majestically on the
places vacated by men.
It is in th'e solemn midnight hour that the nightly, ghastly
phantoms ar~ supposed to walk, as man's fancies . arid
superstitions have led him to be-lieve. It is also during' the
absence of daylight that many of the most heinous and disgraceful
crimes are committed, when the deeds of the perpetrators are seen
by none save Him who sees everything and whose vigilance n~ver
relaxes.
It is only when the silence of . night is broken by the noise of
some restless . animal in his hunt for prey that we
. feel the solemnity of night. ' '
As night comes, so does it go. W~en . a few hours have passed
away, ever
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welcome morning peeps gently out of the darkness, then all is
once more bright and radiant, and the world is .all astir, nothing
but bustle. So 'tis with life, when we first see light, we are in
life's morning, and as we grow older, like the day, our light sinks
be-hind the horizon of mystery, where it remains till a brighter
day calls i.t forth again.
Many are the lessons given us by night. It reminds us of our
destiny, our common and inevitable end. It tells us that one day
we, too, shall have our night. Hence it should be as a warning to
all to prepare them-selves for their future journey.
JAMES O'DWYER.
IMAGINATION.
. Man has been endowed with wonder-ful faculties and senses by a
bounteous Creator. Some tend dir~ctly to his welfare, while others
enable him to participate in the beauties of a won-derful creation,
and make more pleas-ant the thorny pathway of life. Among the
latter is imagination or fancy, which plays an extraordinary part
in the life of man.
Imagination is a sensitive faculty by which we form certain
sensible images, either of objects formerly perceived through the
external senses, or Of others whic,h we are able to paint from
sensations already rec.eived. We call the imagination a sensitive
faculty because it depends on the senses and is exercised through a
material organ, the brain. If the imagination be sound,
and in no way 'excited by other influ-ences, it does not of
itself lead us into error, but may easily cause us to be
deceived.
The office of the imagination is either to form new 'images or
to recall those already known from past sensations. But in either
case the faculty does not dec .. eive per se. For, if it recall
known images faithfully, it is sufficiently clear that it does not
lead us astray; and if it combines images in a new
manner and according to a different order, we know from
experience that it does not represent these 'images as existing in
the objective order of things. Hence, we conclude that we cannot
attribute error to the imagina-tion.
Moreover, the imagination has this peculiar property that it
does not de-pend on the presence of objects for its operation13.
With the other faculties this is not so, for we are accustomed to
refer our perceptions to the order of objective presence. Hence,
unless the intellect attend the imagination, it will refer to
objects erroneously and thus lead us .into error. Or, again, if the
sensitive faculties be violently affected, over excitement will b8
produced in the imagination, and this disorder will be the less
perceptible as the imagina-tion is an internal organ, and we, re~
lying upon its testimony:, will thus find in occasion to wander
from the path of truth.
But apart from this, man derives, perhaps, more pleasure from
the imag-ination than from any other of his faculties. And we
cannot avoid tak-ing notice of the strong impressions
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which the powers of the imagination are calculated to give us of
_the b.e-nignity of our Crea~or. Imagination knows' no limits, is
confined to no con-dition. The poor share its pleasures equally
with the rich. With rapid flight it visits all ages, all climes . .
r't presen ts again the world's great drama. We see Rome ~ise from
a humble village to that degree of luxu-rious magnificence and
power which made her the mistress of the world.
. In an instant we find ourselves in -the East, tbe birthplace
of the human race. Jerusalem reflects from her golden temple and
numberle.ss turrets and pal-aces the radiant beams of the rising
sun, as our humble Savior walks its narrow streets. Time passes,
and we see the rugged sides of Cal vary cov-ered with a mob,
clamoring for the blood of their God. "All is consum-mated," is the
cry we hear, and we see all nature proclaim man's redemption ~ Then
from its gates march a band Of h urn ble but heroic men, to reclaim
the world from barbarism and vice to vir-tue and civilization. A
new kingdom is founded. Empires rise and fall, but this new
kingdom, enthroned in the city of the Caesars, shall last until the
end of time. Civilization, fol-lowing the beacon light of
C.bdstian-ity, moves westward in its path.
Who among us has not experienced the sweet pleasures of the
imagination as it pictures to us again the happy dayg of childhood,
and the hallowed spot surrounding our home. Often the weary and
desolate soul finds in such pleasures its only solace and comfort,
as it again beholds the amiable face of
a father or mother, prays again t}le prayers of innocent and
happy ,child-hood, ~or once mQre rejoices in scenes sanctified by
reminiscences of all that it now holds dear.
But however vast the scope given to the imagination by the
various events which have transpired on this globe, fancy is not
satisfied. Not .con-tent to rest on earth, it wings its flight even
to the throne of God, there.
to refresh itself from the happiness with which it finds itself
surrounded . Who can doubt that the saintly virgin whom we see
standing in the amp~itheater, awaiting the spring of the wild beast
which is to send her to ber God, is not already enjoying,
through
. her imagination, those pleasures and that reward which is so
soon to be hers.
It is then with grateful hearts that we should contemplate this
bendicial gift o~ our Creator. For by endowing us with such a power
He has widely enlarged the sphere of thepleasures of human life;
and those, too, of a kind most pure and innocent. The neces-sary
purposes of life might have been abundantly answered, though our
senses of seeing and hearing had only served to distinguish
external objects without conveying to us any of those refined and
delicate sensations of beauty and grandeur with which we are now so
much delighted . . This thought the poet has beautifully ex-pressed
when he says :
" Not content With every food of life to nourish man. By kind
illusions of the wondering sense, Thou mak 'st all nature beauty to
his eyes, Or music to his ear."
C. F. F .
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