"It is true," Maria answered, "that he made love to me one day at my cousin's wedding, and that he came one night to my window; but he got such a fright there that he left me planted, and ran away as if fear had lent wings to his feet; and I believe he never stopped until he ran his nose against the end of the world."

"How is that?" exclaimed the audience, laughing heartily; "is that the way you show your heels when you are frightened, Uncle Pedro?"

"I neither boast of my courage," replied the latter composedly, "nor do I wish to gain the palm from Francisco Esteban. "

"That is being more afraid than ashamed," said Aunt Maria, who was becoming impatient.

"You see, sirs," said Uncle Pedro, slyly winking, "that she has not yet forgiven me, which proves, does it not, that she was fond of me? But I should like to know," he proceeded, "which of you is the Cid Campeador that would like to have to do with beings of the other world; with supernatural things?"

"There was nothing more supernatural than your fears," interrupted Maria, "and they had no more cause than the rolling of a stone from the roof, by some cat that was keeping vigil."

"Tell us about it. Uncle Pedro, tell us how it happened," cried the audience.

"You must know then, sirs," began Uncle Pedro, "that the window Maria indicated to me, was at the back of the house. The house was in a lonesome place on the outskirts of the town; near by was a picture of purgatory, with a lamp burning before it. As I looked at the light, something which happened there a short time before came into mind. A milkman used to pass by the picture every night as he went out of town, carrying the empty skins which he brought in at sunrise every morning, filled with milk. When he came to this place, he did not scruple to lower the consecrated lamp to light his cigarette. One night, it was the eve of All Souls, when he had taken the lamp down, as was his custom, it went out, and he could not light his cigarette. He found it strange, for the wind slept, and the night was clear. But, what was his astonishment when a moment after, turning to look back, he saw the lamp lighted, and burning more brightly than ever. Recognizing in this a solemn warning from God--touched, and repenting of the profanation he had done--he made a vow to punish himself by never smoking another cigarette in his life; and, sirs," added Pedro, in a grave voice, "he has kept it."

Pedro paused, and for a moment all remained silent.

"This is an occasion," presently said Maria, "to apply the saying, that when a whole company is silent at once, an angel has passed by, and the breath of his wings has touched them with awe."

"Come, Uncle Pedro," said the muleteers, "let us hear the rest of the story."

"Well, sirs," proceeded Pedro, in his former jocose tone, "you must know that the lamp inspired me with great respect, mingled with not a little fear. Is it well, I said to myself, to come here and trifle under the very beards of the blessed souls that in suffering are expiating their sins? And I assure you, that light which was an offering to the Lord--which appeared to watch and to record--and seemed to be looking at me and rebuking me, was an object to impose respect. Sometimes it was sad and weeping like the De Profundis, at others immovable like the eye of the dead fixed upon me, and then the flame rose, and bent, and flickered, like a threatening finger of fire admonishing me.

"One night, when its regards appeared more threatening than ever before, a stone, thrown by an invisible hand, struck me on the head with such force that it left me stupefied; and when I started to run, though I was, as you might say, in open field, it happened with me as with that 'negro of evil fortune' who, where there were three doors to go out at, could not find one; and so, running as fast as I could, instead of coming to my house, I came to a quarry and fell in."

"I have always heard of that negro of evil fortune," said one of the listeners, "but could never find out how he came to be called so. Can you tell me?"

"I should think so!" answered Uncle Pedro.

"There was once a very rich negro who lived in front of the house of a fine young woman, with whom he fell in love. The young woman, vexed by the soft attentions and endearments of the fellow, laid the matter before her husband, who told her to make an appointment with the negro for that evening. She did so, and he came, bringing a world of presents. She received him in a drawing-room that had three doors. There she had a grand supper prepared for him. But they were hardly seated at the table when the light was put out, and the husband came in with a cowhide, with which he began to lash the negro's shoulders. The latter was so confounded that he could not find a door to escape through, and kept exclaiming as he danced under the blows:

"At last, he chanced upon one, and rushed out like the wind. But the husband was after him, and gave him a push that sent him from the top of the stairs to the bottom. A servant hearing the noise he made, ran to ask the cause. 'What would it be,' answered the black, 'but that I went up on my tiptoes and came down on my ribs?'

"Uncle Pedro," asked the muleteer, laughing, "was that the cause of your remaining estranged?"

"No," said Pedro, "eight days afterwards, I armed myself with courage and returned to the grating, but Maria would not open the window."

"Aunt Maria did not want you to be stoned to death like Saint Stephen," said the muleteer.

"It was not that, boy; the truth is, that Miguel Ortiz, who had just completed his term, returned to the place, and it suited Maria to forsake one and take up with another who----"

"Was not afraid," interrupted Maria, "to talk, with good intentions, to a girl in the neighborhood of a consecrated object; for, do you suppose that all those souls were spinsters?"

"I think so, Maria, because the married pass their purgatory in this world--the men, because their wives torment them, and the women, through what their children cause them to suffer. Well, sirs, I took the matter so to heart that I could not stay in Dos-Hermanas when the wedding was celebrated, and I went to Alcalá."

"Where he remembered me so well, that he came back married to another."

"It is true, for I have always thought it best 'when one king is dead, to set up another.'"

"Ah Pedro! everlasting talker," said Maria getting up, "let us go."

"Yes, let us go; for the sun is as hot as if he were flying away from the clouds, and I think it will rain."

"God forbid!" exclaimed Maria, "give us the sun and wasps though they sting!"

"Why should it rain, since we are in March?" put in the muleteer.

"And don't you know, Jose" replied Uncle Pedro, "that January promised a lamb to March, but when March arrived the lambs were so fat and fine that January would not fulfil the promise? Then March was vexed and said to him,

"And so let us be off. Good-by, gentlemen."

"What a hurry you are in, Aunt Maria!" said the muleteer. "Are you afraid you shall take root?"

"No, but these asses of ours do not go like yours, Jose."

"That is so," said Pedro as he assisted Maria to mount; "with us, all is old--the horsewoman, her squire, and the steeds. My ass is so judicious that she cannot make up her mind upon which foot to limp, and therefore limps on all four; and that of Maria so old, that, if she could speak, she would say 'thee and thou' to us all. Well, gentlemen, your commands."

"Health and dimes to you, Uncle Pedro."

Our travellers took the road again, and when they reached Alcalá, separated to attend to their respective affairs.

An hour afterward they rejoined each other. Pedro came accompanied by his daughter, who threw herself upon Maria's neck with that tender sentimentality of young girls whose hearts have not been bruised, wounded, or chilled, by contact with the world.

"You have collected your money?" questioned Pedro, as though he doubted it.

"They offered me half now," answered Maria, "or the whole after harvest; and, as I am in want of my dimes, I preferred the former."

"Not Solomon, Maria! not even Solomon! could have acted more wisely; for, 'blessed is he that possesses,' and 'one bird in the hand is worth a hundred on the wing.'"

Pedro took his daughter up behind him, and they set out--Maria taking care of her money; Marcela of the flowers, spices, cakes, and sweetmeats she had bought as gifts; and Pedro looking after them both.

CHAPTER VI.

The arrival of Marcela caused great joy to all except Rita, who neither wished nor tried to hide the ill-humor she felt in the presence of one who had been destined by both families to be the wife of Perico.

This hostile disposition, and the cold reserve which Rita imposed upon Perico in his intercourse with Marcela, were the first frosts which had ever fallen upon the springtime of that pure spirit.

Marcela was far from suspecting the base and bitter sentiments of Rita, and besides, she would not have understood them; for, though a young woman, she had the soul of a child. Having lived in the convent from her birth, she had created for herself a sweet existence, which could not be enlarged by the interests and passions of life, except at the cost of innocence and happiness. She loved her good religious, her garden, her gentle and peaceful duties. She was attached to her devotions, to her church, and to her blessed images. She wished to be a nun, not from spiritual exaltation, but because she liked the life; not from misanthropy, but with joy of heart; not because she was without convenient place or position in the world, which many believe to be a motive for taking the veil, but because her position, her place, she found--and preferred it--in the convent.

This is what many do not, or pretend not to comprehend. Everything can be understood in this world; all vices; all irregularities; all the most atrocious inclinations; even the propensity of the Anthropophagi; but that the desire for a tranquil and retired life, without care for the present, or thought for the future, can exist, is denied, is incomprehensible.

In the world everything is believed in--the masculine woman, the morality of stealing, the philanthropy of the guillotine, in the inhabitants of the moon, and other humbugs, as the English say; or canards, as our neighbors have it; or bubbles and fables, as we call them. The satirical sceptic, called the world, has a throat {512} down which all these can pass, for there is nothing so credulous as incredulity, nor so superstitious as irreligion. But it does not believe in the instincts of purity, in modest desires, in humble hearts, and in religious sentiments. No indeed; the existence of these is all humbug, a bubble which it cannot receive. This monster has not a throat wide enough for these.

Marcela, accompanied by Anna and Elvira, made her first visit to the church, and to the chapel of Saint Anna, into which the good wife of the sacristan hastened to lead them.

The chapel is deep and narrow; at the extremity is an altar and the effigy of the saint. In a crystal urn, inserted into the altar, is seen a wooden cross and a small bell. The effigy of Saint Anna is very ancient; its lower part widens in the form of a bell, upon its breast it bears an image of the Blessed Virgin, which in the same manner bears that of the child Jesus. The remote origin stamped upon this effigy, uniting antiquity of idea with age of material, gives, as it were, wings to the devotion it inspires with which to rise and free itself from all present surroundings. On the wall, at the right hand, hang two large pictures. In one is seen an angel, appearing to two girls, and in the other the same girls, in a wild and solitary place, with a man who is digging a hole in the earth.

On the left hand an iron railing surrounds the entrance to a cave, the descent into which is by a narrow stairway.

Marcela and her companions having performed their devotions, seated themselves in some low chairs which the sacristan's wife placed for them under the arbor in the court-yard, and Marcela asked the obliging and kindly woman to explain to them the two pictures which they had seen in the chapel. The good creature, who loved to tell the story, began it very far back, and related it in the following words.

POPULAR TRADITION OF DOS-HERMANAS.

"In times the memory of which is almost lost, a wicked king, Don Rodrigo, ruled in Spain. It was then customary for the nobles of the realm to send their daughters to court, and therefore the noble count, Don Julian, sent his fair daughter Florinda, known as La Cava. When the king saw her he was inflamed with passion, but she being virtuous, the king obtained by violence that which he could not by consent. When the beautiful Florinda saw herself dishonored, she wrote to the Count--with blood and tears she wrote it, in these words:

"'Father, your honor and mine are blemished; more to your renown would it have been, and better for me, if you had killed me, instead of bringing me here. Come and avenge me.'

"When the Count, Don Julian, read the letter, he fell down in a swoon, and when he came to himself he swore, upon the cross of his sword, to take a vengeance the like of which had never been heard of, and one proportioned to the offence.

"With this intention, he treated with the Moors and gave up to them Tarifa and Algeciras, and like a swollen river which breaks its embankments they inundated Andalusia. They reached Seville, known in those times as Hispalis, and this place, then called Oripo. The Christians, before they fled, buried deep in the earth the venerated image of their patroness Saint Anna. And there it remained five hundred years, until the good king Fernando, having made himself master of the surrounding country, invested Seville. Here, however, the Moors made such a stubborn resistance that the spirit of the monarch began to fail him. Then, in the tower of Herveras, now fallen to ruin, Our Blessed Mother appeared to him in a dream, animating his valor, and promising him victory. The good king returned to his camp at Alcalá with renewed courage. He summoned all the artificers that could {513} be found, and commanded them to make an image, as nearly as possible in the likeness of his vision, but to his great chagrin no one succeeded.

"There then presented themselves, two beautiful youths, dressed like pilgrims, offering to make an image in every particular like the form the good king had seen in his vision. They were conducted to a workshop in which they found prepared for them everything necessary for their work. The following day, when the king, stimulated by his impatience, went in to see how the work was progressing, the pilgrims had disappeared. The materials were lying on the floor untouched, and upon an altar was an image of our Lady, just as she had appeared to him in his sleep. The king, recognizing the intervention of the angels, knelt weeping before the image he had wished for so much, and which, by the hands of angels, their Queen herself had sent him.

"Afterward, when the pious chief had reduced Seville, he caused this image to be placed in a triumphal car drawn by six white horses, his majesty walking behind with naked feet, and deposited in the cathedral of Seville, where it is still venerated, and where it will continue to be venerated until the end of time, under the invocation of our Lady of Kings. In her chapel, at her feet, lies the body of the sainted monarch--relics, of the possessions of which all Spain may well envy Seville.

"Soon after the appearance of the vision, the king with great confidence in the help of God prepared to make another attack. He posted himself upon the neighboring heights of Buena Vista: the two wings of his brave army extending on both sides, like two arms ready to do his will. But the troops were so weary, and so faint from heat and thirst, that they had neither strength nor spirit left. In this strait, the good king built up an altar of arms, upon which he placed an image of the Blessed Virgin which he always carried with him, calling upon her in these words, 'Aid me! aid me! Holy Mother, for if by thy help I set up the cross to-day in Seville, I promise to build thee a chapel in this very spot, in which thou shalt be venerated, and I will deposit in it the standards under which the city shall be gained.' As he prayed, a beautiful spring began to flow at the foot of the ridge, sending forth in different directions seven streams. It flows still, and bears the name of The King's Fountain.

"Men and horses refreshed themselves, and recovered strength and courage. Seville was won, and the Moorish King Aixa came bearing the keys of the city upon a golden salver, and presented them to the pious conqueror. They are kept with other precious relics in the treasury of the cathedral.

"In those times," proceeded the narrator, "there lived in the province of Leon two devout sisters, named Elvia and Estefania, to whom an angel appeared and told them to set out for the purpose of finding an image of Our Lady which the Christians had hidden under the earth. The father of the devout maidens, Gomez Mazereno, who was as pious as they were, wished to go with them. But on setting out they were in great trouble, not knowing what direction to take. Then they heard the sound of a bell in the air. They saw no bell, but followed the ringing until they came to this place, where it seemed to go down into the ground at their feet. This was then an uncultivated waste of matted thorns and briers, and was called 'The Invincible Thicket,' because the Moors, who had all these lands under cultivation could never cut it down; for, unseen by them, an angel guarded it with a drawn sword in his hand. They began zealously to dig, and digging came to a large flat stone, which being lifted, they discovered the entrance to a cave--the same that you saw in the chapel. In it they found the image of the saint, a cross, the {514} small bell, which, like the star of the eastern kings had led them here, and a lamp still burning--the very lamp that lights the saint now, for it hangs in the chapel before her altar! For more than a thousand years it has burned in veneration of our patroness. They took up her image and raised this chapel in her name. Houses were built and clustered together round it, until this village, which takes the name of Dos-Hermanas from its founders, was formed under its shelter. See," continued the good woman, rising and reentering the chapel, "see here the image which nothing has been able to injure; neither the dampness of the earth, nor dust of the air, nor the canker of time. In these two pictures are the portraits of the devout sisters." A great quantity of offerings were seen hanging on both sides of altar. Of these seven little silver legs, tied together and suspended by a rose-colored ribbon, attracted Marcela's attention.

"What is the meaning of that offering?" she asked of the sacristan's wife.

"Marcos, the blacksmith, brought them here. It happened, one day, that the poor fellow was seized with such violent pains in his legs, that it seemed as though he could neither live nor die.

"His wife having administered to him without effect all the remedies that were ordered, took him, stretched upon a cart, to Seville. But neither could the doctors there do anything to relieve him. One day, after the unfortunate man had spent all he possessed in remedies, made desperate by his suffering, and by the cries of his children for the bread which he had not to give them, he lifted his broken heart to God, claiming as his intercessor our blessed patroness Saint Anna, praying with fervor to be made well until such time as his children should no longer need him; adding: When my children are grown up I will die without murmuring. And if, until then, I regain my health, I promise, Blessed Saint, to hang, every year, a little silver leg upon thy altar, in attestation of the miracle.' The next day Marcos came on foot to give thanks to God. Years passed. The sons of Marcos had grown up and were earning their living. There remained with him only a young daughter. She had a lover who asked her of her father. The wedding was gay, only Marcos seemed to be in deep thought On the following day he took his bed, from which he never rose. What he asked had been granted. His task was done."

"And these ears of grain?" said Marcela, seeing a bunch of wheat tied with a blue ribbon.

"They were brought by Petrola, the wife of Gomez. These poor people had only the daily wages of the father for the support of eight children. They had begged the use of a small field to sow with wheat, and in it were sown also their hopes. With what pleasure they watched it, and with what satisfaction! for it repaid their care, growing so luxuriantly that it looked as if they sprinkled it every morning with blessed water. One day a neighbor came from the field and told the poor woman that the locust was in her wheat. The locust! One of the plagues of Egypt! It was as if a bolt from heaven had struck her. Leaving her house and her little ones, she rushed out wildly, with her arms extended and not knowing what she did. 'Saint Anna,' she cried, 'my children's bread! my children's bread!' She reached the field and saw in one corner the track of the locust. This insect destroys the blades from the foot without leaving a sign. But between its track and the rest of the field an invisible wall had been raised to protect the wheat of the pious mother who invoked the saint, and the locust had disappeared. You can imagine the delight and gratitude of the good woman, who was so poor that she testified it by the gift of these few blades of the precious grain."

Anna, Elvira, and Marcela listened with softened and fervent hearts, and eyes moistened with tears. With the same emotions the relation has been transmitted to paper. God grant that it may be read in like spirit!

CHAPTER VII.

May smiled. Golden with sunlight, noisy with the song of its birds and the murmur of its insects; odorous with its flowers, laughing, and happy to be the month, of all others, dedicated to Mary.

The wedding day of Ventura and Elvira had arrived, and the sun, like a friend that hastened to be the first to give them joy, rose radiant. They were ready to set out for the church. Anna pressed to her heart the child of her love, the gentle Elvira, so humble and thoughtful in her gladness that she stood with drooping head and eyes cast down, as if oppressed and dazzled by so much joy. Uncle Pedro, who had never been so glad in all his life, exceeded even himself in jokes, hints, and facetious sayings. Maria, transported with her own delight, and that of others, shed tears continually--tears, like the rain drops, which sometimes fall from a clear sky when the sun is bright.

As his rays shine through those drops, so shone Maria's smile through her tears.

"Dear sister," said Marcela to Elvira, "next to mine, my sweet Jesus, your bridegroom is the best and most perfect. See my Ventura, how well he appears; if he had only a spray of lilies in his hand, he would look like Saint Joseph in 'The Espousals.'"

And she had reason to praise her brother, for Ventura, neatly and richly dressed, more animated and gallant than ever, hurrying the others to set out, was the type a sculptor would have chosen for a statue of Achilles.

Perico forgot even Rita. His large, soft brown eyes were fixed upon his sister with a look of deep and inexplicable tenderness. Rita only was indifferent and petulant.

They were leaving the house when a strange sound reached their ears. A sound which seemed to be made up of the bellowing of the enraged bull, the lamentations of the wounded bird, and the growl of the lion surprised in his sleep.

It was the cry of alarm and rage of the flocks of fugitives that were arriving, and the exclamations of astonishment and indignation of the people of the village that were preparing to imitate them.

The French had entered Seville with giant strides, and were hurrying on in their devastating march toward Cadiz.

Perico having foreseen this event, had prepared a place of refuge for his family, in a solitary farm-house, far apart from any public way, and had horses standing in the stables ready against surprise.

While the men rushed into the yard to prepare the animals, the women, wild with fear, gathered and tied together the clothes and whatever else they could carry with them in the panniers.

"What a sad omen!" said Elvira to Ventura; "the day which should join us together separates us."

"Nothing can separate us, Elvira," answered Ventura; "I defy the whole world to do it. Go without fear. We are going to prepare ourselves, and shall overtake you on the road."

Ventura saw them depart under the protection of Perico, and watched them until they were out of sight.

But now was heard at the entrance of the village the fatal sound of drums, which announced the arrival of the terrible phalanx that threw itself upon that poor unarmed people, taken by surprise, and treated without mercy.

It came in the name of an iniquitous usurpation of which the precedents belong to barbarous times, as the resistance it met with belongs to the days of heroism--a resistance against which it dashed and was broken, fighting without glory and yielding without shame.

"Follow me, father," said Ventura. "Sister, come; we must fly!"

"It is too late," replied Pedro, "they are already here. Ventura, hide your sister; when night comes we will escape, but now hide yourselves."

"And you, father?" said Ventura, hesitating between necessity and the repugnance he felt to being obliged to hide himself.

"I," answered Pedro, "remain here. What can they do to a poor old man like me? Go, I tell you! Hide yourselves! Marcela, what are you doing there, poor child, as cold and fixed as a statue? Ventura, what are you thinking of that you do not move? Do you wish to be lost? Do you wish to lose your sister? Ventura! dear son, do you wish to kill me?"

His father's cry of anguish roused Ventura from the stupor into which he had been thrown by fear, uncertainty, and rage.

"It is necessary," he murmured, with clenched hands, and set teeth. "Father, father! to hide myself like a woman! while I live I shall never get over the shame of it!" and taking a ladder, he lifted it to an opening in the ceiling, which formed the entrance to a sort of loft or garret, where they kept seeds, and worn-out and useless household articles, helped his sister to mount, went up himself, and drew the ladder after him.

It was time, for there was a knocking at the door. Pedro opened it, and a French soldier entered.

"Prepare me," he said in his jargon, "food and drink: give me your money, unless you want me to take it, and call your daughters, if you do not wish me to look them up."

The blood of the honorable and haughty Spaniard rose to his face, but he answered with moderation,

"I have nothing that you ask me for."

"Which means that you have nothing, you thief? Do you know whom you are talking to, and that I am hungry and thirsty?"

Pedro, who had expected to pass the whole of this long wished-for day of his son's marriage in Anna's house, and had therefore nothing prepared, approached the door which communicated with the interior of the house, and pointing to the extinguished hearth, repeated, "As I have already told you, there is nothing to eat in the house, except bread."

"You lie!" shouted the Frenchman in a rage; "it is because you do not mean to give it to me."

Pedro fixed his eyes upon the grenadier, and in them burned, for an instant all the indignation, all the rage, all the resentment he harbored in his soul; but a second thought, at which he shuddered, caused him to lower them, and say in a conciliating tone:

"Satisfy yourself that I have told you the truth."

On hearing this continued refusal, the soldier, already exasperated by the glance Pedro had cast at him, approached the old man and said; "You dare to face me; you refuse to comply with your obligation to supply me. Ha! and worse than all, you insult me with your tranquil contempt. Upon my life, I will make you as pliant as a glove!" and raising his hand, there resounded through the house, dry and distinct, a blow on the face.

Like an eagle darting upon its prey, Ventura dropped down, threw himself upon the Frenchman, forced the sword from his hand, and ran it through his body. The soldier fell heavily, a lifeless bulk.

"Boy, boy, what have you done?" exclaimed the old man, forgetting the affront in the peril of his son.

"My duty, father."

"You are lost!"

"And you are avenged."

"Go, save yourself! do not lose an instant."

"First, let me take away this debtor, whose account is settled. If they find him here, you will have to suffer, father."

"Never mind, never mind," exclaimed the father, "save yourself, that is the first thing to be thought of."

Without listening to his father. Ventura took the corpse upon his shoulder, threw it into the well, turned to the old man, who followed him in an agony of distress, asked for his blessing, sprang with one bound, upon the wall which surrounded the yard, and to the ground on the other side. The poor father, mounted upon the trunk of a fig-tree, holding on by its branches, with bursting heart, and straining eyes, and breath suspended, saw his son, the idol of his soul, pass with the lightness of a deer, the space which separated the village from an olive plantation, and disappear among the trees.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[ORIGINAL.]

SAPPHICS.

SUGGESTED BY "THE QUIP" OF GEORGE HERBERT

Sti. Lodoiel, in Ascensione Domini, 1866.

R. A. B.

[ORIGINAL.]

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

IV.

THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE CREED DEMONSTRATED IN THE CONSTITUTIVE IDEA OF REASON.

As soon as we open the eye of reason we become spectators of the creation. The word creation in this proposition is to be understood not in a loose and popular sense, but in a strict and scientific one. We intend to say, not merely that we behold certain existing objects, but that we behold them in their relation to their first and supreme cause. We are witnesses of the creative act by which the Creator and his work are simultaneously disclosed to the mind. This is the original constitutive principle of reason, its primal light preceding all knowledge and thought, and being their condition. It is the idea which contains in itself, radically and in principle, all possible development of thought and knowledge, according to the law of growth connatural to the human intelligence. It includes--God with all his attributes: the work of God or the created universe; and the relation between the two, that is, the relation of God to the universe as first cause in the order of creation, and final cause in the order of the ultimate end and destination of things. The different portions of this idea are inseparable from each other. That is, our reason cannot affirm God separately from the affirmation of the creative act, or affirm the creative act separately from the affirmation of God. The being of God is disclosed to us only by the creation, and the creation is intelligible to us only in the light given by the idea of God. [Footnote 89] God reveals himself to our reason as creator, and by means of the creative act. This is the limit of our natural light, and beyond it we cannot see anything by a natural mode, either in God, or in the universe.

[Footnote 89: A careful attention to the succeeding argument will show that by the idea of God given to intuition, is not meant the evolved idea, but the idea capable of evolution, or the idea of infinite, necessary being, which is shown to be the Idea of God by demonstration.]

The idea of God must not be confounded with that distinct and explicit conception which a philosopher or well-instructed Christian possesses. If the human mind possessed this knowledge by an original intuition, every human being would have it, without instruction, from the very first moment of the complete use of reason, and could never lose it. The idea of God is the affirmation of himself as pure, eternal, necessary being, the original and first principle of all existence, which he makes to the reason in creating it, and which constitutes the rational light and life of the soul. This constitutive, ideal principle of the soul's intelligence exists at first in a kind of embryonic state. The soul is more in a state of potentiality to intelligence, than intelligence in act. The idea of God is obscurely enwrapped and enfolded in the substance of the soul, imperfectly evolved in its most primitive acts of rational consciousness, and implicitly contained but not actually explicated in every thought that it thinks, even the most simple and rudimental. The intelligence must be educated, in order to bring out this obscure and implicit idea of God into a distinct conception in the reflective consciousness. This education begins with the action of the material, sensible world on the soul through the body, and specifically through the brain. The human soul was not created to exist and act under the simple conditions of pure spirit; but as is incorporated in a material body. The body is not a temporary habitation, like the envelope of a larva, but an integral part of man. The {519} intelligence is awakened to activity through the senses, and all its perceptions of the intelligible are through the medium of the sensible. The sensible world is a grand system of outward and visible signs representing the spiritual and intelligible world. Language is the science and art of subsidiary signs, the equivalents of the phenomena of the sensible world and of all that we apprehend through them; and forming the medium for communicating thought among men. For this reason, all language so far as it represents the conceptions of men concerning the spiritual word is metaphorical; and even the word spirit is a figure taken from the sensible world.

When the obscure idea is completely evolved, and the soul educated, through these outward and sensible media, the reflective consciousness attains to the distinct conception of God. This education may be imperfect, and the reflective consciousness may have but an incomplete conception expressed in language by an inadequate formula; but the idea is indestructible, and the mental conception of it can never be totally corrupted. This would be equivalent to the cessation of all thought, the annihilation of all conception of being and truth, and the extinction of all rational life in the soul. It is a mere negation of thought, which cannot be thought at all, and a mere non-entity. There is no such thing as absolute scepticism. Partial scepticism is possible. Revelation may be denied as to its complete conception, but the idea expressed in revelation cannot be utterly denied. The being of God may be denied, as to its complete conception, but not completely as to the idea itself. No sceptic or atheist can make any statement of his doubt or disbelief, which does not contain an affirmation of that ultimate idea under the conception of real and necessary being and truth. Much less can he enunciate any scientific formulas respecting philosophy, history, or any positive object, without doing so. Vast numbers of men are ignorant of the true and formed conception of God, but every one of them affirms the idea in every distinct thought which he thinks; and every human language, however rude, embodies and perpetuates it under forms and conceptions which are remotely derived from the original and infallible speech of the primitive revelation. Although the mass of mankind cannot evolve the idea of God into a distinct conception, and even gentile philosophy failed to enunciate this conception in an adequate form, yet when this conception is clearly and perfectly enunciated by pure theistic and Christian philosophy, reason is able to recognize it as the expression of its own primitive and ultimate idea. It perceives that the object which it has always beheld by an obscure intuition, is God, as proposed in the first article of the Christian formula. The Christian church, in instructing the uninstructed or partially instructed mind in pure theism, interprets to it, and explicates for it, its own obscure intuition. Thus it is able to see the truth of the being of God; not as a new, hitherto unknown idea, received on pure authority, or by a long deduction from more ultimate truths, or as the result of a number of probabilities; but as a truth which constitutes the ultimate ground of its own rational existence, and is only unfolded and disclosed to it in its own consciousness by the word and teaching of the instructor, who gives distinct voice to its own inarticulate or defectively uttered affirmation of God. So it is, that God affirms himself to the reason originally by the creative act which is first apprehended by the reason through the medium of the sensible, and interpreted by the sensible signs of language to the uninstructed. Thus we know God by creation, and the creation comes into the most immediate contact with us on its sensible side.

It has been said above, that we cannot separate the creative act from God in the primitive idea of reason. It is not meant by this that reason has {520} an intuition of God as necessarily a creator. What is meant is, that the idea of God present to an intelligent mind distinct from God, presupposes the creative act affirming to it an object distinct from itself, and itself as distinct from the object. When the subject is conscious of this truth, "God affirms himself to me," there are two terms in the formula, "God," and "Me;" involving the third uniting term of the creative act. The perception of other existences is simultaneous with the perception of himself, but logically prior to it; and his first rational act apprehends the existence of contingent, created substances, as well as the being of the absolute, uncreated essence. The elements of God and creation are in the most ultimate and primitive act of reason, and therefore in its constitutive idea. The creation is the idea of finite essences in God externized by the Word who speaks them into existence. By the same Word, the intelligent, rational portion of creation is enlightened with the knowledge of this idea. It beholds God, as he expresses this idea in the creative act, and in no otherwise. It cannot see immediately, the necessity of his being, or, so to speak, the cause why God is and must be, but only the affirmation of this necessity in the creative act. But this affirmation is necessarily in conformity with the truth. It presents being as absolute, and creation as contingent, and therefore not necessary. False conceptions may not discriminate accurately between the two terms, being and existence; but when these false conceptions are corrected, and the idea brought fully into light, the very terms in which it is expressed clearly indicate God as alone necessary, creation as contingent, and the creative act as proceeding from the free will of the Creator.

God, and creation, are thus simultaneously affirmed in the creative act constituting the soul; although God is affirmed as first and creation second, in the logical order: God as cause and creation as effect; and although creation may be first distinctly perceived and reflected on, as being more connatural to the reflecting subject himself, and more directly in contact with his senses and reflecting faculties. The knowledge of God is limited to that which he expresses by the similitude of himself exhibited in the creation. Our positive conceptions of God in the reflective order are therefore derived from the imitations, or representations of the divine attributes in the world of created existences. An infinite, and, to natural powers, impassable abyss, separates us from the immediate intuition of the Divine Essence. The highest contemplative cannot cross this chasm; and the ultimatum of mystic theology is no more than the confession that the essence of God is unseen and invisible to any merely human intuition, unknown and unknowable by the natural power of any finite intelligence. We know ut Deus sit, sed non quid sit Deus--that God is, but not what he is. We know that God is, by the affirmation of his being to reason. [Footnote 90] We form conceptions that enable our reflective faculties to grasp this affirmation, by means of the created objects in which he manifests his attributes, and through which, as through signs and symbols, images and pictures, he represents his perfections.

[Footnote 90: That is, after we have demonstrated that which is involved in the idea of being.]

This is the doctrine of St. Paul, the great father of Christian theology.

"Quis enim hominum, scit quae sunt hominis, nisi spiritus hominis qui in ipso est? Ita, et quae Dei sunt, nemo cognovit, nisi Spiritus Dei."

"For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of man which is in him? So the things also that are of God, no one knoweth but the Spirit of God."

We understand this to mean, that God alone has naturally the immediate intuition of his own essence and of the interior life and activity of his own being within himself.