The Catholic World Volume I Part 103

"Entirely alone; but so gay, of a disposition so sweet, that though poorly fed and overworked she never complained. When she pa.s.sed, morning and night, she had always a pleasant word for old Antoine. You will not believe it, but for three days she has not been down. I have been as much afflicted as if she were my own child."

So saying, he wiped a tear which fell on his white mustache.

During the day Jacques recalled the words of the old man. He was sad at the thought of the poor girl, sick without a friend near her, for even Antoine was detained at the lodge during his wife's absence. He did not know her (and that was not surprising, as in Paris two neighbors often live strangers to each other) and had never seen her: he was troubled that she suffered, and that no one was near her to alleviate her suffering. He resolved to speak to his mother in the evening of her case, that she might go and take care of her. He thought how Madeleine might fall sick, and have no one near her. He determined to confide to his mother the secret of his love, and to beg her to see Madeleine and obtain her consent to their marriage.

In the evening he informed his mother of their neighbor's illness, and the next day Mme. Durand took her place at her bedside. It was a dangerous illness, but youth, good care, prayer, and a novena to the Blessed Virgin triumphed, and at the end of fifteen days she began to improve. During this time Mme. Durand devoted herself to this sweet, patient child. When her care was no longer necessary she continued to go every morning to her patient's room. They worked and talked together. Mme. Durand spoke of her son and she of her mother whom she had lost, and insensibly a mutual affection sprang up between them.

Jacques listened with interest to his mother's praise of the sick child, and was for a moment distracted from his remembrance of Madeleine. He had, moreover, that modesty of true love which shrank from the avowal of its tenderness. His mother knew nothing of his love, and touched by the sweetness and patience of the young girl whom she had nursed, hoped she might yet become her son's wife.

One evening in the month of June he was walking with his mother in the gardens of the Luxembourg. He remembered his last meeting with Madeleine, which recalled these verses of Brizeux:

"Un jeune homme Natlf du meme eudroit, travailleur, econome En vyant sa belle ame, en voyant sou beau corps L'airnee: les vieilles gens firent lea deux accords."

He was about to speak to his mother of Madeleine when she said to him, "My son, you are entering your {702} twenty-sixth year, it is time for you to marry, and if you wish, I should like to call our neighbor, the young girl whom I have nursed, my daughter."

"Mother," said Jacques, "I cannot marry her, I love another." He then related his simple story, and p.r.o.nounced for the first time Madeleine's name. Mme. Durand listened much moved. She understood and shared the trusting faith of her son. "My child," said she, "it shall be as you desire. I will go on Sunday to the Patronage."

The week pa.s.sed. Mme. Durand continued to see her patient often, and she, nearly restored, came sometimes to her apartment at the time Jacques was at the printing office, for his mother wished to prevent a meeting which might perhaps trouble an innocent heart. But on Sat.u.r.day, having returned sooner than usual, he found the young girl in his mother's room. They conversed a moment, and she withdrew. In the pallid face he recognized the sweet countenance of Madeleine. When she had gone, he embraced his mother, weeping and smiling at the same time. "It is she, it is my sweet Madeleine." His mother, returning his embrace, exclaimed, "She shall be your wife and my daughter."

I must tell you how, on Jacques' return from work, Mme. Durand went for Madeleine, how they pa.s.sed many a pleasant evening in conversation or in reading a good book, and under their mother's eye loved each other with a pure and earnest love.

At the end of a month Mme. Durand obtained the consent of Madeleine, but she said nothing to her of her son's secret, of their meeting, of the letter, of the feelings so long cherished, nor of the protection of Mary, who had brought together these two Christian souls. This she left for him to relate one day when he was alone with his betrothed.

She listened much affected, and you may be surprised to learn that she forgot to ask for the lost letter and the medal of the Virgin.

Mme. Durand saw the good abbe and the sister at the Patronage, and they approved the marriage. The consent of the soldier brother was asked and obtained.

The marriage was to take place in a few days. "Beg pardon," says Antoine, "these two young people were made for each other--a fine match really. You will not believe me, but I love them as if they were my own children."

Lucien came to Paris for the wedding. From the first he made a conquest of Antoine. It turned out that Antoine too had served in the 110th. The two heroes talked of their campaigns. One related the battle of Champaubert, the other that of Solferino. The medal of St.

Helena fraternized with the Italian medal; they drank to the laurels of the old 110th, to the triumphs of the new. The veteran and the conscript became the best friends in the world.

The great day arrived. The abbe blessed the union and Antoine gave away the bride. He straightened his bent figure; he put a new ribbon in his medal. He was prouder than on the evening of Champaubert, when Napoleon said, "Soldiers of the 110th, you are heroes?" Brother Lucien, with his corporal's badge and his Italian medal, added much to the brilliancy of the cortege. Mesdames Durand and Antoine put on their richest dresses. What shall we say of Madeleine in her bridal dress? of her veil, and the wreath upon her auburn tresses? of the sweet face reflecting the purity of an innocent heart and a chaste love? of the tears which flow when the heart is too full? of the sacred hour when this Christian couple unite in a common prayer?

Now they are married they do not seek pleasures abroad. Their happiness is found in their daily labor, their evening conversation, or reading; on Sunday, after ma.s.s, a walk to the Tuileries, while their mother at their side smiles on their love. Their hearts are drawn so near together that {703} they beat in unison, they think and feel at the same time. At last a child makes one more joy in this joyous house--one stronger bond between these united souls. Such is their pure affection: a love which age can never wither, a love born of a prayer, and blest by G.o.d.

Jacques has reaped the fruit of his labor; he has paid all the debts of the past, and ease and plenty have returned to the household. He hopes to be soon taken into partners.h.i.+p with his employer.

They do not wish to leave the old house in the Rue du Four-Saint-Germain, so filled with sweet memories, but they have taken a lower floor, they have a large apartment, and are almost rich. The poor have their share of their riches.

Lucien, the soldier, has entirely reformed, and has risen to the rank of sergeant. Perhaps he may yet wear an officer's epaulettes.

Old Antoine grows old, but his heart remains young; his figure is more bent, but he still straightens it when he speaks of Napoleon, and relates to our friends the battle of Champaubert. He was the G.o.dfather of the little boy. "A fine child," said he "Beg pardon, we will make a general of him." "I am willing, I am sure," said Madeleine, "but we must first make him a Christian."

From The London Review.

CATHOLIC PROGRESS IN LONDON.

There are few questions upon which there exists a greater variety of opinion, and with regard to which such contradictory statements are published, as upon the increase of Roman Catholicism in the metropolis. There are those on one hand who believe that it has made no progress at all, and that the rumors of "conversions," and even those Roman Catholic buildings which have of late years sprung up in such abundance around us, are not to be taken as proofs of such an increase in the numbers of Roman Catholics as the latter at least seem to indicate. Others believe without doubting that the Catholic Church is silently and energetically spreading its ramifications over the metropolis, and that there is hardly a household of any respectability in which its agents, in some form or other, have not contrived to get a footing; while there are persons who go so far as to a.s.sert that many of the Protestant clergy themselves are the direct emissaries of Rome, doing her work, and doing it consciously--nay, doing it under compact--while receiving the pay of the National Church. We believe that the truth will be found to lie between these extreme views. Not only has the Church of Rome gained ground in London, but it is steadily progressing, even at the present time, though by no means at such a rate, except in certain parishes, as to occasion the slightest danger to the Protestant cause, if only a moderate amount of energy and good will is shown by the Reformed denominations in securing their flocks within their own folds. We have already stated our belief that the fact of a clergyman holding High or Low Church views is not in any manner whatever necessarily connected with the increase of Catholicism among his congregation, but that such increase is owing either to the lack of a sufficient staff of the Protestant clergy to {704} repel its advances, or to the apathy or inefficiency of the inc.u.mbent, or, as may be especially shown in some wealthy districts, to that mysterious want of power in the clergy of the Church of England over the minds of the rich and influential of their paris.h.i.+oners. And that this view is not without some basis in fact, will be seen when we have described the present relative position of the Catholic and Anglican Churches in the wealthy, aristocratic, and populous parish of Kensington, comprising as it does the three wards of Notting-hill, Kensington, and Brompton.

Formerly, for the accommodation of the whole of the Roman Catholics of the parish of Kensington, there was but one small chapel near the High street, which appeared amply sufficient for the members of that creed.

But ten or twelve years ago a Roman Catholic builder purchased, at an enormous price, a plot of ground about three acres in extent beside the church of the Holy Trinity, Brompton. For a time considerable mystery prevailed as to the uses it was to be applied to; but, shortly after the buildings were commenced, they were discovered to be for the future residence and church of the Oratorian fathers, then established in King William street, Strand. As soon as a portion of the building was finished, the fathers removed to it from their former dwelling; and the chapel, a small and commodious erection, was opened for divine service. At first the congregation was of the scantiest description; even on Sundays at high ma.s.s, small as the chapel was, it was frequently only half filled, while, on week days, at many of the services, it was no uncommon circ.u.mstance to find the attendances scarcely more numerous than the number of priests serving at the altar. By degrees the congregation increased, till the chapel was found too small for their accommodation, and extensive additions were made to it; but these, again, were soon filled to overflowing, and further alterations had to be made, till at last the building was capable of holding without difficulty from 2,000 to 2,500 persons. It is now frequently so crowded at high ma.s.s that it is difficult for an individual entering it after the commencement of the service to find even standing room. In the meantime the monastery itself, if that is the proper term, was completed--a splendid appearance it presents-- and we believe is now fully occupied.

The Roman Catholic population in the parish, or mission, under the spiritual direction of the fathers of the Oratory, now comprises between 7,000 and 8,000 souls. The average attendance at ma.s.s on Sundays is about 5,000, and the average number of communions for the last two years has been about 45,000 annually. But in addition to this church, Kensington has three others, St. Mary's, Upper Holland street, St. Simon Stock, belonging to the Carmelite Friars, and the church of St. Francis a.s.sissi in Notting Hill. Of monasteries, or religious communities of men, it has the Oratorians before mentioned, and the Discalced Carmelites, in Vicarage place. Of convents of ladies, it has the a.s.sumption in Kensington square, the Poor Clares Convent in Edmond terrace, the Franciscan Convent in Portobello road, the Sisters of Misericorde, 195 Brompton road, and the Sisters of Jesus, 4 Holland villas. Of schools, the Roman Catholics possess, in the parish of Kensingtion, the Orphanage in the Fulham road, the Industrial School of St. Vincent de Paul, as well as the large Industrial Schools for girls in the southern ward. All these schools are very numerously attended, the gross number of pupils amounting to 1,200, those of the Oratory alone being 1,000. The kindness and consideration shown by the Roman Catholic teachers to the children of the poor is above all praise, not only in Kensington, but in all localities where they are under their charge.

It might be imagined from this account of the Roman Catholic inst.i.tutions in Kensington, that a general {705} rush had been made upon that parish, and that the surrounding districts were comparatively free from Roman Catholics. Such, however, is very far from being the case. In the union of Fulham and Hammersmith we have the Roman Catholic church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the church of the Holy Trinity, Brook-green, and the church of Our Lady of Grace, Turnham-green. Of monasteries there are the St. Mary's Training College and the Brothers of Mercy, and for ladies there is the order of the Good Shepherd. Of charities and schools they have the Holy Trinity alms-houses on Brook-green, a home for aged females, a refuge for female penitents, most admirably managed and producing a most beneficial effect, an excellent reformatory for criminal boys, the large industrial schools of St. Vincent de Paul, and a home, St.

Joseph's, for dest.i.tute boys. In Bays-water there is the cathedral of St. Mary's of the Angels (of which the celebrated Dr. Manning is the superior) and the convent of Notre Dame de Sion. In Chelsea there is the church of St. Mary's, Cadogan terrace, a convent for the Sisters of Mercy, another for the Third Order of Servites, as well as two well conducted and numerously attended schools.

In the united parishes of St. Margaret's and St. John's, Westminster, a few years since, the priests opened their campaign with considerable energy. In addition to their church in the Horsferry road, which was opened in 1813, they erected those of St. Peter's and St. Edmond's in Palace street, the superior priest of the latter being the celebrated Father Roberts, a man not only respected for the energy he shows in the cause of his religion, but beloved by all cla.s.ses for his philanthropy. To these some schools and convents were added, the most celebrated of the latter being that of the Sisters of Charity in Victoria street. At first the priests seemed to be sanguine of success in the parish; but their advance was met by men of as much ability, courage, and energy as themselves.

On the Surrey side of the water the Catholic Church has the magnificent cathedral dedicated to St. George, in St. George's Fields; the church of the Most Holy Trinity, Parker's road, Dockhead, Bermondsey; the church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Trinity road, Rotherithe; that of Our Lady of La Salette and St.

Joseph, Melior street, Southwark; and the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Windham street, Camberwell; beside several others in Peckham, Clapham, Lambeth, and the surrounding districts. Of communities of men there are the Capuchines at Peckham and at Clapham, the Redemptorists, and the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Of convents they have the Religious of the Faithful Virgin at Norwood, which also comprises an orphanage; the order of the Sisters of Mercy in Bermondsey; the order of the Sisters of the Christian Retreat, St.

Joseph's, Kennington; the Little Sisters of the Poor, Fentiman road, Lambeth; beside one or two others of minor importance. It should also be remarked that all these establishments, with one or two exceptions, have sprung up within the last ten or twenty years. Of the numbers of the congregations of the different churches it would be difficult to form a just idea, but they are certainly very great; that properly attached to St. George's cathedral alone we have been a.s.sured, on most reliable Roman Catholic authority, amounting to 12,000 or 13,000. The number of children attending the schools is doubtless proportionably great.

In the north-eastern portion of the metropolis, we find the Roman Catholics, although they have lately built several new churches, are fully occupied in holding their own ground without exerting themselves to make converts. And here, opposed as we are to their creed on doctrinal points, it would be unjust to withhold our meed of praise to the exertions of the priests in relieving the temporal miseries of {706} their poor. It would be difficult to imagine charitable efforts carried on more indefatigably or n.o.bly. Few who have not visited and personally inspected the different courts and alleys in the neighborhood of Spitalfields, Bethnal-green, St. George's-in-the-East, and Ratcliffe Highway, inhabited as they are by the poor Irish, can have an idea of the abject poverty which reigns in them, or the amount of patience, courage, and Christian feeling necessary to relieve it.

Yet all this is cheerfully performed by the Roman Catholic priesthood, their energies appearing to increase in proportion as the difficulties and dangers before them become greater. It would perhaps be an injustice to their body in this district to select any for notice in preference to the rest; but we cannot refrain from making special mention of the labors of the Rev. Father Kelley, of Ratcliffe Highway, and the Rev. Father Chaurain, of Spitalfields, into the results of whose exertions we have made personal investigation.

In the northern districts of the metropolis, especially in Islington and its surrounding neighborhoods, the Roman Catholics appear to have made considerable progress. They have lately built several new churches as well as houses for religious communities, both for men and women. That their progress in the metropolis is not solely the result of the High-Church practices in the establishment may be presumed from the fact that, although the inhabitants of Islington and its vicinity are particularly noted for their attachment to Low-Church principles, Catholicism has gained more ground there than in localities where Puseyism is dominant. In the north-western districts it does not appear to have increased, though the churches are well attended, and the congregations apparently very numerous. That of one of the largest, Our Lady's church, in St. John's Wood, is 6,000, and the children in the schools 600. In the central districts of London Roman Catholic churches are very numerous and proportionately well attended; those in Moorfields, and those in the neighborhood of Covent Garden and Piccadilly, being particularly so.

One of the most effective means employed by the Roman Catholics to make the conversions is the opening of schools for the education of children of the poor; nor do they hesitate to admit that these schools are not only open to the children of their own persuasion, but to all who may choose to avail themselves of them. This is clear from the speech of the late Cardinal Wiseman at the Roman Catholic Congress held at Malines in the autumn of 1863. Speaking of the hundreds of ragged children, scarcely knowing their parents, he had been accustomed to meet in the different lanes and alleys of the poorer London localities, he says: "We are doing all we can to gather these poor little outcasts together, and to give them Christian training.

The schools in which they are taught, and to which I am at present alluding, are themselves situated in a truly fearful spot, Charles street, Drury lane. We owe them in a great measure to the great zeal of the fathers of the Oratory. Their cost has been no less than 12,000. The Religious Sisters from Tournay, with a devotion truly heroic, have undertaken the care of the girls' school. For some time past we have had the consolation of seeing increased, by 1,000 a year, the number of children attending our schools for the poor; there still remain 17,000 poor children who attend no school."

The Catholic Church judges rightly that a few years hence the children under its care will not only augment the number of adult members of its faith, but will proportionately swell their ranks in the next generation. Nor is this danger to the Protestant cause to be despised.

All their schools are admirably managed, and the children in them are treated with the greatest kindness and consideration. We have visited several, and in all we remarked a great affection and {707} respect existing in the minds of the pupils for their teachers, the latter not considering that their duties are over when the cla.s.ses are dismissed, but afterward entering into their amus.e.m.e.nts and occupations with great patience and good humor. We lately visited unexpectedly the school alluded to by Cardinal Wiseman, and although lessons were over we found one of the masters in the large play-room busily employed in instructing a dozen of the most ragged urchins it would be possible to find in that squalid and impoverished locality in the mysteries of spinning peg-tops. Such acts of kindness to children are not forgotten when they grow up, and a better means of binding them to their faith when adults it would be impossible to imagine.

In Gate street, Lincoln's Inn-fields, is another school of the same description. We have watched its progress since its establishment, and marked the great increase in the number of its scholars. It commenced with very few, but must now number several hundreds. Those in Drury-lane have more than four hundred children, among whom, perhaps, not ten before the buildings were erected were receiving any instruction whatever. All the Roman Catholic charities appear to be admirably managed; their orphanages especially so. Those of the Sisters of Charity in Victoria street, Westminster, and Norwood, considering the comparatively small means at the disposal of their priesthood, are perfect models of what inst.i.tutions of the kind ought to be; at the same time, it must not be imagined that the Roman Catholic charities in London are solely of a description calculated to obtain converts to their creed. Their reformatories for fallen women and their exertions for the relief of the sick are worthy of the highest praise. An hospital, with a church attached, solely for chronic and incurable diseases, has for some time been established in Great Ormond street, at the expense of a gentleman of wealth. The hospital is under the care of the prioress and sisters of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and we never saw an infirmary of the kind better managed. A large staff of nuns nurse the sick; and not only are their numbers greater in proportion to those of the patients than in any of our metropolitan hospitals, but their attention and kindness to those under their charge might serve as a model to many of our Protestant inst.i.tutions of a similar character.

{708}

From Chambers's Journal.

A VANIs.h.i.+NG RACE.

The residence of Captain C. F. Hall in the arctic regions, and his explorations among the solemn and majestic wastes surrounded by the "hyperborean seas," have invested the Esquimaux with a degree of interest which they had never previously excited. The savage inhabitants of the more beautiful and fertile regions of the earth have been observed by travellers with close and careful attention, which leads to hopeful efforts for their civilization. As the map of the world is opened up to our comprehension, new schemes and prospects for the advance of the human race are opened with it; savans, artists, missionaries, merchants, gird themselves to the contest with the material and moral conditions of the peoples yet, though the world's day has lasted so long, in their infancy, whose unknown future may contain histories as brilliant as those of the civilizations of the present and the past. But there is a race who have not excited such hopes, who have not given rise to such exertions--a race whose life of unimaginable hards.h.i.+p gives them a mysterious resemblance to the phantoms of mythological belief, and places them beyond the reach of the sympathies of civilization by its physical conditions, the amelioration of which is impossible. Beyond the stern barrier which nature has set in the northernmost part of her awful realm, behind the terrible rampart of snow and ice, and storm and darkness, these creatures of her wrath, rather than of her bounty, dwell. To reach their land, the traveller must leave behind him every familiar object, and abandon every habit or need of ordinary life. He must bid farewell to green trees, to fertile fields, to the crops which give food to man and beast, to the domestic animals, to every mode of conveyance, to every implement of common use, to food and clothing such as even the poorest and roughest sons of a less terrible clime may command; to the thousand voices of nature, even in its secluded nooks, It is a mockery to speak of the arctic regions as the land of the Esquimaux, for nowhere on the earth is man less sovereign. Here nature is indeed grand beyond conception, but also terrible, implacable, and impenetrable. She sets man aside in her awful scorn; he is a thing of no moment, a c.u.mberer of the ice-fields, learning the simple lessons whereby he supports his squalid existence from the brutes, which are lordlier than he, inasmuch as the ice-slavery is no chain of servitude to them; and heedless of him, of his terrible hunger and dest.i.tution, of his hopeless isolation, she builds her ice-palaces upon the seas, and locks the land in her glittering ice-chains, and flings her terrific banners of flame wide against the northern sky; and sends her voice abroad, without a tone of pity in its vibrations, sounding through the troubled depths of the waters and the rent ma.s.ses of the many-tinted icebergs. Nature is indeed beautiful in her northern strongholds, but her beauty shows only its terrible aspects, its dread grandeur. The face of the mighty mother does not soften into a smile for the feebleness of her youngest-born offspring, but is fixed in its awful sublimity. There is no point of contact between this ice-kingdon and European civilization, and men of our race and tongue shrink from it with an appalled sadness, for has it now been the tomb of many of our brave and beloved? Three centuries ago it earned that evil reputation, which, in the then elementary state of geographical knowledge, and the general prevalence of superst.i.tion, a.s.sumed a weird and baleful form. It has but increased {709} in degree, though differing in kind, in our days, and we think of the arctic regions as the sepulchre of the beloved dead, the land toward which the heart of England yearned, and which kept pitiless silence through long years of hope deferred. But of its people we do not think; we are satisfied to have but a vague notion of them; to wonder, amid the many marvels of that mighty problem--the distribution of the human race--how human beings ever found their way to those dreadful fastnesses, more cruel in their exaction of human suffering than the desert and the forest.

This indifference gives way when we learn what manner of people these are whom we call Esquimaux, a word which signifies "eaters of raw food," but who call themselves _Innuit_, or "the people," and explain their own origin by a story which is a pleasing testimony to the common possession of self-conceit by all nations. They say that the Creator made white men first, but was dissatisfied with them, regarded them as worthless unfinished creatures, and straightway set about making the Innuit people, who proved perfectly satisfactory.

Captain Hall lived among this strange race for two years and a half, and he is about to return and prosecute his researches in Boothia and King William's Land. This time, his object is to trace the remnants of the Franklin expedition, which--as he finds the history of the few events which have ever marked the progress of time in that distant land handed down by oral tradition with extraordinary distinctness--he has no doubt of being able to do. His first journey was in search of relics of the Frobisher expedition, and was as successful as it was daring, patient, and persevering. His experiences were strange in all respects, and in many most revolting; but we owe much to this cheerful, courageous, simple-hearted American gentleman, who has revealed the Esquimaux to us as Captain Grant has revealed the African tribes, and oriental tourists the dwellers in the deserts. There is poetical harmony in the stern conditions of life among the Innuits; there is the impress of sadness and of sterility upon them all. Time itself changes its meaning in a land where

"The sun starts redly up To s.h.i.+ne for half a year,"

and dim wintry twilight lasts throughout the other half, and hunger is the normal state of the people. The traveller's route is to be traced on the map, which is mere guess-work hitherto, up the western side of Davis's Strait; and once away from Holsteinborg, the journey a.s.sumes all its savage features. The terrible icebergs rear their menacing ma.s.ses in the track of the s.h.i.+p; the sun pours its beams upon them, and bathes them in golden light; they appear in fantastic shapes of Gothic cathedral, of battlemented tower, of clear single-pierced spire, of strong fenced city, of jewel-mountain, of vast crystal hills; and so, as the voyager leaves art and civilization behind, their most supreme forms flash a mirage-like reminiscence upon him, intensifying the contrast of the prospect, and luring him to a frantic and futile regret.

A grand and terrible confusion reigns around; the voyager shrinks from the overwhelming scene, where ranges of mountains, islands, rocks, castles, huge formless ma.s.ses, and gorgeous prismatic lights, surround that laboring speck upon the mystic sea, of whose littleness he is so small an atom; and a strange sense, which is not fear, but awe, comes to him with the knowledge that nothing of this sublime confusion is real, on the horizon or beyond it. For all the time of his stay in the arctic regions he is to be surrounded by contradictions, by the sublimest manifestations of nature, by the lowest conditions of humanity, by gorgeous and majestic optical delusions, and by the hardest and most grovelling facts of daily existence; he must share, to their fullest extent, the relentless physical needs of the {710} people, and live, if he would live at all, in close contact with them--and yet his solitude must be inwardly profound and unapproachable; his purposes unintelligible to his a.s.sociates; and their language, elementary in itself, dimly and scantily comprehended by him even in its most sparing forms. All this without any of the alleviations of life among savages in southern countries--without the warmth, which, if sometimes oppressive, is ordinarily grateful--without the rich and genial beauties of nature--without the resources of sport without the natural fruits of the earth--without the intellectual occupation of speculating upon development, of ascertaining capabilities, or of investigating sources of wealth. The civilized dweller in arctic regions has none of these. He beholds, with admiration so solemn as to be painful, the unapproachable dignity and hard implacable stillness of nature; but he never dreams of treasure to be wrested from the cells of the ice-prison; he seeks the dead--the dead of centuries ago--the dead of a decade since, to be found, it may be, incorporated with their frozen resting place; for the fiat of nature arrests decay in these terrible regions, where death and life are always at close gripes with one another. While the mind is ceaselessly impressed with sadness and solemnity, the body a.s.serts its claim to superiority; it will not be forgotten or neglected, for cold encompa.s.ses it with unrelaxing menace of death, and hunger preys upon the vitals, whose heat wanes rapidly in the pitiless climate, and which crave for the nutriment so hard to procure, so repulsive when procured.