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of erecting more substantial protection, when they decided to give over their roamings and settle into towns and cities, while each one built a house, the art of architecture was little known or thought of. Then we have the massive ruins of Thebes and Babylon, those mysterious relics of dim antiquity scattered through Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, to show us what they could do when once awakened to the knowledge of the capability of stone and mortar to contribute to the dignity and wellbeing of men, or the honor of their deities. And how vocal with old heroic legends seems every rugged stone ! Monuments we would fain believe of the days of Achilles and the Atreidæ. The historians and philosophers of the days of Pericles knew no more of the authors of these gigantic fragments than ourselves. Each rugged gateway may have seen the marshalling of heroes arrayed to man the thousand ships of Argos, and wait upon their chariot-wheels to whom Zeus had consigned her twofold throne and sceptre. We have no space in this article to trace the gradual change which came over this art, as it was studied more and more by the light of the growing intelligences; our part is to point out the patient devotion with which the beautifying of God's temples was carried on during these ages of faith, when, because they were the houses of God, hands and hearts united to make them the wonders of the age and of all ages, not by outside glory, not for display of arch and piers and flying buttresses, but by the ornamentation of every part, however hidden, carving a wreath as delicately and truly far up under the eaves, where mortal eyes would never see it, as over the broad entrance doors. Of course as the study of the beauties of architecture became more general, more attention was paid to the beautifying of private residences. But the first idea of all such buildings was strength alone, providing pro

tection against the almost constant warfare of those times. When we contrast our present puny edifices of brick with those composed of huge blocks of stone, which frown down upon us from so many crags and mountain-sides in Europe, we cannot but feel that modern times have much to learn of the dark ages in this art.

Sculpture and painting are the twin arts which suffered most from the inroads of the barbarians, and were the slowest to recover their pristine glory; in fact, it may be doubted whether the former has ever recovered fully, or whether modern artists can really rival Phidias and the early Greeks. But when these arts did begin to revive, their recovery was rapid, and modern “light” must turn again to the "dark" ages for instruction. No matter how cleverly the fingers may mould the clay or guide the brush, no man or woman among us feels himself or herself an artist until a study of the "antique," either from the originals as preserved in the art galleries of Rome, Paris, Munich, or Dresden, or the copies which have been made for our own, has revealed the secret of their greatness. And but for the churchmen, who were munificent patrons and protectors of art and artists in these dark ages, where would these treasures of Rome and Greece have been after the barbarian whirlwind and its resultant confusion, the long years of wars and rapine, the destruction by ignorant and infuriated mobs? And in studying the history of those days we see again how thoroughly they were "ages of faith." From the earliest resurrection of the painter's art we find them tracing upon the canvas their dream of that most divine group, the Holy Family, or another devotes years of his life to the perfection of a Virgin and Child, or again, the Assumption of the Blessed Mother, or the triumph of God's saints. The greatest geniuses considered all but sacred subjects

infinitely beneath their art, and Michael Angelo's and Raphael's pencils were paralyzed by any other, and even when they were induced or obliged by kingly request or mandate to divert their chisels and brushes to another channel, to the decorations of palaces and public places, how plainly have they not left the traces of their mental bias in the sacred subjects which they chose almost without exception.

A discovery which was to change the whole civilization of the world, quite as much as that of printing, by its influence over manners and customs of peoples, had its birth in the cell of one of those "lazy" monks of which we have spoken. Konstantin Aucklitzen, a native of Fresburg, having entered the Franciscan order, assumed the name of Berthold; being fond of the study of chemistry, and constantly practicing its combinations and experimenting thereon, he obtained the sobriquet of Schwartz. It is to him that we owe the discovery of gunpowder in its application to modern warfare and the chase. This, too, may be called a lost art, for there is incontestable proof of its having been used by the ancients; that is, the compound of nitre, sulphur and charcoal was known to the Hindoos at a very early period, some say as far back as the time of Moses. Alexander of Macedon used it with terrible effect under the name of "Greek fire." But it was looked upon with terror and very little understood, notwithstanding that Roger Bacon described it in his writings, until "Schwartz" surprised himself and the world a hundred years later.

The science of astronomy had been a favorite with the ancients before the Christian era, and while many made it a subject for earnest thought, as shown by the action of the Magi, who recognized a new heavenly body in the star which led them to the crib of Bethlehem, there were not wanting charlatans who de

graded it to their own base uses, and under the name of astrology made it subservient to their own evil purposes, and an instrument by which to mislead and deceive the ignorant. The regular science was not revived, after the destruction of the Roman empire and the settlement of Europe into something resembling its present geographical divisions, until in the thirteenth century, under the patronage of the Church in Spain. But it was not until Johann Müller, surnamed Regiomontanus (a Latinization of the place of his birth, Konigsberg), devoted himself to this study, that any great progress was made. In 1474 he issued the first astronomical almanac published in Europe. Recognizing at once his genius and the service he could confer upon learning and the world, Sixtus IV, then Pope, appointed him Archbishop of Ratisbon, and eagerly secured his services in the reformation of the Roman calendar, but he died before the work was commenced. To him we owe the introduction of decimal fractions, and the science of trigonometry was developed by him nearly to its present state. Copernicus, who was the first to reassert the Pythagorean theory that the sun was stationary in the heavens and that the earth revolved around it, was a priest of the Church, and allowed to teach his doctrine undisturbed save by the commendation and patronage of the Pope and cardinals during his residence at Rome, where he gained a brilliant reputation. Tycho Brahe and Kepler, with Galileo, belong to the century just beyond the boundary of the ages we are studying, yet it will not be out of place, in view of the lies so persistently told of the latter in connection with the Church, to notice them en passant. We see Kepler, the disciple of Tycho Brahe, a Protestant, flying from Protestant persecution to the Jesuit university of Prague, where he was received and

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honored because of his great ability and learning. In Galileo we find the pettish child of genius turning upon the hand that fostered it, and blinded by ambition, daring to impugn the word of God. This attempt, and this attempt alone, was the cause of all the trouble; yet Protestant teachers systematically become possessed of bad memories when Kepler's troubles are cerned, and remember only the starry Galileo and his woes." Kepler was driven from Tübingen, a Protestant university, by Protestant bigotry, for teaching the same truths which Copernicus, the Catholic priest, had taught before him, while Galileo was honored and fêted and patronized at Rome, by Cardinal Bandini, in whose garden his telescope was erected, for teaching that identical theory. Cardinal Barberini, when Pope Urban VIII, proved himself a munificent patron of the astronomer. But Galileo's disposition was one to be injured rather than improved by so much laudation, and he became proud and imperious and began to assert himself like a spoiled child, who can imagine no limit to his privileges. In pushing to completion his development of the Copernican system, which was allowed as an hypothesis, but which he presumed to declare without sufficient proof a fact, he encroached upon the domain of the Church, always so jealously guarded, and dared to throw doubt upon the truth of the Sacred Scriptures, questioning the standing still of the sun at the word of Joshua. Then he was silenced by the Inquisition, and the mere fact of his having been cited before that body has induced writers inimical to the Church to imagine a long and rigorous persecution, carried on with all the venom of ignorance and fear that any new knowledge would destroy a power over the people, preserved only through that ignorance. The story has been told truthfully over and

over again, and the action of the Roman court upheld, even by Protestant writers of calm judgment and common sense, yet the "e pur si muove" and the stamp of the foot is irresistible to sensational historians, and its theatrical effect no schoolboy can forego.

Thus, after a calm survey of the times, we find that the term “dark is decidedly a misnomer. There was light enough in the middle ages to lead the people into the brilliant illumination of the present day, and if any one complained of darkness it was because his eyes were wilfully closed. And we see that the light which so guided the people was set upon the seven hills of Rome, cherished by her hierarchy, trimmed and fed by her God-guided hands. The Popes devoted themselves to the preservation of the Church, and with her of all that the world still held of good, and whether we see a Gregory or a Leo X upon the chair of Peter, whether the means employed seem the foolishness of the dove or the wisdom of the serpent, the end is the same. The arts and sciences, learning and intelligence were fostered and cherished, human passions were restrained by the strong hand of a God-sent authority, and the mighty ship of civilization carefully controlled and piloted amid the storms of centuries. And as the Church stood then she stands to-day, unaltered and unalterable, ever ready to lift her voice against error, ever on the watch to shield with her ægis the sacred form of truth.

As Leo the First drove back from the gates of Rome Attila and his barbarian hordes, not by force of arms, but by the divine power transmitted to him, so with the same holy weapons does Pius IX from his prison hurl forth his denunciations and reproofs against the infidelity of modern times, which threatens to sweep away every vestige of truth and religion from the world. Fearlessly as the one faced unarmed the self

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Can I not follow fair Philosophy,

Yet sometimes listen to the Muse's voice,

When the heart longs to speak and thou art nigh?

O never bid me stifle the loved tone

That whispers to our nature, sadly sweet!

With power to touch the heart with plaintive moan, Or thrill with tales where love and battle meet, Or purer impulse of the soul to greet.

And never ask me to renounce the lore
Unfolding to my gaze fair nature's page.
Still be my guides unto the distant shore,
The poet's heart, the wisdom of the sage !

Wisdom that scorns the poet's tenderness,
That cannot love the beautiful and bright,
And is not moved by sorrow and distress,

Hath never read the page of nature right.

And genius that would scorn the lowly way
Which leads to truth, although by millions trod,
Might humble violets twine with haughty bay,
And learn from children how to soar to God.

There's worldly wisdom, and there's poesy's art,-
Both of this earth; but in their nobler sphere
The sisters twain may teach an erring heart,
Reclaim from sin, and guide in love and fear.

HOW PROFESSOR GASTER LECTURED A GHOST.

THE little old clock in the mottled walnut wood case that stood on the mantelpiece of the Professor's laboratory, No. 18 Great Decoram Street, had just chimed out midnight in a silvery and musical way, when the Professor opened his front door with a latch-key and burglariously entered his own house on his early return from an evening party.

Now, the Professor was a popular lecturer on food, electricity, and other kindred subjects, and being, moreover, a jovial, fat, clever little man, was rather an acquisition at little parties, for he sang a little, played a little, danced a little, flirted a little, and made a fool of himself a little, yet was by no means a bore, but on the contrary, a decidedly useful old bachelor, and would waltz with ugly girls, chat with talkative old fogies, and take gorgeous dowagers down to the supper-room. And as the Professor did not care about being joked at, but on the contrary liked it, and when joked, laughed, and twinkled, and beamed through his silvery spectacles, like a merry old glow-worm, every one forgot his learning and celebrity and liked the Professor heartily.

On the night in question, the Professor was in high spirits-and with some reason. Firstly, he had made two jokes that had set the supper-table in a roar, and had made the jellies shake as if they felt the cold. Secondly, he had waltzed twice with pretty Fanny Ledger, and had received a smile that gave hopes of more intimate relationship being established some day between the houses of Ledger and Gaster. Thirdly, a great thought had struck him as he walked briskly and chirpily home, for his celebrated Treatise on the Merrythought of the Dodo, which was to be read at the Society on the ensuing Wednesday.

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I do not wish to say that the Professor had taken champagne with more people that night than he ought, at Mrs. Fitz Jones's great annual party (though even that would only tend to show the largeness of the excellent man's benevolence), but still I must concede that somehow or other he was abnormally exhilarated, for he danced a cavalier seul as he put his Gibus on the hall-table, and pirouetted as he took off his gray opera wrapper and shawl handkerchief, and lighted his moderator lamp at the flame of the expiring night-light. But as I have often observed that great benevolence and good animal spirits go together, I am sometimes inclined to think that the milk of human kindness is in some constitutions flavored slightly with alcohol, and therefore partakes of the nature of milk-punch. However, I leave this abstruse question to those clear-headed gentlemen the physiologists.

The Professor was as brave as most men, but he was that night, it must be confessed, a little nervous. His nerves were sensitive and wide awake-in the state that I should be inclined to think the telegraph wires are in, that is, constantly and almost fretfully expecting a message to be sent through their medium. The Professor, I think, had got a sort of vague suspicion of ghosts or thieves, material or spiritual intruders, he did not know which, and he did not care which either; for I am sure that in the one case he would have fallen on them with the slender dress cane then in his hand (not a formidable weapon, it must be allowed), and in the other have flung open the front door and shouted for the police. It was, at all events, owing to this slight nervous derangement, I suppose, that the Professor, as he lighted his lamp, went down the two steps that led to

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