The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

immediately fur Turin ; hind his interview with
the duchess is thus described :

The sight of a foreign army would have been less
appalling to the duchess than that of the feeble old man,
who vainly sought to hide his agitation beneath the
respectful courtesy with which he ever strove to regard
his sovereign.
" Always welcome, my lord," were the duchess's first
words, giving her hand to be kissed, in return for the deep
obeisance of the aged soldier, who had so bravely fought
her country's battles for nearly half a century.
" My daughter, your grace ln this room I
parted with her. I lent her—my fairest treasure—to
your grace. You promised to be as a mother to my
motherless one." _ .

....._..
" Sit down, my lord. We are alone. I have much to
say."
His tottering limbs refused to support him, and ho sunk
into n chair.

" Your daughter was greatly beloved amongst us, my
lord. I ler beauty, her sweet and gentle temper, her wit and
liveliness, made her a universal favorite."
The o'd man bowed his head in acknowledgment of
praise he felt fully deserved.
" The duke often remarked her when he was with me,
and my excellent friend the archbishop took the deepest
interest in her."

Neither of these last pieces of information were particu-
larly pleasant to the father. lie knew the duke's weak-
ness for beauty ; and he was fur too 115 nest and straight-
forward himself to admire the archbishop, whose extra-
ordinary talents as well as craft and subtlety were well
known to him.

" His grace's deep interest induced him earnestly to
desire to bring so fair and engaging a being as your
daughter into the true Church," continued the duchess.
The count started, and set bolt upright in his chair.
. .

" Knowing your attachment to our holy religion, he was
convinced you would feel truly grateful to him should he
succeed in securing her eternal safety, which, as you are
well aware, was deeply perilled by her heretical views."
" Madam," replied the count hastily, " I cannot even
from my sovereign hear such words. Her mother, madam
—her sainted mother "—his voice trembled. " I have
never known a woman, Catholic or Protestant, worthy to
hold a candle to her mother! That mother is in heaven
—if there be a holy heaven, as I believe there ia. I wish
the archbishop was as sure of going there himself," added
he, in a low voice.

Your views, my lord," said the duchess, gently, " are
scarcely in accordance with Pope l'ius's creed, which is
the orthodox creed of our holy Church. Believing, as his
grace is bound to do, that salvation is only to be found in
the true Church, he loved your daughter's soul well enough
to seek to secure her safety."
" And what effect had his grace's exhortations on the
child ? " said the count, with difficulty restraining his
anger.
" His efforts are crowned with success."
" And Beatrice is—"

" Beatrice has joined the true Church."
" Madam, madam," said the count, starting from his
seat, "is my word to be counted as a thing of nought, a
figment of no value? I promised that child's mother that
I would never interfere with her daughter's religion, and
of course that promise implied I would never allow it to
be interfered with. I told you that promise when I left
her in your care ; and when your grace condescended to
say you would act as a mother to her, I considered that
that promise would be acted upon. Pardon me, your
grace ; I am a plain old soldier. I have learned honour
and truth in fighting your husband's and your father's
battles, my noble ►nasters, who scorned to break their
word. I have been deceived where I trusted," and the old
man's wrath grew hotter and hotter. " That cursed
archbishop, what bIiSiIICAS had he to meddle with my
wife's child"" and curses deep and low fell from his lips
like rain.

"My lord !" said the duchess; but the lather's anger
was not to he restrained.

"My lamb, my sweet lamb, in his hands. Better, far
better, have sold her to the Turks. Where is the child?
Your grace has not told me where she is. Has he mur-
dered her body in his tender care for her soul. The old
hypocrite ;
the—
" Count Julien," said the duchess, with dignity, " I can
excuse a father's anxiety, but I will not hear such languaise
—such coarse abuse of so holy a man."

The count, who was too glad of the absent archbishop
to vent his anger on, instead of the present duchess, whom
in his heart he condemned nearly as strongly, reined in
his indignation for a moment. The image of his beautiful
Beatrice rose before him, and his heart yearned to shelter
her once more in his arms. He burst into tears, and
threw himself at the duchess's feet.

" Your grace is a mother. By all the love you bear your
only child, tell me instantly, I conjure you, where my child
is." The grief of a strong man is strangely infectious;
and as the hoary head before her trembled with the
violence of his emotion, the tears filled the duchess's eyes.
She answered immediately,
" In the Ursuline Convent, in the Val Montiere."

" A convent!" and he started to his feet, rage again
overmastering sorrow. "In a convent ! without a word of
reference to me. Madam, madam ! is this the reward of
my fifty years' service? A convent! a thousand times had
1 rather she was in a Turk's harem. A convent!—hut
she cannot have taken the vows : there is time yet to save
her."

' Snve her ? my lonl ! is this your thanks to me, and to
the archbishop, fur winning your fair elnid into the only
true Church ?"

The count looked her full in the face. Her eye fell
before that look of indignaut scrutiny.
" Is this the care of her which your grace promised
me?" replied he sternly. "Can you suppose I would ever

SATURDAY,

have trusted my treasure to ;our keeping, had i isaaginia
you would have robbed me of her ?"
" Consider her soul."

" I had rather she shared her mother's lot both in this
world and the next, than the lot in either world of that
Judas the archbishop." And unable to restrain his fury,
with a deep obeisance, the old soldier hurried from the
room. _ _

-----
Beatrice is restored to her father ; but an
idle story of her forcible detention is made
the pretext for an attack on the convent by
some mischievous vagabonds of the Protes-
tant community, who think frightening nuns
good sport; but the matter becomes serious
when the building is set on fire and the poor
inmates escape with difficulty from the burn-
ing ruins. We should gladly quote the whole
of this spirited description, but it is too long
for insertion, and we must content ourselves
with a shorter extract of a graver cast :
Nothing that Beatrice saw amongst the sisterhood in•
dated her to desire a convent life. With scarcely at:
exception, their minds were contrazted—their views of
life were bounded by the convent in which they lived.
Nor did the heavenly Bridegroom to whom they had been
devoted by their vows, seem to occupy more of their
thoughts than if they had been living in the hurry of the
daily pursuits of the world, which they conceived they had
forsaken. The bell called them at stated hours to prayers,
and they knelt in apparent devotion in the chapel ; bat
Beatrice often detected the wandering eye and listless
manner which she had felt herself and seen in others at
the Protestant service she had attended. The daily busi.
nem of the convent interested ,them as fully, and occa•
sinned as much discussion and contrivance, as the affairs
of their families cost the mothers of the valley.
_ .

Except with the abbess and two or three of the sister-
hood, Beatrice felt that the things of time were as all Un-
portant in the convent as they were in Turin—the things
of eternity as uncongenial. Ah ! it is the heaven•set heart
which it is so difficult to obtain. No place, no outward
forms can give it—it is the work of God's spirit alone.
It is not harder to preserve it in a court than it is in a
convent. The crucifixion of self is the daily duty of every
Christian—a duty as hard to fulfil in a convent as in a
court. Every one is apt to think—" Were my circum-
stances different in this or that particular I could serve
God better." No such thing. The difficulty is in the
heart within, not in the outward circumstances: get the
heart under the influence of grace, and where the body is
will make little difference. This is a truth broadly stated.
It is of course open to some modifications. The 'heart
under the influence of grace, implies the will renewed by
the power of God—the likeness of the Saviour again im-
pressed upon the heart. An individual so renewed will
not wilfully place himself in circumstances contrary to the
will of Him whom he takes as his guide.

We have thus far spoken only of the story in
its outward and visible aspect; this passage
may give some idea of the inward and spiritual
lessons it is meant to convey. We will not
attempt to decide how far such lessons can
be (otherwise than indirectly) conveyed through
the channel of fiction ; how far important
religious truths can be developed and illus-
trated, and made to yield an obvious moral, in
a tale professing to deal with ordinary human
nature, and therefore in a measure straight-
ened to the bounds of every-day human life.
But, at least, the moral in the story before us,
though strongly brought out, is never un-
naturally forced or violently jerked ►u our
faces whether we can see it or not. Beatrice
is tempted, and yields ; but in like cir-
cumstances such a character impetuous,
unstable, and easily impressed, could
hardly do otherwise. Francisco, the in-
strument of her seeming conversion, loses
sight of all honour, and truth, and integrity
while prosecuting a so-called religious duty ;
but those who have yielded themselves soul
and body to the rules of the Order of Jesus
may, nay must, do so with a blunted con-
science, and a darkened mind ; and his miser-
able end does not startle us as unlikely in ono
suddenly awakened to the reality of his own
moral degradation and blighted affections.
And so also with the subordinate characters.
The powerlessness of mere hearsay religion to
sustain, to guide, and to control, the inherent
oppugnancy of the doctrines of Rotttanisn► to
Scripture, to reason, and therefore to morality,
are the central ideas round which the story
turns ; and though novelty and originality can
hardly be looked for in the application of such
manifest truths, they are here transfused by
a living spirit of piety so real, and charity so
catholic, that they come before us in an aspect
which if not new is at leant rare. We do not
often meet with a book which in every page
betrays the depth of the writer's convictions
and the strength of his sympathies in a spirit
of so much fairness and moderation, without
one word of Protestant partisanship, one trace
of sectarian bigotry. It is a spirit worthy of a