The Diothas, or, A Far Look Ahead/Chapter 34
The just-related episode in the history of New York contains nothing to surprise an observant mind accustomed to note the present tendency of things in that city. But that Boston, the liberal, the cultured, the nursing mother of American literature,—that Boston should become the focus of Romanism, not for America only, but for the world,—should, in fine, become associated in the minds of men with all now associated with the name of Rome, will, no doubt, overwhelm others with the same incredulous astonishment the story at first evoked in me. But so it was. Driven from Italy, the Papacy found a welcome and a refuge in New England. Boston became, and remained during long ages, the chosen seat of that church of which its founders had a special abhorrence. Yet history shows mutations quite as strange. What similitude can be found between the Rome of Scipio and the Rome of Leo X.? How utterly dissimilar the ideas evoked by that one name at these different epochs! After all, how comparatively slight the change in the case of Boston!
The strange mutation was rendered possible, in both cases, by similar causes. In accordance with the same economic law by which the baser coin drives out the better, a lower class of labor drives out a superior. Thus the free population of Italy disappeared before the hordes of imported slaves, the superior population of New England before the crowds of imported laborers of an inferior class. In all probability, Papacy could not have developed amid the original population of free Italy: it certainly could never have gained a foot-hold amid the original white population of New England.
All this, and more, I learned during an excursion, in Hulmar's company, to Thiveat (corrupted from Civitas Beata), the later name of Boston. The journey there and back occupied, in all, about five hours. The city itself was as changed in appearance as in name. The old familiar landmarks had disappeared. The bay, the islands, the general outline of the shore, were still recognizable; but all else was strange.
We had taken our stand upon one of the remaining towers of the cathedral, a once magnificent structure, erected on the site now occupied by the State House. Planned to surpass St. Peter's, and requiring for its completion a whole century of energetic effort and unstinted outlay, it had been justly regarded as one of the architectural wonders of the world. Now it was mostly crumbled into ruin. The great tower, constructed of masses of granite rivalling in size those raised by the builders of Egypt, had alone resisted the storms of seventy centuries. Rising in solitary grandeur amid the ruins of its humbler dependencies, it seemed destined to rival the pyramids in duration. Like them, it had already outlived the very memory of the faith that had moved these masses into position: vanished like their own names was the spiritual domination that the builders had fondly imagined would outlast the granite.
From this lofty position my companion was able to point out to me the ruins of the dungeon-like walls of the Palace of the Inquisition on Governor's Island: the whole surface was so covered with ruined masonry, that it had never been thought worth while to clear it away. On Deer Island, a massive arch alone marked the site of what had once been a famous monastery. On Bunker's Hill rose a slender monolith of granite, on the summit of which I could still distinguish, through my instrument, the remains of what had been a statue, now crumbled down to little more than the feet. This I naturally supposed must have taken the place of the pillar once raised to mark the spot
Where drank the soil our heroes' blood."
But no such motives had prompted the erection of this graceful column. The church had regarded as little less than sinful the appropriation of such a site to the memory of uncanonized men, who had fallen, too, in a struggle that approached perilously near the confines of that rebellion which she taught was "as the sin of witchcraft." A monolith surmounted by a statue in honor of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had, accordingly, taken the place of the pillar consecrated by the eloquence of Webster.
I certainly am not conscious of any special ill will against the adherents or the rites of that "gorgeous superstition, however much some of its tenets may repel my understanding. In certain moods, indeed, its splendid ritual exercises on my mind no slight attraction. But I Imust acknowledge feeling extremely angry on hearing of this substitution. Reading, and no doubt sympathizing with, my feelings of indignation, Hulmar went on quietly to say,—
"Time, however, has reversed their decree. Few, except antiquaries like myself, have so much as heard of that dogma. But what happened on that hillside is fresh in the memory of every school-child on this continent."
He next pointed out to me a broad plaza, surrounded by an apparently well-preserved colonnade. In the midst a fountain of magnificent proportions tossed on high its waters, sparkling in the rays of the summer sun. All this had formed an appurtenance to the papal palace, now entirely vanished, except a small portion converted into a museum and library. Now restored to good-humor by these signal examples of "Time's revenges," I turned to where, embosomed amid secular groves that permitted but glimpses of the stately structure, stood the buildings of the University. This, however, was not the immediate successor, though it was the worthy representative, of the "Fair Harvard" of the nineteenth century. There had been an interregnum of many centuries. During the reign of the church, Harvard had been converted into a Jesuit college, the centre of the order, the chief trainingschool of its members. Owing to the appropriation of the education fund to other, especially building, purposes, by the church during this period, secular education fell to a very low ebb indeed. Instead of jokes in reference to his excessive devotion to the goddess "culchaw," the Bostonian was liable to be twitted with a worship of a very different kind.
On our way home, Hulmar recounted to me the steps in the political and intellectual decadence of New £ngland. These were, the accession to political supremacy of an ignorant and superstitious foreign element; the accelerated emigration of the original stock; the establishment of a State church, in fact though not in name, by improving on the example of the Mormon church; decisions by obsequious courts that placed the education fund practically under the control of the priesthood; the removal of the seat of the Papacy to Boston; attainment, by the Jesuits, of a controlling power in many States, by adroit manipulation of parties; rapid decline and ultimate extinction of the Papacy, after its alliance with the invaders during the "Great Invasion."
"You have really worked hard at that lecture of yours," said her father to Reva, a few days after our excursion to Boston. "Let us celebrate its completion by a water-excursion, and pay that long-deferred visit to your uncle Aslan."
Instead of our usual forenoon work, we accordingly set off soon after breakfast for Piescil (Peekskill). We found in readiness the boat engaged by telephone before we left home. This, to me, odd-looking conveyance consisted of two boats connected by a platform with low bulwarks. The motive-power was, of course, electncity. The machinery I had no opportunity of inspecting, it being entirely out of sight: it propelled us, however, through the water at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Instead of the uncomfortable benches of our present boats, there were neatly upholstered chairs. Each chair was provided with an adjustable awning, and turned freely on a pivot in the deck. The steering and control of the motive-power were effected by means of a simple apparatus similar to the tiller of a curricle.
Hulmar managed the craft, while Reva and I imparted to each other our knowledge in respect to the various points of interest as we passed them. To me, with the exception of the river and the outlines of the hills, some peculiar change seemed to have passed over every thing. Not only were there villages where now there is naught but rock and shaggy wood: the very hills were cultivated to their summits. In the steepest spots were what seemed to be vineyards or orchards. To me it sounded like a joke to find myself obliged to ask the names of those villages that appeared to have sprung up in a night on the bank of the stream so familiar from boyhood.
Reva, again, could not get over her surprise at finding me better acquainted with the river, in certain respects, than herself, able to anticipate and recognize every reach and headland. She laughed at her own attempts to pronounce after me the ancient names, that sounded so uncouth to her ears.
"How lavish of breath you must have been in those old times!" laughed she, after several vain attempts to pronounce after me the name "West Point," with its superabundance of consonants. I was obliged to admit that "Uespa" was both easier to pronounce and more pleasing to the ear. We halted at Uespa for about an hour. Hulmar, who was somewhat of an antiquarian, wished to avail himself of my knowledge in regard to the position of the forts. Uespa was still the seat of a great school of civil engineering; but, of course, every vestige, and almost the remembrance, of its former warlike purposes. had disappeared. Hulmar was pleased to find that my recollections coincided, upon the whole, with his laboriously drawn inferences.
While he left us to make a short call on a professor, Reva and I awaited his return on a spot where the beauty of the view has probably in all ages caused a seat to be placed. Things being viewed from a distance, the prospect up the river towards Newburg, and that city itself, seemed almost unaltered.
Our talk was of many things. We talked of the cadets and their ways, in regard to whom Reva found much to inquire. Next the talk drifted to the many brave men to whom this scene had once been familiar, whose last view of earth had been amid the thunder and tumult of battle. Then Reva begged once more to hear that account of the departure of my uncle Thaddeus at the head of his regiment. She seemed most affected by that final scene of the women falling weeping into each other's arms. She sat silent for a while, looking at the ground before her, then murmured, as if speaking to herself,—
"It was indeed hard to bear. She must have loved him dearly."
My heart leaped wildly at this first, apparently unconscious, utterance by her lips of the word love. Was she beginning to feel that love is something more than friendship? At this moment Hulmar returned; and soon we were on our way to Neuba, as the city was then called.
I must, perforce, pass lightly over the details of our entertainment by Aslan and his charming daughters. We paid, of course, a visit to the local museum,—a spot, it may be mentioned, of world-wide fame. For there, under an immense dome of tinted ualin, stood, on its original foundation, the building consecrated by the memory of Washington. In spite of all care, the woodwork had begun to show signs of irreparable decay thousands of years before. But, by the suggestion and under the direction of a famous architect, facsimiles of ualin had been substituted for the more perishable material. The stonework, down to the smallest fragment, even the original mortar as far as possible, had been replaced with religious care in its former position, so as to preserve, for all time, an edifice consecrated by such memories.
A few miles off stood a monument of venerable antiquity, the third in succession, I was informed, it had been found necessary to raise there at intervals measured by chiliads. This marked the spot where the "Father of Liberty," as he was fondly styled by an admiring posterity, had risen to make that memorable address by which he quelled the treasonable murmurs of a, perhaps not unreasonably, dissatisfied soldiery.
"It was a crisis in which all turned on the character of one man," said Hulmar, as we turned away. "Fortunate it was for mankind, that man was Washington."