outside of the inclosure blended with the sweet violins, and the larks rising in the air, and the songsters nestling in the trees around mingled their glad notes with the voice of the chorus. The Nature without and that within us seemed united, gathering lovingly around these humble men and women, who, far away in their highlands, rehearsed with what grandeur they could, the ancient story of the Man of Sor rows. In the night I sat up late at my window, pondering the import of what I had seen. A flush of the gloaming rested on the snow of the mountains, the beautiful after-glow of a day that could never return. Then there appeared faintly on a height, a light which increased to brilliancy. I recognised it as a St. John's Fire, the last surviving symbol of Loki, goddess once of all earthly fires (as her name Loki, Leucht, indicates) but who passed to feed nether flames, leaving her supernal torch to the Prophet of the Wilderness. Ah, that John-fire too is the after-glow of a day for ever past! What will he who journeys through these Bavarian highlands in the next century find at Oberammergau ? Not, I believe, the spoken and uttered Passion-Play. More and more, as culture advances, will it be found impossible to render in words the Ineffable. But when that silence comes which alone can convey the deeper voices, no doubt those glorious pictures will still fresco the mountain sides. Nay, I am not sure that the tableaux may not be imitated elsewhere. There was a day when the Church could only reach the people by being, to some extent, both theatre and picture gallery; and as Religion advances to her larger domain, who shall foretell by what beautiful arts there shall be rehearsed and celebrated in human temples the heroisms, the mystical allegories, which have marked the ascent of man to his Soul? We may be sure that, amid our just reaction from the idolatries which wrested the arts to their service, we have not yet recognised all that Art holds for Religion. No history, no truth, has disclosed all that is folded in it, until it has bloomed into beauty for eye and ear also. Our senses within and without correspond; their harmony is as that of harp and harp-strings; and each Truth will sweep every chord, and make every particle of that being we are vibrate with its glory. There is nothing else we so long for as beauty, and when Art would raise things to beauty, it leaves behind ugliness, refines all of grossness, and separates the true from the false, which like the old Ammergau Devil, is ugly and unrepresentable in the form and hue that can charm. The more the PassionsSpiel is acted, the more I venture to predict will those details which are grotesque, or those that wound sentiment, disappear from it, even as they begin now to pass out of the memory of the writer hereof, leaving a vision of wondrous cartoons, sacred as if painted with the blood of human hearts, with sky and mountain and forest joining to weave a frame worthy of the pure ideals reflected in them. M. D. C. T SISTERS AND SISTERHOODS. HERE can be no doubt that the Woman question is one of the most prominent, if not one of the most important, of the social problems of the day. Women are asking for and obtaining greater liberty of action, and it is to be presumed that their having done this is a result of a preceding greater liberty of thought. The connection of sisterhoods with this subject is more important than might be generally supposed: first, because sisterhoods are an accomplished fact in the Protestant Church (I do not at this moment allude in any way to Catholic convents); and secondly, because a far greater number of women have found in those establishments that occupation which they seem to require, or that interest in life the want of which is believed by some to be the original cause of their restlessness, than in any of the other outlets for superabundant activity, mental or physical, which have of late years occupied the attention of our sex. But sisterhoods are viewed with as much, if not more, suspicion than any of the new sources of occupation which women have sought or suggested for themselves. The reason is evident. A woman who wishes for a place in Parliament, or a doctor's diploma, may hold any religious opinions she pleases; she may be High Church or Low Church, Broad Church or no Church-she may be Protestant or Catholic: there is nothing in her choice of these or similar occupations by which she is committed to any distinctive form of belief. But if she enters a sisterhood, she commits herself by the act to the acceptance of certain opinions, having given a very practical evidence of her belief in them. Now, whatever may be said about the scepticism of the age or about scepticism in general, about the grounds of certitude in religions belief, or the possible antecedents of the human race, it is yet evident that there is no subject in which the civilised world takes so much interest as theology. It is an instinctive testimony of man's belief in God, and of his certitude, whether he is conscious of it or not, that there is a Creator, and that His creatures are responsible for their faith in Him, and for the fruits which that faith produces. The general objection to sisterhoods, then, is that they are religious institutions-that those who devote themselves to the peculiar life which they require do so on certain principles which the objectors deny or disbelieve. It will, we presume, be admitted that the Catholic Church was the originator of these societies. It is a matter of fact that they have flourished in that Church for hun. dreds of years, and it cannot be denied that Protestant sisterhoods are more or less imitations of Catholic convents. The rules of several Protestant establishments are well known to the present writer, who can therefore vouch for the accuracy of this statement. This being premised, it is evident that those who really wish to know, not opinions, but the truth, on the subject of vocations to the Religious life, as the wish to be a nun is technically called, and the practices of that vocation, can ascertain it most perfectly by studying the subject at the fountain head. If this course were generally pur sued, there would be far less misrepresentation. It may be an intellectual amusement to erect theories of our own and then demolish them, but it can scarcely be a profitable exercise of reason. This course has been pursued in perfect good faith by Miss Stephen in her work on The Service of the Poor, and by the reviewer of the same work in the September number of this Magazine. We are sure that both Miss Stephen and the writer will pardon us for pointing out the false premisses from which they have argued; for we have no doubt that truth must be their first object, and not the mere defence of a personal theory, however honestly formed. The writer of the article says: In following any argument on the subject of sisterhoods, it is of first-rate consequence to keep before the mind the exact question at issue, and to master the terms in which the question is expressed. This is undoubtedly true; but it should first be settled what is the exact question at issue.' As far as we can gather, it appears to be whether the poor are benefited most by religious or secular institutions; and that the mastering of the terms' means simply to have a clear understanding of what is meant by secular and what is meant by religious. So far all is sufficiently plain; but when the reasons are given for objection to religious, and preference of secular institutions, we find at once some grave misapprehensions; the objections to religious institutions being grounded on an entire misunderstanding of their object and their workings. In order to prove this assertion, we shall proceed to quote from Miss Stephen and from her reviewer. Miss Stephen says: I have shown that Catholic and Protestant sisterhoods alike regard works of charity as partaking of the character of acts of worship, and that they both tend, more or less, to exalt poverty at the expense of wealth, celibacy at the expense of marriage, dependence at the expense of independence, low and painful offices at the expense of important and painless ones. For, as I have already said, one set of conditions cannot possibly be exalted without relatively depressing the opposite set of conditions. This exaltation may be defended on the ground either that they are really superior, or that it is necessary to exalt them artificially, which is to exaggerate their value in order to court a depraved tendency of human nature to exaggerate the value of the opposite conditions; but to say that they can be certainly described as blessed, and holy, and beautiful, without at all depreciating by comparison the blessedness, holiness, and beauty of the opposite conditions, is to say that laudatory epithets have no meaning. With the motives of Protestant sisters I have nothing to do, but as a Catholic I emphatically deny the accuracy of Miss Stephen's assertions; still I can see very clearly the misconceptions of Catholic truth on which her statements are founded. It is to be regretted that persons of intelligence, and with an evident desire to do justice to those of whom they write, should express opinions on subjects in regard to which they are insufficiently informed. For a person ignorant of, say the peculiar tenets of the Society of Friends, to write an elaborate essay on their practices and customs, and found arguments against them on their view of their religious opinions, would be simply a waste of time. Nor does it follow that information can always be obtained correctly, either from conversing with one or two individuals, or from a cursory perusal of the theological writers of any community. Conversations may convey inaccurate impressions from want of sufficient information on the opinions of those who converse; words may be used by the speaker which convey, from want of such information, a totally different meaning to the listener from that which the former intended. A marked case of such misapprehension in Miss Stephen's work shall be noticed presently. In reading religious works similar misapprehensions may occur from a somewhat similar cause. It may be asked, then, how can correct information be obtained? I reply, in the case of the Catholic Church undoubtedly by enquiring from the priests of that Church, who all teach the one doctrine; and from such catechisms as are used by the authority of the Church, wherein theological questions are treated of in the simplest manner. It would, however, be necessary that those who desire information should be very explicit in their questions and careful in their reading; that their object should be to learn truth, and not to maintain some preconceived theory. Yet, even with such precautions, we much fear that mistakes will arise, partly from the imperfectness with which thought is conveyed, and partly from other causes into which I cannot enter here. Miss Stephen also makes certain statements as to her own religious opinions which are so diametrically opposed to those which Catholics hold as dearer than life, that it would be extremely difficult for those who think as she does ever to understand the motives of those who become Religious. Under such circumstances we cannot wonder at misconception which leads to the careful drawing of conclusions from premisses which have no existence except in the imagination of the writer. To prevent mistakes, we give Miss Stephen's statements in her own words. She says: The human feeling in religion is naturally strongly called out by the worship of One who is believed to be both God and Man. The worshippers of Jesus Christ have always combined with the adoration due to Him as God, a strong element of personal affection to Him as man. God forbid that I should appear to undervalue that faith in God made manifest in the flesh which is the very essence of the Christian revelation; but I dare not conceal my belief that there is a very great danger lest a reverent contemplation of that mystery should pass into an idolatrous worship of the human being thus identified (if I may venture so to speak, and I know not how otherwise to express my thought) with the Divine Being. Again: The sanction given by the Church of Rome to the system of religious sisterhoods needs no proof, while the process by which decisions upon such subjects are extracted from the Bible is one which almost eludes all reasoning. For my own part I can neither find any decision of the question in the Bible, nor allege the binding force of Apostolic precedents, nor even the competence of the Apostles themselves to lay down laws for all future ages. I believe it to be our duty in everything to judge for ourselves by the light of reason ... but I recognise no such thing as the delegation of Divine authority to human beings in virtue of their ordination to any ecclesiastical offices; nor, while reverencing the Bible as containing the authentic record of the Christian revelation, do I believe in its infallibility. We must confess that when we read this epitome of Miss Stephen's correct to say of Miss Stephen's creed, or perhaps it might be more scepticism, our wonder was not that she should condemn the humility and subjection of a Religions life and entirely misunderstand their object and their motive, but rather that she should have taken the slightest interest in the subject. and carried out in the Catholic The Religious life, as understood Church, has its whole foundation on the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Son of God; all its peculiar practices are the result of faith in that doctrine; and as that doctrine is emphatically repudiated by Miss Stephen, at least in the sense in which it is taught by the Catholic Church, we can easily see how impossible it is for her either to understand or appreciate the subject on which she has written so elaborately. The writer of the article approv ing of Miss Stephen's deductions, which, as we shall presently show, are all made from premisses which have no real existence, thus sums up his objections to sisterhoods. 1871] Sisters and Sisterhoods. The first prima facie objection to a sisterhood arises from a feature essential to its character. This objection is that such an institution attempts to attain two different, even if they be not in some respects antagonistic, objects; that each of these objects may in all human probability be more satisfactorily compassed if aimed at separately; and that if one of them be made subordinate to the other, the subordinate end or object will inevitably be to some extent sacrificed to the superior or ultimate end or object, and certainly will not be as completely attained as if it were made the primary and ultimate end of the institution. The second objection of this writer appears to be contained in the following words: One of the greatest, if not absolutely the greatest, of all the defects which seem to be inherent in a conventual life is the fostering of a spirit of fiction. From top to bottom of a sisterhood you will find something fictitious. The very name of the institution, the feigned parental relation between the superior and the sisters, the self-humilia tion where no real cause for humiliation exists, savour of fiction in this sense-that they show a desire to produce feelings appropriate to certain relations or circumstances where these relations or circumstances do not in reality exist. Again: The pretence that no Sister of Charity is paid for her work is part of a much more general fiction. Again: It is constantly and tacitly assumed that every sister makes, in joining the sisterhood, an incalculable effort of self-sacrifice; and this supposition gives in the eyes of many persons a sanctity to a sisterhood and their work which renders it impossible for them calmly to weigh the merits and demerits of the system. It therefore becomes of consequence to observe that the supposition is not at all completely borne out by facts, and partakes to a great extent of the character of a fiction. Miss Stephen also dwells with considerable elaboration on this subject. May we be pardoned for saying that there is considerable confusion in the line of argument adopted? 641 The arguments run frequently in a It is argued that sisterhoods are Thus, since I am writing in defence of sisterhoods, I am placed in the difficulty of answering an argument which first asserts that sisterhoods are inefficient, and then asserts that they are inefficient because they are sisterhoods. any It would be simpler to have said, 'We do not believe that there is such state ordained by God as that which you call the Religious life, and |