Volume II Part 4 (2/2)

”This cannebalism an' polygamy an' the like greatly distresses me, however,” he confessed to h.e.l.ler. ”Be moments I'm timpted to unfold the naked truth, an' bring these paple square up to the canons of the Church at wanst. But it ud be risky. We read av times, ye know, h.e.l.ler, that G.o.d winked at. No doubt it's me duty, as a divinity, to go on winkin' at these polygamies an' cannebalisms a bit longer. Slow an' aisy is me motto, an' I've noticed it's the way of Providence mostly. Sure it was so at home in Sableburg, ye know, h.e.l.ler; we didn't average a convart in twinty years.”

Now ensued an event which troubled the holy Father more than any thing that had yet occurred during his episcopate. Two German priests, h.e.l.ler informed him, had landed on one of the islands of the archipelago, and were preaching the pure doctrines of the Christian faith, denouncing cannibalism and polygamy, and otherwise sapping the established religion.

”Some av the New Catholics, I'll warrant ye!” exclaimed Higgins, indignantly. ”Some of thim blatherskites av the Dollinger school, come over here to stir up sedition in the Church, as though they hadn't made worry enough in the owld counthries. An' what business has Dutchmen here, annyway, whin an Irishman has begun the good worrk? They've no right to take the labor of convartin' these haythins out of me hands that a-way. Me conscience won't allow me to permit such distarbances an'

innovations. See if ye can't get um to lave the islands peaceable, h.e.l.ler. If they won't, I shall have to let Umbaho settle wid um afther his fas.h.i.+on.”

An emba.s.sy to the missionaries having obtained from them no other response than that they would welcome martyrdom rather than relinquish their labors, Umbaho was dispatched against them at the head of a sufficient army, with instructions to treat them as enemies of Feejee and of the unity of the Church.

But instead of slaughtering the missionaries, Umbaho was converted by them. He renounced cannibalism, polygamy, and the sacred poison; he denied Father Higgins. Accompanied by one of the Germans, he returned to Feejee at the head of his army, bent on establis.h.i.+ng the true Christian faith.

”We must press a lot av min, an' beat um,” responded the good Father, when h.e.l.ler informed him of the approach and purposes of the chief.

”Tell the faithful to give no quarter; tell um to desthroy ivery wan of these schismatics; an' as for the Dutchman, burrn him at the stake, as they used to do in the good owld times.”

A great battle ensued; the adherents of Higginsism were defeated and dispersed; the door of the temple opened to Umbaho and the German.

Father Higgins, by this time a helpless ma.s.s of fat, swaying perilously on his unsteady platform, looked down upon them with terror through the smoke of his altar.

”Sacrilegious wretch!” cried the German, G.o.d has put an end to thy mad and selfish and wicked dominion.”

”I wish I had niver been a bis.h.i.+p!” screamed Father Higgins at the top of his voice, as he rolled off the platform.

All the way from the Cannibal Islands he fell and tumbled and dropped, until, with a dull thump, he alighted upon the floor of his own study.

”There! y' 'ave rolled out av yer chair agen, Father Higgins,” said his housekeeper, who at that moment entered the room to order him to bed, as was her merciful custom.

”So I have,” returned the Father, picking himself up. ”An' sarved me right, too. I thought I was the biggest raskil on the face av the earth.

I wondher if it's true. The Lord presarve me from the timptation av great power, or I'll abuse it, an' abuse me felly-men and the Church!”--_Harper's Magazine_, May, 1872.

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

(BORN, 1827.)

FRED TROVER'S LITTLE IRON-CLAD.

Did I never tell you the story? Is it possible? Draw up your chair.

Stick of wood, Harry. Smoke?

You've heard of my Uncle Popworth, though. Why, yes! You've seen him;--the eminently respectable elderly gentleman who came one day last summer just as you were going; book under his arm, you remember; weed on his hat; dry smile on bland countenance; tall, lank individual in very seedy black. With him my tale begins; for if I had never indulged in an Uncle Popworth I should never have sported an Iron-Clad.

Quite right, sir; his arrival _was_ a surprise to me. To know how great a surprise, you must understand why I left city, friends, business, and settled down in this quiet village. It was chiefly, sir, to escape the fascinations of that worthy old gentleman that I bought this place, and took refuge here with my wife and little ones. Here we had respite, respite and nepenthe from our memories of Uncle Popworth; here we used to sit down in the evening and talk of the past with grateful and tranquil emotions, as people speak of awful things endured in days that are no more. To us the height of human happiness was raising green corn and strawberries, in a retired neighborhood where uncles were unknown.

But, sir, when that Phantom, that Vampire, that Fate, loomed before my vision that day, if you had said, ”Trover, I'll give ye sixpence for this neat little box of yours,” I should have said, ”Done!” with the trifling proviso that you should take my uncle in the bargain.

The matter with him? What indeed could invest human flesh with such terrors,--what but this? he was--he is--let me shriek it in your ear--a bore--a BORE! of the most malignant type; an intolerable, terrible, unmitigated BORE!

That book under his arm was a volume of his own sermons;--nine hundred and ninety-nine octavo pages, O Heaven! It wasn't enough for him to preach and re-preach those appalling discourses, but then the ruthless man must go and print 'em! When I consider what booksellers--worthy men, no doubt, many of them, deserving well of their kind--he must have talked nearly into a state of syncope before ever he found one to give way, in a moment of weakness, of utter exhaustion and despair, and consent to publish him; and when I reflect what numbers of inoffensive persons, in the quiet walks of life, have been made to suffer the infliction of that Bore's Own Book, I pause, I stand aghast at the inscrutability of Divine Providence.

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