274 



♦ KNOW^LEDGK ♦ 



[Jl-ly 1, 1886. 



The subject-matter belonged neither to morals nor to foith ; 

 the decision was neither ex catliedrA nor addressed to the 

 •whole Church ; in not one single point does the cas3 illus- 

 trate the doctrine of Papal infallibility as defined by the 

 Vatican Council, which pronounced that — • 



The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathcirri, that is, when in 

 tile discharge of Iiis office as pastor and teaclier of all Christians, he, 

 in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, defines a doctrine of 

 faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, is, by the Divine 

 assistance promised to him in tlie blessed Peter, endowed with that 

 infallibility wherewith our Divine Redeemer willed that His Churcli 

 should be endowed in defining doctrines of faith or morals. 



Every Catholic, then, is free to lielieve that the earth goes 

 round the sun. Nor is there anything in the doctrine of 

 astronomical evolution which need trouble the Catholic, 

 however fatal every such doctrine mo.j be for the believer 

 in an unreasonable doctrine of verbal inspiration. The 

 Catholic may hold what the Protestant cannot loyally 

 believe, that when the \vriter of the first books of the Old 

 Testament, whoever he ma}' have been, dealt with the sun, 

 the moon, and the stars, there was no absolute necessity, 

 since he was not writing about matters concerning morals or 

 faith, that he should be saved from error. 



But, as ]Mr. Murphy correctly points out, Mr. Mivart 

 is quite mistaken in supposing that the real heterodoxy of a 

 Darwin can be shielded by any evidence as to Church mistakes 

 about the supposed heterodoxy of a Galileo. The Copernican 

 theory manifestly has no connection with the fall and 

 redemption of man ; the Darwinian theory as manifestly has a 

 very direct bearing on that special business of the Church. It 

 needs no conclave of cardinals, no utterance of the Pope, e.r 

 cathedra or otherwise, to show that the doctrine of the 

 descent of man from lower animal types, and the necessarily 

 associated doctrine of the origin of evil, are irreconcilable 

 with the teaching of the Catholic Church in regard to the 

 fall of man from a state of original rectitude. Such an 

 attempt as Mr. Mivart's to dissociate the origin of man's 

 spiritual nature from the development of his corporeal 

 nature is manifestly mere playing with the question. An 

 individual person, here or there, maybe able honestly (let us 

 hope) to say, " I believe my body came from ancestors of 

 anthropoidal apelike nature, but my moral nature descends 

 from something originally breathed into an ancestral pair 

 anthropoidally apelike in nature." Church creeds, however, 

 are not for individual persons of exceptionally ingenious 

 turns of mind, but for the masses. Assuredly "the Catholic 

 Church is not likel}' to adopt Mr. IMivart's ingenious but 

 very artificial theory. Nor does she even now hesitate to 

 say, whenever the question is directly put to her, that the 

 doctrine is clearly and manifestly heretical. 



I view the matter, let me remark in conclusion, from an 

 entirely independent standpoint. I stand neither beside 

 Mr. Mivart nor 3Ir. Muiphy. But from where I am 

 I can see that, while Mr. Murphy stands on perfectly firm 

 and level ground — I say nothing as to its elevation — ^Mr. 

 Mivart stands, if he stands at all, in a most insecure position. 

 The bough to which he clings, the vain hiope that, because 

 the decision of certain Catholic disciplinarians in regard to 

 Galileo proved erroneous, it may still be found possible to 

 reconcile loyalty to the Catholic" Church with belief in the 

 theory of biological evolution, or that a fanciful distinction 

 between his views and Darwin's will save him from con- 

 demnation, is rotten to the core. In one way or the other 

 he must move : he may climb to securer heights, or he may 

 wait till the frail bough breaks and he falls; but stay where 

 he does he cannot, unless, closing his eyes, he sinks liis 

 feet very deeply in the morass which he has mistaken for 

 stable ground. Eesting there, however, will be no sal- 

 vation. 



INDIAN MYTHS. 



By "Stella Occidens." 



Behold it ! 

 See the sacred Star of Evening, 

 You shall hear a tale of wonder. 

 Hear the story of Osseo, 

 Son of the Evening Star, Osseo I 



Longfellow. 



|0 the imaginative mind of the Indian the 

 starry heavens were suggestive of many 

 quaint and beautiful myths. As he saw the 

 stars, night after night, and wondered at 

 their brilliancy, he wove a h;ilo of romance 

 and superstition around them. Here were 

 supposed to dwell beautiful spirits, or the 

 souls of departed warriors and heroes : and intimately con- 

 nected with these spirits were the fairies and pigmies, sup- 

 posed to inhabit the earth. Thus we find that the belief in 

 fttiries, gnomes, pigmies, elves, and giants, exists in the folk- 

 lore of the Indian, resembling that of the European 

 nations. Lelaud * tells us in his tales of magic that " to 

 every Algonquin a rotten log by the road, covered with 

 moss, suggests the wild legend of the log-demon. The 

 Indian corn and sweet-flag in the swamp are the descend- 

 ants of beautiful spirits, who still live in them. ZMeeko, the 

 .squirrel, has the power of becoming a giant monster ; 

 flowers, beasts, trees, have all loved, and talked, and sung, 

 and can even now do so, should the magician only come to 

 break the spell." 



An Algonquin myth is related concerning Osseo, son of 

 the Evening Star, which is full of poetical feeling. An 

 Indian hunter who lived in the north had ten beautiful 

 daughters. All were married but Oweenee, the youngest and 

 fairest. She scornfull}- rejected all her suitors, but at last 

 accepted Osseo : — 



Old Osseo, poor and ugly, 



Broken with ago and weak with coughing, 



Always coughing like a squirrel. 



Ah, but beautiful within him 



Was the spirit of Osseo, 



From the Evening Star descended. 



Star of Evening, Star of Women, 



Star of tenderness and passion ! 



Oweenee's sisters sneered at her choice, but she did not notice 

 them. One evening they were all invited to a feast in 

 lionour of the Evening Star, and as they walked along 

 together in the twilight they lattghed at Osseo. He would 

 look up at the stars and mutter to himself: and one of the 

 sisters hoped he would stumble and break his neck, so 

 that Oweenee might then have a handsome husband. Osseo 

 was looking at the Evening Star, and addressing his fother 

 "who dwelt there. As he approached a large wooden log, lie 

 suddenly stopped, and uttering a peculiar yell he dashed in 

 at one end and came out of the other — a beautiful youth. 

 He ran on nimbly and joined the rest, but looking for 

 Oweenee he saw in her place an old, wrinkled woman, bent 

 double with age and leaning on a cane. All the sisters 

 laughed at Oweenee, but Osseo was kind and gentle to her. 

 He walked beside her with slower steps, called her Nene- 

 nioosha, which means sweetheart, and soothed her with 

 loving words till they reached his father's lodge. 



During the feast all were happy but Osseo, who was sad 

 and refused to eat. He would look at Oweenee and then 

 at the Evening Star, which glimmered faintly in the sky. 

 Presently he heard a voice, which sounded like strains of 

 distant music to the rest. It told him to eat, as the food 

 ■was enchanted and would make him a spirit. All his bowls 



* "Algonquin Legends," p. 339. 



