Chapter VI: Bianca’s Festa (8)

In the meantime Pierre Gilles bound himself tightly as he could to a mast; for the shaking of the vessel was so great that it seemed to him an irresistible power was trying to tear him away and cast him whirling into the yawning depths of the furious element.

“The mizzen-mast is breaking!” cried the sailors; and by a common impulse they rushed toward the stern to avoid being dragged down and crushed by its fall.

The gigantic beam fell with a fearful crash, catching in the ropes and rigging.

“Cut away! Let her go!” cried the captain.

He himself was the first to rush forward, armed with a hatchet, and they tried to cut aloose the mast and let it fall into the water.

But they were unable to succeed; the mast hung over the side of the ship, which it struck with every wave, and threatened to capsize her. Every moment the position of the crew became more dangerous. The shocks were so violent that the men were no longer able to resist them; they clung to everything they could lay hold of; they twined their legs and arms in the hanging ropes. All efforts to control the vessel had become useless, and, seeing no longer any hope of being saved, the sailors began to utter cries of despair.

Pierre Gilles had fastened himself to the mainmast. “If this also breaks,” he thought, “well, I shall die by the same stroke――die without seeing him!” he cried, still entirely occupied with More. “He will not know that I have tried to reach him, and will, perhaps, believe that I have deserted him in the day of adversity. Oh! how death is embittered by that thought. He will say that, happy in the bosom of my family, I have left him alone in his prison, and he will strive to forget even the recollection of my friendship. O More, More! my friend, this tempest ought to carry to you my regrets.”

Looking around him, Pierre saw the miserable men tossing their arms in despair; for the night was advancing, their strength nearly exhausted, while the vessel, borne along on the crest of the waves, suddenly pitched with a frightful plunge, and the water rushed in on every side.

The captain had stationed himself near Pierre Gilles; he contemplated the destruction of his ship with a mournful gaze.

“Here is this fine vessel lost――all my fortune, the labor of an entire life of toil and care. My children now will be reduced to beggary! Here is the fruit of thirty years of work,” he cried. “Sir,” he said to Pierre Gilles, “I began life at twelve years; I have passed successively up from cabin-boy, mariner, boatswain, lieutenant, captain finally, and now――the sea. I shall have to begin anew!”

“Begin anew, sir?” said Pierre Gilles. “But is not death awaiting us very speedily?”

“That remains to be seen,” answered the captain, folding his arms. “I have been three times shipwrecked, and I am here still, sir. It is true there is an end to everything; but the ocean and myself understand each other. We shall come out of it, if we gain time. After the storm, a calm; after the tempest, fine weather.” Here he attentively scanned the heavens. “A few more swells of the sea, and, if we escape, courage! All will be well.”

“Hold fast, my boys!” he cried; “another sea is coming.”

He had scarcely uttered the words when a frightful wave advanced like a threatening mountain, and, raising the vessel violently, swept entirely over her; but the ship still remained afloat. Other waves succeeded, and the unfortunate sailors remained tossing about in that condition until the next morning. However, as the day dawned, hope revived in their hearts; the horizon seemed brightening; the wind allayed by degrees. Pierre Gilles and his companions shook their limbs, stiffened and benumbed by the cold and the water which had drenched them, and thought they could at last perceive the land. They succeeded in relieving the vessel a little by throwing the mast into the sea. Every one took courage, and soon the coast appeared in sight. There was no more doubt: it was the coast of England. There were the pointed rocks, the whitened reefs. They were in their route; the tempest had not diverted the ship from its course. On the fourth day they entered the mouth of the Thames.

The poor vessel, five days before so elegant, so swift, so light, was dragged with difficulty into that large and beautiful river. Badly crippled, she moved slowly, and was an entire day in reaching London. Pierre Gilles suffered cruelly on account of this delay, and would have made them put him ashore, but that was impossible. Besides, he wished to arrive more speedily at London, and that would not hasten his journey. From a distance he perceived the English standard floating above the Tower, and his heart swelled with sorrow. “Alas! More is there,” he cried. “How shall I contrive to see him? how tear him from that den?” Absorbed in these reflections, he reached at length the landing-place. He knew not where to go nor whom to address in that great city, where he had never before been, and where he was entirely unacquainted. He looked at the faces of those who came and went on the wharf, without feeling inclined to accost any of them.

Suddenly, however, he caught the terrible words, “His trial has commenced”; and, uncertain whether it was the effect of his troubled imagination or a real sound, he turned around and saw a group of women carrying fish in wicker baskets, and talking together.

“At Lambeth Palace, I tell you. He is there; I have seen him.”

“Who?” said Pierre in good English, advancing in his Flemish costume, which excited the curiosity and attention of all the women.

“Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor,” answered the first speaker.

“Thomas More!” cried Pierre Gilles, with a gesture of despair and terror which nothing could express. “Who is trying him? Speak, good woman, speak! Say who is trying him? Where are they trying him? Conduct me to the place, and all my fortune is yours!”

The women looked at each other. “A foreigner!” they exclaimed.

“Yes,” he replied, “a stranger, but a friend, a friend. Leave your fish――I will pay you for them――and show me where the trial of Sir Thomas is going on.”

The fisherwoman, having observed the gold chain he wore around his neck, his velvet robe, and his ruff of Ypres lace, judged that he was some important personage, who would reward her liberally for her trouble; she resolved to accompany him. She walked on before him, and the other women took up their baskets, and followed at some distance in the rear.

Meanwhile, Pierre Gilles and his conductress, having followed the quay and walked the length of the Thames, crossed Westminster Bridge, and he found himself at last in front of Lambeth Palace.

A considerable crowd of people, artisans, workmen, merchants, idlers, began to scatter and disperse. Some stopped to talk, others left; they saw that something had come to an end, that the spectacle was closed, the excited curiosity was satisfied. The juggler’s carpet was gathered up, the lottery drawn, the quarrel ended, the prince or the criminal had passed; there was nothing more to see, and every one was anxious to depart――careless crowd, restless and ignorant, which the barking of a dog will arrest, and a great misfortune cannot detain!

“Here it is, sir,” said the woman, stopping; “this is Lambeth Palace just in front of you, but I don’t believe you can get in.” And she pointed to a large enclosure and a great door, before which was walking up and down a yeoman armed with an arquebuse.

Standing close to one of the sections of the door was seen a beautiful young girl, dressed in black, and wearing on her head a low velvet hat worn by the women of that period. A gold chain formed of round beads, from which was suspended a little gold medal ornamented with a pearl pendant, hung around her neck, and passed under her chemisette of plaited muslin bordered with narrow lace. She stood with her hands clasped, her beautiful countenance pale as death, and her arms stretched at full length before her, expressive of the deepest sorrow. Near her was seated a handsome young man, who from time to time addressed her.

Pierre Gilles approached these two persons.

“Margaret,” said Roper, “come.”

“No,” said the young girl, “I will not go; I shall remain here until night. I will see him as he goes out; I will see him once more; I will see that ignoble woollen covering they have given him for a cloak; I will see his pale and weary face. He will say: ‘Margaret is standing there!’ He will see me.”

“That will only give him pain,” replied Roper.

“Perhaps,” said the young girl. “Indeed, it is very probable!” And a bitter smile played around her lips.

“If you love him,” replied Roper, “you should spare him this grief.”

“I love him, Roper; you have said well! I love him! What would you wish? This is my father!”

Pierre Gilles, who had advanced, seeking some means of entering, paused to look at the young girl, and was struck by the resemblance he found between her features and those of her father, his friend, who was still young when he knew him at Antwerp.

“Can this be Margaret?” murmured the stranger.

“Who has pronounced my name?” asked the young girl, turning haughtily around.

Pierre Gilles stood in perfect amazement. “How much she resembles him! Pardon me, damsel,” he said; “I have been trying to get into this place to see my friend, Sir Thomas More.”

“Your friend!” replied Margaret, advancing immediately toward him. Then a feeling of suspicion arrested her. She stepped back and fixed her eyes on the stranger, whose Flemish costume attracted her attention. “And who,” she said, “can you be? Oh! no; he is not here. Sir Thomas More has no friends. You are mistaken, sir,” she continued; “it is some one else you seek. My father――no, my father has no longer any friends; has _any one_ when he is in irons, when the scaffold is erected, the axe sharpened, and the executioner getting ready to do his work?”

“What do you say?” cried the stranger, turning pale. “Is he, then, already condemned?”

“He is going to be!”

“No, no, he shall not be! Pierre Gilles will demand, will beseech; they will give him to him; he will pay for him with his gold, with his life-blood, if necessary.”

“Pierre Gilles!” cried Margaret; and she threw herself on the neck of the stranger, and clasped him in her arms.

“Pierre Gilles! Pierre Gilles! it is you who love my father. Ah! listen to me. He is up there; this is the second time they have made him appear before them. Alas! doubtless to-day will be the last; for they are tired――tired of falsehoods, artifices, and base, vile manœuvres; they are tired of offering him gold and silver――he who wants only heaven and God; they are weary of urging, of tormenting this saintly bishop and this upright man, in order to extort from them an oath which no Christian can or ought to take. Then it will be necessary for these iniquitous and purchased judges to wash out their shame in blood. They must crush these witnesses to the truth, these defenders of the faith! My father, child of the martyrs, will walk in their footsteps, and die as they died; Rochester, successor of the apostles, will give his life like them; but Margaret, poor Margaret, she will be left! And it is I, yes, it is I, who am his daughter, and who is named Margaret!” As she said these words, she clasped her hands with an expression of anguish that nothing can describe.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[88] These words, which we find in the mouth of this
hypocrite, the impious Cromwell, have been the watchword
from all time of those who wished to attack the monks and
destroy them. Well-informed and educated persons know, by
the great number of works coming from their pens, whether
they were idlers, and the poor in all ages will be able to
say whether they have ever been selfish or uncharitable.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SERMONS ON THE SACRAMENTS. By Thomas Watson, Master of St. John’s
College, Cambridge, Dean of Durham, and the last Catholic Bishop
of Lincoln. First printed in 1558, and now reprinted in modern
spelling. With a Preface and Biographical Notice of the Author by
the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, of the Congregation of the Most Holy
Redeemer. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. (For sale by The Catholic
Publication Society.)

After Father Bridgett’s beautiful work, _Our Lady’s Dowry_, we may be sure that whatever he puts forth, whether original or edited, will repay perusal. He has a _penchant_ for forgotten treasures of England’s Catholic past, and spares himself no pains to give us the benefit of his researches. Not content with editing the present volume, he has gone to the trouble of a biographical notice, and quite a long one, of his author. We cannot do better than let him speak for himself in the opening lines of his preface:

“Here is a volume of sermons, printed more than three centuries ago in black-letter type and uncouth spelling, and the existence of which is only known to a few antiquarians. Why, it will be asked, have I reprinted it in modern guise and sought to rescue it from oblivion? I have done so for its own sake and for the sake of its author. It is a book that deserves not to perish, and which would not have been forgotten, as it is, but for the misfortune of the time at which it appeared. It was printed in the last year of Queen Mary, and the change of religion under Elizabeth made it almost impossible to be procured, and perilous to be preserved. The number of English Catholic books is not so great that we can afford to lose one so excellent as this.

“But even had it less intrinsic value, it is the memorial of a great man, little known, indeed, because, through the iniquity of the times, he lacked a biographer. I am confident that any one who will read the following memoir, imperfect as it is, will acknowledge that I have not been indulging an antiquarian fancy, but merely paying, as far as I could, a debt of justice long due, in trying to revive the memory of the last Catholic bishop of Lincoln.”

Father Bridgett further explains that these sermons belong to the class which “are written that they may be preached by others.” Their author undertook to write them as a “Manual of Catholic Doctrine on the Sacraments,” and in compliance with the order of a council under Cardinal Pole in December, 1555.

“Being intended for general preaching――or rather, public reading――these sermons are, of course, impassioned and colorless. We cannot judge from them of Bishop Watson’s own style of preaching. We cannot gather from them, as from the sermons of Latimer and Leaver, pictures of the manners and passions of the times. They scarcely ever reflect Watson’s personal character, except by the very absence of invective and the simple dignity which distinguishes them. As specimens of old English before the great Elizabethan era, they will be interesting to students of our language, especially as being the work of one of the best classical scholars of the day” (Preface, p. xii.).

Father Bridgett characterizes these sermons as “eminently patristic.” “I have counted,” he says, “more than four hundred marginal references to the fathers and ecclesiastical writers; and I may say that they are in great measure woven out of the Scriptures and the fathers.” Then, after remarking that, “with regard to their doctrine, it must be remembered that they were published before the conclusion of the Council of Trent,” he tells us: “I have added a few short theological notes only; for the doctrine throughout these sermons is both clearly stated and perfectly Catholic. As they certainly embody the traditional teaching of the English Church before the Council of Trent, they are an additional proof that Catholics of the present day are faithful to the inheritance of their forefathers.”

From what we have had time to read of these pages, we have been struck with at once the fulness and simplicity of the instructions they contain. The style, too, in our eyes, has both unction and charm. We thank Father Bridgett that he has “exactly reproduced the original, with the exception of the spelling.” “No educated reader,” he says, “will find much difficulty in the old idiom. The sentences, indeed, are rather long, like those of a legal document; yet they are simple in construction, and, when read aloud, they can be broken up by a skilful reader without the addition of a word.” We will only add that, perhaps, not the least attractive feature of these sermons (to the modern reader) is their brevity.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By
Dr. H. von Holst, Professor at the University of Freiburg.
Translated from the German by John J. Lalor and Alfred B. Mason.
1750-1833. State Sovereignty and Slavery. Chicago: Callaghan & Co.
1876.

The efforts of Europeans to study and write upon the American Constitution and the political life of our people, though partial and somewhat prejudiced, have always been interesting and instructive. De Tocqueville, in his _Democracy in America_, studied rather to teach us than to learn from our theory of government and its practice, and this from his transient observations as a tourist. Professor von Holst resided in this country from 1867 to 1872, and thus may be supposed to have studied more profoundly our system, and to have seen more thoroughly our practice. No one, however, could rightly judge of our political history or the system of our government who had not seen and known us both before and after our civil war. De Tocqueville saw us before, and Von Holst after, that great crisis in our history. Hence we think that both authors should be read, in order to appreciate the efforts of learned and distinguished foreigners to comment upon a theme so difficult to any European. This is especially desirable now, as in this case the Frenchman and the German are not admirers of each other’s respective political systems. The present volume, however, is able, spirited, and well written, and shows a remarkable acquaintance with our history and institutions, and with the lives and characters of our public men. The author is not in love with our government, and yet is not without sympathy for it and for our people. He is, no doubt, more in sympathy with our present than with our past. From his vigorously-written pages Americans may learn something of their virtues and of their faults. The _animus_ and style of the work might be inferred from the title of the second chapter: “The Worship of the Constitution, and its real Character.” We have often been accused of making the Constitution our political _bible_, and Washington our political patron saint. Such seems to be the impression of Professor von Holst. But it must be said that his able and interesting work is well calculated to promote the study of the American republican form of government; for we are certainly a _terra incognita_ to most Europeans. Having ably studied his subject, he has ably and learnedly communicated his researches to his countrymen and to the world. His work will appear in a series of volumes, of which we have now only the first, and the English translation will hereafter appear in this country simultaneously with the original German publications. The work seems to deal exclusively with political questions, and handles them ably. We commend its perusal to our readers.

ALICE LEIGHTON. A Tale of the Seventeenth Century. London: Burns &
Oates. 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

This story of the wars between Roundhead and Cavalier will prove an agreeable disappointment to the reader who contrives to wade through its first few pages, which are rather silly. We tremble for the fate of a story which in the very first page tells us of its youthful hero: “His brow was, however, clouded, either with emotion or with sorrow, _perchance with both_; and a _careful_ observer _might_ have marked a tear in his soft dark eyes as he turned his gaze upon the fair view before him.” In the second page the hero tells us, or rather nobody in particular, that eighteen summers have at last passed over him, whereupon he proceeds to deliver a page of an address to his “own dear home,” in the course of which he remarks that “the _accents_ of a dethroned monarch are _calling_ for assistance,” but “the long-listened-to maxims” of his childhood hold him back from joining the king. In the third page he encounters a mild sort of witch, who is gifted with that very uncertain second sight that has been the peculiar property of witches from time immemorial, and who prophesies to him, in Scotch dialect, in the usual fashion of such prophets.

Nothing could be more inauspicious than such a beginning; and yet as one reads on all this clap-trap disappears, and a very interesting story, though by no means of the highest order, unfolds itself. There is abundance of incident, battle, hair-breadth escape, varying fortunes, misery, ending with the final happiness of those in whom we are chiefly interested. Some of the characters are very well drawn, and the author shows a competent knowledge of the scenes, events, and period in which the story is laid. It affords a healthy and agreeable contrast to the psychological puzzles generally given us nowadays as novels. It looks to us as though the writer were a new hand. If so, _Alice Leighton_ affords every promise of very much better work in a too weak department of letters――Catholic fiction. If the writer will only banish for ever that antiquated _deus_ or _dea ex machinâ_, the witch, especially if she speak with a Scotch accent, give much more care than is shown in the present volume to English, not _force_ fun for fun’s sake, we shall hope soon to welcome a new volume from a lively, pleasant, and powerful pen.

“MY OWN CHILD.” A Novel. By Florence Marryat. New York: D. Appleton
& Co. 1876.

Florence Marryat has become, and deservedly, quite a popular novelist. She has, we understand, become something in our opinion very much better――a Catholic. We see no reason why her faith should interfere with the interest or power of her stories. On the contrary, it should steady her hand, widen her vision, chasten her thought, give a new meaning to very old scenes and types of character; and we have no doubt at all that such will be the case. _My Own Child_ is neither her best story nor her worst. It is a very sweet and pathetic one, simple in construction and plot, yet full of sad interest throughout, lightened here and there by bits of lively description or pictures of quaint character. It is easy to recognize a practised hand in it. The chief characters of the story are Catholics. We have only one fault to find, but that a very serious one. It is too bad to make a young lady, and so charming a young lady as May Power is represented to be, talk slang. Where in the world did she learn it, this bright, beaming, Irish, Catholic girl? Certainly not from her mother, for she never indulges in it, and surely not from the good Sisters in Brussels by whom she was educated. Yet she bounds out of the convent perfect in――slang! For instance: “‘I’ll get some nice, jolly fellow to look after it [her property] for us, mother.’ ‘You’ll never get another Hugh!’ I exclaimed indignantly. ‘Well, then, we’ll take the next best fellow we can find,’ replied my darling.” The first “best fellow,” the Hugh alluded to, happened to be the “darling’s” dead father. The same darling, only just out of convent, is anxious to make her first appearance “with a splash and a dash.” It is only natural that she should discover her mother looking “rather peaky” when that lady is threatened with an illness that endangers her life.

This is to be regretted. Young ladies are much more acceptable as young _ladies_ than when indulging in language supposed to be relegated to “fast” young women. Slang is bad enough in men’s mouths, whether in or out of books; but, spoken by a woman, it at once places her without the pale of all that is sweet and pure and calculated to inspire that admiration and reverence in men which are the crown and pride of a Christian woman’s life. Miss Marryat is clever enough to dispense with such poor material. Meanwhile, what becomes of this slangy young lady the reader will discover for himself.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIV., No. 141.――DECEMBER, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.

THE UNITARIAN CONFERENCE AT SARATOGA.[89]

The Unitarians in September last held at Saratoga their biennial conference, and we have looked over the issues of the _Liberal Christian_, a weekly publication of this city, for a full report of its proceedings, and looked to no purpose. It has, however, printed in its columns some of the speeches delivered in the conference, and given _in extenso_ the opening sermon of the Rev. Edward E. Hale. Before the conference took place the _Liberal Christian_ spoke of Rev. Edward E. Hale “as one of the few thoroughly-furnished and widely-experienced men in their ranks.” This notice prepared us to give special attention to the opening sermon, and to expect from it a statement of Unitarian principles or beliefs which would at least command the assent of a considerable portion of the Unitarian denomination. More than this it would have been unreasonable to anticipate; for so radical and extreme are their divergencies of belief that it may be said Unitarians agree on no one common objective truth; certainly not, if Mr. Frothingham and the section which the latter gentleman represents are to be ranked within the pale of Unitarianism.

The Rev. Edward E. Hale has not altogether disappointed our anticipations, for he has given expression to some of the ideas most prevalent among Unitarians; but before entering upon the consideration of these there are certain preliminary statements which he makes deserving some attention.

In the closing sentence of the first paragraph of his sermon Mr. Hale gives us a noticeable piece of information. He says:

“We were taught long since by Macaulay, in fervent rhetoric,
that the republic of Venice is new in comparison with the
papacy, and that the Roman Church was in its vigor when
Augustine landed in Kent in the sixth century. So it was.
But earlier than all this, before there was a bishop in
Rome, there were independent Christian churches, liberal in
their habit and Unitarian in their creed, in Greece, in
Asia, and in Cyprus. Nay, before those churches existed there had
gathered a group of peasants around the Saviour of men, and he
had said to them: ‘Fear not, little flock; it is your Father’s
good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ The Congregational Church
order, with the Unitarian theology, is the _oldest_ Christian
system known to history.”

What authentic history goes back of the account given in the New Testament of the founding of the Catholic Church and her hierarchy by Christ the Rev. Mr. Hale does not deign to inform us. When he does, it will be time enough to pay attention to the assertion, “The Congregational Church order is the oldest Christian system known to history.” The church is in possession; the plaintiffs must make out their case. Until then, “_quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur_”; for an assertion without proof counts for nothing.

But he does attempt to prove his assertion about “Unitarian theology” by what follows:

“I make no peculiar partisan claim or boast in this
statement. As to the statement of theology, I do but
condense in a few words the statement made by the Roman
Catholic writer in highest esteem among Englishmen to-day.
He says what I say, that he may argue from it that you
require the development of doctrine which only the perpetual
inspiration of a line of pontiffs gives you, unless you
choose to hold by the simple Unitarian creeds of the fathers
before Constantine.”

From which of the many volumes of the writings of Dr. Newman Mr. Hale has ventured to condense his language we are not told; but we are led to suppose that it was written by Dr. Newman since he became a Catholic, for he speaks of him as “the Roman Catholic writer in the highest esteem among Englishmen to-day.” As a Catholic, Dr. Newman never used language which could be condensed by a “thoroughly-informed” man to what Rev. Mr. Hale has made him say; and we have our doubts whether before he was a Catholic he used it. It would not be amiss if Mr. Hale had something of Dr. Newman’s clearness of thought and accuracy of expression. If he had, of this we are sure: he would never venture to utter in a public speech or put in print that any Catholic writer who has any claim of being a theologian believed or maintained “the perpetual _inspiration_ of a line of pontiffs.”

In the next paragraph Rev. Mr. Hale literally quotes a passage from Dr. Newman’s writings to sustain his thesis, but he fails. Here is the quotation:

“The creeds of that early day,” says Dr. Newman, “make no
mention in their letter of the Catholic doctrine of the
Trinity at all. They make mention, indeed, of a three, but
that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the three
are one, that they are co-equal, co-eternal, all increate,
all omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and
never could be gathered from them.”

He fails, because he proceeds on the supposition that the Catholic Church teaches that her creeds contain the whole body of truth of the Christian faith. The Catholic Church at no time or nowhere taught this. Her creeds never did contain explicitly the whole body of the Christian faith, they do not even now; for such was not her intention or purpose. Had it not been for the errors of Arius and his followers, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity might not have been contained in the creeds of the church explicitly, even down to our own day. The supposition, however, that the mystery of the Trinity was not believed in the church “before Constantine” is as absurd as to suppose that the necessity of good works for salvation, or there being a purgatory, was not believed and maintained in the Catholic Church before the time of Charles V., or that Papal Infallibility was not believed and held in the church before the time of William of Prussia, the German _kaiser_! The discussions and definitions of the councils render Christian truths more explicit and intelligible than they were before; this is a matter of course, but who is so ignorant as to suppose that the councils originated these truths?

That the creeds “before Constantine” implied the Trinity and intended it Dr. Newman would have taught the Rev. Edward E. Hale, if he had ingenuously quoted the two sentences which follow his extract. Dr. Newman continues thus: “Of course we believe that they [the early creeds] imply it [the Trinity]. God forbid we should do otherwise!”[90] Rev. Edward E. Hale ought to know that the Catholic Church repudiates with instinctive horror the idea of adding to, or taking away from, or altering in the least, the body of the Christian truth delivered once and for all to her keeping by her divine Founder when upon earth. The mistakes he makes on these points arise from his viewing the church solely as an assembly, overlooking that she is also a corporated body, informed by the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the constitution given to her by Christ includes the commission to “teach all things whatsoever he commanded.”

Following what has gone before, the Rev. Mr. Hale makes another surprising statement. He says:

“It was not to be expected――nor, in fact, did anybody
expect――that a religion so simple and so radical should
sweep the world without contaminating its own simplicity and
blunting the edge of its own radicalism in the first and
second contact, nay, in the contact of centuries. Least of
all did Jesus Christ himself expect this. Nobody so definite
as he in the statement of the obscurities and defilements
which would surround his simple doctrine of ‘Love God and
love men.’”

In all deference to Mr. Hale, this is precisely what everybody did expect from the church of Christ――to teach the truth with purity and unswerving fidelity, “without contamination in the contact,” for all “centuries.” For this is what the promises of Christ led them precisely to expect when he founded his church. He promised that “_the gates of hell shall not prevail against it_.”[91] He promised also that he would be with his church through all ages: “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”[92] Does Mr. Hale read the Holy Scriptures and believe what he reads? Listen, again, to St. Paul’s description of the church. After saying that “Christ is the head of the church,” and “the church is subject to Christ,” he adds: “Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, nor any such thing.”[93] Now, although the Rev. E. E. Hale has thrown overboard the belief in the divinity of Christ and the supernatural inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, nevertheless the words of Christ and his apostle, measured only by the standard of personal holiness and learning, ought to be esteemed, when speaking of God’s church, of equal authority, at least, to his statement, even though he ranks “as one of the few thoroughly-furnished and widely-experienced men” among Unitarians.

But how did the church of Christ become “contaminated”? This is an important point, and here is the Rev. E. E. Hale’s reply to it:

“And, in truth, so soon as the church met with the world, it
borrowed while it lent, it took while it gave. So, in the
face of learned Egypt, it Egyptianized its simple Trinity;
in the face of powerful Rome it heathenized its nascent
ritual; in the face of wordy Greece it Hellenized its
dogmatics and theology; and by way of holding well with
Israel it took up a rabbin’s reverence even for the jots and
tittles of its Bible. What history calls ‘Christianity,’
therefore, is a man-adorned system, of which the methods can
be traced to convenience, or even to heathen wisdom, if we
except that one majestic method by which every true disciple
is himself ordained a king and a priest, and receives the
charge that in his daily life he shall proclaim glad tidings
to every creature.”

The common error of the class of men to whom the Rev. E. E. Hale belongs, who see the church, if at all, only on the outside, is to “put the cart before the horse.” It is not the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, who teach the church of Christ, but the church of Christ which teaches the truth to the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. Christ came to teach all nations, not to be taught by them. Hence, in communicating his mission to his church, he said: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations.”[94] The church, in fulfilling this divine commission of teaching all nations, utilizes their gifts in bringing out the great truths committed to her care by her divine Founder. It is in this cooperation with the work of the church that the different nations and races of men find the inspiration of their genius, the noblest employment of their highest faculties, and the realization of their providential mission upon earth. For the scattered rays of religious truth which were held by the different nations and races of men under paganism were derived from primitive revelation, and it is only when these are brought within the focus of the light of universal truth that their complete significance is appreciated, and they are seen in all their original splendor. The Catholic Church, in this aspect, is the reintegration of natural religion with the truths contained in primitive revelation and their perfect fulfilment. Moreover, there is no truth contained in any of the ancient religions before the coming of Christ, or affirmed by any of the heresies since that event, or that may be hereafter affirmed, which is not contained, in all its integrity, in Catholicity. This is only saying, in other words, The Catholic Church is catholic.

But these men do not see the church, and they appear to regard Christianity as still an unorganized mass, and they are possessed with the idea that the task is imposed upon them to organize the Christian Church; and this work occupied and perplexed them not a little in their Unitarian biennial conference held in the town of Saratoga, in the United States of North America, in the month of September, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and seventy-six!

“Poor wanderers! ye are sore distrest
To find the path which Christ has blest,
Tracked by his saintly throng;
Each claims to trust his own weak will――
Blind idol!――so ye languish still,
All wranglers, and all wrong.”[95]

Were the veil taken from their spiritual eyes, and did they behold the church as she is, they would easily comprehend that her unbroken existence for nineteen centuries alone, saying nothing of what glory is in store for her in the future, is a more evident and conclusive proof to us of the divinity of her Founder than the miracle of his raising Lazarus from the dead was to those who were actual witnesses to it. For, in raising Lazarus from the dead, he had but to deal with passive matter, and that for only an instant; whereas in founding his church he had to exert his power and counteract all the attacks of the gates of hell, combined with the persecutions of the world and the perversities of men, during successive centuries until the end of all time. None but the living God could be the author of so potent, comprehensive, and indestructible a body as the Catholic Church. Of all the unanswerable testimonies of the divinity of Christ, there is none so forcible as that of the perpetual existence of the one, holy, Roman Catholic Church. She is the standing miracle of Christ.

The reverse sense of the statement of the Rev. Edward E. Hale on this point contains the truth. The Catholic Church welcomes all nations and races to her fold, and reintegrates the scattered truths contained in every religious system, not by way of reunion or composition, but by simplicity and unity in a divine synthesis; and as the ancient Egyptians, and the Greeks, and the Romans, so also the modern Franks and Celts, have served by their characteristic gifts to the development and progress of Christian truth. In like manner the Saxons, with their peculiar genius and instincts, will serve, to their own greater glory, in due season, in the same great cause, perhaps, by giving a greater development and a more scientific expression to the mystic life of the church, and by completing, viewed from intrinsic grounds, the demonstration of the truth of her divine mission.

Leaving aside other misstatements and errors contained in the first part of this sermon from want of space, we pass on to what may be termed its pith. Mr. Hale starts with the hazardous question, “What is the Unitarian Church for?” As far as we can make out from repeated reading of the main portion of the sermon――for there reigns a great confusion and incoherence in his ideas――the Unitarian Church has for its mission to certify anew and proclaim the truth that “God is in man.” “God in man,” he says, “is in itself the basis of the whole Gospel.” Undoubtedly “God is in man,” and God is in the brute, and God is in every grain of sand, and God is in all things. God is in all things by his immensity――that is, by his essence, and power, and presence. But this is a truth known by the light of human reason, and taught by all sound philosophers, heathen and Christian. There was no need of the Gospel, nor of that “fearlessness” which, he tells us, “was in the Puritan blood,” nor of the Unitarian Church, to teach this evident and common truth to mankind.

The Gospel message means more than that, and the Rev. Mr. Hale has some idea that it does mean more. He adds: “Every man is God’s child, and God’s Spirit is in every life.” Again: “Men are the children of God really and not figuratively”; “The life of God is their life by real inheritance.” After having made these statements, he attempts to give the basis and genesis of this relation of God as father to man as child, as follows:

“That the force which moves all nature is one force, and not
many, appears to all men, as they study it, more and more.
That this force is conscious of its own existence, that it
is conscious of its own work, that it is therefore what men
call spirit, that this spirit has inspired and still
inspires us, that we are therefore not creatures of dumb
power, but children of a Father’s love――this is the
certainty which unfolds itself or reveals itself, or is
unfolded or is revealed, as higher and higher man ascends in
his knowledge of what IS.”

That man, by the light of his reason, can, by the study of nature, attain to this idea of God and his principal attributes, as Spirit, as Creator, upholder of the universe, and as Providence, is no doubt true; but that, by the study of “the force which moves all nature,” our own consciousness included, we can learn that we are the “children of a Father’s love,” does not follow, and is quite another thing. It is precisely here that Unitarianism as a consistent, intelligible religious system crumbles into pieces. Nor can Unitarians afford to follow the Rev. Edward E. Hale in his attempt to escape this difficulty by concealing his head, ostrich-like, under the sand of a spurious mysticism, and virtually repudiating the rational element in religion by saying: “The mystic knows that God is here now. He has no chain of posts between child and Father. He relies on no long, logical system of communication,” etc. The genuine mystic, indeed, “knows God is here,” but he knows also that God is not the author of confusion, and to approach God he does not require of man to put out the light of his reason. He will tell us that the relation of God to all things as created being, and the relation of God to man as rational being, and the relation of God to man as father to child, are not one and the same thing, and ought not, therefore, to be confounded. The true mystic will further inform us that the first relation, by way of immanence, is common to all created things, man included; the second, by way of rationality, is common to the human race; the third, by way of filiation, is common to those who are united to God through the grace of Christ. The first and second are communicated to man by the creative act of God, and are therefore ours by right of natural inheritance through Adam. The third relation is communicated to us by way of adoption through the grace of the new Adam, Christ, who is “the only-begotten Son of God.” This relation is not, therefore, ours by inheritance. We “have received from Christ,” says St. Paul to the Romans, “the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry: Abba, Father.”[96] “By whom also we have access through faith into this grace, wherein we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.”[97] It is proper to remark here that it is an error very common among radicals, rationalists, and a certain class of Unitarians to suppose that the relation of the soul to God by way of filiation, due to Christ, is intended as a substitute for our natural relations to God by way of immanence and rationality; whereas Christianity presupposes these, reaffirms, continues, completes, and perfects them, by this very gift of filiation with God. For it is a maxim common to all Catholic theologians that _gratia supponit et perficit naturam_.

Our intelligent mystic would not stop here. Proceeding further, he would say that to be really and truly children of God by inheritance implies our being born with the same identical nature as God. For the nature of a child is not a resemblance to, or an image of, that of his father, but consists in his possessing the same identical essence and nature as his father. If the son is equal to his father by nature, then he is also equal to his father in his capacities as such. Now, if every man, by nature, has the right to call God father, as the Rev. Mr. Hale and his co-religionists pretend, then all men by nature are equal to God, both in essence and attributes! Is this what Unitarians mean by “the divinity of human nature”? The Rev. E. E. Hale appears to say so when he tells us: “What we are struggling for, and what, if words did not fail us, we would fain express, is what Dr. James Walker called ‘the identity of essence of all spiritual being and all spiritual life.’” All, then, that the believers in the divinity of Christ claim exclusively for him is claimed by Unitarians equally for every individual of the human race. But the belief in the divinity of Christ is “the latest and least objectionable form of idolatry”――so the Rev. H. W. Bellows informs us in his volume entitled _Phases of Faith_. The Unitarian cure, then, for the evil of idolatry is by substituting an indefinite multitude of idols for one single object of idolatrous worship.

There is one class of Unitarians, to whom the author of this sermon seems to belong, who accept boldly the consequences of their premise, and maintain without disguise that all men are by nature the equals of Christ, and that there is no reason why they should not, by greater fidelity, surpass Christ. Up to this period of time, however, they have not afforded to the world any very notable specimen of the truth of their assertion. Another class attempt to get over the difficulty by a critical exegesis of the Holy Scriptures, denying the authenticity or the meaning of those parts which relate to the miraculous conception of Christ, his miracles, and his divinity. A representative of the extreme wing on the right of Unitarianism replied, when this point was presented to him: “Oh! we Unitarians reject the idea of the Trinity as represented by Calvinists and other Protestants, for they make it a tritheism; but we accept the doctrine as holy mother Church teaches it”; while a leader of the extreme left admitted the difficulty, and in speaking of Dr. Channing, who championed the idea of the filiation of man to God, he said: “No intelligent Unitarian of to-day would attempt to defend the Unitarianism of Dr. Channing.” He was right; for no Unitarian, on the basis of his belief, can say consistently the Lord’s Prayer; for the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation is a rigorous necessity to any one who admits the infinite and the finite, and the necessity of a union of love between them which authorizes the finite to call the Infinite Father! One may bestow sympathy upon the pious feelings of that class of Unitarians of which Dr. Channing is the representative, but the less said about their theological science the better.

Our genuine mystic would not stop here. He would continue and show that the denial of the Incarnation involves the denial of the Trinity, and the denial of the Trinity reduces the idea of God to a mere abstraction. For all conception of real life is complex. Intellectual life in its simplest elements, in its last analysis, will be found to consist of three factors: Man as the thinker, one factor; the thing thought, the second factor; and their relation, the third factor――or the lover, the beloved, and their relation; again, the actor, the thing acted upon, and their relation. Man cannot think, love, or act where there is nothing to think, to love, or to act upon. Place man in an absolute vacuum, where there is nothing except himself, and you have man _in posse_, but not man as being, as existing, as a living man. You have a unit, an abstraction, nothing more. But pure abstractions have no real existence. Our conception of life in accordance with the law which governs our intelligence is comprised in three terms――subject, object, and their relation.[98] There is no possible way of bringing out of a mere unit, as our absolute starting point of thought, an intellectual conception of life. But the Unitarian idea of God is God reduced to a simple, absolute unit. Hence the Unitarian idea of God is not the conception of the real, living God, but an abstraction, a non-existing God.

Our genuine mystic would proceed still further; for infused light and love from above do not suspend or stultify the natural action of our faculties, but quicken, elevate, and transform their operations. He would apply, by way of analogy, the same process of thought in confirmation of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. If there had been a time, he would say, when there was no object before God, then there would have been a period when God was not the real, living God, but only God _in posse_, non-existing. But this is repugnant to the real conception of God; therefore the true idea of God involves a co-eternal object. If, however, this co-eternal object was not equal to God in substance as well as in attributes, then there would have been a period when God did not exist in all his fulness. Now, this object, co-eternal and equal to God the Father, is what the Catholic doctrine teaches concerning Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father, “begotten before all ages, consubstantial with the Father.” But the Father and the Son being co-eternal and co-adequate, their relations to each other must have been eternal and equal, outflowing toward each other in love, commensurate with their whole nature. This procession of mutual love between Father and Son is what the Catholic doctrine teaches concerning the Holy Spirit. Thus we see, however imperfectly, that the Catholic doctrine concerning the Trinity presents to our minds nothing that is contrary to our reason, though it contains an infinite abyss beyond the present scope of our reason, but which we shall know when our reason is increased, as it will be, by the gift of the light of glory. But every mystery of Christianity has an intelligible side to our natural reason, and by the light of faith it is the privilege and joy of a Christian while here upon earth to penetrate more deeply into their hidden, divine truth.

Again, the Unitarian is mistaken when he supposes that Catholics, in maintaining the Trinity, exclude the divine Unity. They include both in one. Herein again is found in man an analogy. Man is one in triplicity. Man is thought, love, and activity, and at the same time man is one. He thinks, he loves, he acts; there are not three distinct men, one who thinks, another who loves, and still another who acts. There is, therefore, a sense in which man is one in three and three in one. So there is in the Trinity. The Unitarians are right in affirming the divine Unity; their error consists in excluding the divine Trinity. All heresies are right in what they affirm, and wrong in what they exclude or deny; which denial is the result of their breaking away from that divine Unity in whose light alone every truth is seen in its co-relation with all other truths.

Our true mystic would not be content to rest here, but, soaring up upon the wings of divine light and love, and taking a more extended view, he would strive to show that where the doctrine of the Trinity is not held either explicitly or implicitly, there not only the theory of our mental operations and the intellectual foundation of religion dissolve into a baseless fabric of a vision; but that also the solid basis of society, the true idea of the family, the right conception of the state and its foundations, and the law of all genuine progress, are wanting, and all human things tend towards dissolution and backward to the reign of old chaos.