Chapter II (5)

Faith, in Brittany, has a particular character, allied to a poetry peculiar to Breton genius. In this country material objects speak; the very stones are animated, and the fields assume a voice to reveal the soul of man conversing with his God. This is not imagination; no one can be deceived in it. So soon as one enters Brittany, the physiognomy of the country changes, and the sign of this change is the cross. On all the roads, at all the public places, is raised the cross; of every epoch from the twelfth to the nineteenth century we find them, and of every form. {569} There, simple crosses of granite raised on a few steps; here, crosses bearing on each side the image of Christ and the Virgin, rude sculptures in themselves, but always impressed with a sincere sentiment. The Bretons not only understand the tenderness of the Blessed Virgin, but they feel her grief; they share it with her, and express it with an energetic truth. Look at the picture of the Virgin holding her dead son on her knees, in the church of St. Michael at Quimperlé. It is a primitive painting by an unskilled hand, and one totally ignorant of the resources of art; the design of it is incorrect; yet what an expression of grief! The painter wished to portray the living suffering of the mother; the mouth is distorted, the eyes are fixed, the pupil seems alone indicated: yet this fixedness of look seizes upon you; you stop, you remain to examine it, you forget that it is a representation, and see the Virgin herself, immovable in her grief, with no power to express her sorrow; petrified, yet living.

At one side, leaning against the wall, is a statue of the Virgin, conceived with as contrary a sentiment as possible. She is all tenderness and delicacy, and has a leaning attitude, the head inclined, with the gentle look of the Mother who calls the sinner to her side. Her robe falls in numberless plaits, her mantle envelops her with a harmonious grace; for she is no longer the Mother of sorrow, but the sweet consoler of human kind, holding her Son in her arms, whom she presents to bless the earth, _Notre Dame de Bot Scao_, The Virgin of Good News.

The faith of sailors in the Blessed Virgin is well known, that of the Breton sailors particularly. At Brest, we look in vain for a museum of pictures. Brest is not a city of art; it breathes of war; the port, filled with large ships, the arsenal and its cannon, its shells, its gigantic anchors, the forts built on the rocks, the animated movement of the streets, where soldiers of all kinds go and come, and sailors constantly arriving from all parts of the world, give to it an air of intense reality--a character at once powerful and precise. Man has built on the rock his granite home, and we may believe it is immovably established.

But ascend the steps that lead from the lower to the upper town, and under a vault you will find four pictures appended to the wall. Here is the museum of Brest. Sea pictures dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the departure of the vessel, women and children on the beach on their knees during a tempest, the vessel tossed by the waves, and the arms of the sailors extended to heaven; and on their return, the rescued sailors, bending their steps, with tapers in their hands, toward the chapel of Notre Dame; and underneath, touching legends, cries of the soul that implores, humbles itself, or renders thanks. _Holy Virgin, save us! Holy Virgin, protect those who are now at sea!_ Man we see in his weakness, his aspirations, and his hopes--the true man; the rest was but the mask.

They seize every opportunity and use every pretext to testify their faith. At Saint Aubin d'Aubigné between Rennes and Saint Malo, you go along a tufted hedge; you see a cross cut of thorn--a cross which grows green in the spring, among the eglantines and roses. [Footnote 176]

[Footnote 176: At St. Vincent les Redon, a tree is cut in the
form of the cross.]

You return to visit the land of Carnac--a land so pale and desolate, where the standing stones are squared by thousands, gigantic and silent sphinxes that for twenty centuries have kept their impenetrable secret--what is that cross that rises on an eminence? {570} One that they have planted on an isolated ruin in the land--a cross on a Druidical altar, and before the army of stones which mark, perhaps, a cemetery of a great people.

Elsewhere, at the cross-way of a road near Beauport, a spring gushes out and flows among the rocks, forming both basin and fountain on the heaped-up stones; in an arched niche is enclosed a Virgin crowned with flowers; all around, the field morning-glory, the periwinkle, and the eglantine have peeped through the moss and herbs, and enlaced the rustic chapel with their flowery festoons, and fallen again on the infant Jesus. Opposite lie fields of green thorn-broom, and above their long, slender stalks appear the half-destroyed walls of an ancient abbey, roofless, opened to heaven, and silent. Through the blackened arches appears the blue sea, whose prolonged and incessant roaring fills the air.

In this Catholic country _par excellence_, all the churches are remarkable. There is no village, however small, of which the church does not form an interesting part; and here and there, as at Guérande and Vitré, we find the beautifully carved pulpits enclosed in the wall, from which the missionary fathers, on certain extraordinary occasions, speak to the people assembled in the square. At Carnac and Rennescleden we have the arched roofs so exquisitely painted; at Roscoff, Crozon, and elsewhere, medallions of stone and wood framing the altar with quaint gilded sculptures; then, again, we meet with a tabernacle formed for an architectural monument, a sort of palace in miniature, with its wings, pavilions, columns, domes, galleries, and statues, (as at Rosporden;) then an antique confessional greets us in a little chapel near Chateaulin, and a canopy sculptured in wood or even crystal, at Landivisiau. An odd ornament, which is found in only one church--that of Notre Dame de Comfort, on the way to the Bec du Raz--is called _the wheel of good fortune_, and is composed of a large wheel suspended from the roof of the church, and entirely surrounded by bells. On days of solemn feasts, for baptisms and weddings, the wheel is turned, and, agitating all the bells at once, forms a noisy chime, which times the march of the procession, and adds a joyous and silver-toned accompaniment to the voices of the young girls chanting the canticles to the Blessed Virgin. Finally, we meet with one of those trunks of trees, large squared pillars of oak, encircled with heavy bands of iron, and placed in the middle of the church, by the side of a catafalque of blackened wood, but sowed with whitened tears; the trunk and the coffin, emblems of the fragility of life, and the Christian principle above all others, charity.

The churches in the towns are truly _chefs-d'oeuvres_, the cloisters of Tréguier and Pont l'Abbé, for example, where the arcades are so light and so finely carved; or the _bas-reliefs_ inside the portal of Sainte Croix, at Quimperlé, a vast page of sculptured stone, finished with the delicacy and richness of invention, the charming qualities of youth and of the _Renaissance_. Then, in all these churches, near the altar, you perceive immediately the painted statue of the parish saint, one of the Breton saints, not found elsewhere--Saint Cornély, Saint Guénolé. Saint Thromeur, Saint Yves especially. {571} Saint Yves has the privilege of being represented in almost all the churches, even in those of which he is not patron; the remembrance of this great, good man, this wise priest, this incorruptible judge, is indelibly impressed on the heart of every Breton. Sometimes he is seen in his judge's robe, his cap on his head, and listening to two litigants, one in red velvet, embroidered in gold, with his grand wig, his silken stockings, and sword; the other, the poor peasant, all in rags, holes on his knees and his elbows, and naked feet in his wooden shoes. The great lord, with his cap on his head, and an air of pride, presents the saint a purse of gold; the peasant, with timid look and attitude, his head bent down, his cap in his hand, humbly awaits his sentence. He has nothing to give, but justice will not fail him. Saint Yves turns toward him with a gracious smile, and, handing him the judgment written on parchment, lets him know it is his. And thus the history of the middle ages: the church protecting the peasant, the weak against the powerful and the strong.

As to monuments, properly called, nowhere can we find more of these beautiful churches of the middle ages, testimonies of the piety, the science, and the taste of so glorious an epoch. Here, the Cathedral of Dol, of the best day of Gothic art--the thirteenth century--imposing by its massiveness, its grandeur, and the noble simplicity of its ornaments and the harmony of its proportions, the granite of whose towers, in the lapse of ages, is permeated with the air of the sea, has a color of rust, we might say built with iron; there, Tréguier and its exquisite wainscoting, benches, altars, stalls, pulpit in brilliant black oak, carved in such fine and delicate designs, with inexhaustible variety; not a baluster alike, enough models to furnish the entire sculpture of our time; and further on, Saint Pol de Leon and its spire of granite; daring and easy, a prodigy of equilibrium, immovable, girded with open galleries like graceful crowns, flinging to heaven its tiny sharpened bells; so beautifully carved, so aerial, the joy of Brittany, as well it may be, its legitimate pride; then Folgoat, a little unknown village north of Brest, lost at the extremity of the isle, and necessary to leave one's route to see it; but even here, two Breton princes, the Duke Jean III. and the Duchess Anne, have constructed a royal church accumulating all that Gothic art in its richest ornamentation, united to the most ingenious caprices of the _Renaissance_, could have imagined of delicacy and brightness; portraits sculptured, statues of the finest style reflecting their antiquity, a richly Gothic and carved choir, and a gallery--one of those graceful and original monuments of Catholicism so seldom met with--of lace-work, where trefoils, roses, and foliage are carved in indestructible blue granite. The hammer of the Revolution has only knocked off small pieces of these beautifully carved stones. They resisted the passions of men, as they have defied the action of time.

With the bells, of such varied forms, and the vessels for holy water, we will conclude.

These bells are of every style--of the _Renaissance_, the Roche-Maurice-les-Landerneau, of Landivisiau, of Ploaré, of Pontcroix, and of Roscoff. Many are hung with smaller and lighter bells and ornamented with two-story balustrades, like the minarets of the East; then the coverings, spires as they are called, are like that of Tréguier, open, that the winds of the sea may pass through them, and adorned with crosses, roses, little windows, cross-bars, and stars like the cap of a magician.

{572}

The vessels for holy water also express the character of the age. At Dinan, in a church of the twelfth century, an enormous massive tub is supported by the large iron gauntlets of four chevaliers; the old crusader dress, armed _cap-a-pie_ in the service of Christ. In a church of the fifteenth century, at Quimper, is one of an entirely opposite character--a small column, around which a vine is entwined, and above an angel, who, with wings extended, appears as if it had descended from heaven to alight upon the consecrated cup. Again, and as if inspired by a still more Christian sentiment, we find the exterior vessels for holy water, so common everywhere in Brittany, of which the most remarkable are at Landivisiau, at Morlaix, and Quimperlé. The interior ones seem only accessories; the exterior, isolated before the door, have a more precise signification: they solicit the first impulse of the soul; the Christian, in stretching out his hand toward the blessed vase, pauses, and prepares his heart for the coming devotion.

How well these Breton architects have understood religion! These exterior vases are living monuments, little pulpits, with their emblems, symbols, and heads of angels enveloped in their wings. Their canopies, prominent, sculptured, and under them, standing and always smiling, our blessed Mother, who seems to invite the faithful to enter the house of prayer. And prayer, as some one has said, is the fortress of life. The Breton people believe and pray: a hidden power is theirs--religion; its effectiveness attesting not only its existence, but its life.

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Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.

Abbot Pastor said: He who teacheth something and doth it not himself, is like unto a well which filleth and cleanseth all who come to it, but is unable to cleanse itself of filth and impurities.

A brother asked Abbot Pastor the meaning of the words: He who is angry with his brother without cause. He answered: If in all cases where thy brother wisheth to put thee down thou art angry with him, even though thou pluck out thy right eye and cast it from thee, thy anger is without cause. If however, any one desireth to separate thee from God, then mayest thou be angry.

Abbot Pastor said: Malice never driveth away malice; but, if anyone shall have done thee an injury, heap benefits upon him, so that by thy good works thou destroy his malice.

A brother came to Abbot Pastor, and said: Many thoughts enter my mind, and I am in great danger from them. Then the old man sent him out into the open air, and said: Spread out thy garment and catch the wind. But he answered that he could not. If thou canst not do this, replied the old man, neither canst thou put a stop to these thoughts; but it is thy duty to resist them.

Abbot Pastor said: Experiments are useful, for by them men become more perfect.

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{573}

New Publications

Discussions in Theology.
By Thomas H. Skinner,
Professor in the Union Theological Seminary.
New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 770 Broadway.

Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions.
Addressed especially to young men and women of
Christian education.
By Rev. Ray Palmer, D.D.,
Pastor of the First Congregational church,
Albany. Same publisher.

These two volumes are very much alike in their general scope and character. Both are written in a calm, philosophical style, and with the praiseworthy view of presenting the claims of the Christian religion on the reason and conscience of men, combating scepticism, and removing difficulties and objections derived from the infidel literature of the day. Professor Skinner begins with a very good essay on miracles as the basis of a reasonable, historical belief in the teaching which they authenticate, and then proceeds to develop his own views respecting certain special topics which he can assume will be admitted by his particular audience to be contained in that teaching. These relate chiefly to the mode by which fallen man may obtain restoration to the divine favor through the Redeemer of our race. The author's object is to show that this mode, as explained by himself, exhibits the attributes of God in a manner consonant to the dictates of reason and the truths of natural theology, and is one by which any sincere, well-intentioned person can make sure of obtaining grace from God, pardon and eternal life. The author's view is that of the new school of Calvinists, which is a great improvement on that of the old school in a moral, though not in a logical, sense. Such preaching and writing as that of Professor Skinner must have a good influence on those who still believe in Christianity and know no other form of it than the Presbyterian. It puts forward the goodness and mercy of God, and encourages the sinner to hope for grace and pardon, if he will be diligent in prayer, meditation, and other pious exercises, and this appears to have been the practical end proposed to himself by the author in this volume. Dr. Palmer's essays are more elaborate and consecutive in their character, and aim more immediately at satisfying the intelligence. He first portrays in a clear and impressive manner the evils of scepticism, and then proceeds to exhibit the evidence of the truths of natural theology and of the fact of a divine revelation, which is also accomplished with a considerable degree of ability and force. The result at which he aims is to convince his readers that they are morally bound to recognize Christianity as true, and to form some definite opinions as to its real meaning, which may serve them as a practical rule and guide for attaining their eternal destiny. The capital defect in his argument is, that he reduces the evidence of the being of God to mere probability, thus leaving the mind where Kant left it, in a state of scientific scepticism with no better basis of certainty than the practical reason. Of course, then, he has nothing more to propose under the name of Christian doctrines than probable opinions. No doubt, it is obligatory on all to act upon opinions which are solidly probable in regard to the momentous interests of the soul, where there are no other equal probabilities to balance them, and no greater certainty is attainable. We deny, however, emphatically that man is left in this state by the Christian revelation. The being of God is a metaphysical certainty. The fact of revelation is a moral certainty, reducible in the last analysis to a certainty which is metaphysical and sufficient to produce an absolute assent of the mind without any fear of the contrary. {574} The articles of faith proposed by the revelation of God ought to have the same certainty, since it is necessary to believe them without doubting. Our respected authors cannot propose a reasonable motive for believing all the doctrines of their sect or school without any doubt, but can only propose opinions more or less probable, or even directly contrary to reason. We do not think, therefore, that they will be able to satisfy the reason of any person who thinks logically that their theories of Christianity are true and complete. The most they can do is to breed an anxious desire to find out with certainty what Christianity is and to attain to a rational faith.

----

Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna.
By Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D.,
President of St. Mary's College, Oscott.
For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, New York.

This is a valuable contribution to Catholic literature, and presents a subject of interest not only to Catholics, but to the public at large; for great public facts are always of interest, whatever may be our opinion in regard to their significance. A clear and full account is given in this book of the principal facts connected with the origin of some of the sanctuaries of the Madonna in Europe, particularly of the Holy House of Loreto and the recently established pilgrimage of La Salette in France. We do not see how any one can read it and resist the conviction that God has, by his own finger, established and maintained the devotion of the faithful at these holy places. It is easy enough to cry superstition, and to call everything supernatural superstitious. But the evidence of facts speaks for itself, and we commend this book to the candid reader, confident of his favorable judgment in spite of all preconceived opinions, as able to speak for itself. We have, moreover, found it most attractive, and have read it from beginning to end with unflagging interest. It is calculated to quicken the faith of the dumb Christian, open his eyes to the unseen world, and fill his heart with desire for virtue and the love of God, and, as well, to produce in the mind of the careless a deeper conviction of the truth of spiritual things, which may make him set less value on the present, and prize more highly the world to come. We hope this book may attract attention and be widely circulated.

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Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Ritual:
Regarding the Sacraments in general.
Baptism, the Eucharist, and Extreme Unction.
By Rev. James O'Kane, Senior Dean,
St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.
New York: The Catholic Publication House.
1 vol. crown 8vo, pp. 527. 1868.

This is one of the most excellent commentaries upon the Ritual that has come under our notice. The reverend author has for several years delivered lectures upon the Rubrics to the senior class of theological students in Maynooth, and the substance of these lectures is to be found in the present volume. That he is eminently qualified for such a difficult task, is apparent from the thoroughly practical as well as theoretical knowledge he displays in treating of the administration of the sacraments.

Priests on the mission will find the book one of the most useful works for reference on the subjects treated of which can be found in the English language.

It has been examined by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and received its approbation, and can, therefore, be consulted and followed with confidence as good authority.

------

Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1867.

This valuable work appears to receive more care and attention each year. The present volume is of unusual importance on account of the political events in our own country and elsewhere, bearing on the ultimate destiny of the Christian world, which are recorded in its pages. {575} It contains, also, a very fair statement of the history and present condition of the Pope's temporal dominion, and of the principal events in the history of the Catholic Church during the year. In the article on the "Roman Catholic Church," it is incorrectly stated that the Council of Florence is by some regarded as oecumenical. It is universally regarded as oecumenical, and was one of the most important councils ever held in the church. The Patriarch of Constantinople, the Greek Emperor, the representatives of the other Eastern patriarchs and of the Russian Church, and a number of other Eastern prelates were present, and discussed all their causes of difference with the Roman Church during thirteen months, after which they signed the Act of Union, and united in a solemn definition of the supremacy of the Pope.

The Council of Basle is enumerated among the certain oecumenical councils, although all its acts from the twenty-fifth session have been condemned, and none of those of the prior sessions approved, by the Holy See. Although a few Galilean writers have maintained that this council was oecumenical during its earlier sessions, their opinion is generally rejected and is of no weight.

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Red Cross; or, Young America in England and Wales.
By Oliver Optic.
Boston: Lee & Shepard.

This volume, the third of the series published under the title of _Young America Abroad_, continues and concludes the travels and adventures of the naval cadets on British soil and in British waters. London, Liverpool, Manchester, the Isle of Wight, the Lake District, Snowdon, the Menai Straits, etc., are visited, affording an opportunity for the introduction of a great deal of miscellaneous information regarding the physical geography and history of many interesting localities. So far the book is unexceptionable. The adventures of the students, however, are, in Oliver Optic's usual style, exaggerated to the very verge of credibility; and though they will doubtless be relished by the class for which they are written, we no less decidedly think that, as mental food for youth, the selection is not the most judicious, and that the author could very easily, with equal credit to himself and greater benefit to his juvenile readers, serve up something else more nutritious, if less palatable, or not so highly seasoned. As regards the students themselves, it seems to us, also, that the author has not yet hit upon the golden mean: the good boys are almost too good, the bad equally untrue to nature. Our experience with boys--and it is by no means slight or superficial--tends to prove that with those who, from an indisposition to submit to an "iron rule," are commonly known as "wild," such impatience of restraint generally springs from exuberant animal spirits, and is seldom, if ever, met with in connection with meanness, much less vice. _Per contra_, the greatest sycophants are, as a rule, the meanest and most depraved.

------

Chaudron's New Fourth Reader.
On an Original Plan.
By A. De V. Chaudron.
Mobile: W. G. Clark & Co. Pp. 328. 1867.

Exteriorly, this book presents a by no means pleasing appearance; hence, the greater our surprise, and, we may add, our pleasure, at the variety and excellence of its contents, in which respect it is nowise inferior to any of those in use in our public schools. While we cannot expect for Mrs. Chaudron's Series of _Readers_ an extended circulation in this city, in view of so many and generally deserving rivals already firmly established amongst us, we do with confidence recommend them, if in their general features they resemble this, the only one of the series submitted to us.

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{576}

Imitation of Christ
Spiritual Combat
Treatise on Prayer.
Boston: P. Donahoe. Pp. 816. 1868.

Decidedly opposed to small type in books of a religious or educational character, we can cheerfully overlook its use in this instance, giving us, as it does, complete in one volume and in bulk not exceeding the average size of prayer-books, three such admirable devotional works.

------

Irish Homes and Irish Hearts.
By Fanny Taylor, author of
_Eastern Hospitals, Tyborne,
Religious Orders,_ etc., etc.
Boston: Patrick Donahoe. Pp. xi. 215.

The original work, of which this volume is a very neat reprint, was favorably mentioned in _The Catholic World_ for September, 1867. Hence we need not enter into details. It is enough to say that the author, leaving the beaten track of ordinary tourists, devoted herself to the visitation and inspection of the various charitable and religious institutions of Ireland, the number and excellence of which amply vindicate "the warmth of Irish hearts and the depth of Irish faith." This volume gives the result of her examination. It unfolds not a new, but to many an unexpected, phase of Irish character, and will well repay a perusal, from which few can rise without being benefited thereby.

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Choice of a State of Life.
By Father C. G. Rossignoli, S. J.
Translated from the French,
1 vol. 16mo, pp. 252.
Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1868.

This is a well-reasoned little treatise on vocations, or the choice of a state of life, an important matter too little thought of in our day, when material things have the upper hand, and spiritual things are made of so little account. Many, no doubt, fitted by their talents and called by an interior voice to the priesthood or the religious state, neglect the call; and others again, quite unfit, thrust themselves forward, allured by some prospect of worldly advancement. This little book clearly exposes the motives which should govern us in the choice of a state of life. If read in a calm and undisturbed state of mind, we do not doubt it will do a great deal of good, and induce many to embrace the better part which shall not be taken away from them.

------

Margaret: A Story of Life in a Prairie Home.
By Lyndon.
New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1868.

A pleasantly told story of everyday life. The interest in the narrative is well sustained throughout; the incidents natural, yet effectively introduced; and the characters strongly marked and sufficiently diversified. "Life in a prairie home," however, if here faithfully described, differs materially from what it is generally supposed to be. The incidents are such as to be equally possible in any village in any one of the original thirteen states.

------

Elinor Johnston: Founded on Facts; and
Maurice and Genevieve, or
The Orphan Twins of Beauce.
Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. Pp. 136.

Two charming stories for children, tastefully got up, if we except an occasional inequality in the pages and carelessness in typography, which we hope to see avoided in future volumes. There is no reason why books intended for children should not be as creditable in appearance as those for adults. That this can be done is proved by the beautifully uniform series just issued by the Catholic Publication Society.

------

Books Received.

From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore:

The First-Class Book of History, designed for
pupils commencing the study of history, with
questions; adapted to the use of academies
and schools.
By M. J. Kerney, A.M., author of Compendium
of Ancient and Modern History, Columbian
Arithmetic, etc., etc., etc.
Twenty-second revised edition.
Enlarged by the addition of Lessons in
Ancient History,
1 vol. 16mo, pp. 335.

----

From P. O'Shea, New York:

O'Shea's Popular Juvenile Library.
First series. 12 vols., illustrated.

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{577}

The Catholic World.

Vol. VII., No. 41.--August, 1868.

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A New Face On An Old Question.

A few months ago I described a visit which I had recently paid to a friend of mine in the country, and repeated a little of the conversation we then had together upon subjects especially interesting to Catholics. [Footnote 177]

[Footnote 177: See _The Catholic World_, March, 1868;
article, "Canada Thistles."]

I was so well pleased with what I saw and heard on that occasion that I resolved to spend a few more days with him; and last month, as soon as the warm weather set in, I presented myself one evening at his hospitable door, valise in hand, and was soon comfortably installed as a guest. If I found his house an embodiment of domestic comfort during the winter, it was still more delightful, now that the lawn and meadows wore the brilliant green of early summer, and the prairie-roses, climbing over the great, roomy piazza, shook down perfume into the open windows, and drew around the place the ceaseless song of bees and the whir of the restless little humming-bird. The library which had charmed me so much when the blazing wood-fire shed a ruddy glow of comfort over the bookshelves and the big writing-table, and the tempting arm-chairs, was a thousand times more attractive, now that green branches and bunches of roses filled the old-fashioned fire-place, and windows, open to the floor, let in the breath of new-mown hay, while creepers and honeysuckles kept off the glare of the sun, and waved gently in and out with the south-west breeze. Here we used to sit and chat on warm afternoons, and our conversation generally turned upon the religious topics in which we were both so much interested. One day we were talking about the great improvement of late in the style of discussion on the Catholic question. "We don't hear so much of the old slanders," said my friend, "but there is rather an inquiry into the reasons of our success and the best methods to meet us. Whenever that inquiry is conducted honestly and thoroughly, it is found that the only way to meet us is, to come over boldly to our side and fight under our banner. As an illustration of what I have said," continued he, picking up a pamphlet from the table, "take this sermon on 'Christ and the Common People,' by the Rev. Mr. Hinsdale, a Protestant clergyman, of Detroit. He states the subject of his discourse boldly enough: 'We start,' he says, 'with the _confessed failure of Protestantism_ to control spiritually the lives, and to mould religiously the characters, of the millions. {578} What are the reasons?' He declares that Protestantism has scarcely won a foot of ground from Romanism in more than two hundred years. 'Geographically, it is where it was at the close of the century in which Luther died. Neither is Protestantism stronger religiously or politically than it was in the seventeenth century; some deny that it is as strong' Nor can it be claimed that it is now making any material gains in any of these directions.' Again: 'In the Protestant countries, no ground has been wrested from false religion or irreligion within a hundred years;' and in the principal American cities the Protestant denominations are unquestionably losing ground. There is good authority for stating that in Cincinnati, for instance, the communicants in the Protestant churches are fewer by two thousand than they were twenty years ago; yet the population of the city has increased during the interval by something like a hundred thousand. Well, Mr. Hinsdale being, as I should judge, a gentleman of common sense and honesty, does not try to relieve his mind from the pressure of these disagreeable facts by cursing the Catholics, but sets himself to work to find out the reasons for the greater prosperity of our church. I need not read them to you; for of course the great reason of all--the assistance of Heaven--he does not perceive; but he makes some significant admissions. He tells his people that Catholicism is the especial religion of the poor, and that Protestantism is restricting itself daily more and more closely to the rich; and he quotes a saying of Theodore Parker's: '_If the poor forsake a church, it is because the church forsook God long before._' I am a Protestant of the Protestants,' Mr. Hinsdale adds, 'but have no hesitation in affirming that in some particulars we should stand rebuked before Romanists this hour; none in declaring that in some respects the Romish priest understands the methods of Christ better than the evangelical preacher.' Now, when the alarm of Protestants at the increase of our churches takes such a form as this, I believe that good results must flow from it."

"No doubt you are right," said I; "but I am afraid few of the anti-popery preachers are like this gentleman of Detroit. Here, for example, is an address, delivered at the last anniversary of the American and Foreign Christian Union, by the Rev. Dr. Talmadge, of Philadelphia. He begins with the admission that the cause of popery is still flourishing, 'although in the attempt to destroy it there has been expended enough ink, enough voice, enough genius, enough money, enough ecclesiastical thunder, to have torn off all the cassocks, and to have extinguished all the wax candles, and to have poured out all the holy water, and to have rent open all the convents, and to have turned the Vatican into a Reformed Dutch church, and the convocation of cardinals into an old-fashioned prayer-meeting, and to have immersed the pope, and sent him forth as a colporteur of the American and Foreign Christian Union. But somehow there has been a great waste of effort. The plain fact is,' he continues, 'that Romanism has to-day, in the United States, tenfold more power than when we first began to bombard it.' {579} And the moral he draws from this survey of the situation is, that the Protestants had better 'change their style of warfare,' and introduce into the fight the principle of holy love, and the example of charity and devotion. Nothing could be more sensible than this remark of his: 'Bitter denunciation on the part of good but mistaken men never pulled down one Roman Catholic church, but has built five hundred. There is only one way to make a man give up his religion, and that is by showing him a better.' Brave words, you say, and so they are. Yet this very sermon is full of just the sort of bitter denunciation which the preacher denounces. The whole address is a condemnation of the speaker himself--one of the finest pieces of unconscious satire I ever read. I don't believe _The Observer_ itself could do the raw-head and bloody-bones business better than Dr. Talmadge does it."

"Never mind. Get these people to admit the principle of honest and gentlemanly dealing in religious controversy, and you may leave their practice to reform itself. For one man who was impressed by Dr. Talmadge's swelling invectives, I make little doubt that there were five who carried away in their hearts his advice to be charitable, courteous, and just. The English Nonconformist preacher, Newman Hall, who travelled through the United States recently, told his congregation on his return home that one of the greatest dangers of Protestantism nowadays was injustice toward Roman Catholics. I am afraid that his advice was not much relished in England, for you know injustice to Catholics is one of the pet foibles of Englishmen; but it is not so bad here. The American people are naturally fond of fair play. You have only to convince them that a certain course of conduct is unjust, and they will change it of their own accord."

"Do you mean to say, then, that you believe reason and logic are henceforth to supersede violence and slander in the discussion of the Catholic problem?"

"Not entirely, of course. But I believe that falsehoods are rapidly losing their efficacy in polemics, and that Protestants recognize this fact and are preparing to adapt themselves to the altered conditions of the conflict. And I do not mean to insinuate that as a class they do this merely from policy. Most of them probably used to believe the old standard lies; at least, they did not _dis_believe them. They repeated them by rote, because they had been brought up to do so, and they never thought of stopping to inquire into their authority. Now that the slanders have ceased to serve a purpose, it is naturally easier to convince those who used to profit by them that they _are_ slanders. What I mean to say is, that the tendency of our time is toward fairness and good sense in religious disputes. You and I, for example, are quite young enough to remember when 'Romanism' was popularly regarded as an unknown horror, no more to be tolerated than the plague or the yellow fever. It was not thought to be a question open for debate. A Protestant would no more have dreamed of examining the merits of popery than the merits of hydrophobia. But now it is a very common thing for our adversaries to admit that we have done wonderful service to humanity in our day; that in some particulars we have done and are still doing more than any other denomination; only we belong to a past age and ought now to give way to fresher organizations. {580} I remember a rather striking sermon which I read in a Detroit newspaper, the other day, on the 'irrepressible conflict' between Catholicism and Liberalism, by the Rev. Mr. Mumford, a Unitarian clergyman. The greater part of the discourse was as illiberal as anything could be. Mr. Mumford saw in the Catholic Church a tremendous engine of oppression, and thought it was scheming to get control of the negroes in the Southern States, and through them to direct the politics of the whole country--"

"He saw no danger in the great influence which Methodism has acquired over the colored people, did he?"

"No; and he forgot to mention that the Catholic Church is almost the only one in America which has never been tainted by the intrusion of politics. Well, I was going on to say that, with all Mr. Mumford's prejudices and absurdities, he had the honesty to acknowledge that the Catholic Church is really entitled to the gratitude of mankind, and declared that he was glad it had secured some foothold in America, 'to act as a restraint upon the intolerance of the Protestant churches.'"

"I am afraid that you rather exaggerate the importance of admissions like these. They are so often made merely for rhetorical effect! They are little patches of light artfully thrown into the picture to heighten the effect of the shadows."

"I know that I don't refer to them as proofs of a willingness to examine the nature and grounds of Catholic doctrine, though I believe that there is much more of such willingness than there used to be, but as an evidence that a spirit of fairness and good-breeding is beginning to prevail in religious controversy; and from that spirit I cannot but expect good results."

"So far I have no doubt you are right; and one of the good results, it seems to me, must be the gradual extinction (or possibly the reform) of denominational newspapers of the old bludgeon-school. _The Observer_ must go out of fashion whenever reason comes in. There will be no room for the religious brawlers when those who differ in creed learn to talk over their differences in a common-sense way. Don't you think there is a change in the tone of the press already?"

"The secular press certainly has improved wonderfully in its treatment of Catholics. About the religious periodicals I am not so sure: some of them are tamer than they were formerly, but the old stand-bys lash their tails as furiously as ever, and the less they are heeded the louder they roar. But that is only natural. You see the same thing at the theatres. When a play ceases to draw very well, the single combats become doubly fierce and the red-fire is frequent. The violence of the denominational organs must not be taken as an evidence of the sentiment of society. If they really led the opinions of their readers, we should have an anti-Catholic crusade every year. I wonder if you have noticed, however, that some of the Protestant religious papers which have usually been mild in their tone have been roused of late to an unaccustomed bitterness against us?"

"Yes, and I hardly know how to account for it."

"I think the explanation is this. The calm discussion of Catholic questions, as we said before, must logically lead to the discovery of Catholic truth. There are Protestant writers who see this and do not want to see it. They perceive whither the current is bearing them, and they struggle against it. They rail at the church by way of protest against the growth of an unwelcome, dimly foreseen conviction, as an encouragement to their tottering unbelief, just as boys whistle to keep up their courage. {581} Have you ever seen a dying sinner try to fight off death? It is in some such hopeless effort as his that _The Liberal Christian_ and a few other journals are now engaged. I do not say that they understand this themselves. I do not charge them with absolutely resisting the progress of conviction, or, to speak more exactly, the resistance is instinctive rather than voluntary; but they feel or suspect, perhaps without fully comprehending, that, if they keep on as they are going, they must come pretty soon to the Catholic Church, and that provokes them. _The Liberal Christian_, you know, is edited by Dr. Bellows, an accomplished gentleman, who was thought some years ago to exhibit a decided leaning toward the church. I am not prepared to say whether this supposition was correct or not; but it is certain that he saw more clearly and exposed more boldly the inherent defects and logical tendencies of Protestantism than any other Protestant I can remember, and in one of his published sermons he declared that Unitarians (his own sect) had more sympathy with Catholicism than with any other form of religion. It might seem strange to find him among the foremost revilers of that very Catholicism; but my theory explains it. The hostility which glistens in his letters and runs mad, sometimes, in the miscellaneous columns of his paper, is the revolt of his Protestantism against the progress of unwelcome ideas--an effort of his unregenerate nature, so to speak, to throw off something which does not agree with it. Ah! how many men have trod in the same path he is now following, and have been led by it to the bitter waters of disappointment! He saw the fatal gulf into which the Protestant bodies were plunging. He felt that hunger of the spirit which nothing but the church of God ever satisfies. He raised a cry for help, and when he found that there was no help except from the Holy Catholic Church, he turned his back upon her, and bound himself down once more with the narrow bonds of what is called Unitarian 'liberalism.' And now, of course, he misses no opportunity of declaring his detestation of the succor which he has refused. He has failed in his aspirations after a mock church, and naturally he vents his disappointment on the real one. He fancies that he is moved by principle, when he is really instigated by pique. He imagines that he is an earnest, honest seeker after an answer to what he well terms 'the dumb wants of the religious times,' when he is--but I have no business to judge his motives. That is God's affair. We must presume that he is courageous and sincere, and that whenever he finds the right road he will boldly walk in it. Nine years ago, Dr. Bellows delivered an address before the alumni of the Harvard Divinity School, on 'The Suspense of Faith,' which was generally supposed to indicate his wish to engraft a ritual and a priesthood upon the Unitarian denomination, bringing it perhaps nearer to Episcopalianism than to any other system of worship. There was no such thought in his mind, I am sure; though his sentiments, had they been acted upon, might have led many men through Episcopalianism into the Catholic Church. I will not weary you with the whole of it; but let me read a few lines which have a special application to what we have been saying. {582} He is trying to account for the fact that Unitarianism is in a posture of pause and self-distrust and he says: 'If, with logical desperation, we ultimate the tendencies of Protestantism, and allow even the malice of its enemies to flash light upon their direction, we may see that _the sufficiency of the Scriptures turns out to be the self-sufficiency of man_, and the right of private judgment an absolute independence of Bible or church. No creed but the Scriptures, practically abolishes all Scriptures but those on the human heart; nothing between a man's conscience and his God, vacates the church; and with the church, the Holy Ghost, whose function is usurped by private reason: the church lapses into what are called religious institutions, these into Congregationalism, and Congregationalism into individualism--and the logical end is the abandonment of the church as an independent institution, _the denial of Christianity as a supernatural revelation,_ and the extinction of worship as a separate interest. There is no pretence that Protestantism, as a body, has reached this, or intends this, or would not honestly and earnestly repudiate it; but that its most logical product is at this point, it is not easy to deny. Nay, that these are the _tendencies_ of Protestantism is very apparent.' When he comes to speak of Unitarianism as the representative and most logical exponent of Protestantism, he expresses himself in a still more remarkable way. Religion, he thinks, like everything else in the world, has been constantly making progress, and Unitarianism has always been in the van. Now this progress seemed to have reached its limit; there is a pause, a partial recoil, in some cases a turning back to the formalism and ritual worship of Rome, in others a headlong rush into the abyss of pure rationalism. In fact, Dr. Bellows believes that to create an equilibrium in the relations between God and man, two opposing forces are in operation--a centrifugal force, which drives man away from submission to divine authority, that he may develop his own liberty and functions of the will, and a centripetal force, which leads him to worship and obedience. These are represented respectively by Protestantism and Catholicism, and he seems to think them destined to alternate--perhaps for all time, though about this his meaning is not very clear. 'Is it not plain,' he says, 'that, as Protestants of the Protestants, we are at the apogee of our orbit; that in us the centrifugal epoch of humanity has, for this swing of the pendulum at least, reached its bound? For one cycle we have come, I think, nearly to the end of our self-directing, self-asserting, self-developing, self-culturing faculties; to the end of our honest interest in this necessary alternate movement.'"

"That means, if it means anything that Protestantism has done its work, at least for the present age; that it has accomplished all it can; and there is nothing left for man but a return to the centripetal force, or to the Catholic Church."

"Exactly: that would be the logical complement of the position he assumed in the curious discourse from which I have been quoting; but the misery is that he had not the courage to be logical. Ah! how well I remember the impression produced at the time by that sad, sad cry of weariness and disappointment which went up from his pulpit when he perceived that the toil, and speculation, and uneasiness of years had brought him to no goal; that he had developed man's faculties without finding a use for them; that he had achieved an intellectual freedom without knowing what to do with it; that, as he well expressed it himself, '_there was no more road_ in the direction he had been going.' {583} Many, as we have seen, when they reached that point on their journey whence this whole dismal prospect was visible, turned back to the church which their fathers had forsaken, and there found peace; and Dr. Bellows had stated so boldly the miseries of his own situation that it was no wonder people thought he too would follow that course. But he set himself about finding a new road, imagining a new church which was to arise at no distant day, and combine the most conservative of liturgies with the most radical of creeds. It was to be constituted on strictly centripetal principles. Speculation having proved empty, worship was to be essayed as a change. Doubt being but sorry fare for a hungry soul, there was to be a good deal of faith, and preaching not being a gift of all men, place was to be made for prayer. What that church was to be, how it was to arise, and when it was to make its appearance, he did not pretend to say. But it must come soon, because 'the yearning for a settled and externalized faith' was too strong to be left unsatisfied. It was to be, I must suppose, a mingling of the revelations of our Saviour with the dreams of Luther, Calvin, Fox, and Swedenborg; because, as Dr. Bellows says in one of his lectures, 'the religious man who has no vacillations in his views, who is not sometimes inclined to Calvinism, sometimes to Rationalism, sometimes to Catholicism, sometimes to Quakerism, has an imperfect activity, a dull imagination, and a timid love of truth; for all these faiths have embodied great and interesting spiritual facts which the free and earnest explorer will encounter in his own experience, and find more vividly portrayed in the history of these sects than in himself.' It was to possess a fixed creed, but nobody was expected to believe in it, for 'inconsistencies of opinion' are to be expected of everybody, and doubt, fear, and scepticism are actually desirable, provided they are 'the work of one's own mental and spiritual activity, and not of mere passive acquiescence in the forces that one encounters from without.' It was to be a _true_ church, of course, yet a false church also; because Dr. Bellows declares that 'truth is too large to be surrounded by any one man or any one party,' and there are always two great parties in religion as there are in politics, 'and each has part of the truth in its keeping;' so that, of course, neither can be wholly right. He wanted his church to be a historical church, for Christianity is a historical religion, and 'a faith stripped of historic reality, disunited from its original facts and persons, does not promise to live and work in the human heart and life.' He seemed to have forgotten that history is the growth of time, and cannot be conferred upon a new-born infant. The future church must have rites and ceremonies, for without them religion hardly 'touches our daily habits and ordinary career,' and is, like Unitarianism, 'an unhoused, unnatural, and disembodied faith.' It must be a visible church, yet without a priesthood; a divinely instituted church, yet without authority; receiving its doctrines by divine revelations, yet only true in part; eternal, yet changeable, I am not surprised that Dr. Bellows has not yet found it."

"Surely he never uttered any such extraordinary farrago as you have been putting into his mouth?"

{584}