Chapter X (2)

"We must be in a remarkably primitive region to find this again, and without reward," he cried, looking tenderly at the old friend. "Now go on," he added, after the first puff; "begin at the beginning, where you used to be flogged about every Sunday for going reluctantly to catechism. Oh! if there is any one thing more than another that upset that old cross-grained theology of our childhood, it was those dreaded Sundays; when, after two sessions of Sunday-school, two long sermons, and an hour's sitting on the Westminster Divines, we were allowed some spiritual sugar-plums in the shape of the _Memoir of Nathan Dickerman, Life of Mrs. Harriet Newell_, or some other questionable saint. Yours was a large family at home, and did not feel what it was to be the sole recipient of the full vials of reprobation. What saved us from being arrant hypocrites or open infidels?"

Though I questioned in my own mind how far my friend's religion was from infidelity, I replied, "The fact that we felt that our teachers' hearts were better than their creed; for surely never did there exist a man more free from every taint of hypocrisy than my honored father, who held tenaciously to the five articles agreed to by the Synod of Dort, which represented most of the Calvinistic churches of Europe, looked upon Calvin's Institutes as binding next to the Bible, and I believe worshipped this terrible God in whom he believed with the most earnest faith."

{374}

"And you a Catholic!" he said, striking his hands together. "Excuse me if I repeat what I said. I cannot see how you have bettered the matter, since the Catholic Church holds to total depravity and foreornination, and moreover excludes all from any hope of salvation who do not bow their necks to her yoke."

"Excuse me for flatly contradicting you, but the Catholic Church does not hold the doctrine of the total depravity of the human race; on the contrary, she ever teaches that man did not lose by the Fall the image of God, or his own free will, or the powers of his reason. But you asked me how I became a Catholic. I am more interested in telling you that than in refuting what her enemies say of the church, because that you can find in books any day; but you must allow me to echo your surprise when I see a large, earnest soul like yours satisfied with a simple negation of faith."

"Satisfied! if by satisfaction you mean certainty, I say no; for I do not believe it is to be found. The best, I find, is to follow the light that comes to me," he added, with, I thought, a shade of sadness in his tone; "I broke the fetters of Calvinism with a bound, and when I had started, there was nothing for me to do but to cut loose from everything traditional, and rest solely on reason. But tell me of yourself, for any man who is in earnest, thinking for himself, I respect, be he Mormon or Mohammedan."

"I thank you for my share of the respect," I replied, "though I do not consider it very flattering. I never was a Calvinist; my earliest reason rebelled against the teachings, and many a snubbing did I get in my youth for daring to question--'_cavil_,' it was called. I went through all the phases of the system, trying to believe as I was taught; for I had large human respect and strong desire to please, with a devout turn of mind, making many a violent effort to be in a condition to become, what my friends wished, 'a professor;' but my conscience was too clamorous to allow me to pretend that I had 'obtained a hope,' or 'experienced religion.' Invariably, after a few weeks of fervor, I settled back into a state of indifference or doubt, although, to please my father, I was a constant attendant on all 'inquiry-meetings' and 'anxious-seats.' When I think of those meetings and the self-constituted teachers, who came there to hear the confessions, and to guide anxious souls in the road to heaven, a flash of indignation passes through my frame. About five years after, we parted as school-mates; you for the South and a stirring business life, I to New-England and the meditative days of a student. I was attracted and fascinated by the specious talk of transcendentalism; it was my first taste of liberty. I read, thought, and dreamed; tried to feed my soul on naturalism, and to renounce everything supernatural; talked very flippantly about the God in everything as the object of my worship; but my hungry soul was unsatisfied; there was a cold, dreary chilliness, and undefined nothingness, a rejoicing in uncertainty, which brought nothing like food to my spirit. This _faith_ (if it deserves the name) flattered my proud heart, giving me the 'genus homo' as an object of worship; but I saw plainly that it could never reach the needs of humanity, and though 'brotherhood' was its watchword and cry, it could never be a religion for the masses. It was only for the refined, the cultivated, the gentle, and the good. Where were the abandoned, the dissolute, the coarse, vulgar herd to find a God in such a snare? I often asked myself this question, and this specious infidelity gave me no answer. {375} Of the Catholic Church, I am ashamed to say, I then knew nothing, except that I had often heard her called 'the mother of harlots,' 'Babylon,' 'the scarlet woman,' and such like attractive names, but it did not once occur to me that I ought to examine her claims; floating as I was, seeking for foothold, she was not presented to my mind as an object to be looked at or feared, only to be despised. At that time I was associated with many of the purest and noblest spirits, longing and feeling after God by the dim light of nature; trying to think him out for themselves; finite minds blinded by vain efforts to comprehend the infinite. The first genuine wave of affliction brought me to a standstill on the brink of the abyss that says there is no God. I lost my mother; she was one of those timid, fearful souls, and had not that 'assurance' of which Calvinists make their boast; the words spoken of my precious mother after her burial nearly drove me wild; they snapped the last cord that bound me to the iron system of opinions which had thrown their shadow over my young life. Three years of rushing into the world to drive away thought followed this terrible blow, and then came a blessing--the best blessing of my life."

"A wife?" questioned my friend, as I paused a moment in my recital; "a wife, yes, I have it," as a smile twinkled in the corners of his clear grey eyes and spread over his handsome face; "I see it, she knocked the transcendentalism out of you with the Catholic hammer."

"Hardly," I replied, joining in the hearty laugh that followed his remark; "being a fearfully high-church woman, and looking upon hers as the only pure branch--the _via media_--the only barrier against Rome, 'Romanism,' as she sedulously named the Catholic Church, was the only thing her loving soul was bitter against."

"Then you came through the gate of ritualism?" he questioned again; "a very natural sequence."

"You are excellent in jumping at conclusions," I answered; "I could never embrace the Anglican myth, though I was bound by my own creed not to trouble myself about that of other people. I was brought behind the curtain of this household, however, and saw the cruel intestine warfare between high and low church; the vital difference in the teaching of the two classes of clergymen, the 'sacramental' and the 'evangelical;' and I saw within her fold young, earnest hearts becoming partisans in these divisions and calling it zeal for God. I often heard more talk of an evening over the particular shade of an altar-cloth, the size and pattern of book-marks for the altar, the proper position of faldstools, credences, sedilia; the way in which a clergyman read or pronounced, the depth of the genuflection he made in the creed, and so forth, than I have heard the whole ten years I have been in the Catholic Church. I saw, too, that she was eminently the church of the fashionable, 'the most genteel denomination,' as I heard one of her members declare, with much self-satisfaction, containing the 'cream of society;' the poor shut out from her churches, and compensated by mission-chapels for their exclusive use. Of course my wife was very earnest to make me a convert to Episcopacy, and by her repeated solicitations I examined the 'Book of Common Prayer,' as she so often said (what is a truth everywhere) that one must not judge of a religious body by individual members or teachers, but by her standards. {376} I was strongly confirmed, by this examination, in my opinion of the want of conformity to their own rules by many of the clergy, and the helplessness to reach them by discipline, which is the first requisite in a well-ordered household. That the body of the book contradicted the thirty-nine articles was as plain as that 'Protestant' was on the title-page; for while one acknowledged priest, altar, and sacrifice, the other stoutly denied all three."

"And did you make known the result of your investigations to Mrs. Dewey, or did you leave her in ignorance of what you had found?"

"I dreaded to shake her faith, knowing that I had nothing to give her in its place, and I withheld my conclusions, till she insisted so earnestly, assuring me that she could not be moved, that I yielded. I could see that she was moved by what I said; but she was only carried forward, grasping more firmly the fragments of Catholic truth she already held, and growing, as I afterward knew, into a more Catholic spirit. At length I said to her, as she was mourning over the want of unity among her chosen people, and the alarming progress of 'Romanism,' which had just clasped in its embrace one of her dearest friends, 'Suppose, my dear, you and I were to look into this matter; I have no doubt you would be more of an Anglican than ever, and I less in favor of creeds. It is but fair we should give Catholics a hearing; for my part, I know nothing of them except from their enemies.' She was inclined to listen to my proposition; but her spiritual pastor, from whom she hid none of her religious difficulties, put a veto on the examination, by forbidding her to read or to talk with any one on the subject. Indignant at what I then thought his narrow-mindedness, but which I now see was only proper self-preservation, I determined to pursue my investigations alone, though it was the first time in our married life that any subject of interest had not been common with us. I procured such books as were within my reach, and commenced my inquiries. It was a most interesting study, and opened a new world of thought to me; every moment of leisure for six months was given to the search, into which I entered as I would into a question of law, consulting and comparing authorities, examining both sides, questioning and cross-questioning witnesses. But we are touching on the time of sleep," I said, as the hall-clock struck the hour of midnight.

"Oh! no, go on," he replied eagerly, "you don't know how interested I am."

"No," I said firmly, "your experience of to-day requires that you should rest; and as there is no prospect of getting away from here, I shall have ample time to finish my tale to-morrow." I insisted upon his occupying my quarters, being the most comfortable in the house, and as I went to my rest in another apartment, and thought of the eagerness with which he had listened to my recital, I breathed a prayer that God would give him light.

The sun arose clear and bright the following morning, and the wind, that had made such havoc with the snowdrifts the previous day, had died away into a cold calm. I watched from the window the long line of men and boys, with patient oxen, tugging and toiling at the great white heaps. I had _Snow Bound_ in my coat-pocket, and took this opportunity of assuring myself of the truth of the beautiful word-pictures therein painted. {377} It was quite late when my friend appeared from the inner room, and in answer to my inquiry if he had rested well replied, "I have not once wakened since I succeeded in driving our conversation from my mind, which I did after a long process, by repeating the multiplication table over and over till I fell asleep. We cannot get away to-day," he added, going to the window. "I am glad of that, for I am impatient to hear you out." He was uneasy till breakfast was dispatched, our grate and pipes replenished, and we seated again for a talk.

"Now tell me the result of your lawyer-like examination of authorities," he said by way of commencement.

"Yes, it was indeed lawyer-like," I replied; "for prejudice, feeling, early impressions, all went against the decision. But the logical conclusion, from what I read, was this: _if_ (mind I got no further than the _if_) the Bible is the word of God, it certainly teaches that our Lord established a church, and gave to that one body apostles and teachers, conferring on them wonderful powers, to be continued for all time in some way; for he says, 'I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world;' with the same breath with which he tells them to preach the Gospel, he bids them to bind and loose, to work miracles and to feed his flock. These are the facts on the face of the Gospel narrative. I tried to explain these things in some other way; I even went to commentators; but the candid examination I had promised forbade my trusting any man's opinion. I went to the early Fathers, (whom, by the way, I had always ignored, as is the fashion;) I found that they reasoned very much like other men; they asked questions, and answered them. I saw that if these powers were given, as the Scripture asserts, to the chosen twelve, these were the men to whom they were transmitted. Without exception they confirmed the teaching of the Bible with regard to the church, and opened still more fully the dogmas of Scripture. I compared them one with another, and found that, without any denial or variation, they declared the authority of the church and the necessity of the sacraments. It was also plain that this church being one and universal, having the same faith and discipline wherever established, until some body of men _protested_ against some received doctrine, no dogma assumed prominence, the faith was one perfect whole. But while, as I told you, I had gone no further than 'if,' my wife, by an entirely different road, was coming to the same gate. Her pastor had given her two very beautiful devotional works, that charmed her beyond anything she had ever seen; but during one of the rare calls of her Catholic friend, (for her guide had advised her to renounce this friendship, but I, with a higher claim on her obedience, had forbidden this sacrifice,) during this call, these books were the subject of discourse, and Miss M---- told her she wished her nothing better to read, as they were both translations of Catholic authors, which she proved by bringing the originals in French at her next visit. My wife saw at once the absurdity of denying her Catholic books, and giving them to her in disguise. This honest guide of souls had also told her that 'Romanists' altered the commandments, leaving out the second entirely, lest it should condemn their idolatry; while her friend gave her the Catechism which is taught to all Catholic children, where the commandments are written as they were spoken on Mount Sinai. I think these two mistakes (I will call them by a mild name) of her pastor shook her faith in him very essentially. {378} From that day we talked freely; I gave her my conclusions, with the '_if_,' and she took the Fathers for daily reading. I had gone no further than the _if_--my pride prevented--when it pleased Almighty God to take from us our eldest son, and to bring my wife to the borders of the grave. What could comfort me, as I looked at my beautiful boy cold and lifeless, and my wife at that point where earthly help is unavailing? The cheerless creed that I had held with so much pride gave me not a glimmer of light. I called reason to my aid, but I called in vain; it was no pleasure to me to think of those I had loved and lost reabsorbed into Deity, never more to be anything to me. How could it satisfy me, yearning for the treasures I was losing, to feel that 'there is no time, no space; we are we know not what, light sparkles in the ether of Deity.' The words which I had used in answer to my wife's questioning, 'if this be true,' followed me continually; now, I needed to know if it were true; I needed something firm to rest me in that weary hour. It was many years since I had knelt in prayer; now I was bowed to the earth, and my whole cry was, 'Lord, give me light.' I am ashamed to tell you of the fearful struggle with my pride, when at last the light of faith came into my bewildered and darkened soul, the many worldly ties that held me back, the loss of position and favor which I feared; I blush for my cowardice, it was unworthy of the name of man made in the image of God. My beloved wife knew not of this strife in my soul; in her extremity she had sent for her pastor, and received all he could give her of the rites of his church; but she was not satisfied. What was my surprise to hear her say, as if the sight of death had given her boldness, 'There is the command of St. James for the comfort and help of the sick and dying; why may I not have it? 'Ah! my child,' he replied, 'that was given for the early ages of the church, and passed away with them.' 'But why do we not need it as well as they?' she questioned, 'It is too much for you to argue in your present state,' was his cold reply, 'but it is sufficient for me, as an obedient son of the church, to submit to the deprivation, since our holy mother has not seen fit to retain it.' I saw the speciousness of the reasoning wherewith he silenced her, and I sat by the patient sufferer after the departure of the divine so faithful to his church, hesitating as to my duty in the matter, when she cried out as if in anguish, 'Oh! if I only knew it was right, only knew--'

"'What was right?' I questioned, holding her trembling hand. 'I want confession, I want absolution, I want the anointing of the sick,' she said eagerly, her dark eyes bent on me imploringly. 'You shall not be denied,' I replied, and, leaving her with the nurse, I went for the nearest Catholic priest. I will not enter into details; let it suffice that, before two hours had passed, my wife was a member of the Catholic Church, improved in physical condition and mental quietness, and I was preparing for baptism."

I paused in my recital; I saw that my friend was much moved, even as I had been, by the memories of the past. After a moment, he gave me his hand cordially, saying, "Thank you heartily, it has done me good;" then, after another pause. "But tell me one thing candidly, have neither of you regretted the step; never wished yourselves back again?"

{379}

"Regretted!" I cried indignantly, "wished ourselves back to a region of doubt and uncertainty! Why, I say a _Gloria_ every morning that I am a Catholic; and my wife sings _Te Deum_ all the time."

"And did you suffer all you expected," he asked, "in the way of loss of friends?"

I had nothing in my experience worthy of the name of suffering; but my wife endured much in the way of reproach, withdrawal of friendship, and the cold shoulder socially."

"But let me ask one thing, and don't feel hurt; how do you, with your fastidious tastes, worship in churches crammed to the full with the laboring Irish, before those tawdry altars which I have sometimes seen?" I felt the color rising to my cheek at this question, but I replied calmly, crushing the temptation to be severe, and remembering what this thought was to me before the light of faith illumined my soul, "You can never know what it is to forget distinctions till you believe in that Presence which dwells on Catholic altars. It would ill become sinful man to object to other company he finds in church when Jesus our God condescends to be present for our sake. My wife seeks out the churches frequented by the very poorest; she says she feels nearer God when she has his poor by her side. As to the tawdry altars, you must remember that the love and devotion of an uneducated and unrefined taste is as truly expressed by something common and showy, as your refined delicacy would be by more exquisite adornment. God looketh at the heart; and the poor servant-girl who presents to her favorite altar bouquets of gaudy artificial flowers, for the sake of her dear Lord whom she really believes to be present there, is as acceptable as the lady who sends her lovely blossoms from the hot-house. In the Catholic Church in this country--and may I not say in every country?--the poor are in the majority among her members."

As I spoke, the steam-whistle, the first since the storm, sounded through the air. With a regretful look, Mr. Hood went to the window. "That reminds us," he said, "that the world is moving again."

"You will go to my home with me," I replied; "you must."

"Not now," he answered; "but when the business that brought me to this part of the country is accomplished, I will come and talk with your wife about this matter before I leave for California."

According to promise, he came; and when he left us for his Southern home, we were not without hope that our long talks had had an effect; my wife would not leave him till she had his promise that he would examine for himself, prayerfully, earnestly, and thoroughly, and would write me the result, which I have in a letter by to-day's mail.

San Francisco, Cal., Oct. 24, 1867.
S. _Raphael the Archangel_.

My Dear Dewey: I was received into the Catholic Church to-day.
_Laus Deo!_ I wonder how any one can remain out of it; it
is such a joy to have a foothold, to know that one stands on
something, and that something firmer than the "everlasting
hills." I must give up my business in this publishing house;
for I cannot have my name any longer linked with the falsehoods
that teem from the press, against Christ's Church. It is a
disgrace that American school-books should contain such lies as
you find on the pages of the Readers, Geographies, and
especially the Histories, which are the text-books of our
institutions of learning. May the good God help me to repair
the injustice I have done in this matter as a publisher.

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I am the wonder and pity of the old transcendental clique here,
who, as one of them said to me yesterday, "can't understand how
a man can go back to the dark ages for his religion." I told
him my faith illumined what he called the "dark ages" till they
transcended the nineteenth century in brilliancy. My younger
children were baptized with me; I hope in time to see all my
dear ones safely housed. Tell Mrs. Dewey, with my kindest
remembrance, to sing _Te Deum_ for me, and don't forget me
and mine in your prayers, Very sincerely yours in the blessed
faith,

Redwood Raphael Hood.

----------

Translated From The Revue Generale, Of Brussels.

The Good Old Time And Our Own.

In the daily struggle for truth and right, in our hours of lassitude and discouragement, how willingly we believe that formerly the battle of life was less severe than nowadays. We love to compare ourselves with our predecessors, pigmies to us giants of the nineteenth century, and sincerely believe them so, either because of our short-sightedness or because of the great distance from which we regard them. But when, by the study of history, we have drawn nearer the distances which separate these epochs of the different evolutions of humanity, we become at the same time more modest and more courageous; more modest, because we know our fathers have had to struggle as much if not more than ourselves; more courageous, because by their example we learn how we should battle for triumph in moral struggles; and of these alone we would here speak.

Many of our contemporaries think they have done their duty if they have abused their own time, praised the past, and predicted a sombre future unable to confer upon us any blessings. It is so sweet to live in abstract contemplation of heroes or epochs of which inexorable time has deprived us; it is so easy to make an apology for them without combating the living men and the concrete ideas which in real history form the shadows to these brilliant pictures; it is so easy to choose from former ages models of virtue, of civil courage and faith, without preoccupying ourselves with obstacles that these just people, these citizens, these saints have conquered, and that our indifference, our idleness, our weakness, or our cowardice hinders us from looking fairly in the face, through the medium in which we live. We do not perceive often enough that the vulgar expression of the "good old time," which has been forbidden in every age, is in the moral history of a people a truly vicious circle. Indeed, we cannot pretend that every age is worth only so much, and, interpreting badly the proverb, "Man proposes, but God disposes," go to sleep in the false historical security called fatalism. It is legitimate to have our preferences for such and such an epoch, and it is not always difficult to give good reasons for them; but between these rational preferences and an unjustifiable disdain for our own time, there is an abyss.

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To act with our own epoch we must love it; then we work with ardor and confidence for its reform. Who loves well, chastises well. I wish to show that our age merits to be loved as well as any other that has preceded it; and I will demonstrate this clearly by a moral, religious, and political sketch of the Christian age the most justly praised--the thirteenth. To circumscribe this vast subject as much as possible, I will speak of Italy alone; of that Italy which then, as now, was the object of the most audacious attacks and the theatre of the most instructive resistance. I will first tell what was the condition of the "Christian republic" at the end of the twelfth century. Then I will show the radiant transformation of society in the thirteenth century while determining its general causes, and finish by comparing this heroic age with our own.

I.

For most of Belgium, the history of civilization commences only with the day when General Dumouriez "brought them liberty at the point of the bayonet." Before the French revolution, it was the common error that the era of political and religious revolution only opened with the sixteenth century, and such error is common to-day. Yet Gnosticism, Manicheism, Arianism, and Greek schism have produced in Christian Europe commotions much greater and more fatal than those of which the predictions of Martin Luther have been the occasion, and of which the Protestant princes have so abundantly reaped the fruits. From the tenth to the thirteenth century, the Catholic Church suffered on the part of the state--of the empire, as they then termed it--assaults in comparison to which the thirty years' war and the revolutions fomented by the _statolatres_ of the thirteenth century were only children's play.

Never was the spirit of sectarianism more active than in the twelfth century. The disguised partisans of Gnosticism, Manicheism, or Arianism, these habitual forms of antichristianism, were spread all over civilized Europe under the most diverse names: _Cathares, Pauliciens, Petrobrusiens, Tanchelmites, Henriciens, Bogomiles, Apostoliques, Endistes, Arnoldistes, Circonsis, Passagieres, Publicains, Vaudois Bons Hommes_, etc., etc. These names appear strange, but they are not more so than their actual partisans: socialists, free-thinkers, solid men, Fourierists, Saint Simoniens, etc.

And do not suppose that these sects, or these schools, as they are called nowadays, confined themselves to the innocent publication of their programme, and simply distributed a few partisans through anonymous societies, among the councils of administration, or in the senates of empires.

The Ambrosien church was during a certain time directed by the Nicolite priests of Milan, and supported violently by the emperor and by the government. Our compatriot, Dankelm, a deist a little sore, who preached against the corruptions of the monks, their artifices, the tithes and mortmain, was head of an organized church at Bruges, and also at Anvers. If the Vaudois had, like Luther, obtained the support of the corrupted and sensual bishops, and the ambitious princes so powerful and rapacious, their church would have taken root in a great part of Europe during the twelfth century; it has endured longer than will any Protestant church; for it still existed in the last century, and I believe there are still some communities in Holland and Suabia.

{382}

All these sects agreed on one point, their hatred of the Church of Rome. M. Renan, in his last book, _Questions Contemporains_, writing with a haughty moderation almost disdainful, feared for the Catholic Church of the nineteenth century a grand schism resulting in the simultaneous election of two popes. Such an apprehension denotes in this writer a defect of memory or a strange want of perspicacity; for in the church, anti-popes were counted by dozens, and in the twelfth century, this kind of schism appeared several times. The competitors or anti-popes of Calixtus II., (1119-1124,) of Innocent II., (1130-1143,) and of Alexander III., (1159-1181,) were sustained by emperors whose material power had but little weight in the then known world. Under Innocent II., the schism lasted only eight years. Sixty years later, Innocent III. governed Europe.

Heresies and schisms are always accompanied by social revolutions. However, the irreligious antagonism of capital and labor, which is one of the causes of modern socialism, did not exist in the twelfth century under the learned and redoubtable form of our day. The reason is a simple one, and we should be proud of our age: labor, of which Christianity has made a duty, had not then in political society the great and legitimate importance it has now. The problem of pauperism had never been solved politically except in densely populated countries, and in the twelfth century the population of Europe was relatively less considerable. Hatred of capital only manifested itself among the idle, among certain sects, (the Cathares, the Frerots, the Apostoliques, the Begghards, the Lollards, etc.,) and particularly in "the wars of the castle and the hut;" violent wars which were not only carried on by poor devils hardened by passions, but by the _châtelains_, (governors or keepers,) thieves only distinguishable from the others by new titles given them through euphemism. This category of men was then more numerous than in our time. We respect a mill, but we steal a province. Then they took the province and the mill also.

Great luxury existed in all the towns of Italy. Money was a courted power. The bankers' families became the source of dynasties.

A portion of the secular clergy lived in the relaxation of discipline, and even morals. Neither the energy of the great Hildebrand, nor the activity of the admirable Alexander III., the friend of the Lombard communities, had been powerful enough to completely reform the regular clergy. Neither in the fifteenth nor in the eighteenth century were more scandals seen than those which disheartened the great St. Bernard. "Oh! for the power to see again, before my death," wrote he to the pope, Eugene III., "those happy days of the church when the apostles cast their nets for souls, and not for gold." This Pope Eugene was not permitted to die at Rome. The Eternal City was in the hands of the Garibaldians of the time, the Mazzini of whom was named Arnold, a clerk of Brescia, of austere manners and quick-witted oratory. After having studied philosophy in Paris under the cold and licentious Abelard, Arnold commenced to traverse the Lombard cities. Imposing upon himself a mission altogether political, he pretended not to wish to injure the Catholic faith.

{383}

"Detractor of clergymen and bishops, persecutor of monks, he reserved," said a chronicler of the time, "all his flattery for the laity. He sustained the theory of no salvation for clergymen possessing lands, for bishops disposing of regal rights, or monks owning valuables; that all these things belonged to the state, and it alone should dispose of them in favor of the laity. It is said also that he did not reason sanely on the eucharist and the baptism of infants." His partisans, called _politicians_, called him to Rome, where he had resolved to establish a new government. Forced to fly from this city after the second council of Lateran, he wandered for several years in France, in Germany, and in Switzerland, promulgating everywhere the doctrines which he applied to his Italian friends. During an insurrection, the pope, Lucius II., was killed by a blow from a stone, (to-day they only kill ministers,) and his successor, Eugene III., took refuge in Viterbo, and afterward in France. Arnold was in Switzerland with 2000 soldiers collected there; the multitude having granted him the dictatorship, he proclaimed the fall of the temporal power of the popes, and the re-establishment of the Roman republic; then, carried away by the logic of his ideas rather than by his situation, he called to Rome the emperor, the monarch of Italy, in order that he would deign to restore to the empire the lustre it had under Justinian. Demagogues naturally advocate Caesarism.

The emperors rushed to Rome. Arnold and his government were thrown into the Tiber. Then recommenced, under a new form, the quarrel between the priesthood and the empire, existing still in Europe. Never had the pride of the depositaries of the civil power, the absolutism of the god state, and the tyranny of the supreme authority, representatives more complete, and in certain respects more sympathetic, than the emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen. How many laws vaunted by certain schools of our day of progress have been dressed in the signature of these fierce Sonabes, then abrogated as despotic and contrary to the liberty and dignity of citizens.

The Staufen were fanatics in law when it was a question of their authority. Frederic I. had for his witnesses the four famous doctors of Bologna, who, with Irnerius, their professor, were masters of the study of modern law. It was these four doctors who, by the aid of texts and juridical interpretations, were ready to impose on the Lombard cities represented at the diet of Roncaglia the chains which the entire material power of the German emperors had never been able to forge. It was the chancellor of Frederic II., Pierre Des Vignes, who is the author of the _Recueil des Lois de Sidle_, the first code of despotism of modern times.

In few words, then, we have here the state of Europe, in its most civilized centre, in the second half of the twelfth century. The truth was at once attacked in church and state, with the view of corrupting both; in the church, with an aim at her authority; in the state, to banish liberty.

II.

It is the glory of the epoch which begins with the Lombard League and the pontificate of the English Mendicant, Adrian IV., to have re-established a moral equilibrium in Christian society, and to have saved Europe from a lethargy similar to that in which a Caesaro-papacy has plunged the East.

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That which distinguished the civilizing genius of this epoch was a moral vigor, a consequence of the intimate union existing between the citizen and the Christian, between the scholar and the theologian; I say union, not confusion. In the _Cid_ of Guillaume de Castro, from which P. Corneille has borrowed largely, there is a scene in which the hero seated at table exhorts his companions to render homage to the patron of Spain, "a chevalier himself, and with a large rosary suspended to his sword." A leper enters and asks charity. The warriors take flight. Alone the Cid remains, and forces him to sit on his cloak and eat with him from his own plate. The repast finished, the mendicant blessed the Cid, and betrays himself as Lazarus, who has come to reveal his future destiny. The sword, which for the chevalier is the sign of the citizen, serves to sustain the rosary, the emblem of the Christian.

In the _Traité de l'Office du Podestà_, extract of Book III. of the _Tresor_ of Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante, we find in old French the exposition of the public law as understood by the communicants of that time. The podesta of our time could learn from it much that is useful and necessary to know. This, for example, is the beginning of the chapter where the author treats of things "that gentlemen should know and teach to those over whom they are placed":

"_Remember then, thou who governest a city, from whence comes
the power to possess thy seignory. Remember thou the law and
the commandments, and never forget God and his saints, but
often_ approach the altar and pray God for thee and thy
subjects; for David and the prophets say, 'God guardeth the
city and every thing that laboreth within it.' Honor the pastor
of pastors of the holy Church; for God says, 'He who receiveth
thee receiveth me.' Be religious, and evidence the true faith;
for nothing is more beautiful to the prince of the earth than
true faith and right belief: for it is written, 'When the just
king is on his throne, no harm can befall him.' Guard the
churches, the houses of God, take care of widowed women and
orphans; for it is written, 'Be defenders of orphans and
widows.' Defend the poor against the wickedness of power; for
thou hast in thy care the great, the small, and the mean.
_Such things become thee from the beginning, etc._"

Have you observed the character of the figures seen on the tombs of this period? The dead are lying on their backs, with hands clasped; they do not bear the impress of death; they seem to sleep and await the resurrection. Their attitude is simple, naturally humble, but at the same time naturally proud. They are armed; it is understood that they have fought the battle of life, and in passing to the other shore have vanquished the enemy of the human race with the arms of prayer. The citizen and the Christian are so blended that it is impossible to distinguish them; and this harmonious whole presents an appearance at once humble and martial, tender and manly, which fills one with respect without imposing fear.

Such is the character of the epoch I would depict while portraying the causes of its grandeur. Let it be remarked, however, I do not seek to make an apology for the thirteenth century or the middle ages. My ideal is in the future, not in the past. But the past being the mirror of the future, I love to regard in the thirteenth century the memorable examples of what could be done by the citizen under the influence of Christian faith and reason in the midst of a society agitated and upset by heresy, schism, socialism, the power of demagogues, and Caesarism.

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I suppose that the son of a rich merchant of Anvers, transported by that enthusiasm for good which is the fruit of a grace divine, renounces suddenly the luxury of a paternal home, and a dissipated and idle life, which is too often the consequence of a bad education, pampered by fortune. After having trained his soul by fasting and prayer, and the contemplation of the divine attributes toward the supernatural regions of life, he robes himself voluntarily as a poor man and traverses the industrial centres of the country, communicating to his equals the ardent faith which escapes from his mouth in luminous characters. At Gand, at Charleroi, at Liege, some young men become his followers, and between them form an association for the service of the humble, the weak, the poor, the miserable. Their mission is to go about in the dress of workmen, living as they do, and preaching from the steps of buildings, at the cross-roads, and in the fields. To the rich, the obligation of working for and befriending the poor; to the poor, the duties of sufferance and respect; to all the world, the love of God and the church which he has made the depositary of his graces. What might not be accomplished by such missionaries of love, labor, science, and peace? What would not be their influence and their authority?

Again, let me suppose the son of a rich English lord renouncing the ostentation, the privileges and errors of his family and religion, and, seized with an irresistible love for his neighbor and humanity, seeking his old friends of Eton and Oxford, communicating to them the flame of his convictions, and then proposing to them to travel through England, Europe, the world, and propagate Christianity; arguing everywhere with the adversaries of the church; in the universities, in the public-houses, before the door of the palace, or in the junk-shops and the huts; preaching justice to the English, to the Irish respect for the laws, to all the world peace, science, liberty; opening here a school, there a hospital, and drawing after him his contemporaries, by the authority of faith, the power of science, the contagion of devotion. If you can imagine the results obtained by the O'Connells, the Fathers Mathews, and the Newmans, you will form a feeble idea of a revolution that could produce a phalanx of men of such vigorous temperament.

This son of the wealthy merchant, and this child of an illustrious house, existed in the beginning of the thirteenth century. "The one," said Dante, "was surrounded by all the _éclat_ of the seraphim, and the other walked in wisdom and sanctity in the splendor of the cherubim."

The history of the life and works of these two extraordinary men contains most precious teachings, the deep import of which often escapes us, because given to us in such a common way, without explaining their actual life. This seraphim (Saint Francis) and this cherubim (Saint Dominic) governed the entire thirteenth century by the extraordinary movement they impressed on souls, and by the moral conquests, political, scientific, literary, and artistic, with which their disciples enriched humanity.

The Mendicant friars, as they were later called, were not only cloistered religious, giving themselves solely to a contemplative life, and only leaving their convents for the church; they were citizens in every acceptation of the word, but vowed to no ambitions, mingling with their contemporaries, living in the forum, and mounting the tribune of the popular assemblies as well as the pulpits of the universities. When this tribune or pulpit was forbidden them, they improvised one of their own, and made appeals to the people who wished to hear the well-known voices, simple, disinterested, loving, and therefore eloquent.

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Thus the Franciscans penetrated even into China, "on the horse of St. Francis"--that is, on foot--and traversing, wonderful as it may appear, the whole continent of Asia. They founded a Christian colony at Pekin, where the ships of France and England could only enter with noise of cannon--a result assuredly more imposing but not half so certain. During the Renaissance, when the first Holland vessels arrived at Greenland, they found there a convent of Dominicans.

In the thirteenth century, there were, even in civilized Europe, more Chinese and Laplanders than would be supposed. To convert them, the Franciscans and Dominicans applied themselves assiduously, vanquishing them by science, and convincing them by charity.

I understand the word science in its old acceptation; a deep rational research into the first principles of things and the origin of our knowledge. At no epoch of history, I dare to say, has this research been carried on by more passionate lovers, by more powerful intelligences, by more magnanimous hearts, than the Mendicant monks of the thirteenth century. To prove this, let me only mention four names.

The first in date is the Count de Bollstaedt, first Bishop of Ratisbon, then Dominican; a professor of Cologne, and a perfect encyclopedia; his gigantic works replete with all the ideas of his time, and the initiator of German learning.

This scientific knowledge was only surpassed by that of his pupil and companion, the Count d'Aquin, descendant of Staufen on his mother's side, and called by his comrades "the ox of Sicily," by the learned world "the angel of the schools," and by the church Saint Thomas. His principal theological work (_Summa Totius Theologiae Tripartita_) remained unfinished with the grand cathedrals of the middle ages; but what we know of this and the other works of this prodigious man will suffice to place him in the rank of the greatest geniuses that have appeared on the earth.

However he himself emulated in science the genius of his friend, the _seraphic doctor_, Jean de Fidanza, of Tuscany, professor in the University of Paris, an admirable man, of whom his master, the English Franciscan, Alexander Hales, said: "_Verus Israelita in quo Adam non peccasse videtur_." When they brought him the cardinal's hat, Saint Bonaventura was occupied in placing the plates on the table of his convent. He died at the general council at Lyons, (1274,) just at the moment when he was endeavoring to reunite the Greek to the Roman Church.

The fourth of these great doctors, who truly indoctrinated science, is the great English Franciscan, _the admirable doctor_, Roger Bacon, philologist and naturalist, who predicted steam navigation and railroads. He is also supposed to have invented the telescope, and foreseen the discovery of America. The Protestants of the sixteenth century, who pretended to shed light on the world, unfortunately burnt the convent that held the manuscripts of this precursor of natural science.

A French writer, who does himself honor in protecting the church with his valiant pen as others have done with their swords, M. L. Veuillot, and of whom it may be said, "brave as his pen," says somewhere that the thirteenth century has produced such great things in the moral order that Saint Thomas had been able to build up the colossus styled _La Somme_; yet during this epoch people went on foot, and time was not lost running over the world on railroads. {387} I am persuaded the contemporaries of Roger Bacon would not have approved of this apologetic argument; for if they had known the great discoveries of our day, of what works would not such vigorous and universal minds have been capable? If such men, consumed by activity, by love of science and humanity, ran from Naples to Oxford, from Bologna to Paris, professing, preaching, writing, administering the sacraments, directing their communities, or working with the pope and the bishops in the government of the church; if such men have produced such great things on foot, what would they not have undertaken with railroads at their disposal? To-day there come from Italy but few philosophers measurable with the Count d'Aquin and Jean de Fidanza; but, to make amends, how easy to convoke an oecumenical council and send zouaves to Rome!

The observation I have just made is not a digression, for it tends to demonstrate the profoundly practical aim of science in the thirteenth century. These professors of Paris, Cologne, and Oxford did not content themselves with teaching their doctrines from the privileged benches of a university to a few cultivated, delicate, and critical minds. They did not style themselves philosophers, as the wise men by profession, who in the last century wished thus to distinguish Christians. They practised their doctrines, and their teaching was democratic, (pardon the so much abused expression,) not only on account of their principles but in regard to the public whom they addressed. They called all the world to the feet of their pulpits, and after distributing the bread of faith and science, that of charity was not wanting. "Thus," said Ozanam, "the poor knew and blessed their names. And even to-day, after six hundred years, the inhabitants of Paris bend the knee before the altars of "the angel of the schools," and the workmen of Lyons are honored in carrying once a year, on their robust shoulders, the triumphant remains of the "seraphic doctor." [Footnote 133] Can we believe that six centuries hence they will do the same for the ashes of Kant, Fichte, or Hegel?

[Footnote 133: _Dante et la Philosophie Catholique_,
p. i. ch. ii. p. 88.]

This enthusiasm of holy people for science was not entirely the fruit of the doctrines of St. Francis and St. Dominic, or of the personal tendencies of their disciples. When the zeal for such subjects weakened, the church tried to revive the flame. Let us recall the bull of 1254, published by Innocent IV., for the re-establishment of philosophical studies: "A deplorable rumor, spread abroad and repeated from mouth to mouth, has reached our ears, and deeply afflicts us. It is said that the many aspirants for the priesthood, abandoning, repudiating even, philosophical studies, and consequently the teachings of theology, have sought the different schools to explain the civil laws. Sarah then is the slave, and Hagar has become mistress. We have tried to find a remedy for this unexpected disorder. We would bring back minds to the study of theology, which is the science of salvation, or at least to philosophical studies, in which it is true the tenderest emotions of piety are not met with, but where the soul discovers the first lights of eternal truth, and frees itself from the miserable preoccupations of cupidity--the root of all evil, and a species of idolatry. {388} Therefore we decide by these presents, that in future no professor of jurisprudence, no lawyer, whatever may be his rank or the renown he may enjoy in the practice of law, can pretend to any prebend, honor, or ecclesiastical dignity, nor even to an inferior benefice, if he has not given proofs of requisite capacity in the faculty of arts, and if he is not recommended by the innocence of his life and the purity of his manners."

Such admirable teaching could not remain barren in a Christian society. In 1256, just as Pope Alexander IV. had declared all the serfs emancipated who would abandon the cause of _Ezelin le Féroce_, the authorities of Bologna proceeded to the general enfranchisement of those of their territory. The city was not contented to set free only its own serfs; it extended the benefit to those belonging to private masters, indemnifying the proprietors, as some modern states have done in the slavery of the blacks: the middle age was distinguished always for its respect for acquired rights. The state paid ten livres for every serf over fourteen, eight livres for those below that age. The freedmen were bound to pay to the state some moderate tax in cereals. The suggester of this generous measure was Bonacursio de Sorresina, _capitano del popolo_, elected podesta the following year. He placed the names of all the enfranchised on a register called the _Paradise of Joy_. "An all-powerful God," said he in the introduction to this register, "created man free; original sin poisoned him; from immortal he became mortal, from incorruptible corruptible, from free the slave of hell. He sent for man's redemption his only Son, begotten by him from all eternity. It is then just and equitable that man saved and freed by God should not stagnate in servitude, where human laws have precipitated him; that he should be set free. By these considerations, Bologna, which has always fought for public liberty, which recalls the past and weighs the future, has for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed all the serfs of its territory, and proclaimed, for the future, slavery will be no more tolerated. A little leaven leavens the whole lump; the presence of one degraded being dishonors society."