Chapter X: The Dying Penitent's Disclosure (8)

His main dependence, however, in forming the character of the boy, was the sound religious principles which he never grew tired of instilling into his mind by word and example. He would at any moment interrupt literary instruction to explain some point of duty upon which his pupil might desire to converse. He taught him to look up to God, not with servile fear, but to love him; and to love to think and speak of him as the author of all that is beautiful in nature and in man. Fénelon gives us himself an instance of the empire of religion over his soul in a beautiful sketch which he wrote after his pupil's death. "One day," he says, "when he was in a very bad humor, and when he was seeking to conceal some act of disobedience, I asked him to tell me before God what he had done. 'Before God!' he exclaimed with great anger; 'why do you ask me "before God"? But since you do so ask me, I cannot deceive you; I therefore acknowledge my guilt.' He spoke thus, although he was at the moment frantic with rage. But religion had over him so much power that it forced from him the painful avowal."

It is difficult to record without emotion what Fénelon says further on of this noble youth, whom he came to love with paternal tenderness, and whose untimely death filled his heart with sorrow. "He would often tell me in our unrestrained conversations, 'I leave the Duke of Burgundy outside the door when I am with you, and I am nothing but little Louis.'" He closes the sketch by this splendid tribute to the change which had been wrought in his pupil's whole character: "I have never known a person whom it was more easy to tell of his own faults, or who would listen more readily to unpalatable truth." In proof of the excellent literary and scientific training of the prince, we find that the great Bossuet, after examining him for several hours, expressed himself satisfied and surprised at the young man's proficiency; and thus bore testimony to the ability and success of his tutor. Two works besides the _Fables_ deserve to be mentioned as fruits of this course of education. One, _Fénelon's Dialogues_, in which he presents to his royal pupil the different personages of history, speaking their true sentiments, and making known the secret motives of their actions. The other is the far-famed prose-poem, _The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses_, which has won for its author the glory of having produced the most perfectly-written book in the French language.

Little more remains to be said of the Duke of Burgundy. Fénelon labored long and faithfully to make him fit to ascend the throne of France; he lived to see this work, involving such immense future good or evil, completed, and completed to his entire satisfaction. By an early death the dear young prince, in whom such vast expectations were centred, was lost to the love of his master and of France. Had he lived to reign in place of the weak and dissolute Count d'Artois, afterward Louis XV., the page of history setting forth in letters of fire and blood the scenes of the destruction of the French monarchy, might perhaps have remained unwritten.

Fénelon had not been made bishop, when he became acquainted with Madame de Guyon. He approved of the writings of this gifted woman as sound in the light of Catholic theology. He defended her character as free from the slightest ground of reproach, and avowed the opinion that she was guided by a spirit of goodness and truth. She was looked upon by her adversaries at the court as visionary in her piety, heretical in doctrine, and far from irreproachable in her conduct. Fénelon, now become Archbishop of Cambrai, was forced into a controversy in reference to her affairs, one side of which he conducted alone, while on the other there were ranged against him the great Bossuet, the French court, the king, the court of Rome, and, finally, the supreme pontiff himself.

The modern student of history is surprised to discover the loose courtiers of Louis XIV., both men and women, hotly engaged in a controversy on an abstract point of ascetic theology; to see the ungrateful king banishing from his presence the saviour of his grandson, and the most honest man in his court; to see Bossuet allowing his powerful mind to be used as a weapon for the persecution of Fénelon; to see Fénelon, in a position of so great difficulty and delicacy, always consistent, always conscientious, always refined, always eloquent, always pious, and yet speaking out boldly and bravely, without regard to consequences, what seemed to him to be right and true.

The controversy, in course of time, was narrowed down to the question whether the doctrine taught in a book of Fénelon's, entitled the _Maxims of the Saints_, was or was not the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. After a long investigation, the pope, as final judge in the matter, condemned the book, while extolling the personal virtues of the author. Without the slightest hesitancy, Fénelon bowed to the decision of the tribunal of final appeal, and condemned the book himself from the pulpit of his own cathedral. There was no mistaking his motive. He had shown clearly that he was beyond the influence of hope and fear, and that he humbled himself only because he truly believed now that he had been faulty, at least in expression. So noble an act of self-denial, humility, and obedience was attributed on all sides to its true source, namely, his sense of duty, and nothing else. Honest and upright dealing, according to the dictates of his conscience, proved the very best policy he could have followed in self-protection; for good and bad alike admired and applauded him all over the world. The book, abandoned by its author, ceased henceforth to be an object of interest, and Fénelon was the only one who gained any credit from a controversy in which good men and bad men had been strangely mixed up together, and fair means and foul were used in a fruitless endeavor to crush him.

The last years of Fénelon were passed in Cambrai, of which he was both archbishop and duke, and in which he was admired and beloved by all, whether rich or poor. Faithful in the discharge of every pastoral duty, he divided his time among the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the young, and the ignorant, helping, relieving, instructing, consoling all. The rest of the day he spent among his books, or in the company of intellectual and virtuous friends. The poorest villagers feared not to approach and speak to one whose simplicity and gentleness they well understood, and to whose goodness of heart no one ever appealed in vain.

His peaceful diocese soon became the theatre of scenes of bloodshed and desolation, caused by that war of succession during which the star of Louis XIV. began finally to pale before the rising glories of the Duke of Marlborough. Fénelon gave up his property and his palace itself for the relief and accommodation of the sick and the wounded. He distributed among the poor the grain and the fruits over which he had control, and ordered his steward to give food and lodging to all who needed it. When he was told that such liberality would absolutely ruin him, "God will help us," he replied; "his resources are infinite. Meanwhile let us give as long as we have any thing to give, and we shall have done our duty." His episcopal mansion was occupied by officers and soldiers as a hospital, his barns and outhouses were used as asylums by the peasantry who had fled before the troops of the allied army, and his courts and gardens were filled with the cattle the poor country people had driven in, protected by the influence of Fénelon's name.

So powerful was that name that the invading commanders spared all property belonging to the archbishop, and Marlborough even ordered a quantity of grain which had been taken at Chateau Cambresis, and which he had been informed was the property of the archbishop, to be placed on wagons and driven into the public square of Cambrai under an escort of British troops.

But in his fatherly kindness and attention to the wants of those around him, Fénelon did not cease to take a lively interest in the fortunes of the whole country. He could not witness the threatened downfall of his beloved France without the deepest feelings of sorrow. The danger of the nation was extreme. Louis was engaged in a ruinous war with a powerful and conquering enemy. He could not retire from the contest with honor, and he had neither funds nor credit to carry it on with success. In this desperate strait, the king declared that he would die at the head of his nobles, a brave resolution that could not, however, save the country. In this trying emergency the genius of Fénelon saw a solution better than that proposed by the king. It was bodied forth in a letter to the Duke de Chevreuse, and is probably the most striking production that ever came from his pen. He tells the duke that the nobles cannot save the king, that the danger is extreme, and that his true friends must advise him to turn for countenance and relief to the people. The nation is in a critical position. Let the nation be consulted. Let not France be taxed without her consent to carry on a war in which she feels no interest. The people have been badly governed. Let them be called upon to take part in their own government for the future. "There is danger," he grants, "in passing suddenly from unqualified dependence to an excess of liberty. Great caution will be necessary; but it is nevertheless certain that arbitrary authority will not save the country from ruin." "Despotism," he adds, "with plenty of means, is a government of prompt action; but when despotism becomes bankrupt, the first who abandon it to ruin are the venal men whom it has allowed to fatten on the blood of the people." The priest from whom these remarks are quoted is not Lamennais or Gioberti, but an archbishop of the time of Louis XIV. The whole letter reads like a prophecy, or like a history of what took place less than a century later. If Fénelon's advice had been acted upon, how gloriously would France have entered the first of nations upon the march of improvement. Religion and order would not have been made to seem enemies of the people, and the names of Diderot and the Encyclopædia, of Robespierre and the Directory, might have remained unknown for ever!

We need not delay here further than to say that, while Fénelon looked into the heart of the people for the source of national strength, a succession of rapid events saved the king from the terrible alternative in which he was placed. The Emperor Joseph I. died, Marlborough fell into disfavor at home, Marshal Villars gained the victory of Denain, and the whole face of Europe was changed. A treaty of peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713.

Several of Fénelon's friends died in rapid succession, and his loving spirit was penetrated with grief at their loss. His death was hastened beyond doubt by the poignancy of his regret at these repeated afflictions. Why delay the sequel? His work was done, his views of life, his principles of duty to God, to one's country and to one's self, had been faithfully chronicled by his pen, and taught by the example of his serene and patient virtue. His hour was come, and in loving peace with all mankind, with words of faith on his lips, and the bright smile of Christian hope on his countenance, he breathed forth his pure spirit into the hands of his Maker. After his death, no funds were discovered belonging to him. They had been all distributed among the poor. He was buried without pomp in his church of Cambrai. During the Reign of Terror, the ancient tombs of that church were rifled, the leaden coffins were sent to the arsenal to be melted into bullets, and their contents thrown into the common burial ground. But when the invaders came to the bier of Fénelon, it was borne with decency and veneration into the city, and placed in a monument erected to his memory at a time when the sepulchres of emperors and kings were ruthlessly dismantled, and their ashes scattered pitilessly to the four winds of heaven.

Other great men of the age of Fénelon still live in history; few are admired more than he, and none is so much loved by men who upon other points are far from agreeing together. The wish expressed by one of his distinguished countrymen, that his memory might have the same advantage as his life, namely, that of making men love religion, has been fulfilled.

He wrote learnedly and eloquently in defence of his faith, and in refutation of the views of his opponents; and yet he avoids in all his works the extremes both of flattery and of harshness. Men of all religions recognize in him a friend, for all were embraced in his world-wide Christian charity; and yet they must bear with us, his fellow-Catholics, when we claim for our church the special honor of having made him the great and good man which all acknowledge him to have been. The earliest lessons he received came from the lips of devoted Catholic parents; and when his will was opened after his death, the first words read were the following emphatic expressions: "I declare that I wish to die in the arms of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, my mother. God, who reads the heart, and will be my judge, knows that there has not been an instant of my life in which I have not cherished for her the submission and docility of a little child." A noble tribute this, and one which leads us to look not despondingly to the tree which is capable of producing such sound and genial fruit.

This transient reflection, ladies and gentlemen, presents itself naturally to the mind, and nothing is further from my thoughts than an attempt to enlist your hearts against your cool judgment in favor of the Roman Catholic Church. The claim which that church puts forth to your attention is based officially by her on her divine right to the reverence of mankind. She has never refused to give man the history of her origin, and to submit to his earnest scrutiny the proofs of her divine commission. She claims to be the only institution established on this earth to teach man what is necessary that he may be saved, and asks and accepts no stinted or divided allegiance. She alleges distinctly that human reason is unable without assistance to find and embrace the true, and that the human will is unable without assistance to find and embrace the good. She undertakes to impart the highest truth and the highest good to all who take her for their guide and their mother. She has been more cordially hated, and more devotedly beloved, than any object that history in all its witnessing can tell of. She claims not only to be a teacher, but a teacher endowed with unerring authority, and offers as vouchers for that claim the clear promise of her divine Founder, to abide with her until the end of time, and the lives and deaths of innumerable men and women taught by her to live perfectly upon earth. She has never disguised the greatness of that sacrifice of self which must be made by every man who would enjoy the peace here and the immortality of happiness hereafter, which she pledges to her faithful children; but she promises, in the name of God, supernatural assistance for making that sacrifice in spite of its seeming terrors. She uses no efforts to gain popularity; her system moves slowly, and rarely in such form as to take advantage of the interests or aspirations of the day. She never aims to be found on the side of human passions. She hesitates not to condemn those who differ with her authorized teachings, and she intimates to every man who sets up an altar against her altar that he does God and his fellow-mortals no good service, either temporal or eternal.

Whatever religious symbolism has been offered in the world hitherto as a substitute for her apostolic creed, has been founded on the principle that man is fit to take into his own hands the management of the affairs of his own soul; but the Catholic Church tells man that his private judgment is sure to mislead him in matters of religion, in spite of lofty aspirations and purity of intention; that he is bound not only to render obedience to his God, but in the manner God requires it; and nevertheless that religious direction need not be arbitrary; that it no more violates the freedom of man's will than the strong hand of a parent violates the freedom of the little child whom it leads lovingly onward and prevents from falling weakly to the ground.

No system which presents to man effort and self-restraint in the present, and advantage and freedom in the future only, can flatter his love of ease and selfish enjoyment. He is thus, at intervals at least, impatient of order, though it is heaven's first law; of legislation, though it has for its object the greatest good of the greatest number; of society, though its proper aim is to make each a friend and a helper to all, and all friends and helpers to each; and of science, that teaches him the laws of nature and the sad effects of their violation. By the same spirit is man urged to resent and cast off the restraints imposed upon him by religion and the church. But in this case, and in the others the opposition comes not from reason; it is the uprising of selfish interest or passion, assuming to speak out for the whole man, and for all time.

Again, that which is spoken against as the church is not the church; that which is spoken against as the belief, or practice, or requirement of the church, is hers perhaps in appearance, but in very truth it is not what she upholds, but what she reproves and opposes. There is a weird presentment bodied forth in English literature and called popery. It is certainly a figure of no amiable or attractive lineaments; it is worthy of the hatred of honest men. But it is not the Catholic Church. If the Catholic Church were the same thing as this ghost which goes by the name of popery, we should hate it too; for it deserves to be hated, and we are men possessing the same faculties as our neighbors who hate it. We do not hate the Catholic Church; we love her, and honor her as our mother, and so would our neighbors, if they saw her and knew her as we do.

Let us here understand the thing plainly. I uphold the doctrine and the practice of the Catholic Church; for I believe her to be the true church that the Son of God established on this earth, and ransomed at the price of his precious blood. But I can say for myself and for every Catholic who has been properly instructed in his religion, that we do not undertake to defend what has been done weakly or wickedly by men, even though they too called themselves Catholics.

I believe that light travels from east to west, and the faith which Judea gave to Rome, and Rome to Europe, and Europe to us, is the faith by which we are to be saved, if saved at all. But while thanking Europe for the true religion, I pray to my God that all the ancient feuds and heart-burnings which have distracted older countries in the name of religion may not be transplanted to this virgin soil.

Allow me to close my remarks, ladies and gentleman, with the heart-felt wish that we may all live faithful to our honest convictions, preach our religion by word and example, and force upon each other nothing but the endearing offices of fraternal charity.

FOOTNOTE:

[193] A Lecture delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association of Boston, by the late Rev. Dr. Cummings, pastor of St. Stephen's Church, New York.

DION AND THE SIBYLS.

A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.